Disaster diplomacy can serve as a catalyst for resetting strained bilateral ties. Analyze with suitable examples from South Asia.

Disaster diplomacy refers to the use of humanitarian relief and reconstruction cooperation to rebuild political trust between states. In South Asia, where geography makes disasters transboundary, it has repeatedly reopened frozen channels — but it converts into a durable reset only when relief is followed by institutional delivery.

Disasters create diplomatic openings

• India's Operation Maitri after the 2015 Nepal earthquake was its largest overseas relief effort, with armed forces flying over 2,200 sorties and evacuating thousands [1].
• The Bhotekoshi floods (August 2026) caused about $1.8 billion in direct damages and $900 million in losses, with resilient rebuilding costed at $4.7–5 billion [2].
• Significantly, Nepal's Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle made New Delhi his first foreign visit, before approaching the AIIB, IMF and World Bank — reaffirming India's primacy in crisis diplomacy despite China's growing footprint [2].

Reconstruction revives stalled institutional agendas

• Relief needs push long-pending items forward: revision of the Treaty of Trade and Treaty of Transit, over-flight rights, and rail links such as Jogbani–Biratnagar and Raxaul–Birgunj [2].
• The Inter-Governmental Committee on Trade, Transit and Cooperation to Combat Unauthorised Trade provides the standing machinery — reviewing market access, duties and standards — through which goodwill can be institutionalised [3].

Why the catalyst often fizzles

• Goodwill is perishable: sentiment generated by the 2015 earthquake response eroded within months amid the Terai agitation and border supply disruptions.
• Structural bottlenecks persist — dwell time at Kolkata port, slow border handling and opaque non-tariff measures raise Nepal's import costs regardless of treaty text [4].
• Mirror-statistics evidence of large product-level India–Nepal trade gaps shows unrecorded trade still distorts the negotiating picture [5].

Thus, disasters supply the political moment; only institutions convert it into a reset. India should pair reconstruction grants with time-bound border-infrastructure targets and firm offtake for Nepal's 40,000-plus MW hydropower potential [6], enabling Kathmandu to earn — not merely borrow — its recovery. Such delivery-based partnership would give Neighbourhood First and SDG-11's resilience goal concrete meaning.