Undoubtedly perhaps, there is a general consensus that the streets are restive and the Nepali climes are fogged with uncertainties. Why India has chosen to fuel the Kalapani embers at time of restive streets here adds to the many mysteries certainly. Enough precedents remain very much in memory of such Indian actions provoking the Nepali streets. Since Nepali politics and the instruments of state are at a nadir of dysfunction, it would seem futile to conjure a Nepali provocation in strategy. The narrative is that the Indians have for the first time opted to include Nepal’s Kalapani and Lipu Lekh in the remote northwestern tri-juncture border in its political map as falling within their territory. The Mahakali River, its source at Kalapani and the Lipu Lekh is a clear story of Indian land grab that prompts Nepalis to take to the streets time and again. The Nepali street psyche was aroused during the Tanakpur issue after the change to a multi party system in 1990. It does so again in course of the signing of the Mahakali river project. Even more recently, merely last year, it again jostled the Nepali streets when China and India agreed to open the corridor for bilateral trade use. What we must be asking ourselves is the question-Why Now.
Firstly, the formalization of Indian claims over Nepali territory in a recent Indian political map has triggered the inevitable anti-Indian slogan on Nepali streets. Secondly, it has hustled hectic all-party political activities where consultations have prompted instructions to government to take up the issue with India seriously. In the process, it has unraveled the long outstanding fact that talks on border issues have yet to result the secretary level of bureaucratic consultations so far despite the issue being for so long a public sore spot in our bilateral relations with India. The most remarkable point this round is that the unsettled problem at that crucial spot now is close to bringing a third party into the bilateral talks since this also necessitates the participation of China not just because Lipu Lekh has entered the jargon of bilateral talks between India and China but also because the talks, if successful, will have to locate and establish border pillar with the number zero at the tri-juncture of Nepal- India- China border. As it is, when so much furor was raised here on Lipu Lekh covering India-China talks, Kathmandu officialdom remained mysteriously silent, perhaps, to the chagrin of Chinese who prefer to remain correct on the use of diplomacy in pursuit of their national objectives.
The Kalapani case is a sordid example of how problems mount when they are not resolved. Indian intransigence in the Tanakpur case bounced the irresolution to public heights on the Mahakali border. There are living people whose recollection that the Nepali flag adorned the western entry of the Mahakali bridge since the western bank of the Mahakali was the actual border. They lament at how cruelly to border was made to shift to the center and then the eastern bank and then much further east with no official resistance on the Nepali part. The agreement on the Mahakali project inevitably demanded focus on the Mahakali source and exposed how three village panchayats and the actual sources were absorbed into Indian Territory by deliberate Indian distortions.
India-China agreements on the use of that corridor inevitably drew focus on the tri-lateral border to obvious discomfort of not just the snubbed Nepali party. For once, that controversial map can at least spur legitimate action on part of Nepal to preserve its national territory. As an after thought, again, for once an Indian government that is not the direct legacy of the British in India must see sense in legitimate Nepali territorial interest and not distort such as chauvinistic anti-Indianism.
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