Guest post by ANURAG ACHARYA, student from Nepal at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Peaceful coexistence among nations does not encompass coexistence between the exploiter and the exploited, the oppressor and the oppressed.
– Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara
The 1800 km open border between India and Nepal has always been a matter of dispute between the two countries. While India has glorified the open border as its grace and gratitude towards a landlocked nation, Nepal has had to accept the miseries of sharing an open border with a bigger and powerful nation as a price for a trade transit. It goes without saying that whenever there has been a proposal or a debate within Nepal about the possibility of opening a trade route across the Himalayas to our north to tap the world’s largest market for Nepalese goods, it has attracted serious concerns from the South block. Bound by the unfair Indo-Nepal treaty of 1950 which prevents Nepal from independently conducting its international affairs and thwarts Nepal’s ambition to exploit the huge trade potential with China, an end to Nepal’s historical dependence on India has not materialized yet. While the treaty gives India a free hand to interfere in Nepal’s foreign affairs, citing its own domestic security, it has seriously impaired Nepal’s right to trade access, as a landlocked nation under the International Law. The treaty also stands in clear violation and entrenchment of a sovereign nation’s right to conduct its external and internal affairs independently. However, weak diplomacy on Nepal’s part and unsympathetic attitude on the Indian side has ensured that Nepal stays dependent on India for all its exports and imports.
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