It is diplomacy by other means for India in Nepal
In past four months, Nepal has emerged as India's biggest foreign policy test and challenge and the situation is only going to worsen.
The hills-versus-plains divide is going to get bigger and bigger. This is the impression this writer has got after having toured the capital Kathmandu and the Madhes regions of Birgunj and Janakpur in past few days.
The blockade of essential supplies, particularly petroleum products like petrol, diesel, kerosene and cooking gas, enforced by people of Madhes is just about to complete four months. The bad news is that the Madhesis are in no mood to relent and are looking at a long haul, irrespective of the self-inflicted mass sufferings.
Nepal has become a high-strung society and the schism between the people of hills and plains is widening by the day. Neither of the two parties is willing to budge and blink first. Both sides are tiring out each other.
If the people of the Terai region, better known as Madhes, are bent on going for a long haul, it is largely because they are convinced that while the hills-dominated Nepal government is pursuing the strategy of tiring them out, they themselves are going through the same test.
And yet, there are fault lines in both camps. The Madhesis have enforced blockade of essential supplies from India to Nepal for last 110 days, but their blockade has been singularly ineffective. Long traffic jams in Kathmandu which this writer experienced on November 30 while negotiating a short journey from the Indian embassy to the airport exposed the agitators' claims of a "complete blockade".
After all, you don't get to see traffic jams with Kathmandu roads chock-a-block with commercial vehicles unless petrol and diesel are available to the consumers, irrespective of the price.
No, the promised fuel supplies from China and Bangladesh have not materialised. China had announced a "gift" of 10,000MT of petrol and diesel to Nepal and has managed to send only a fraction of the promised goods. Bangladeshi fuel is just not to be seen anywhere across Nepal.
Even if China were to send the promised supply of fuel - a "gift" - it would be enough to take care of just two days of fuel needs of Nepal. Even that is not coming.
But the problem is that Kathmandu is not budging even after seeing its diplomatic bragging of having fuel supplies from alternate sources going up in thick smoke. Still the KP Oli government has failed to reach out to the Madhesis and build bridges with them.
On the other hand, the agitators' blockade hasn't exactly strangulated Kathmandu and the hills regions of Nepal as smuggling has become rampant and the Nepali Police is actively encouraging smuggling of petroleum products. Obviously the police is working on a political script and its single point objective is to ensure that the Madhesis blockade proves to be a dud.
The Madhesis agitation may or may not be a damp squib. That's not the question. The question is how long it the Madhesis can continue with this self- flagellation. But they are; knowing full well that the hills-dominated Nepal government is also tiring out.
In the midst of all this, it is India which is caught between a rock and a hard place. India's predicament is that it cannot afford to have a pre-2009 Sri Lanka in Nepal, a country with which it has an open border of 1751km.
India is damned if it sides with either side. India is damned if either side gets an upper hand in the ongoing see-saw battle between the two sides. India is damned if the present impasse continues. And India is damned if either side emerges victorious.
It is diplomacy by other means for India in Nepal. India is fast running out with time as well as options in resolving the Nepal crisis in such a manner that there are no losers and no victors.