The colonial legacy of India‐Nepal borderland disputes

• Published date: 01 February 2022
• Author: Shailen Verma
• Date: 01 February 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2348

ACADEMIC PAPER

The colonial legacy of India-Nepal borderland disputes

Shailen Verma

Malaviya Centre for Peace Research, Banaras

Hindu University, Varanasi, India

Correspondence

Shailen Verma, Malaviya Centre for Peace

Research, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi

221005, U.P., India.

Email: shailenbhu@gmail.com

This is not a history of cartography but focuses on the interlinkages between British

rulers and decisions for shaping inadvertent borderlands, through imperial supremacy

and spatial knowledge. In this sense, the paper fills in a gap in the geographical history

of India’s unique borderland that h olds a useful key t o “cultural”and “geopolitical

understandings”of south Asia and its impressions on modern Indo-Nepal ties. The

theme of the study is to analyzethe chronological decisions and rationale of “historical

faults”in the implementation by a colonial power in marshalling all available resources

in surveying, mapping, and demarcating India’s only open border as the ever-shifting

“turbulent frontier”that attractedimperial concern for peace andstability.

1|INTRODUCTION

India often pursues the legacy of the British Raj while executing its foreign

policy. With the release of a new political map, after the “Kashmir issue”,

India seems to interfere in neighbour’s territory by overlooking the “Sugauli

Treaty”signed between Nepal and the British East India Company in 1816.

However, its engagement with immediate neighbours including Nepal is

closely harmonized with the legacy of British colonialism.

In the strategy to take control over Chinese aggression and

expansion over the ocean, maritime security has become a matter of

concern to India recently and thus Indians had learned less from its

colonial history in this regard (Narang & Staniland, 2012).

As Guha (1997) suggests, “The literatureon international organiza-

tions, historical institutionalism, neo-functionalism, regimes theory, and

multilateralism, this goes back to the 1940s and 50s”. But I think it is

still very timelyand it tells you that institutionsdo not replace state sov-

ereignty and independence but support state action by bringing a vari-

ety of states in a certainregion together to overcome sharedglitches.

Post-independence, since the time of Prime Minister Jawaharlal

Nehru, India has considered the Himalayas as its natural frontier in

the north. In this narrative, Nepal and Bhutan are India’s backyards,

where Chinese influence must be checked, even by using military

means if necessary (Chacko, 2013).

In its various attempts to realize and plan according to the human

and physical complexities, the colonial state undertook projects of

spatial engagement that were often jumbled and ineffective. Efforts

to produce borders and frontier areas to mark the limits of adminis-

tered British India were rarely “authoritative”and were revised by

colonial officials and local inhabitants (Kothari, 2006).

Bringing together diverse cases of bordering and territory-making

from peripheral regions of South Asia that are usually treated sepa-

rately lays bare the limits of the colonial state’s power and its ambiva-

lent attitude towards spatial forms and technologies that are

conventionally taken to be key foundations of modern states.

India imparts border with Nepal from three sides. Numerous

Nepali media have broadcast instances of border infringements con-

cerning Indian gatherings in different disputed lands (Baral, 2018).

Nepal claims that among 27 districts that share their border with

India, 72 spots in 23 districts have been infringed.

In Nepal, there is an all-party agreement that India occupied

Nepali land. As Former DG of Nepal’s Survey Department, Buddhi

Narayan Shrestha (2013) affirms that the vital territory which once

served as a transit route among India and what ispresently southwest-

ern China was occupied by India after New Delhi pulled back its border

forces following its war with China (1962).

The Indian border infringement and the Nepal government’s

absence of apprehension affected the lives of individuals living in bor-

derlands. The residents of Susta village have been denied from build-

ing scaffolds or access to transportation, while many reports that the

land they have been cultivating have now been taken by India

(Pyakurel, 2015).

2|COLONIAL STRUCTURES

India was the highlight of the British Empire, well known as “British

India”. These outsiders from Europe proceeded the procedure of

national unification that the historical gathering of outside intruders,

Received: 28 July 2020 Accepted: 29 July 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2348

J Public Affairs. 2022;22:e2348. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1of9

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2348