Controversy over Lord Rama or land
Birendra P Mishra, Kathmandu.30 july 2020. Recently, Nepalese PM KP Sharma Oli declared that Lord Rama was a Nepali and Ayodhya was in Nepal. The announcement was not really the last arrow in his quiver, which he fired at the Indian establishment that really hit the sentiments of the Indian masses. Interestingly, the Indian media satisfied his ego by overreacting to his statement, perhaps unconsciously. It will not be a wonder if he shoots another arrow at India by granting Nepalese citizenship to Rama and may declare Sita, the consort of Rama, as non-Nepali, as neither her father Rajarshi Janaka nor her mother Sunaina had acquired Nepalese citizen certificate. He may fire yet another arrow by promising to build Rama temple at Nepali Ayodhya before India constructs its own.
Actually, Oli’s government seems at a loss for its failure in bringing India for a meaningful dialogue on the disputed area of land, which Nepal claims. However, India and Nepal have published their maps showing it as their territories. Apparently, India’s reluctance to hold talk with Nepal at any level provides opportunity for such utterances by him, as he wants to prove his towering nationalist personality by raising such pseudo issues strongly to enhance his popularity and superiority to other leaders, as the Nepalese masses are swayed away by such claims.
Currently, Nepal and India are fighting three battles at a time. The first is to combat the Covid-19 pandemic internally with the number of cases increasing daily in both countries. The second is cartographic standoff between the two for about 335sq.km of land on the northwestern borders of Nepal. India has the third front in the Galwan valley of Ladakh as a face-off with China since May, 2020 and Nepal is fighting within, as the Nepal Communist Party (CPN), the party in power, is facing its existential crisis with its two chairs are at draggers drawn with each other. Though there is external and internal pressure on them to resolve the discord, the government, by and large, remains ineffective. However, Nepal is also fighting an extra psychological battle to show that it will not be bowed down by India to accept its dictation. It is a perennial complex with which Nepalese leadership and Kathmandu elite have been suffering. As a result, it has hurriedly amended its constitution to incorporate the area on its map to have its legitimate claim over it, which was shown on the Indian map released in November 2019.
Historically, the Gorkha king Prithvi Narayan Shah, the founder of modern Nepal, annexed tiny kingdoms around and moved towards Kathmnadu, which he conquered in 1769. After his death in 1775, his successors extended the border of Nepal up to river Satlej in the west after conquering Kumayun in 1791 and Gadhwal in 1804. But under the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816, Nepal had to withdraw its western boundaries to river Kali as its western frontier.
Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, the former DG of Survey department of Nepal, who spearheaded the Map Movement in Nepal, accepts that the British map of 1827 shows Limpiyadhura as the originating point of Kali river, where as the British map of 1879 depicts Kuti, Navi, and Gunji (under dispute) in Indian territory. Interestingly, the map of 1879 published by British India raises some pertinent questions: Does it suggest that no physical possession of the land was given to Nepal earlier? Did the British draw the map of 1879 on the basis of the actual possession of the land? Do the timings of the publications of the maps further complicate the dispute, as these were published by British India and now Nepal has to deal with Independent India?.
Curiously, the area under dispute is uninhabitable half of a year. It was one of the crucial routes for trade with Tibet during the British rule for one and half centuries. It is the shortest route to Kailash Mansarobar and became a strategic point for independent India in 1962 after it had border conflict with China. The possession of the land has now become a national issue for Nepal and it wants to get back the land from the Indian military possession at the earliest.
Nepal has been raising the issue with India from time to time. It had dialogues with India earlier unsuccessfully too, as Nepal’s stand was based on the Treaty of Sugauli, where as India claimed it on the basis of 1879 map and actual possession of land. Nepal has been collecting land revenue from that area and had conducted census in 1963. (2018 B.S.) Nepal is now collecting all relevant documents/evidences to strengthen its stand on the dialogue table.
Though the government of Nepal is under pressure to have serious dialogue with India, the question remains: unless these two sides determine to dilute their stands, could any agreement be reached? After the amendment to the constitution, it seems difficult for Nepal to dilute its claim. Remarkably, India had buckled down to the Nepalese pressures on withdrawing military posts in 1970 from the Chinese border and it also closed down its camp office in 2018 at Biratnagar in eastern Nepal, which was established on the Nepalese request to facilitate the traffic movement of the Nepalese vehicles through the Indian territory after Nepalese road was damaged by the flood in 2008. It is eagerly awaited whether India dilutes its claim one-sidedly to settle the dispute amicably and retreat easily from the area under its possession and ignores the Nepalese national claim on Rama and Ayodhya.
