Nepal map on currency note stirs up border row with India
10 May 2024, 12:00 am
AFP :
The boundary dispute between India and Nepal has heated up once again after the Nepali government last week announced a new currency note featuring a map that shows three border areas claimed by New Delhi.
The dispute involves the territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, which are currently under Indian control.
The new map adds 335 square kilometres of land to Nepal, and the country's central bank is expected to take up to a year to print and issue the new note.
India's Foreign Minister S Jaishankar slammed Nepal's decision, saying it will not change the reality on the ground.
"Our position is very clear. With Nepal, we are having discussions about our boundary matters through an established platform. In the middle of that, they unilaterally took some measures on their side," Jaishankar told media persons.
"But by doing something on their side, they are not going to change the situation between us or the reality on the ground," he added. The boundary dispute between the two countries began to escalate after New Delhi issued a political map in November 2019 that placed the contested area within India's territory.
Relations became more strained when India inaugurated an 80-kilometer-long roadway that passes through Lipulekh, a disputed area that lies at the strategic Nepal-India-China tri-junction.
The unilaterally built motorway links India's Uttarakhand state to Tibet's Kailash Mansarovar via the Lipulekh Pass, a territory historically claimed by Nepal and considered one of the shortest and most practicable trade routes between India and China.
The small Himalayan nation challenged India's inauguration of the road by publishing a new map showing the contested areas – including the areas of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura – as lying inside Nepal's borders.
Nepal, which was never under colonial rule, has long claimed these areas in accordance with the 1816 Sugauli treaty with the British Raj following the Anglo-Nepalese (Gurkha) War.
The treaty recognized the Kali River as Nepal's western boundary with India and the land lying east of the river is Nepalese territory. However, these areas have been under India's administrative control since the early 1960s.
