The recent election of K P Sharma Oli as the prime minister of Nepal for the fourth time may have just aggravated India’s headaches along its land borders that stretch around 15,200 kilometres through parts of the Indus valley, the massive Himalayas and the Brahmaputra valley.
It is a moot question if the hiccups in the relations with Nepal, and the consequent possible increase in diplomatic unease and enhanced security concerns are a consequence of India’s own errant actions over the past ten years, pushing Nepal into the waiting strategic arms of China for its economic development.
Nepal relations were severely strained in 2020 after Kathmandu published a new political map that showed the three Indian territories - Limpiyadhura, Kalapani, and Lipulekh - as part of Nepal. India at the time rejected the map as ‘unilateral.’ Prime Minister Oli is firm on peacefully taking back land from India that Nepal claims as its own.
India’s international border data is in itself an eye opener. Understanding its geo-political complexity as well as its potential in maintaining regional and world peace and development is far more nuanced.
With Communist China, India shares 3,488 kilometres of border with several stretches not fully mutually agreed. The 4,096 km border with Bangladesh is far more peaceful with human and animal smuggling its most visible point of acrimony, particularly the entry of Muslims into Assam and West Bengal.
While the 699 km of open border with Bhutan is quiet, the 106 km with Afghanistan is notional because it is across territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The 1,643 km border with Myanmar is currently in the news because of the entry of migrants fleeing the army attacks on their homes across Manipur and Mizoram.
The heavily fortified 3,323 km border with Pakistan, which can be seen from space, has also currently become active with the infiltration of large numbers of armed men along the Jammu sector of Doda. Many of them have been killed in several encounters in recent days.
The 1,751 km border with Nepal was historically a very open, very peaceful boundary, with no wire fencings or tall walls, essentially open to both human movement and trade. There have been no military confrontation since India’s independence. In fact, till recently, Gurkhas and other Nepalese tribes served with distinction in special Gurkha regiments of the Indian Army.
Land-locked Nepal relies heavily on India for the transportation of goods and services. Many ethnic groups are common to the Terai region of both countries. The people intermarry within their communities, ethnicities and caste across the border without hindrance, and do not need any cross-border documentation other thein their individual national identity cards, such as an Aadhar card for Indians, and perhaps no more than a driving licence for Nepalese.
Historically, the Nepalese rulers too had close marital relationships with both the Maratha and the Rajput clans. The erstwhile royal families of Kashmir and Gwalior, in particular, married women from the Nepalese royalty or the feudal Rana clan. King Tribhuvan Br Bikram Shah Dev and his son King Mahendra had particularly warm relationships with India’s first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
Prachanda, who earned his title as the Fierce One as much in his JUN campus days as his later career as a guerrilla commander in the civil war after the collapse of the monarchy, lost a vote of confidence barely 18 months after taking office.
Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) which had propped up Prachanda, made a new ally in Sher Bahadur Deuba to get a majority. He has announced a 22-member cabinet, with Bishnu Paudel as finance minister, and Arzu Rana Deuba of alliance partner Nepali Congress (NC) as foreign minister. She is the wife of NC president and former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.
Oli, as a Communist, is deemed close to the Peoples Republic of China. In his first stint as prime minister, Oli signed the Transit and Transport Agreement with Beijing that allows landlocked Nepal access to Chinese ports if it faces an economic blockade by India, as it did for four months in 2015.
India and its Quadrilinear Défense System [QUAD] partner United States had reportedly pressed on Oli not to execute projects under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, which began in 2013 to revive the Silk Road connecting China with the rest of Asia and Europe.
The prime minister has promised political stability in the impoverished Himalayan nation that badly needs to woo investors and create jobs. Nepal has not had a stable government since it abolished a 239-year-old monarchy in 2008.
The monarchy, often reviled for its autocratic warlords, disintegrated finally in a massacre in the royal palace where the king, his wife, and relatives were shot dead by his son and crown prince. The unsolved regicide is widely attributed to the prince’s anger when he was denied royal permission to marry the girl he was wooing.
The political instability has also sparked sporadic protests with people demanding the restoration of the monarchy, saying successive governments had failed to live up to commitments to develop the country sandwiched between giants India and China. This movement is alleged to be supported by various political elements in India with the tacit support of the government.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in congratulating Oli has hoped for “further strengthening the deep bonds of friendship and further expanding mutually beneficial cooperation for the progress and prosperity of our peoples.”
But India will hope in vain for Nepal going slow on its projects with China its increasing proximity with Beijing. For India, the signing of the transit agreement with Beijing by Nepal in 2017 had ended its own monopoly in foreign trade.
Oli last met President Xi Jinping in September 2023 in Beijing where the two agreed to ‘expedite’ the signing of the implementation plan.
China has built roads and other infrastructure in Nepal which have. A military potential against Indian defences.
It is in Nepal’s interest to follow a neutral foreign policy between China and India. Indian media have quoted the now ruling the Communist Party of Nepal - Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), as saying that government follow a ‘neutral’ foreign policy national interest and territorial integrity.
India currently pins its hopes on Oli’s new coalition Nepali Congress, which leans towards India. But it will need to tread cautiously, and with patience. Nepal is now sensitive to big brotherly attitudes, and patronising policies.
(John Dayal is an author, editor, occasional documentary film maker and activist)