The new relationship(s)

Even as the post-conflict discussion in Nepal demands limiting the future size and scope of the country's army, in early October a new security contingent went into action. Following on months of rumoured preparation, two teams of the paramilitary Armed Police Force (APF) moved north from Kathmandu to scout for what are to be permanent security posts along the Tibetan border, constituting the first time that such installations will have been established by the Kathmandu government. Eventually, APF security personnel are slated to staff five new checkposts in the northern borderland – at Tatopani of Sindhupalchok District (currently the only official crossing, where a security contingent is already in place), as well as, east to west, Kimathanka of Sankhuwasabha, Limi of Humla and Tinker of Darchula and Lo Manthang of Mustang. Ultimately, this undertaking will comprise the cordoning-off of the only Himalaya border between Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir that has not seen a security presence.

In fact, significant technical difficulties notwithstanding (as noted in the teams' subsequent reports), this plan is at the moment being referred to only as the 'first phase'. Ultimately, officials are promising a security presence in each of the 13 districts along the 1400-km frontier. While the uninformed observer would think this border force was being raised by Kathmandu to guard against threats from without, it is actually being done at the behest of the country across the border. Indeed, the real motivating 'threat' for the new APF set-up appears to be a concern of Beijing, with its continued anxieties over the Tibetans who have long streamed over the Nepali border in hopes of visiting Dharamsala.