RIVERS RUN THROUGH IT

Two uncomfortable border problems have come up for discussion between India and Nepal: one in Nepal's southeastern tip in the Tarai plains and the other diagonally across, in the Himalayan fastness of northwest Nepal. Both are manifestations of unfinished business in border demarcation between the two countries, of domestic political sensitivities and compulsions that only a territorial issue can generate.

At the Nepal-India Joint Boundary Technical Committee in 1988, the Nepali side pressed for the application of the fixed boundary principle between Nepal and India rather than rely on river demarcations. At first lukewarm to starting the idea, the Indian side agreed to the proposal, and work was begun to mark a permanent frontier starting in Nepal's eastern Tarai. It immediately hit a problem. Mechi, the border river of east Nepal, at a certain point between Galgalia in India and Bhadrapur in Nepal was thought to be flowing within Nepal. A border marker known as the "Jungay Pillar" after Nepal's first Rana ruler Jung Bahadur, stands well to the east of the Mechi, and this had been regarded as the border.

The Technical Committee's brief in establishing a fixed boundary requires reference to the mapping done by the British in 1874 on the basis of the Treaty of Sugauli back in 1816, after the Anglo-Nepal war. Relying on these often unclear maps, some of them with Urdu writing, the district officials of Nepal and India decided that the true boundary lies somewhat to the west of the Jungay Pillar.

This area of former jungles has been settled by Nepali hillfolk after malaria was eradicated in the 1960s. Since word of the demarcation leaked out a couple of months ago, the matter has become a political cause celebre. After keeping silent in the face of an unnecessarily belligerent press release put out by the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu, the Nepali government was forced to use nationalistic rhetoric on its commitment not to let "an inch" of national territory to go to India.

In retrospect, things might have been left well enough alone, given the exigencies of party politics (especially in the smaller countries of the region), where rationality is often sacrificed at the altar of flag-waving patriotism. It is easiest to make the case of "sellout" on a boundary affair, and you invite only wrath when the science is poor and the need for mutual give-and-take high. In this first stab at demarcating a fixed boundary, it was Nepal which was required to give (it might be otherwise elsewhere along the frontier) a populated territory, and a backlash could have been expected.

Meanwhile, the Jungay Pillar affair brings up the matter of several other border issues that remain unresolved. In the central Nepal Tarai, there remains the Susta problem, where a river shifted course towards Nepal and left a thumb of Nepali land on the "Indian" side.

There is a scab here that could easily be scratched. On the eastern mountain frontier of Nepal, which is essentially a high ridge reaching down from the Kanchenjunga massif, the Indian side would want to go for delineation of the border between Sikkim and Nepal. Kathmandu, which is yet to officially acknowledge Sikkim's merger into the Indian Union, would rather let sleeping dogs lie.

Over in the remote northwest, another border dispute lurks in a grey zone, brought to the surface recently by the attempts of the Nepali and Indian governments to pass a Mahakali Basin Treaty in order facilitate the building of the Pancheswar megadam. The tri-junction of frontiers between Nepal, India and Tibet, in an area known as Kuthi-Kalapani-Tinker, has never been put to the map. A China-Nepal border commission back in the 1960s did not demarcate the trijunction as it would require Indian involvement.

During the Indo-Chinese war of 1962, the Indian army set up a forward post in what was believed by Nepal to be its territory, east of the main tributary of the Mahakali river. The Indian side is said to have sought Nepali understanding of the "extraordinary situation" which required such encroachment, and the Nepali side kept mum. The Indian post apparently was not withdrawn after the guns fell silent, and there it remains today. In the Technical Committee, the India has let it be known that these posts were well within Indian territory, pointing to another tributary of the Mahakali as its main branch. Here, too, the matter hangs fire.

As volatile and unprincipled party politics plays out its hand in Kathmandu, oppositional forces are ever-ready to use extreme nationalist rhetoric and positions. In this charged situation, it may be difficult for dispassionate minds to prevail (whatever the merits). Other matters of state and bilateral relations can be held hostage by ringing debates regarding sovereignty and territorial integrity.

On the other hand, maturity can never be gauged if it is not challenged. It is right and proper that the two countries firm up the matter of where one ends and the other begins. In fact, the border demarcation team has continued its work westward even though the Jungay Pillar created a storm in the east. Before long, they will arrive at Susta, where, one hopes, science and a sense of history will win the day.