From darkness to light

Nepal's population as a whole harbours the dream of achieving wealth utilising the country's water resource. As for the political leadership, it desperately wants to make this a reality by building high dams, exporting electricity to India and thus earning millions. This desperation is evident in the words of five-time and current prime minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, "I would like to see not water but dollars flowing through the watercourses of Nepal." Or as the long-time minister of water affairs under the Panchayat regime and later, Pashupati Shumshere Rana, likes to say, "Once the Mahakali Treaty is implemented and the Pancheswar Project is built, the sun will start rising from the west." A decade ago, the Mahakali Treaty had been signed by a minority government and endorsed by an otherwise divided Parliament. The exceptional cooperative spirit exhibited by the parliamentary parties at that time has rarely surfaced before or after that treaty.

Across the border, Indian politicians are equally attracted by the prospect of exploiting and managing Nepal's rivers. Over the last two months, Nitish Kumar and Mayawati, chief ministers of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have, after visiting the areas submerged by this year's extraordinary floods, asked the Centre to seek a permanent solution to the flooding by having dams and reservoirs built in Nepal. On occasions when it is pressed thus, New Delhi's standard response has been, and was, "We are talking to Nepal". And the talks have in fact taken place for years and years, after which there have been treaties, understandings and detailed studies of proposed projects. But strangely, after five decades, not a single cooperative project of that nature has so far been implemented.