As Nepal goes into general elections today (March 5) with populist, untested political parties having momentum and legacy parties compromised, besides domestic challenges, there is danger that the country’s geopolitical positioning will dip further in the days to come. We have to be careful that Nepal, already weakened by decades of internal political strife, does not abandon its avowed neutrality for a pro-India and pro-West tilt. Called long before the scheduled date in December 2027 due to the chaos of September 8 and 9, 2025, the polls will hopefully ensure that Nepal maintains its place and agency within the international community.The jolts that hit Nepali society over the past quarter century included the Maoist rebellion (1996-2006), the royal palace massacre of 2001 and King Gyanendra’s coup of 2015. Each of these events distracted the polity and weakened the government as well as the state’s diplomatic resolve. The events of September 8-9 – termed ‘Gen-Z uprising’ – form part of this continuum of deterioration.A demonstration was called in the morning of the 8th by young-adults, to protest internet restrictions and to demand clean governance. However, thousands of (older) infiltrators joined in and pushed the crowd towards Parliament. There, a police ‘special task force’ standing guard shot to kill and 19 innocents died on the spot. Prime Minister K.P. Oli’s accepting moral responsibility and prompt resignation might have preserved parliamentary process, but by next morning things were out of control.A pre-planned exercise of arson and violence enveloped the country – jailbreak by the thousands, burning of court records, state institutions (Parliament, Secretariat, and Supreme Court) reduced to ashes, and the torching of tax, land revenue and local government offices, houses of politicians and businessmen, schools and department stores – at a scale not experienced in historical time. To form a government amidst the carnage, President Ram Chandra Poudel appointed former Chief Justice Sushila Karki from outside the Parliament as interim prime minister. The deft move (‘jukti’ as he termed it) meant that the Constitution will be restored only when a government is formed through the newly elected Parliament.The arsonists of September 9 were well-organised citizen-conspirators out to derail the state – anarchists, monarchists and ex-Maoists acting in concert, with incendiary fluids and geo-location devices at the ready. The level at which state or non-state external players may have fuelled the mayhem may never become clear, but there are clearly others standing ready to take advantage of the ensuing fluidity.Protestors take pictures in front of the burning parliament building in Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo: AZAY HAKA/HimalkhabarThe institutions of Nepal’s open and haphazard democracy had no clue of the conspiracy, nor the ability to respond. Weakened by years of political instability, the operational levels of the national army, armed police, civil police and intelligence agencies proved abysmal. Nepal remains one of the most open and democratic societies of South Asia, and this very ‘softness’ exposed it to forces that could not be recognised nor tackled. Command and control collapsed everywhere, and as we go into elections without accountability being sought, the malevolent forces lie in wait.Rhinoceros in the roomThe Western media, in particular, has painted the elections as if it were a presidential race with foregone conclusion, that the prime ministerial candidate of the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP), Balendra Shah (‘Balen’), will be the next prime minister. But the disruptors may or may not have a free hand, given Nepal’s particular mix of first-past-the-post seats and proportional representation which make it difficult for any one party to gain parliamentary majority.On the other hand, the horse-trading between old and new parties to form the government is unlikely to deliver the good governance sought by the citizenry. This will add to public frustration that will boil over yet another time. All of which points to the need to be on alert against internal discord and external interference.As far as foreign involvement is concerned, the Chinese are more proactive in Nepal than earlier, while the United States is suddenly concerned about ‘losing’ Kathmandu to Beijing. But the interventionism that truly looms over Kathmandu is that of New Delhi. Whenever political scientists hold forth on the failures of Nepali politics and politicians, they fail to reference the constant backdrop of Indian meddling, which is the rhinoceros in the room that goes unmentioned.Nepali politicians’ time is taken up trying to avoid New Delhi’s pressures with a mix of evasion and submission. During the writing of the constitution in 2015, the draft of which New Delhi decided was not to its liking, the meddling was so insistent that some framers turned off their cell-phones to ward off calls.The extent to