M. R. Josse
Former Editor-in-Chief
The Rising Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal
It is high time that the open Nepal-India border is scrapped and replaced by a controlled international one. While countless Nepalese citizens have, for donkey’s years, been clamoring for implementing precisely such a move, the powers that be have cravenly been dragging their feet in that regard, due to persistent Indian pressure, over the years, against such a’ sensible policy measure.
Against the backdrop of the horrific health havoc that the corona pandemic has unleashed world-wide – including in India – with its predictable spillover impact beginning to be manifest in Nepal, there can be no further soft-soaping, obsequious hand-cringing, or lame excuses.
Telltale Facts and Figures:
Before proceeding any further, let me draw attention to some relevant telltale facts and figures. That includes the reality that in India, as of this writing, there have been over 12,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with over 400 fatalities.
Even more significant is that The Rising Nepal (13 April 2020) disclosed that three Indian Muslims, who had been hiding in a mosque in Birgunj after surreptitiously entering Nepal from India, tested positive for the virus. There were also other Indian Muslims hiding in the same Birgunj mosque.
More disturbing is that, as the government daily reported:
“Many individuals have been suspected to have entered Nepal after attending the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in New Delhi, organized in mid-March. A worrying number of individuals who had participated at the Jamaat in New Delhi had tested positive for COVID-19 in India.” Viewing Indian TV channels from Kathmandu, one sees, day after day, the sad plight of millions of Indian migrant laborers from cities – hailing mainly from U.P. and Bihar – slogging, forlorn and forsaken, in close groups along desolate, deserted highways, miles and miles from their homes in rural India.
In such packed congregations of poor, disadvantaged people, face-masks and ‘social distancing’ are conspicuous by their general absence, stoking apprehension that such masses of jostling, desperate humans could well constitute a ‘critical mass’ for the creation of hundreds of pandemic “hot-spots’ – thereby exponentially escalating the spread of the virus in India, including in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The chilling prospect of an unending stream of infected people flowing across from the 1,690 km stretch of open border has been rendered scarier by international agency reports such as that from the Indian capital by the Associated Press (AP), which reads as follows:
“The hastily announced lockdown that started on 25 March has left millions out of work, disrupted big and small businesses, and forced an exodus of hungry and jobless migrant workers from the cities who had to walk hundreds of miles to their native villages.
“Untold numbers are now out of work, and many families have been left struggling to eat. Everything but essential services remains shuttered.”
Such images are agonizingly reminiscent, say Indian commentators of a certain age, of heart-wrenching scenes from Partition in 1947: Hindus and Sikhs fleeing newly-created Pakistan for India, and Muslims headed in the opposite direction, seeking refuge and spiritual inspiration in Pakistan!
What also has frightening ramifications for Nepal are continuing reports/visuals of throngs of Indian citizens – especially in India’s numerous crowded metropolises and their squalid, jam-packed shantytowns – rubbing shoulders with one another in flagrant defiance of lockdown restrictions: an ominous portent that a ‘perfect storm’ of a pandemic may be looming menacingly, just over the horizon.
Other Key Metrics:
Consider, now, a cluster of other relevant metrics that have salience to the thrust of this essay. In that grouping are these inalterable verities of geography and geopolitics.
Nepal not only shares an open border of 1,690 km (1,050 miles) with India, with the world’s second-highest population, with a staggering 1.3 billion souls, but, among others, is adjacent to the densely peopled Indian states of U.P., Bihar and West Bengal. To be noted is that U.P., or Uttar Pradesh, is India’s most populous state with nearly 200 million inhabitants (according to Wikipedia); Bihar is India’s third most populous state of 110 million (it is also India’s poorest); while West Bengal is India’s fourth most populous peopled by over 91 million.
At this juncture, it may be germane to recall that the Nepal-China frontier – a regular international border – is 1,414 km (879 miles) in length, while China, the world’s most populous nation, has a mind-boggling population of 1.4 billion.
Nepal’s population is (as of 2018) reckoned to be 27.
4 million.
At this stage, other pertinent singularities applicable to the crux of this write-up may be cited.
Perhaps the most striking among them is that while Nepal has a shared physical border with China – specifically; with her Autonomous Region of Tibet – no case of any COVID-19 infected person entering Nepal from China has been reported, at least, to my knowledge.
What makes that piece of data particularly noteworthy is that, as the world is well aware, the COVID-19 outbreak occurred in December last year in Wuhan in central China.
Let us, too, not forget that although nearly 200 Nepalese students from Wuhan were repatriated by air many weeks ago to Kathmandu – and quarantined after arrival – not one was reported to have tested positive for COVID-19.
Incidentally, what may also be taken into account is that while the Nepal-China border at Tatopani had been closed from January-end, it was reopened in early April, as reported in the Nepali media.
In view of the assorted facts cited above is it unreal or illogical to assume that the fact there has been no infiltration of the virus from China while there have been multiple cases of such from India is directly related to the basic difference between the nature of Nepal’s borders with China and India, respectively.
Fruits of the Open Border:
Let us now tackle the same issue from another angle: to wit, what the fruits or effects of the open Nepal-India border are or have been. In the time of COVID-19, here is a shortlist.
