If Nepal can turn its geography from constraint into opportunity, it can address this blockage, but only by first persuading both neighbours that its prosperity serves their own long-term security
As a former prime minister with a long career in revolutionary and progressive politics, I want to share insights from practical experience that may guide the young leaders who now hold the decision-making seat, beginning with how our foreign policy has evolved over two and a half centuries.
Until the early 1950s, Nepal's foreign policy centred on one concern: survival as an independent country, wedged between an expanding British India to the south and a cautious Chinese presence in Tibet to the north. Prithvi Narayan Shah captured this in the Dibya Upadesh, describing Nepal as a "tarul" between two boulders, and counselled friendship with both powers alongside a policy of isolation to protect our territory and culture. That isolation was tested by the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814 to 1816, which cost Nepal a third of its territory under the Sugauli Treaty, though it kept its independence, and by 1950 Nepal maintained ties with only four countries.
After 1950, Tibet's absorption into China placed Nepal directly between two rising Asian powers, a position sharpened by the 1962 India-China war. Nepal answered with neutrality and diversification, joining the United Nations in 1955 and helping found the Non-Aligned Movement and SAARC. Today it maintains ties with 183 countries. These two pillars remain, but the moment calls for a new vision grounded in the republican Constitution; I offer three proposals towards it.
Pragmatic idealism. Since the 2015 Constitution, several attempts have been made to frame our foreign policy, yet none has offered a clear organising idea. I propose pragmatic idealism, drawn from the Scandinavian experience of balancing national interest with normative commitment. Our Constitution envisions safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity while upholding world peace, Panchasheel, and international law; pragmatic idealism gives this vision shape, placing territorial integrity and sustainable economic development first, echoing the ruling Rashtriya Swatantra Party's recent call for "development diplomacy," an approach I pursued as prime minister. Nepal's historical necessity today is economic development, without which our sovereignty stays fragile in practice.
Until the 1970s, Nepal, India, and China grew at similar rates; since then, China's and India's economies have surged ahead through decisive reform, while Nepal has lagged. We cannot claim full independence while remaining economically dependent. Finland's transformation of geopolitical vulnerability into opportunity offers a useful model: a pragmatic Nepal, sensitive to its neighbours' security concerns, yet strictly neutral between them, can convert careful diplomacy into real economic gain, without losing sight of the normative commitments that matter equally to a country squeezed between two nuclear powers.
A vibrant bridge for economic prosperity. During my premiership I proposed Nepal as a vibrant bridge for regional development and economic cooperation. Nepal has served for centuries as a conduit for trade, ideas, and culture between the plains to the south and the plateau to the north, and there is no reason to hesitate in imagining it as a bridge between its two giant neighbours.
Much of our underdevelopment stems from dependence on a single trading partner. If Nepal can turn its geography from constraint into opportunity, it can address this blockage, but only by first persuading both neighbours that its prosperity serves their own long-term security. That requires clarity about the advantages Nepal offers as a neutral bridge, real investment in infrastructure, and patient trust building with both. I would urge the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to build a working framework for this, studying entrepots such as Switzerland and Singapore.
I recall a telling exchange during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's 2012 visit, when he praised this bridge idea and, to my surprise, added that China understood and respected Nepal's need for close relations with India, a lesson for any leader tempted to play one neighbour against the other. What Nepal needs instead is genuine neutrality, rooted in geography, standing as a living link between two emerging economic powers.
Nepal as the Nation of Peace (Shanti Rashtra). A new strategic vision must also define the identity Nepal wishes to project abroad. I propose that Nepal embrace itself as a Nation of Peace, an idea distinct from King Birendra's 1975 Zone of Peace proposal, born of insecurity after the creation of Bangladesh and the annexation of Sikkim. India read it as an attempt to constrain its own influence and withheld support; despite endorsement from over a hundred countries, it was never implemented, nor did it win backing at home.
The Nation of Peace I propose is different in spirit. It grows not from fear but from confidence in our republican order and its pluralistic idea of nationhood, which treats diversity as strength, and on a genuine record: for over a century and a half Nepal has fought no war and produced no arms, contributing steadily instead to United Nations peacekeeping.
Unlike the Zone of Peace, this vision need not be read in geopolitical terms alone. At home, it means meeting citizens' basic needs and pursuing justice for the marginalised. Abroad, it calls for positive neutrality, active rather than passive, through which Nepal could become a genuine voice for mediation, peacebuilding, and support for vulnerable nations of the Global South, with India's backing remaining essential, as the fate of the Zone of Peace once taught us.
Building this identity begins with broad consultation to forge genuine consensus, and its implementation must stay flexible to changing circumstances. My purpose here has not been to offer a fixed blueprint, but inspiration for a national project capable of raising Nepal's standing at home and on the world stage.