Nepal’s problematic foreign policy: Symbols without substance

The concept of ‘yam between two stones’ may have been relevant historically, but it is no longer applicable.

The greatest problem among Nepali politicians is that they lose the opportunity at hand and indulge in blame games to hide their failures. This has happened since the dawn of democracy in 1951 and continues to this day. Most of the time, opportunities were squandered due to a lack of direction and attempts to falsify politics by pointing fingers at a foreign hand, making foreign policy a mobilising strategy to score domestic political gains, particularly at a time when the regime faced a survival crisis. In the post-1960 decades, the consolidation of power for individual aggrandisement and ambition sidetracked the development agenda.