lndo-Nepal water negotiations are muddied by Nepalis who come without doing their homework, Indians who tend to have an overbearing attitude, and donor agencies which have yet to be made accountable.
Since the advent of modernisation in 1951, Nepalis have been fascinated by the possibility of generating hydro-electricity from their country's 6,000-odd streams and rivers. The international oil crisis in the early 1970s elevated this fascination to an obsession. Nepalis were mesmerised by the vision of becoming sheiks of Araby lolling in hydro-dollars from the sale of power to India.
At a workshop on rural development, Ganesh Man Singh, the Nepali Congress' "Supreme Leader" promised that after Arun III comes on line, every Nepali villager would be able to cook his daily daal-bhaat with electricity. As for the Nepali Left, their spiritual sustenance comes from Lenin's famous equation: "Kommunizm est sovetskaya vlast plyus electrifikatsia vsei rossii" ("Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of all Russia.") It would hardly be fair to expect them, in the first flush of open pony, to stop and wonder about the complexity of the political economy of energy.
Even following the recent political changes in Nepal, this vision of water-power continues and finds place in the manifestos and pronouncements of political parties. At a mass meeting in Kathmandu in October 1990, Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai held forth that "the problems of trade deficit with India will be overcome with the Arun III hydro-electric project and Nepal will be developed like Singapore if the Karnali and Pancheshwar projects could be implemented."