<p>Kathmandu was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second destination in the neighbourhood after he was sworn into office in New Delhi for the first time. The visit on August 3 and 4 in 2014 had all the trappings that over the next few years would turn into the signature optics of his foreign travels. He waved at the roadside crowd, got off the car to meet and shook hands with people, addressed Parliament of Nepal and, of course, visited the Pashupatinath temple, in addition to meeting Sushil Koirala, who was then his counterpart in Nepal.</p>.<p>One of the outcomes of the meeting was that Modi and Koirala both underlined the need to resolve pending Nepal-India boundary row “once and for all”. They also endorsed the consensus reached between the foreign ministers of the two nations about a week back that the foreign secretaries would jointly work to settle the dispute over Kalapani and Narsahi-Susta areas on India-Nepal boundary. “Together (with Koirala) we have laid the foundation for a new relationship between our 2 (two) countries, which will draw strength from our deep ancient links,” the prime minister tweeted before returning to New Delhi.</p>.<p>Modi’s tour to Nepal and his first ever foreign visit to Bhutan a few weeks before that were the building blocks of the “Neighbourhood First” doctrine of his government’s foreign policy.</p>.<p><a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/sunday-spotlight/nepal-s-napoleon-complex-domestic-pandering-international-grandstanding-852062.html"><strong>Also Read | Nepal’s Napoleon Complex: Domestic pandering, international grandstanding</strong></a></p>.<p>Much water has since flown down the Kali and Gandak rivers, which should mark the boundary between the two neighbouring nations according to the Sugauli Treaty signed by the British East India Company and His Majesty’s Government of the Kingdom of Nepal in 1815. The relation between India and Nepal saw many ups and downs in the past six years. The proposed talks between the foreign secretaries of the two governments to resolve the boundary dispute did not take place though.</p>.<p><strong>New map</strong></p>.<p>The Nepal-India boundary dispute returned to the headlines in November 2019. India published its new political map, showing Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and Ladakh as two separate Union Territories in accordance with the August 5 decision of the Modi government. Nepal objected, alleging that the new map shows Kalapani as a part of the territory of India. New Delhi dismissed the claim, stating that the map “accurately” depicted the “sovereign” territory of India.</p>.<p>The spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi just stopped short of warning Kathmandu against allowing China or Pakistan to drive a wedge between India and Nepal, stating that both the neighbouring nations should “guard against vested interests trying to create differences” between them. The statement came in the backdrop of China’s consistent support to Pakistan, particularly to the campaign launched by Imran Khan’s government in Islamabad to denounce New Delhi’s decision to strip Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and reorganise the state into two Union Territories.</p>.<p>China has since long been trying to elbow out India and spread its geo-political influence in Nepal. The timing of Nepal’s protest to the new map of India in November 2019 should have also sent the alarm bells ringing in New Delhi. The Modi government should have realised that China would not miss an opportunity to use its growing clout in Kathmandu to take advantage of India-Nepal boundary dispute. Yet, it apparently did not make any serious move over the past few months to engage Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli’s government and start talks to resolve the dispute, which eventually reached a flashpoint last month.</p>.<p>Kathmandu lodged protest over a new 80-km-long road New Delhi built from Dharchula in Uttarakhand to the Lipulekh Pass – an India-Nepal-China tri-junction boundary point. It alleged that the road passed through Nepal – a claim dismissed by India. Oli government went ahead, published a new map, which showed nearly 400 sq km of India’s areas in Kalapani, Lipulekh Pass and Limpiyadhura as part of Nepal. It also got the Nepalese Parliament to amend by the country’s Constitution to endorse the new map.</p>.<p>This is an inflection point for India-Nepal ties.</p>.<p>Nepal’s boundary with India as shown in the new map is now going to be its official claim-line, which Oli’s successors in Kathmandu will find difficult to scale back from. The Nepali Congress and the other opposition parties initially dithered, but finally supported the Bill to amend the Constitution and endorse the new map of Nepal, obviously succumbing to the pressure of nationalist sentiment that Oli and his ruling Nepali Communist Party (NCP) whipped up. So Nepal’s new claim-line of its boundary with India enjoys unanimous support from across its political spectrum. The conflicting territorial claim is thus going to be an irritant in New Delhi’s relations with Kathmandu for quite a long time and that is what will give an advantage to China.