which New Delhi can move against a neighbouring country was seen when the Modi government slapped the full-on blockade of 2015 because the Constituent Assembly went ahead with the promulgation. It was on the rebound that then-PM Oli was able to reach out to Beijing and sign nine agreements on cross-border transmission lines and highways, trade, third country transit, etc. Oli is seen as a nemesis by New Delhi, who led the charge against the blockade and pushed to include the Limpiyadhura Triangle in Nepal’s official map, following the border river Mahakali to its ‘true source’.A protester throws a photograph of Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli outside the Singha Durbar, the seat of Nepal’s government’s various ministries and offices, on September 9, 2025. Photo: AP/PTI.Independent India forever sought rulers of its choice in Singha Durbar, even as there has been a slow decline in Kathmandu’s ability to take evasive measures. Bilateral contact has downgraded step-by-step over the decades, from the involvement of politicians to diplomats to intelligence sleuths – and now Hindutva pracharaks. When the Maoists came above ground, their Indian intelligence ‘handlers’ became ubiquitous in Kathmandu.Things have become more fraught over the last few years as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) became active through affiliates and shakhas, added the constant propaganda barrage on the Hindi channels, YouTube and WhatsApp. The political branch of the RSS in Nepal is the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), which is hardly a prayerful ashram, but Nepal’s state has neither the perspective nor gumption to demand closure of this foreign, political outfit.As the BJP/RSS combine runs away with the ball, the diplomats of India’s Ministry of External Affairs are on the back foot, with the possibilities of respectful, dignified bilateral relations obviated. As for the management of its own foreign affairs, Kathmandu must strike out for a ‘third neighbour’ policy, reaching out to all countries of South Asia and those beyond who will be supportive yet disinterested.‘Roti Beti’The much-touted ‘roti beti’ relationship is not limited to the Nepal-India borders regions. The Himali communities of Nepal’s high valleys, too, have clan relationships over across in Tibet. While linked culturally to the Ganga plain, the main trade connection of ‘Nepal Valley’ through history was trans-Himalayan, at times even including exterritoriality.The Kathmandu-Lhasa commerce dried up with the 1903-04 Younghusband Mission to Tibet (in reality an invasion), forcing Newar traders to shift to Kalimpong. The economy of Nepal pivoted southward, accelerated by a railway line the British built hugging the Nepal frontier, which allowed colonial mercantilism to penetrate the hinterland. Nepal emerged as a captive market for Indian goods and services, until the as-yet-rudimentary passages into Tibet has finally ensured a flow from the north.None of which is to New Delhi’s liking, and so it has placed strictures on Chinese commercial involvement in Nepal – it does not allow flights from India into Pokhara International Airport (financed with a loan from China Exim Bank), nor to Bhairahawa (Lumbini) International Airport (built partly by a Chinese contractor under international bidding). It refuses the Nepal-China joint venture Himalaya Airlines access to Indian airports. New Delhi imports Nepal’s hydel energy, but only after vetting that there is no Chinese involvement in the exporting hydropower plants.Besides impacting Nepal’s economy, these are clearly are hostile acts against China. But with the Nepali side silent on the matter, Beijing is not bothered to take notice.Still, the question that gives sleepless nights to some in New Delhi is whether Nepal is ‘tilting’ towards China? The answer is, it is not. As with Colombo and Dhaka, Kathmandu is simply seeking connections to China’s economic, finance, development, education, tourism and infrastructure-related potential, all of it fast outpacing India. There must be no sense of entitlement with regard to Nepal, and no stopping Kathmandu from interacting commercially and culturally with China, including Tibet with which connections go back millennia.But then this is the Trump-Modi era, when Nepal is not to engage with Beijing, even as India and the US themselves can and do. Donald Trump has walked back his tariff threats against Beijing because the US economy would not be able to manage the consequences. India’s own economy and industrial output is locked into China’s services and raw material production.In the past, Beijing’s leaders would suggest to visiting Nepali dignitaries that China would remain a steadfast friend, but that they should maintain good relations with India because of Nepal’s positioning south of the Himalaya. With China’s sky-rocketing economic and geo-strategic power, Beijing is now more than willing to try and influence Kathmandu, and Nepal is asked to play three-way