INDIA NEPAL TERRITORIAL CONFLICT
Nepal’s cabinet last week decided to
put a map on its Rs. 100 currency note showing certain areas administered by India in Uttarakhand as part of its territory, provoking External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to say that such “unilateral measures” by Kathmandu would not change the reality on the ground.
The territorial dispute is about a
372-sq-km area that includes
Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh, and Kalapani at the
India-Nepal-China trijunction in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district. Nepal has claimed for long that these areas belong to it both historically and evidently.
THE GENESIS OF THE ISSUE
- 1743-1775-- Prithvi Narayan Shah, a Gorkha leader unified Nepal. The legacy continued till 19th century. Present day Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand & Sikkim were annexed by Nepal.
- 1814-1816-- Anglo Nepalese war. Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand & Sikkim were ceded to British India. The Treaty of Sugauli was signed (It demarcated river Kali as the boundary between India and Nepal).
- In 2020, KP Sharma Oli took the lead to build the consensus in Parliament for Nepal’s new map that formally included the 372 sq km in Uttarakhand, and pledged to bring it back.
- India decried Nepal’s “cartographic aggression” as unacceptable, but said the issue would have to be sorted out through diplomatic channels, on the basis of evidence.
- In 2024, Nepal’s cabinet last week decided to put a map on its Rs. 100 currency note.
- The Nepali Congress, the major opposition & single largest party in the Parliament is yet to comment anything on the issue.
- Chiranjeevi Nepal, economic advisor to President Ram Chandra Poudel and a former Governor of Rashtra Bank, Nepal’s central bank, has described the cabinet decision as “unwise” and “provocative”.
POST INDEPENDENCE (NEPAL’S VERSION)
Bishwa Bandhu Thapa, a former Home Minister of Nepal said India’s Prime Minister J
awaharlal Nehru approached King Mahendra of Nepal asking for permission to use Kalapani, which was strategically located close to the trijunction, as a base for the Indian Army.
Dr Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, who served as
Nepal’s Foreign Minister in 2005-06 and as
Ambassador to India during 1997-2003, said that even though
Indian officials claimed in bilateral talks later that King Mahendra gifted the area to India, the issue was never resolved.
INDIA NEPAL TALKS
- Prime Minister I K Gujral (April 1997-March 1998) had promised to give up these areas if Nepal was able to produce evidence for its claim.
- In July 2000, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee assured the visiting Nepal PM G P Koirala that India had no interest in even an inch of Nepali territory — however, the mechanism led by the two foreign secretaries did not make progress.
- The visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nepal in 2014 gave rise to hopes of a resolution of all contentious issues. He and his Nepali counterpart, Sushil Prasad Koirala, agreed to set up a boundary working group for speedy settlement of the border issue in Kalapani and Susta, a 145-sq-km area that had fallen on the Indian side after the River Gandak changed course.
- After returning from India on June 3 last year, Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda claimed that Modi had assured him that the border issue would be sorted out at the earliest; however, there was no mention of this in the official statement at the end of the official visit.
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