Driven by India into China’s arms, is Nepal the new Sri Lanka?
As a new government takes charge in Kathmandu, the geopolitics of the Himalayas may change, the same way it did in the Indian Ocean
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The campus was a US$350 million gift from China, which built it in two years and handed it over last year to the paramilitary force, which plays an important role in checking Tibetan refugees from entering Nepal. “Apart from the bricks and mortar, they brought everything from China. All the fittings, the furniture, everything,” says a visibly impressed Shrestha as he points to the overhead projector and the desks in one of the many classrooms. “This entire campus in just two years, imagine the level of efficiency.”
Before shifting to the Nepalese Armed Police Force, which was set up in 2001, Shrestha started out in Nepal’s civilian police force in 1995. A different training academy was the buzz in Nepal those days. That year, Devendra Subedi, currently executive director of the National Police Academy, visited New Delhi as the youngest member of a police delegation from Nepal. “I attended the meeting where the Indians first mentioned they would build a new police academy for us. We were all super-excited. For years, that promised academy was the talk of Nepal’s police community.”
Every successive batch would be told about this mega academy where they would soon relocate, leaving behind the cramped and dusty premises in Kathmandu. “Our seniors would tell us about this coming wonder, we would tell our boys, they would tell their boys. Today, no one talks about it. It’s a joke, a very old joke,” Subedi deadpans. “When I retire in a few years, everyone present at that meeting where it was first promised would be gone, and not a brick would have been laid.”
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The academy is among the long list of India’s unkept promises and poor project track record in Nepal, such as the India-funded road projects in southern Nepal or the high-profile hydropower project on the Mahakali river. “This is how India has destroyed its own credibility in Nepal,” says political commentator and writer Yubaraj Ghimire.
