Tanakpur on the Thames

Anondescript building by the Blackfriars Bridge, over the Thames in London, houses the Oriental and IndiaOffice Collections of the British Library. Despite its unassuming looks, it is the repository of the institutional memory of England´s colonial past, a .gold mine of preserved records, official memos and astute observations of her civil servants from far-flung outposts of the Empire.

For the last two years, Nepal´s state apparatus has been bogged down with the controversy over Tanakpur barrage on the Mahakali (Sarda) river on the western border with India. This area of Nepal has a history intermeshed with the British Raj going back to the late 18th century. At Blackfriars, one can take a walk through the history of Tanakpur— seeing how these lands "between Kali and Rapti" were ceded to the "Honourable East India Company" by the Sugauli Treaty of 1815, how they were gifted by the British back to Nepal following Jang Bahadur´s help in suppressing the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, and how Chandra Shamshere actually negotiated the details of the 1920 Sarda Treaty.

Nepal´s water negotiations with India has suffered from the loss of institutional memory following the overthrow of the Ranas in 195 l.eightyears of interregnum, ISmonths of abortive democracy, and 30 years of Panchayat rule. India, on the other hand, saw white masters depart and brown masters take the helm without abyteof memory loss within its institutions.

Of all the resources spent on tours abroad by Nepali MPs during the last two years, if only a fraction had been devoted to Tribhuban University researchers spending some time at BlackfriaTs (orif the NepaliMission in London had been instructed to investigate), much of the historical facts of those times would have come to liglil.. Instead, what wehaveseenis an emotional heat wave engulfing thePaTliament and the nation.

One can now only speculate how the debate in the Nepali Parliament might have proceeded had, for example, the minutes of the meeting between Nepal´s Superintending Engineer Kumar Nar Singh Rana and British India´s Executive Engineer S. Athim, held at Tanakpur on 26th February 1918, been known in December 1991, before the Tanakpuv heartburn began.

The extract below, from British Library records, shows how the figures for Nepal´s share of water from the 1920 Sarda Treaty currently in force (150 cusecs in dry season, 460 cusecs in the wet season with an upper limit of 1000 cusecs if water is available) were arrived at:

…The Superintending-Engineer admitted ´ th~at´taking a canal across the Mohan(a) river was not contemplated and consequently the Kailali district may be left out of consideration. The Superintending Engineer stated thai judging from reports received from local officials, the total culturable area, including what was inspectedbyMr.A thim in 1917 may be accepted as 48,000 acres.

The Executive Engineer pointed out that if the gross area is as above, then the annual area to be irrigated at 66 w per cent will be = 2/3 X 48,000 = 32,000 acres; and that if the 48,000 acres represent the annual irrigated area, the rabi area will be 1/3 X 48,000 = 16.000 acres and the kharif area will be 213 K 48,000 = 32,000 acres.

The SuperintendingEngineerstated that in Nepal the whole of the kharif area was resown in rabi and that he considered that no difference should be made. The following calculations were made by the Superintending Engineer:-
Kharif Area = rabi area
= 32,000 acres
Kharif supply with duty of 70 acres
= 32,000/70 – 457 w cusecs.
Rabi supply with duty of 200 acres
= 32,000/200 = 160 cusec
[duty: araa lhat can bs irrigated wilh givsn water flow -»d».)

Executive Engineer pointed out that the proper kharif duty at the head of a canal is 100 acres´, andlhat 70 acres is adopted for distributaries that run in alternate weeks; also that in a properly designed scheme the aggregate discharge of all distributaries is nearly double the discharge athead of main canal. Executive Engineer suggested a compromise as follows > Rabi irrigation may be taken as 24,000 acres with a duty of 200 acres – the discharge would be 24,000/200 = 120 cusecs. It is, however, clear that in the Tarai the duty should hi more than 200 acres. If 250 acres were taken, the discharge required would be 24,000/250 = 96 cusecs. It was also pointed out by the Executive Engineer that in the absenceofmaps itwas extremely difficult to arrive at definite conclusions.The Superintending Engineer ~~~agreed and said that he was acting on reports received from local officials and had no personal knowledge of the tract.
The SuperintendingEngineerstated that Nepal had a right to the Sarda water, and only so much was asked for as was considered necessary for the irrigation of a tract which at present suffered from lack of irrigation fac Hi ties.

The Executive Engineer pointed out that, as far as he understood the matter, the contention was correct, but this was not a question for present discussion; and furthermore, that if the water level was raised so as to make irrigation possible by the expenditure of lakhs of rupees on headworks, no claim could arise without participation in original cost and maintenance.The questionas towhat share may be given is one for the-.two Governments to decide. The purpose of this meeting is to determine what volume is–required for irrigation in Nepal.

The Superintending Engineer expressed the opinion that kharif supply should not be less than 460 cusecs, and rabi supply not less than 160 cusecs, or 150 cusecs as a minimum; also that up to 1,000 cusecs may be required for kharif.

These minutes are followed by MT. Athim´s "explanatory note" to his superiors listing his complaints on the process of negotiations:

—I found the whole position had changed owing to the Superintending Engineer holding that Iwas not shown all the country in 1917. The opinion of Lieutenant Jagat Bahadur, who showed me aroundin 1917, was entirely set aside. …

The Koriali and Mohan(a) rivers are said to be fairly targe ones. TheDarbar is not utilizing to the full its resources of water in these channels, and it has done nothing as regards Sarda. Now that the British Government proposes to build headworks for a canal from the Sarda the Darbar asks for some water, it appears to me that unless the Darbar shares the expenses involved in raising water level of the river, it cannot claim any share. It may be expedient to allow some share, and I consider that 100 cusecs in rabi is ample.

Resistance by British bureaucrats to giving Nepal concessions was not limited to ihelmgationDepartment alone. A letter of 16 August 1916 by the Special Forest Officer, the Tarai and Bhabar Government Estates, to the Deputy Commissioner, Naini Tal, states (after political decisions had been made to try and swap4000 acres of Nepali left bankneeded for headwork construction wiih equivalent iaftu in India):
… The old boundary between Nepal and Naini Tal district was, when it was laid down, the then mid-stream of the Sarda riverwith reference pillars on either side. Owing to the river continually changing its course, this boundary was found to be very unsatisfactory.

A realignment of the boundary was ordered by Government in 1909 and after a good deal of correspondence and meetings between local officials on both sides a boundary commission met in February 1912 and settled certain preliminary details which were accepted by both the Government of India and the Nepal Darbar,

The boundary as it stands isas near perfectionas possible and it wo aid be most regrettable if it had tobe altered.Moreover any alteration-^- the bsundary io-give . Nepal 4000 acres of British territory will mean having to go over the whole works again which has already taken up enough time of the locaioffirials and has also been very costly to the Government, 1 a´n of the opinion thatNepal shouldbe compensated with 4000 acres from some other district or, if possible, in money.

These and many other documents at Blackfriars show that Indian .ovo/vy and Nepali prajatantra notw ithstandiug, I ittle has changed governments have alw ay s asserted the principle that a land-scarce hill statecan claim only that amount of water that it can actually use. In actual negotiations, the technically less-prepared party always loses. Broad political understandings can still be scuttled by vested bureaucratic interests. And, while institutional amnesia feeds the controversy, the slate is not blank. The writ of history is all over it.