</p>.<p><strong>Losing clout</strong></p>.<p>It was in 2015 when India appeared to be losing its clout in Nepal for the first time. Amid a controversy over alleged slight of the Madheshi and Tharu communities in the new Constitution of Nepal, India was accused of imposing an economic blockade that choked supplies of essentials to the neighbouring country for weeks. India was also caught unawares when China played a key role in bringing the two Communist parties – Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) – and giving birth to the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), which now runs the government in Kathmandu.</p>.<p>Oli, however, did positively respond to New Delhi’s overtures over the past couple of years and even visited India in April 2018. He also hosted Modi, who visited Janakpur and Kathmandu a month later. So why did he suddenly decide to ratchet up Nepal’s boundary dispute with India? New Delhi suspects it has much to do with domestic politics and pressure from Beijing.</p>.<p>Oli’s rift with the ruling party’s other chairperson – Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal a.k.a. Prachanda – had intensified in early May. China’s envoy to Nepal, Hou Yanqi, however, brokered a truce between the two, saving Oli’s government. This possibly made it easier for Beijing to nudge Kathmandu to go full steam ahead and launch a blitzkrieg against India. The nationalist sentiment Oli government whipped up over India’s alleged bid to take away the territory of Nepal also helped it blunt the widespread protests going on in the country against it.</p>.<p><strong>It could not have come at a worse time for New Delhi.</strong></p>.<p>India is already engaged in a military stand-off with China along the disputed boundary between the two nations in eastern Ladakh. It turned violent on June 15, when a clash between soldiers of the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) resulted in casualties on both sides. Islamabad, in fact, already rushed to take advantage of the renewed focus on India’s border stand-off with China, accusing New Delhi of pursuing expansionist aspirations.</p>.<p>If India does not move fast to arrest the downslide in its ties with Nepal, it could be the first failure of Modi government’s Neighbourhood First policy.</p>
<p>Kathmandu was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second destination in the neighbourhood after he was sworn into office in New Delhi for the first time. The visit on August 3 and 4 in 2014 had all the trappings that over the next few years would turn into the signature optics of his foreign travels. He waved at the roadside crowd, got off the car to meet and shook hands with people, addressed Parliament of Nepal and, of course, visited the Pashupatinath temple, in addition to meeting Sushil Koirala, who was then his counterpart in Nepal.</p>.<p>One of the outcomes of the meeting was that Modi and Koirala both underlined the need to resolve pending Nepal-India boundary row “once and for all”. They also endorsed the consensus reached between the foreign ministers of the two nations about a week back that the foreign secretaries would jointly work to settle the dispute over Kalapani and Narsahi-Susta areas on India-Nepal boundary. “Together (with Koirala) we have laid the foundation for a new relationship between our 2 (two) countries, which will draw strength from our deep ancient links,” the prime minister tweeted before returning to New Delhi.</p>.<p>Modi’s tour to Nepal and his first ever foreign visit to Bhutan a few weeks before that were the building blocks of the “Neighbourhood First” doctrine of his government’s foreign policy.</p>.<p><a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/sunday-spotlight/nepal-s-napoleon-complex-domestic-pandering-international-grandstanding-852062.html"><strong>Also Read | Nepal’s Napoleon Complex: Domestic pandering, international grandstanding</strong></a></p>.<p>Much water has since flown down the Kali and Gandak rivers, which should mark the boundary between the two neighbouring nations according to the Sugauli Treaty signed by the British East India Company and His Majesty’s Government of the Kingdom of Nepal in 1815. The relation between India and Nepal saw many ups and downs in the past six years. The proposed talks between the foreign secretaries of the two governments to resolve the boundary dispute did not take place though.</p>.<p><strong>New map</strong></p>.<p>The Nepal-India boundary dispute returned to the headlines in November 2019. India published its new political map, showing Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and Ladakh as two separate Union Territories in accordance with the August 5 decision of the Modi government. Nepal objected, alleging that the new map shows Kalapani as a part of the territory of India. New Delhi dismissed the claim, stating that the map “accurately” depicted the “sovereign” territory of India.