This brings a fact: India has been advised by a powerful bureaucracy to use “strong-arm tactic” like blockade against Nepal. Last week, Tamrakar had to make an additional six-hour trek to Dhangadi, a city on the Indian border in southern Nepal. Over the past month, more than 50 people have died in the growing violence in region, with the Madhesis, Tharus and Janjatis up in arms against the new constitution. “We were using the stocks from a year ago but have run out of them, including medicines we distribute for free to patients who can’t afford to buy them”.
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India, which has close cultural ties with the group, has restricted fuel and other goods to Nepal.
Earthquake-shattered Nepal is facing a humanitarian crisis due to an acute shortage of vital supplies, including fuel and medicine.
Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has warned that the blockade is having an impact “several times more than the quake”.
He further said that “Just after the constitution was put into effect, India stopped the trucks at the border citing security issues”. The Red Cross has said it is running out of blood bags. Nepal may be the underdog, and India may be over-reacting with asymmetrical vengeance, but Kathmandu really has no choice but to massage bruised egos in New Delhi, try to understand where India’s real interests lie and to be smart about it.
Nepalese people, left, wait to buy medicines at a chemist shop in Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, November 19, 2015. “Hospitals have had to reschedule surgeries because they have not been able to get medicines and instruments”.
“We’ve run out of essential drugs and medical supplies, so we have been forced to reduce the number of lifesaving operations”, said Dr. Bhagwan Koirala, senior heart surgeon at Manmohan Cardiothoracic Vascular and Transplant Centre in Kathmandu.
Nepal produces around 40% of its medicines internally and imports 60% from India.
“Temporary supports by someone or airlifts are not a permanent solution”, said Anjali Kumar Jha, the president of Nepal Medical Council.
“The situation is getting from bad to worse”.
Krishna Khanal, Nepal’s leading political scientist, for his part, echoed these sentiments.
Protesters throw rocks at police during clashes in the border town of Birgunj.
Demonstrators from the Madhesi ethnic minority have been blockading the main Birgunj border crossing since protests against a new constitution broke out in late September.
Despite being aware of the intentions of Indian government, Nepali acknowledged India’s rescue and relief operations, but outrightly accused Indian news channels of carrying out a public relation exercise on behalf of Government of India for aid given as exclusive and for intentionally hogging space on relief planes where aid material or rescue or medical personnel could have been sent instead. According to reports, a few of the government employees are even taking bribes to distribute fuel.
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The constitution, passed by Nepal’s communist-dominated parliament, is opposed by Madhesi nationalists – who object to the division of their traditional homeland between two new states – and the monarchist Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP).
