By putting this out on the table at the start of his engagement with Nepal, Modi has made it clear he will not accept popular Nepali gripe about this treaty. Nepal has used the "unequalness" of the treaty as a stick against India over the years. But despite repeated Indian requests for revision, Nepal has shied away from the actual negotiations.
"The India-Nepal treaty is unequal in its treatment of Indian citizens in Nepal, which India has never complained about," said Jayant Prasad, former ambassador to Nepal. While Nepali citizens get national treatment here, the same is not applicable to Indians in Nepal.
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Equally, the clause that Nepal should consult with India on defence policies has been inoperable for decades, said sources who have dealt with Nepal for years. It was after the 1962 India-China war that Nepal decided to open relations, even defence relations, with China. Therefore, India has little to lose by removing this aspect of the treaty.
After India and Bhutan rewrote their bilateral treaty in 2007, Nepal was offered the chance, but they did not take it.
During the first NDA government, former Nepali PM Sher Bahadur Deuba told then foreign minister Jaswant Singh that the 1950 treaty was a "thorn in our flesh". Singh replied, "Then the thorn must be removed." The foreign secretaries of both countries were asked to meet to take it forward. Only one meeting was held because Nepal was unwilling to open up the entire treaty.
In subsequent years, Nepal preferred to say it had "raised the issue" with India without actually sitting down for negotiations. After a while, India refused to include such a line in joint statements because the Nepali side, officials said, did not want to go so far as to actually renegotiate the treaty.
But in the political discourse in Nepal, the treaty looms large as a kind of monster which affects Nepal's relations with India. As recently as 2009, Maoist leader Prachanda promised to "redefine in a new manner" ties with New Delhi by reworking the 1950 treaty, as quoted by Prashant Jha in his book, Battles of the New Republic.
Modi's gift for Nepal PM
PM Narendra Modi had an interesting gift for his Nepali counterpart Sushil Koirala — a DVD set of a TV series on the making of the Indian Constitution.
Nepal is in the middle of writing a constitution which has been delayed for years now, resulting in a kind of political and constitutional deadlock. It was a subtle way of reminding Nepal that while the writing of a constitution is not easy and it involves tough political manouvers, it is essential to go through this process if a modern nation is to be built.
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