# Though the number of virus cases ‘imported’ from India is not alarmingly high yet, there is nevertheless the disturbing possibility that it may shoot up exponentially when – or if – there is a sharp deterioration in the situation in India.
# Given Nepal’s recent history, there is little room for solace in the hope that terrorists may not take advantage of the ease of movement between India and Nepal given the open border situation. To take a few specific examples, have there not been numberless reports/ allegations/accusations of terrorists from Kashmir and Afghanistan, and of Bodo and ULFA extremists from India’s northeast, sneaking into our land, taking advantage of the invitingly open border between India and Nepal?
# Has the open border situation not greased the movement of rebel elements from Nepal to India and back, as exemplified during the years of the Maoist insurgency? And, while it may be true that, at the present times, the rebels of yore now rule the roost, is there any guarantee that someday other rebel elements might not attempt to similarly overthrow the incumbent regime, once again exploiting the vulnerability of the open Nepal-India border?
# Similarly, one may usefully recall that for long criminal elements in both countries have engaged in smuggling drugs, weapons, bullion, and other contraband items across the common, open border. It stands to reason, therefore, that if the Nepal-India border were to be transformed into a border such as that between Nepal and China, India and Pakistan or India and Bangladesh, such activities might very well be greatly reduced, if not eliminated altogether?
# Moreover, can anyone deny that the open border between Nepal and India has, among other factors, greatly facilitated the pernicious trade in women trafficking from Nepal to the fleshpots of India and beyond?
Now, for a digression, of sorts: to the status of the United States-Canadian border, on the one hand, and, on the other, that between the United States and Mexico.
They, of course, present two starkly divergent pictures.
Though the U.S.-Canadian border of 8,891 kms (5,525 miles) is an open one too, that frontier is in a class of its own: between two very affluent, advanced countries that are allies, sharing a spectrum of common political and cultural values besides a good deal of amicable history.
On the other hand, the United States’ 3,145 km (1,954 mile) border with Mexico is a quite different kettle of fish. That, as most readers know, has willy-nilly come to be associated with illegal crossings into the United States by Mexicans and of an entire cornucopia of criminal activities, including the smuggling of huge amounts of narcotics bound for the insatiable American market.
At this time, it may be in order to recall that American President Donald Trump has attempted to build a physical wall between the two nations – a work still in progress and a near-certain key issue that will hugely figure in the upcoming American presidential elections, come November, 2020.
Before moving on, it will be remiss not to mention that, in the age of the current pandemic sweeping the globe, even the E.U.’s long-hyped feature of free movement of people of diverse nationalities within that community has been rudely overturned, as nation after nation closed their borders to other member-states where the impact of the pandemic was particularly severe.
Not a Timeless Legacy: To return to the mainstream of this narrative, I must emphasize that the open border between Nepal and India is not, as often believed – especially in India – a timeless historical legacy.
It merely dates to the end of the Rana autocracy and the opening up of Nepal to the outside world, post 1950.
During the Rana era, for example, Indian nationals were permitted entry into the erstwhile Kingdom for a limited period prior to the religious festival of Shivaratri. Such pilgrims were expected to leave Nepalese territory within a period of fifteen days – a stipulation, I am told, that was strictly enforced.
Hence, it is completely misleading to suggest that the open Nepal-India border is synonymous with Nepal-India relations. Phrased differently, would it be logical to claim that, despite the sea-changes that have occurred since the 1950s, it must remain a supposedly immutable feature of Nepal-India relations?
Before concluding this essay, one further point regarding borders: how ironical is it that while India has normal, international borders with countries, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, that were – not too long ago – an integral part of India, even while insisting that Nepal, never within the ambit of the British India Raj, should be linked with an open border with her?
If the time is not ripe – even in the age of COVID-19 – for scrapping the open border with India and replacing it with a normal, international one, when would that ever be? If not now: when? Plainly, the time for procrastination and excuses is long over.
We can ignore the clear writing on the wall that travel by nationals of Nepal and India to each other’s countries should henceforth be regulated as per international norms – if we are not to experience a deadly surge in COVID-19 cases, and attendant fatalities, due the fact of the open Nepal-India border.
Mercifully, thus far, for whatever reasons, the total number COVID-19 positive cases is 16 with no deaths, as per the official media.
While ardently hoping that the low incidence rate continues in Nepal, one cannot obviously bank on it.
Apart from the arguments enumerated above, there are these key facts: (a) that the Nepal-India border lies along an easily traversed plain, unlike the Nepal-China border astride the Himalayas; (b) that not only is India’s population 46 times that of Nepal’s (as per Google) but that she adjoins the most populated Indian states, including the poorest.
Simply put: unless the open border is scrapped Nepal will continue to be confronted by a ticking demographic time-bomb, a situation clarified by COVID-19 and rendered more urgent than ever before.
End text.
# Text courtesy: Geopolitically Speaking by M.
R. Josse. Publisher-Periwinkle Prakashan Pvt. Ltd. Dilli Bazar Kathmandu, Nepal.
Published : September 2020:
Thanks the publisher and the author of the book: Ed. Upadhyaya.