Hope is my mind's secret fear.
Hope is my heart's sacred courage.
Hope is my life's daring experience.
– Sri Chinmoy on Hope
During the last week of June, a group of Nepali lawmakers from the Tarai plains travelled to Dharamsala to meet the Dalai Lama. Apparently, the visit was more political than religious, and a hint of conspiracy has since hung around the sojourn. Immediately upon their return from the political pilgrimage, these 'heretical' lawmakers were summoned to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal's residence and given a dressing-down, reportedly in the presence of a Chinese diplomat. Nepal told them that the act of meeting the religious head of a significant Buddhist sect was tantamount to shaking hands with a notorious abductor and ruthless killer. In the aftermath of these events, the Nepali Foreign Ministry reiterated, for the zillionth time, its commitment to the 'One China' policy. Along the same lines, the Home Ministry expressed Nepal's commitment towards maintaining friendly ties with neighbouring nations, promising to not allow Nepali territory to be used as a venue of protests against them.
The reaction in Kathmandu to this seemingly insignificant visit shows the intensity of the fear of China's possible displeasure causes in the capital cities of Southasia. Powerful nations of the world are also extremely careful when it comes to dealing with the Chinese bugbear – last year, fear of China made Japan snub the Dalai Lama when His Holiness travelled via the airport Narita to address a group of scholars assembled in the southwestern city of Fukuoka. Despite their lip-service to the cause of human rights and democracy, rarely will a Western government risk inviting Beijing's displeasure by being overtly supportive of political dissent within the sprawling territory of the Celestial Empire. But the dread of the Chinese dragon in Southasia is mixed with an element of expectation – as if the regimes of the Subcontinent believe that Beijing could be a possible saviour in time of crisis, and needs to be constantly courted.
Since the Chinese Empire never managed to cross the Himalayan divide, Southasians have little or no knowledge of the steamroller Han hegemony. On the other hand, memories of Western colonialism have been magnified manifold due to what is often perceived as its constant posthumous interference. Dhaka gets irritated every time the Western media carries alarming reports about the rise of Islamism in the backwaters of Bangladesh. Colombo hates being tweaked for human-rights violations and war crimes in the northern areas. Americans are building a brand-new USD 736 million fortress of an 'embassy' in Islamabad, the second biggest in the world after the Vatican City-sized US enclave in Baghdad. Pakistanis realise the significance of this imperial outpost and writhe with discomfiture whenever US strategic analysts hyphenate their 'nuclear power' nation with the failed-state lying west of their borders.