The rise of nationalism

 Nationalism is one of the major ideological components of Nepali communist parties. They have evolved around by influencing commoners about how they defend the country's sovereignty and raise their voice against unequal treaties with other countries, particularly with India. Although few communist leaders are being accused of signing anti-national treaties with India by their own colleagues, they keep on bouncing back time and again with this ideology.
 

What an opportunity they had when the Indian blockade right after the devastating earthquake was enforced. All the communist parties were not only united, they got full support from the general public. That was the high time for Nepali communist parties in their history.

They threw everything to become a self sufficient country. From wind energy to solar, they came up with everything to replace the petroleum imports from India. In addition, they signed important agreements with China for the very first time. The outcomes of these desperate actions may take a while to be actually seen/implemented. Or it may never get materialized. You never know. But one thing is for sure, there is a rise of nationalism.

Good things about nationalism

The Indian blockade has made us realized that how vulnerable we are. Our economy simply crumbles if petroleum supply is cut off. We have faced it. And now to eliminate this situation in future, there is a common voice to make use of our natural and financial resources.

When I say financial resources, I am not kidding. We have quite a lot of money. With our domestic resources, we can take down big projects. Interestingly this is what private sector is following. Two years back, everyone would have laughed at me if I had said a private company could develop a 50 MW hydropower project through domestic resources. Now the projects up to 100 MW for private sector seem to be within the range.

The rise of nationalism has witnessed support from every corner. Corporations like Nepal Army and Nepal Police are also exploring avenues to invest in hydropower. These organizations have a lot of idle cash by the way. Also the nationalist government is reacting positively to this changing scenario, I must say. "National Energy Crisis Reduction and Electricity DevelopmentDecade" is a stepping stone.

Bad things about nationalism

There is a deep fear of hyper-nationalism and we are already seeing the signs of it. Any project with Indian involvement is now overlooked suspiciously. Commoners seem to be very happy to hear the projects belonging to them being failed.

Besides anti-Indian sentiments, development agencies like DFID & USAID and multilateral organizations like World Bank and ADB are now treated as negative elements in recent times. This is largely due to the fact that the export oriented hydropower projects are always their top agenda when it comes to exploiting our hydro resources.

This negative sentiment (India, Development partners and multilateral organizations as negative elements) may backfire them and I do not think we have to wait for a long time to see this happening. Just wait for a while and you will see the consequences when this nationalist government appoints some hyper-nationalist as CEO of Investment Board, Nepal IBN (I am confident that this will be the next step of our nationalist government.) Just to remind you that IBN is run by DFID (pretty much) :) 

Lesson Learned

The whole transition has taught us both good and bad lessons. Of course, we do not have enough cash to exploit our natural resources fully but encouraging domestic resources to harness our natural resources is certainly a welcoming step and it is the way it should be. Before inviting foreign investors, we have to prove them 'Nepal is ready for businesses' and we must show them that there is a track record of earning healthy profits in Nepali hydropower business. 

Secondly, I personally learned not to accuse anyone anymore. It is never DFID, USAID, World Bank, ADB or India. Let be honest, we never make our policies on our own. We always seek advice from the development agencies. From unbundling NEA to transmission line construction to attracting FDI, these institutions and countires have directly or indirectly played their roles. (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.)

Our failed diplomacy and unclear vision of our leaders made it worse. So far we have not been able to come up with the convincing facts regarding the energy requirements for our internal consumption. Until and unless we propose a figure (MW) with a firm commitment to the international development agencies, they will surely support export oriented projects. And why not?