Nepal's former PM Baburam Bhattarai with India's PM Manmohan Singh Photo from www.content.time
India’s 2014 election is the world’s biggest in the history of elections. More than 800 million people in India will be voting while the whole world is watching it as a massive democratic movement. But why does it significantly matter to Nepal? Well there are a whole range of reasons why it should matter to Nepal. A country sandwiched between two Asian giants can only do so much for them when the governance of their own country is stumbling. The influence of India has had relatively more impact on Nepal compared to China. As there are always two sides to a coin, the impacts have been both positive and negative. Although Nepal has faced various issues with India such as border demarcation, currency dependency etc., India played a highly influential role to forge a 12 points agreement between the Maoist and 7 political parties in 2005. This brought an end to a 10- year long violent insurgency, which resulted in the Maoist putting down their guns and working with the government to bring a positive change in the country. Whether or not India's new prime minister will play a more influential role on the governance of the country remains a mystery. The bottom line is Nepal needs to be stronger internally rather than having to rely on others to bring a positive change in the country.
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