diplomacy when it is at its weakest internally.Nepal does need to counterbalance India’s overwhelming presence by ratcheting up the northern relationship, but there is over-compensation in the solicitousness shown to Chinese counterparts. Beijing responds with imperiousness, forever demanding Nepali delegations to repeat the litany that “Nepal supports the one-China policy” and “will not let its territory to be used against China”.Beijing is overly obtrusive when it comes to the borderland Himali communities as well as Tibetan refugees in Nepal. In other areas, because Chinese officials have not expended time and effort to understand Nepali society, their attempts to interfere have ended in failure. Such as when money was offered to prop up the Maoist Pushpa Kamal Dahal as prime minister in 2010, or more recently when the Chinese sought to encourage unity among the ‘left’ forces, forgetting the ideological spectrum within which they operate.Nepal’s former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Photo: X/@cmprachandaIn October 2019, at a formal banquet in Kathmandu, President Xi Jinping did bother with niceties when he used the pulpit to announce graphically that anyone who used foreign soil to divide China would be met with “crushed bodies and broken bones”.Explaining interventionThe question arises, why is New Delhi so keen to try and control Nepal’s politics? The answer is in three points: Himalayan vulnerability, border security and water security. New Delhi nurses a certain paranoia with regard to the Himalayan chain (with Nepal’s 800 km stretch in between), a legacy of the 1962 defeat to China. An evolved understanding in New Delhi regarding the place of mountains in these days of ballistic, drone and satellite warfare would bring some relief to Kathmandu.Indian agencies constantly raises the spectre of third-country terrorists infiltrating its heartland through the unique open border, whereas it is Nepal that has suffered enormously from the unrestricted nature of the frontier – the Maoists conducted their ten-year insurgency using Indian territory to mount expeditions and to regroup.However, the primary explanation for New Delhi’s unwanted attention is to be able to ultimately access Nepal’s deep river valleys (those of the Kosi, Karnali, Gandaki and Mahakali) for large reservoirs to supply the Ganga plain, also to feed the audacious ‘river linking’ project so beloved of the babudom.Beyond seeking to influence layers of political functionaries, bureaucracy and media, a decade ago New Delhi apparatchiks went so far as to foist an unscrupulous ex-bureaucrat as the anti-corruption czar in Kathmandu, as a means to control the politicians and parties. The non-transparent and unaccountable spooks and operatives have been a thorn on the side, but most worrisome is the arrival of RSS/BJP with the Hindutva agenda.History and culture ensure that Nepalis society would be an all-weather friend of India, but in the age of the nation-state a precondition must be non-interference in internal affairs. For a robust friendship, New Delhi must get over its anxieties, shed its sense of exceptionalism, and learn to regard Nepal as a sovereign neighbour. It must also consider the interests of India’s poorest regions (Purvanchal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha) which would benefit from a prosperous Nepal.New parties, old partiesK.P. Oli, who was prime minister when Nepal stood up to the five-and-half month blockade of 2015, is the one person New Delhi does not want back in power in Kathmandu. Washington DC would be cool to him for his August 30-September 3, 2025 visit to China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin, followed by the Victory Day parade in Beijing.New Delhi also seems to have soured with the old favourite Sher Bahadur Deuba since he took his Nepali Congress into a grand coalition with Oli’s CPN-UML. Hence, the frenetic activity of operatives and pracharaks alike in the run-up to the elections, even though the tilt of Nepali politicians on the whole is towards the south.Deuba’s spouse Arzu Deuba has tied a rakhee on the wrist of a mid-level BJP official in charge of the party’s international office. The NC appointed Hindutva-tilted former N.P. Saud as foreign minister. The Maoist boss Pushpa Kamal Dahal, while on a state visit to India as prime minister, went on pilgrimage to Ujjain where he and his entourage donned saffron. The NC’s newly minted chairman, Gagan Thapa has given a ticket to an acolyte of India’s Home Minister Amit Shah to fight elections from Palpa District.How odd that external affairs did not figure in the election manifestos of the political parties. To the last one, they have side-stepped issues that might arouse New Delhi’s ire, and so there is silence on the Limpiyadhura Triangle, regulation of the open border, and lack of reciprocity in numerous bilateral matters. Nor do they demand closure of the HSS office in downtown Kathmandu. During the election campaign, the politicians