Triangulated India-Nepal-China Relations

The manner in which the Nepalese prime minister was felicitated in India recently, raises some doubts on our foreign and strategic policy towards Nepal

During the recent visit of Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda to India in June 2023, India and Nepal signed seven agreements in various fields including trade and commerce, cross-border petroleum pipeline, development of Integrated Check Posts and hydroelectric project.

During his deliberations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, both leaders reaffirmed commitment to boost bilateral relationship in economy, energy, infrastructure, education and people-to-people contacts. They jointly, flagged off Indian Railway cargo train from Bathnaha to Nepal Customs yard, inaugurated an integrated Check Post between Rupaidiha-Nepalgunj and Sunauli-Bhairahawa, laid foundation stone of the Motihari-Amlekhguj Oil Pipeline Phase II project, and initiated construction of the Gorakhpur-New Butwal substation with 400 KV cross-border transmission line.

On the face of it, all the above looks good but the fact remains that China continues to draw Nepal into its strategic sphere, which gets accelerated whenever the government in Kathmandu is Communist or Communist-led. Under Communist rule, Nepal joined China’s BRI, a Chinese company was give oil drilling rights in Nepal’s Terai region bordering India, Nepal’s claims on India Territory grew from Kalapani to two more areas, and Pakistani ISI’s influence grew in Nepal (1)

During the recent visit of Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda to India in June 2023, India and Nepal signed seven agreements in various fields

Prachanda is the blue-eyed boy of Beijing having been a Maoist leader in the China-sponsored Maoists insurgency that led to a 10-year bloody civil war in Nepal (1996-2006) killing over 17,000 and displacing 100,000 to 150,000. He has always been accorded red carpet treatment during his visits to China even when he was not prime minister of Nepal. Before his first premiership, Prachanda had told Nepalese media, “Our ultimate fight would be with the Indian Army.” (2)

In the past five years, China has signed project contracts worth $10.74 billion with Nepal and in March 2023 Prachanda urged China to invest more in Nepal. (3)

India’s decision to allow the employment of Nepalese youth in the Indian Army under the ‘Agnipath’ scheme was based on the excellent military-to-military relations between the armies of India and Nepal in the past though Nepal has asked its youth not to join the Indian Army’s Gorkha regiment. Some have termed it as a lack of vision not taking in account the strategic realities in South Asia. (4) As a result, Nepal has lost a considerable amount of revenue and unemployment has increased in the country.

Prachanda’s government has completely stopped Nepalese youth from joining the Indian Army from this year – not even as ‘Agniveers’. India’s political obduracy doesn’t allow reviewing the decision. Moreover, the issue was not even discussed during Prachanda’s recent visit to India.

Prachanda’s government has completely stopped Nepalese youth from joining the Indian Army from this year – not even as ‘Agniveers’, though India’s political obduracy hasn’t reviewed the decision

Nepalese youth are already serving in the British Army and the French Foreign Legion (see photo above). Recently they have also joined Russia’s Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner Group as mercenaries, with Russian President Vladimir Putin offering Russian citizenship to foreign fighters, as well as simplified Russian citizenship to the family members of these foreigners. Dozens of Nepalese youths are already in Russia; undergoing battle training in handling weapons and combat operations. (5) Nepal says these Nepalese youth are joining the Russian Army in their personal capacity.

China, which had earlier initiated a study to ascertain why Nepalese youth were joining the Indian Army, though it has recruited Tibetan youth in the past to join PLA, is now to keen to recruit Nepalese youth for its army. (6)

This should be a security concern for India. No doubt the PLA recruitment also is for short-tenures but subsequent tenures for Nepalese youth as mercenaries can hardly be discounted – part of Chinese projects or a mercenary force itself.

The above needs to be seen in the backdrop of the continuing India-China standoff along the LAC, speedy development of China’s border infrastructure, establishment of new posts and infrastructure in the Middle Sector, consolidation of new post locations occupied in Eastern Ladakh, plus new militarised villages and attempts to intrude into Arunachal Pradesh.

Nurturing the idea that China would not attack us would be naïve, even though China is gaining some $100 billion annually through bilateral trade with India.

China has already announced a second expressway (G695) through Aksai Chin to be completed by 2035, which is slated to run close to Galwan and Hot Springs in Ladakh, according to foreign media reports.

China, which had earlier initiated a study to ascertain why Nepalese youth were joining the Indian Army, though it has recruited Tibetan youth in the past to join PLA, is now to keen to recruit Nepalese youth for its army

China has invaded and occupied 38,000 sq. km of Aksai Chin to extend its Western Highway and would certainly want to extend the G695 highway before its construction nears the LAC in Eastern Ladakh. This makes an India-China clash inevitable then, if not earlier.

Finally, recruitment of Nepalese youth by China can be taken as a certainty. They would be pitched against the Indian Army or even be employed, as mercenaries, operating through open borders, like our borders with Nepal and Myanmar. Prime Ministers Modi and Prachanda jointly did inaugurate an integrated Check Post between Rupaidiha-Nepalgunj and Sunauli-Bhairahawa but much more attention is needed for the border with Nepal if we are really concerned about national security.

The report filed in the Parliament on April 6, 2022 by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) states that the CCS approved 1300 km long Indo-Nepal border road, whose construction commenced in 2010, but till 2022 only 29 percent of it was complete after overshooting the 2016 deadline by six years and spending over 3,700 crore.

Besides, of the 363 BoPs, 125 are away at a distance of more than 20 km with no provision to connect them. CAG also pointed out that at many places the alignment is “outside the jurisdiction” of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) guarding our border with Nepal. (7)

All these issues should have been taken into consideration, besides strengthening our own infrastructure in the border region, before expressing bonhomie with Prachanda.