Goodwill at stake in Nepal

As India and Nepal continue their battles against the COVID-19 pandemic, the two countries are also engaged in a war of words over a border dispute. The rift emerged after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated an 80-kilometre-long link road from Dharchula to Lipulekh in the Indian state of Uttarakhand on May 8. The road will be the shortest route to Mount Kailash, located in the Tibetan plateau in China, which is visited by thousands of Hindu pilgrims every year. Soon after Rajnath Singh tweeted the news, along with photographs of the inauguration through video-conferencing in the presence of Indian Army officers, the news began to trend due to a thread of objections raised by Nepalese living across the world, alleging land encroachment by India and claiming that historically, the stretch from Dharchula to Lipulekh belonged to Nepal. In no time, #GoBackIndia #BackOffIndia were trending on Twitter and Facebook.

Taking cognisance of the matter, Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a press statement in less than 24 hours stating that, “the Government of Nepal has learnt with regret about the ‘inauguration’ yesterday by India of ‘Link Road’ connecting to Lipu Lekh (Nepal), which passes through Nepali territory.” Responding to the objections, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs clarified that, “the recently inaugurated road section in Pithoragarh district in the state of Uttarakhand lies entirely within the territory of India. The road follows the pre-existing route used by the pilgrims of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra. Under the present project, the same road has been made pliable for the ease and convenience of pilgrims, locals and traders.” Not satisfied with India’s response, Nepalese Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali called upon India’s Ambassador in Nepal to hand over a diplomatic note on the matter.

It is not the first time that Nepal has raised its objections and disputed India’s border demarcation. Last year, too, Nepal had protested against the release of a new map, alleging that it wrongly depicted Kalapani as Indian territory, which India denied. However, it is the first time that Nepal has used strong language in its protest, indicating the tremendous public pressure on the government in Kathmandu. Nepal has added that it “calls upon the Government of India to refrain from carrying out any activity inside the territory of Nepal.” Notably, in the last five years, India-Nepal relations have plunged to a drastic low due to a number of events, especially after the 2015 blockade episode.

For the record, 98% of the boundary with Nepal has been agreed to and signed in 2007, and those stretches under dispute are being worked out through a dedicated task force at the foreign minister-level. However, no recent meeting of the task force has taken place in the last six months due to time-consuming formalities and now the COVID-19 pandemic. Nepal has been citing the 1816 Treaty of Sugauli, where the Kali river was the agreed demarcation for the boundary between India and Nepal. However, the river as the defining point remains contested because both the countries have different positions on its estuary.

Kalapani, Dharchula and Lipulekh regions are strategically critical to India’s border security with China. The region forms a tri-junction between India, China and Nepal where the Indian Army has been guarding its border with China under its sovereign jurisdiction. In 2015, India and China had agreed to open a trading post in Lipulekh. In their joint statement, Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had stated that Lipulekh should facilitate bilateral trade between the two nations, to which Nepal had objected. Nepal had called it a unilateral move and asked the two countries to involve Nepal, too, but India and China had refused since it was a bilateral matter.

Amidst these developments, Nepal is threatening India that it will internationalise the issue, but it will prove to be a diplomatic failure for Nepal for two reasons.

One, Kalapani, Dharchula and Lipulekh have been cited as India’s sovereign territories in all its official statements which are available in the public domain on the MEA website. For example, every year, in its notification for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, India has categorically cited Lipulekh as Indian territory, with no objection from Nepal then. Hence, raising the issue now raises doubts over the intentions of the Nepalese government, especially at a time when “territorial nationalism” has become a national narrative in Nepal.

Second, the road construction from Dharchula to Lipulekh had begun in 2008. It was an open space construction on treacherous high-altitude terrain. With India-Nepal having an open border, it was no secret for the Government of Nepal, but no communications were made in this regard by the later.

Therefore, if Nepal still wants to treat this as a dispute, it would be best for it to seek to resolve the matter through bilateral means rather than to internationalise it.

The alleged land dispute raised by Nepal shows a poorly executed diplomatic effort. It is more a war of words on social media than a well-thought strategy to use diplomatic channels to resolve it. With diplomacy considered as the first and last resort of any international dispute, Nepal needs to make use of diplomatic means. With shared socio-cultural and economic relations between India and Nepal, the later has an open channel of communication with India at any time. Unfortunately, with increasing Chinese presence, the people in Nepal seem to be in no mood to settle for ‘special relations’ with India. Hence, it is in the interest of India that it takes Kathmandu into confidence if it is to avoid a two-front challenge in Nepal – one from public pressure in Nepal and the other from increasing Chinese presence in that country.

(The writer is ICSSR doctoral fellow at the Centre for South Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)