all ignored the RSS cross-border activities seeking to to stoke Hindu-Muslim tensions in Madhesh Province. Nor do they demand that the Indian consulate in Birgunj remain just that, rather than a outpost to influence plains politics.The newborn RSP and its youthful leaders have quickly learnt to bow before Delhi Durbar. One of RSP’s English-speaking stalwarts has loftily called for the activation of the Monroe Doctrine in the Subcontinent, in essence a call to accept New Delhi’s overlordship.The RSP is credibly thought to have sought Indian interlocution to get its leader Ravi Lamichhane out for jail, where he was pending investigations on a cooperatives scam. Meantime, the RSP’s prime ministerial candidate Balendra Shah (‘Balen’) quietly dropped all reference to an industrial park in his constituency in Jhapa District, meant to be built with Chinese support.Echo chamberFor decades, the United States was a benign benefactor of Nepal, supporting all manner of activities including the propagation of wheat, eradication of malaria, Colombo plan scholarships, transport infrastructure, and so on. Back then, the CIA did support ‘Chusi Ghandruk’ guerillas based in Nepal to carry out forays against Chinese military columns in TIbet, but that fizzled out with Henry Kissinger’s outreach to Mao Zedong in 1971. With the rise of China, Nepal has once again emerged as strategically sensitive for the Washington DC.Polling officials make final arrangements at a polling station ahead of Nepal’s parliamentary elections, at Durbar Square, in Kathmandu, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. Photo: PTI.Certainly, Kathmandu can and should welcome all above-board aid. This includes the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) spending by the US, of nearly US $ 500 million for a power transmission network and highway upgrades. Provided after long years of study of Nepal’s ‘democratic credentials’, this is a welcome infusion of assistance at a time of foreign aid dearth.However, other areas of assistance are not as benign. ‘Youth’ has been the naïve mantra of the United States embassy and affiliated donor institutions for some years now, apparently grooming young adults for activism without providing a grounding in history, philosophy and political science. Nor can we forget that the social media platforms that have captured the mind of Nepal’s populace, as elsewhere, are owned by US-based mega-corporations. We have no idea of the use all that surveillance and data is put to.Also read: Nepal’s Crisis Explained: Youth Anger, Corruption and a Failing Political OrderOne of the triggers of the Gen-Z protests in September was the Oli government’s strictures on the social media platforms, mainly an attempt to control cyber crime, sexual harassment, lurid content, etc. The social media giants were asked to register with a contact and phone number, but they snubbed the government – only TikTok and Viber complied. It is anybody’s guess, the amount of money reaped by the social media giants from Nepal’s supercharged electoral arena, even as the algorithms fuel angst, anger and resentment.Much of the September dismantling of Nepal’s state superstructure happened with the help of social media, and it has swamped electioneering. The Discord app was used to ‘elect’ the interim prime minister (the ‘vote’ came after Karki was first suggested to Gen-Z activists by the Chief of the Nepal Army). The subsequent election campaign has had the legacy parties on the back foot, while the internet-savvy RSP made optimum use of the algorithm, bots, monetised websites and content creators.Into the futureNepal has gone into elections without accountability assigned for the events of September 8-9, leaving society vulnerable to miscreants in high places. The four categories who should have been outed were those: a) who called children to attend the protest rally on September 8; b) who pushed the protestors towards Parliament that day; c) who ordered the police firing; and, c) who organised the pre-meditated countrywide destruction of 9 October.Several individuals who participated in the acts of arson are election candidates. Those who worked to burn down Parliament may soon be sitting in Parliament. Certainly, poll results will introduce fresh new faces in Parliament, but there is also the possibility that the old ways of malgovernance, corruption and nepotism will continue. Which may lead to uncontrollable reactions from a public that feels cheated yet again.It will therefore be important for a civic effort to protect all that Nepali society has achieved in democracy and pluralism, as reflected in the constitution of 2015. Such a cross-generational effort to battle anarchy must include a spectrum of citizens, from the political activists who fought the Panchayat regime in the 1970s to members of Generation-Z committed to due process and national agency.Kanak Mani Dixit is founding editor of Himal, the Himalayan periodical that transformed into a Southasian publication.