Singhameva Jayate

Hi. Ready for the first blog? So let’s get started.
“Satyamev Jayate or Singhameva Jayate?”
The Nepalese PM questioned India if it follows it’s own moto of ‘truth alone prevails’ or has changed it to ‘mightiest alone prevails’.
Nowadays, the hot topic is the Indo-Nepal Border Dispute. So let’s have a look at it.
The dispute is for a 300 sq km triangular piece of land, north west of Nepal. The northernmost part of this land is Limpiyadhura, the south-eastern part is  Lipulekh Pass and Kalapani in the south. And both the countries consider this area as theirs.

Back in 1800s when India was under the British Raj, the Britishers wanted to expand in Nepal too, and Nepal was under the Gorkha rule. This resulted in the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814. And hence, the Sugauli Treaty was signed in 1816. According to this treaty Nepal lost Darjeeling and Sikkim to the Britishers, and to define the Kingdom of Nepal, two rivers were treated as borders. Nepal’s western boundary would be according to the Mahakali river and its eastern boundary would be the Mechi river.
The problem is with the Mahakali river. The river is made up of two sources joined into one. One of them is a wide stream and the other is a narrow one.
The problem is which one should be considered as it’s source so as to define the border.
The Britishers considered the wider one, i.e., the western one as it looks like a proper river. And this is how that triangular area went to Nepal. But later in 1860s, the Britishers realised the area as strategically important so they started showing the eastern one as the source of the river in their maps and hence, the border of Nepal. But the Nepalese Monarchs didn’t had any problem with it at that time. It was not that important for Nepal at that time and so they let it go under the British control.
So this continued to be included in the maps of independent India. Nepal too stopped showing this area in their maps. In 1960s during the Indo-China War, the Indian Army took permission from the Nepalese Monarch at that time to set military camps in this area. And since then, India’s military camps are situated in the region.
Nepal got rid of Monarchy and set up its own Democracy in 1990s. Then it realised that how earlier Monarchs ignored this area. Since then, they started treating it as a disputed area and included it in their maps. But they had never shown Limpiyadhura in their maps. It was only in 2020 when Nepal’s new map also included Limpiyadhura.


The dispute escalated in 2015 when India and China agreed on a trade pact through the Limpulekh Pass. Nepal objected to this and protested against both the countries. Then in November 2019, when India introduced its new map showing this region as their own, Nepal objected again. And on 8th May 2020, India’s Defence Minister inaugurated a road to Kailash Mansarovar which passes through this disputed region. This led to anti-India protests in Nepal and the Nepalese PM accused India of occupying its area.

According to me, if we look at this matter geographically, Nepal is right because it is very sensible that according to the Sugauli Treaty, the western source is considered as the boundary and after that no such written agreement was made between the two countries.
But if we look at this matter practically and, India is the rightful owner. Because it’s continuing since 200 years, and no objection was made by the Nepalese Monarchs at that time. So what’s the matter of arousing the matter now. For example, if India says that Taxhila was once a part of India and now after almost 300-400 years later Afghanistan should give it back. It doesn’t make any sense, because there were many regions in the world which were under different countries and now are in some other countries.

But there should not be any conflict between the two nations as it’s a free to move border as both Indians and Nepalese can enter and also work in each other’s territories without any visa or passport.