Letter to Editor: The Sunday Statesman
Delhi, April 2, 1989

IS INDIA SOUTH ASIA’S BULLY?

Sir,

Apropos of Sunanda K. Datta-Ray’s article, An Absurd Conflict” (March 26-27), only a serious appraisal of the fantasies underlying South Block’s apocalyptic hysteria can provide new and relevant answers to old questions about Indo-Nepalese relations. At the SAARC summit last December India declared that it would not take undue advantage of its size at the expense of its neighbours. But it would appear from the ugly turn in relations between New Delhi and Kathmandu that the External Affairs Ministry is millennial future of India’s regional domination. On the one hand, India has failed to show any resolution or capability on the Tibet issue in relation to China; on the other, the new mandarins in South Block do not hesitate to assume superior wisdom towards Nepal, although it may lead to disruptive consequences.

It is hardly fair to put equal share of the blame on Kathmandu and New Delhi for the current impasse, when we recall South Block’s fantasies in the crisis areas of Afghanistan, Kampuchea and Tibet. Can decision-makers who have fallen a prey to acute xenophobia maintain a stable equilibrium in foreign policy? – Yours etc., M.L. Sondhi. New Delhi, March 26.