Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With China annexing more than 150 hectares of Nepalese territory in the last few months, a scared Kathmandu is trying to mend ties with India again, indicating an undercurrent of strong protest against incumbent Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli whose openly pro-Beijing policies has unnerved many in his country.
Nepal was the world’s only Hindu Kingdom, proud of its great heritage when the Communists overthrew its royals in 2001 and massacred nearly 20,000 people in a long civil war (1996-2008). In Oli’s regime, Nepal is being seen as China’s spokesman.
The Maoist Communists have themselves seen a turbulent rule as the Himalayan nation is still searching for its new identity: nine prime ministers, including seven from various Communist gangs, have come and gone in just 12 years.
Oli has become unpopular as he allowed Beijing unprecedented access to Nepal’s territory. His own controversial personal life, with a Chinese woman seen as his companion, has angered all sections of society, including his Communist comrades, political parties, bureaucrats, and even the Army.
Several politicians and power-centers of Kathmandu are, therefore, looking at India for resuming strong support. But, according to reports, New Delhi has laid down “certain conditions” to repair the frayed relations between the two ancient neighbors who have a shared history.
It is in this backdrop that Indian Army chief General M M Naravane began his three-day visit to Nepal on Wednesday. He will be meeting Oli and also call on President Bidhya Devi Bhandari.
As per the seven-decade-old tradition, General Naravane, who is visiting Kathmandu at the invitation of his counterpart General Purna Chandra Thapa, will be conferred the honorary rank of General of the Nepal Army.
Nepal Army chief General Thapa had received the honorary rank of General of the Indian Army last year, in a reciprocal arrangement between the two countries.
The Indian Army chief’s visit to Kathmandu is significant as it came after months of tension between the two countries. On May 15, he had remarked that Nepal might be raising the issue of Indian road construction via Lipulekh to Mansarovar at the “behest of someone else”, obliquely referring to China. Nepal protested against it, and ties were strained further.
Of late, however, the two countries have been trying to repair relations.
Nepal has a reason to be worried about Chinese designs.
Even as the military standoff between China and India in Ladakh continues—it is likely to heat up again this winter—Beijing has gone ahead with a territory-annexing spree in Nepal. Media reports from Kathmandu said China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had illegally annexed some 150 hectares of Nepalese land along five undefended borders in frontier districts in May 2020.
In the north-western district of Humla, PLA soldiers crossed the border into the Limi Valley and Hilsa, moving stone pillars which had previously demarcated the boundary, further into Nepalese territory, and constructed military bases, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The PLA also pushed border pillars into the Nepalese territory in the Gorkha district.
Other annexations were reported in the Rasuwa, Sindhupalchowk, and Sankuwasabha districts after Chinese engineers in the Tibet Autonomous Region diverted the flow of rivers acting as a natural boundary and claimed the previously submerged Nepalese territory.
“Why should China come over into Nepal, when it is already sixty times the size of our small country?” asked Jeevan Bahadur Shahi, a lawmaker in the Nepali Congress Party.
Several Nepalese politicians, who realized the blunder of using China against India, have accused their government of staying silent for fear of angering their most important trading partner and regional ally.
Within a year of the Communist rule, China had begun to flex its muscles in Nepal. In 2009, the PLA first crossed over into the undefended Humla district and constructed a veterinary center for livestock. The myopic Nepalese government defended it claiming the center would help in securing the livelihoods of impoverished local people who make a living by herding yak and goats.
Around 30 hectares of Nepalese territory has been annexed in the Limi Valley during this recent incursion, with Chinese troops constructing an additional nine buildings, including military bases, Shahi said, adding China annexed more land in the Humla district in June, in Hilsa, taking the total in these districts to 70 hectares.
“The local people are very scared, particularly because they previously depended on Chinese traders to buy commodities like rice, bread, and salt.”
In May 2020, the 72 households of the remote mountainous village of Rui awoke to find the border pillar that separated them from China had been moved overnight, meaning they had been incorporated into the Tibet Autonomous Region. Rakesh Kumar Mishra, a committee member of the opposition Janta Samajh Party, said that around 60 hectares of land were annexed this way.
In a June report, even Nepal’s Survey and Mapping Department revealed that China had altered the course of rivers, acting as a natural border with Nepal, to claim 33 hectares of land. Interestingly, the Oli government dismissed its own department’s report.
Nepal is currently ruled by the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), which sees the Communist Party of China (CCP), not only as an ideological brother but also friend, philosopher, guide, and fund-provider.
China also contributes the majority of vital foreign direct investment into Nepal, one of Asia’s poorest nations.
Historically, Kathmandu had maintained close ties with India but its relationship soured when New Delhi, annoyed at its growing proximity with China, imposed a blockade in 2015 to make it realize its mistakes. But Oli made Kathmandu all the more dependent on Beijing.
Shahi and Mishra fear the annexations of Nepalese land are just the beginning of heightened Chinese aggression along the border and say there will be no opposition unless the Nepalese Government takes a firmer stance against Beijing.
And how China is dealing with potential opposition voices in Nepal?
An indication came when, in August, the body of a Nepalese journalist, Balaram Baniya, who was investigating Chinese annexations in the area, was found floating in the nearby Bagmati River.