In the summer of 1954, BP Koirala, one of Nepal’s most respected statesmen, reached Patna after days of travel through the western Terai-Madhesh in Nepal. He met a small circle of journalists, and the conversation, later printed in Nepal Pukar, showed a man troubled not by ideology but by the direction his country’s leadership was taking. Nepal and India were negotiating at uneven levels of confidence and competence. The Koshi project sat at the centre of that imbalance. BP noted a widely held belief in Nepal that if the dam were built slightly further north, the country would gain more and the cost would fall. Yet Nepal’s government could not present a revised proposal. The state that claimed to speak for the people could barely state its own position.
BP did not hide where he stood. He told the journalists that India would find no friend more reliable than him and the Nepali Congress. He rejected the idea that Congress opposed the Koshi project or India itself. His concern lay elsewhere. The Matrika Prasad Koirala cabinet lacked political weight, administrative command, and the courage to protect Nepal’s interests. BP warned India that tying itself too closely to such a government would backfire. That warning went unheard.
Only months earlier, Nepal and India had signed the 1954 Koshi Agreement. It became the defining stain on Matrika’s political life. BP opposed the terms and criticised the secretive, rushed way they were accepted. Even Congress was barely in communication with the government. Other parties distrusted the agreement entirely. It was revised in 1966, but by then the damage to Matrika’s credibility had settled like stone. In Patna, BP had sensed what lay ahead. Nepal was entering a major international commitment without clarity at home, unity in government, or confidence in its bargaining position.
That moment reflects a deeper pattern in how Nepal has handled foreign policy across generations. Whether in democracies or nondemocracies, foreign policy never exists free from domestic friction. Randolph Siverson once wrote that policymakers resemble Gulliver, pinned by small but stubborn threads. BP grasped this before scholars found language for it. He understood how a country’s political culture pulls decisions in certain directions and freezes them in others. Nepal carried a habit of delay, a fear of risk, and a palace-centred instinct for appeasement that seeped into every negotiation. Foreign policy became a bargaining space rather than a strategic instrument.
The Rana regime blurred international affairs with personal ambitions and internal power games. The fall of the Ranas did not end that culture. It resurfaced again and again. Major decisions were still made by a handful of men in quiet rooms, far from public debate or party oversight. That was true under the Ranas. It was true in 1954. It is true now. Instead of entering negotiations with a strong domestic base, leaders often bargain abroad while improvising at home. They avoid building consensus because it requires political work, persuasion, and accountability. They fear upsetting local power centres more than losing long-term national advantage. Nepal’s foreign policy has too often evolved by dodging domestic politics rather than engaging with it.
BP Koirala was among the few Nepali leaders who understood the constant push and pull between internal tensions and external pressures. Today, scholars call this the intermestic nature of foreign policy. BP lived that reality. He knew Nepal could not draw a neat line between its internal development goals and its foreign policy choices. A decision about a dam is also a decision about water, migration, trade, agriculture, public mood, and political stability in both Kathmandu and Delhi. A commitment abroad is worthless if the government cannot defend it at home. BP wanted Nepali Congress to shape foreign policy through political economy, not vanity or fear. India was not a rival to resist or a patron to flatter. It was a neighbour whose cooperation mattered, but only if Nepal engaged with clarity about its own priorities.
That clarity still struggles to appear. Nepal and India share a relationship that is intimate and unsettled at the same time. The open border binds their economies, labour markets, and the social realities of millions. Remittances, trade flows, energy banking, and agricultural value chains all tie the Terai-Madhesh and the northern districts of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal into a daily rhythm that ignores political boundaries. Yet the political ties between the two capitals have not matured at the same pace. Old misunderstandings linger. New ones emerge. Issues sit unattended until crisis forces attention. This gap between social closeness and political hesitation is not what BP imagined. He wanted Nepal to speak confidently both abroad with India and at home with citizens who would carry the consequences.
This is the core of what scholars call the two-level game. Every negotiation has two audiences. Leaders must convince foreign counterparts that an agreement is workable and their own people that it is fair. Matrika failed at both in 1954, as BP warned. He lacked a domestic mandate. His cabinet relied on palace blessing, not political legitimacy. The culture around him was reactive and suspicious. Nepal ended up with an agreement that created more friction than benefit. The same pattern repeats today in talks on trade, energy, and borders. Negotiations start without a national baseline. The fallout arrives sooner or later.
The deeper question is what Nepal wants from its foreign policy today. The country is navigating a difficult geopolitical moment. India and China are recalibrating their competition. The United States is expanding its strategic footprint. Europe, Japan, and South Korea engage through development, but with firmer expectations. Gulf countries seek new partners. Nepal’s economy depends heavily on foreign labour markets and tourism. Energy exports rely on cross-border power trade. Climate financing depends on diplomatic visibility. Yet political leaders often treat foreign policy as something to postpone until the next visit or the next crisis.
The lesson from 1954 is not that Nepal should turn confrontational or sentimental. The lesson is that foreign policy collapses when domestic politics loses its bearings. BP understood how history shadows a nation. A country’s past shapes how it approaches the world and how the world approaches it. Philosopher George Santayana wrote that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. That warning sits uncomfortably close for Nepal. Every few years the country circles the same mistakes. Nepali Congress, as the oldest and most nationally rooted party, cannot allow drift. It needs the discipline and seriousness BP brought to foreign policy. His legacy is not something to display. It is a standard to reach.
If Nepal wants a seat at the table, it needs to show up with direction, not doubt. Learning from past failures is the only way out of them, and BP understood that in 1954. Nepali Congress now stands at a moment of internal change. A younger generation is pushing for room, and among them is a leader who refuses the old conservative mould and treats foreign policy as part of the country’s everyday future. Gagan Thapa moves easily between health policy, energy and IT markets, migration, and governance because he sees them as connected pieces of Nepal’s future. That instinct matters in a country caught between internal drift and external pressure.
The question is whether Congress will trust that broader vision, and whether Gagan will push hard enough to anchor foreign policy in the intermestic clarity that BP worked to build.
(The author is a youth leader of the Nepali Congress and an Emmy-nominated former journalist.)