</p>.<p>The spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi just stopped short of warning Kathmandu against allowing China or Pakistan to drive a wedge between India and Nepal, stating that both the neighbouring nations should “guard against vested interests trying to create differences” between them. The statement came in the backdrop of China’s consistent support to Pakistan, particularly to the campaign launched by Imran Khan’s government in Islamabad to denounce New Delhi’s decision to strip Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and reorganise the state into two Union Territories.</p>.<p>China has since long been trying to elbow out India and spread its geo-political influence in Nepal. The timing of Nepal’s protest to the new map of India in November 2019 should have also sent the alarm bells ringing in New Delhi. The Modi government should have realised that China would not miss an opportunity to use its growing clout in Kathmandu to take advantage of India-Nepal boundary dispute. Yet, it apparently did not make any serious move over the past few months to engage Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli’s government and start talks to resolve the dispute, which eventually reached a flashpoint last month.</p>.<p>Kathmandu lodged protest over a new 80-km-long road New Delhi built from Dharchula in Uttarakhand to the Lipulekh Pass – an India-Nepal-China tri-junction boundary point. It alleged that the road passed through Nepal – a claim dismissed by India. Oli government went ahead, published a new map, which showed nearly 400 sq km of India’s areas in Kalapani, Lipulekh Pass and Limpiyadhura as part of Nepal. It also got the Nepalese Parliament to amend by the country’s Constitution to endorse the new map.</p>.<p>This is an inflection point for India-Nepal ties.</p>.<p>Nepal’s boundary with India as shown in the new map is now going to be its official claim-line, which Oli’s successors in Kathmandu will find difficult to scale back from. The Nepali Congress and the other opposition parties initially dithered, but finally supported the Bill to amend the Constitution and endorse the new map of Nepal, obviously succumbing to the pressure of nationalist sentiment that Oli and his ruling Nepali Communist Party (NCP) whipped up. So Nepal’s new claim-line of its boundary with India enjoys unanimous support from across its political spectrum. The conflicting territorial claim is thus going to be an irritant in New Delhi’s relations with Kathmandu for quite a long time and that is what will give an advantage to China.</p>.<p><strong>Losing clout</strong></p>.<p>It was in 2015 when India appeared to be losing its clout in Nepal for the first time. Amid a controversy over alleged slight of the Madheshi and Tharu communities in the new Constitution of Nepal, India was accused of imposing an economic blockade that choked supplies of essentials to the neighbouring country for weeks. India was also caught unawares when China played a key role in bringing the two Communist parties – Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) – and giving birth to the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), which now runs the government in Kathmandu.</p>.<p>Oli, however, did positively respond to New Delhi’s overtures over the past couple of years and even visited India in April 2018. He also hosted Modi, who visited Janakpur and Kathmandu a month later. So why did he suddenly decide to ratchet up Nepal’s boundary dispute with India? New Delhi suspects it has much to do with domestic politics and pressure from Beijing.</p>.<p>Oli’s rift with the ruling party’s other chairperson – Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal a.k.a. Prachanda – had intensified in early May. China’s envoy to Nepal, Hou Yanqi, however, brokered a truce between the two, saving Oli’s government. This possibly made it easier for Beijing to nudge Kathmandu to go full steam ahead and launch a blitzkrieg against India. The nationalist sentiment Oli government whipped up over India’s alleged bid to take away the territory of Nepal also helped it blunt the widespread protests going on in the country against it.</p>.<p><strong>It could not have come at a worse time for New Delhi.</strong></p>.<p>India is already engaged in a military stand-off with China along the disputed boundary between the two nations in eastern Ladakh. It turned violent on June 15, when a clash between soldiers of the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) resulted in casualties on both sides. Islamabad, in fact, already rushed to take advantage of the renewed focus on India’s border stand-off with China, accusing New Delhi of pursuing expansionist aspirations.</p>.<p>If India does not move fast to arrest the downslide in its ties with Nepal, it could be the first failure of Modi government’s Neighbourhood First policy.</p>
