'Era of Anti-India Nationalism Is Over': Nepal's Wagle Seeks Reset in Delhi as Balen Shah Readies First India Visit

Nepal's Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle chose New Delhi for his first trip abroad since taking office, and he arrived carrying an unusually blunt message: the politics of defining Nepali nationalism against India is finished. "The old era of jingoism and equating Nepali nationalism with anti-Indianism is over," Wagle told The Kathmandu Post after wrapping up a three-day visit that included meetings with India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.

The economist and former UNDP official, who now holds the finance portfolio in Prime Minister Balen Shah's new government, said Kathmandu must work within what he called a "new geopolitical reality," and that the boundary dispute with India should be addressed "constructively" rather than being allowed to dominate the whole relationship. His comments mark one of the clearest public signals yet that the government elected in Kathmandu intends to rebuild the relationship with New Delhi around economics: trade, connectivity, energy and, most urgently, reconstruction.

A $5 billion reconstruction bill

The urgency is not abstract. On August 26, a rock-ice avalanche near the Langtang range sent a catastrophic debris flood down the Lhende Khola and Bhote Koshi into the Trishuli river system, devastating settlements across Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading districts. More than 1,400 people were confirmed dead and over 6,000 remain missing in Nepal, according to figures compiled from official reporting on the disaster, making it one of the deadliest Himalayan floods on record.

Preliminary assessments by Nepal's government put direct physical damage at roughly $1.8 billion, with another $900 million in economic losses, according to Nepali news portal Pardafas. Total reconstruction needs are estimated at between $4.7 billion and $5 billion over the next three to five years. Wagle is now taking that case to the international lenders: after Delhi, he is preparing to engage the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for reconstruction financing.

Jaishankar, who met Wagle in New Delhi on September 18, wrote on X: "Glad to meet Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle of Nepal today in Delhi. Offered my deep condolences on the destruction of lives and property in the recent flash floods." The two sides discussed strengthening cooperation in the economic, energy and connectivity domains, according to the Indian external affairs ministry's readouts carried by DD India.

Trade treaty, flights and a 25-year investment drought

Beyond disaster recovery, Wagle came with a specific economic wishlist. He raised an updated Nepal-India trade treaty with both Sitharaman and Jaishankar, arguing that Nepal wants closer integration with Indian supply chains. The transit treaty was already revised in 2023, with understandings to expand rail freight and bulk cargo connectivity, but the trade treaty itself has lagged behind.

Air connectivity is the other long-standing sore point. Nepal has for years sought additional international flight routes so that its regional airports at Pokhara and Bhairahawa — both built at significant cost and both struggling to attract international traffic — can function as genuine international gateways. According to Pardafas, a bilateral mechanism on air routes has now been reactivated and is expected to meet soon with the participation of defence officials from both sides, a necessary step because the routes in question cross sensitive airspace.

Wagle also made a pointed pitch for Indian private capital. Speaking at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, a Delhi think tank, he noted that "the last major wave of such investment came about 25 years ago," according to Nepal's Peoples' Review, and said his government wants Indian companies back in Nepal at scale, particularly in hydropower and connectivity projects.

Recalibrating the China question

Notably, Wagle also sought to deflate what he described as exaggerated perceptions of Beijing's footprint in Nepal. There is "a considerable gap between perceptions of Chinese domination of Nepal and the actual scale of Chinese financing," he told The Kathmandu Post, putting Chinese financing at around $260 million — including the Pokhara airport project — alongside roughly Rs 8 billion in Chinese community development programmes. The framing appeared designed to reassure New Delhi that the Shah government's foreign policy will not tilt toward Beijing.

When will Balen Shah come to Delhi?

Wagle's visit was widely read as groundwork for Prime Minister Balen Shah's first bilateral visit to India. The Kathmandu Post reported the trip is expected before the end of 2026, likely in the window between the Dashain and Tihar festivals, while Indian media outlets including The Economic Times and Navbharat Times have reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the invitation and that the two governments are working toward a November visit, according to Peoples' Review.

Officially, however, nothing is locked in. Shah's own secretariat says neither the date nor the programme has been fixed, and the Prime Minister — who had earlier indicated he would not begin foreign visits until 2027 — is first expected to travel to the United Nations General Assembly. Whenever it happens, the agenda is already taking shape: trade, transit, Indian investment, industrial cooperation and post-disaster reconstruction are expected to feature prominently.

For India, which has watched successive Kathmandu governments oscillate between Delhi and Beijing, a Nepali finance minister publicly retiring anti-India nationalism as a political tool is a significant opening. Whether it survives contact with the boundary dispute, the treaty negotiations and Nepal's fractious domestic politics will become clearer when Balen Shah lands in Delhi.

Sources: The Kathmandu Post, Pardafas English, Peoples' Review, DD India.