A couple of points: - It is hard to have a meaningful and sensible discussion about India-Nepal relations when Sikkim is brought into the picture. Doing so brings out the worst in both people. Even otherwise level headed people tend to get emotional - on both sides - as we are beginning to see here on this thread. The conversation that follows is then the same old one we have been having for the last 30 years and nothing concrete ever comes out of it in my opinion. - Sikkim is about the past. While we cannot ignore history and its lessons, we cannot live with our heads buried in the past either. We have to move with the times. Sikkim was an exception in so many ways - it was not a member of the UN, if I am not mistaken, it was a small area to manage and had a population that thought India could provide them the freedom that the Chogyal could not. (And no Nehru was not alive in 1975 as someone mentioned - he died in 1964). Present day Nepal has less of that problem - we have put our Chogyal in place and might be getting rid of him soon. Nepalese already have the freedom and ability to choose their destiny in a way the people of Sikkim never had. - India may have intervened in Sri Lanka but it got it's rear-end kicked pretty badly. Let's not forget the IPKF withdrew from Sri Lanka in the end. In the Maldives too, India paratroopers helped put down a coup but they did not occupy the country even when they had the means to do so. Perhaps the lessons of Lanka were hard to miss or they feared stretching their forces too thin might make them vulnerable elsewhere. Case in point: the 1965 war with Pakistan which many feel Pakistan instigated noticing India's vulnerability after the 1962 defeat at the hands of the Chinese. Both operations happened under Rajiv Gandhi's watch as did the infamous blockade of Nepal. Rajiv Gandhi had an ambitious and almost arrogant foreign policy in some ways. He paid for it with his life. Indian PM's have been much more accommodating of their neighbors since. And rightly so - why would any sensible leader want to put his finger into a bee-hive when they are already other fires to douse? - What is another ambitious/ arrogant leader emerges who is not cognizant of the lessons of the IPKF misadventure in Sri Lanka? I'd argue, such a thing can surely happen, but if you look at the things that would encourage an Indian leader to follow Rajiv Gandhi's footsteps versus the things that would discourage them to do so - I'd say they latter carry much more wight in this day and age. For example, no occupying power has succeeded since second world war, with Britain in Malay in the 60's being an exception, in putting down an insurgency against occupation. With the lessons of Iraq fresh in the minds of military planners around the world, I am left to wonder if the Indians would so fool hardy as to attempt such a feat. - " captain, that journalist answer was tamed. This could have been the better answer: " leave us alone. Leecher's cure for blood pressure cannot justify its presence." " Not everyone thinks that way and neither should they. India is neither a friend nor an enemy of Nepal in my opinion. They are a neighbor whom we need to live next to and business with. As with any business dealing, a cordial atmosphere is required to get effective results, and that should be the focus on both sides. - Last but not least, we need to be strong economically to gain respect from India. Like it or not, for now, with India's economy booming, the way to grow ours is to work with them and get Indian and foreign investment in (and in the process gain access to their markets). Forward-moving politics is about pragmatism - unless we learn to deal with India and others in such a manner, we will continue to be left behind as the begging bowl of the world while our neighbors speed past us in every way.