As Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli prepares to visit China and India, a land-related dispute between Nepal and India has once again flared up.
The dispute escalated after India and China agreed to open trade through the Lipulekh pass, which Nepal has long claimed as an integral part of its territory.
By issuing a revised map that included Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura, and Kalapani, Oli’s government promoted his nationalist image. That map, closely linked to Oli’s image, has now become a major challenge for his upcoming visits to China and India.
Oli is scheduled to travel to China on August 30 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit and, upon return, visit India in the second week of September.
Some argue that it is not appropriate to travel at a time when the dispute has intensified, while others believe he should raise the issue during the visits. The Prime Minister’s Secretariat has not expressed any comment on the matter.
There is concern over whether the escalating land dispute will enter the agenda of these visits to the two neighboring countries, and how the issue might be resolved.
Experts in foreign affairs, however, say that visiting India in such a situation has no justification. International relations and security expert Indra Adhikari states that foreign visits should not be made just to fulfill formalities without a special agenda.
“It is better to undertake visits with a core agenda. But this is not the time to travel merely for formalities,”Adhikari says. “Such visits usually cover issues where both countries have reached agreement. That requires long preparation. In times of disputes and without a special agenda, it’s better not to go just for protocol.”
Adhikari suggests forming a common position through an all-party meeting and presenting Nepal’s case before its neighbors based on facts and evidence with the help of experts. She stresses that Nepal should be clear on diplomatic, political, and technical levels.
Amid shifting global geopolitics, she emphasizes that Nepal must engage in calm, balanced, fact-based, and continuous effective initiatives.
She further advises against using sensitive issues like relations with neighbors for political consumption, stating that future governments should uphold past decisions regarding nationalism and sovereignty, and avoid making unnecessary public remarks on land disputes and neighborhood relations.
According to her, after publishing the revised map, the government did not take effective initiatives to follow up on it.
“We focused too much on speaking, posting status, and making media noise, while India and China quietly continued their activities. They created frameworks to move forward with practical implementation. Nepal needs to learn from this approach,” Adhikari says. “But we haven’t worked at levels where our concerns would be heard.”
She adds, “I see Nepal’s weakness here. We are the ones claiming that we are encroached upon and treated unfairly. Yet, we haven’t sat down to discuss with either India or China, saying it is our land and let’s resolve it. Issuing statements or just speaking should not be enough.”
After India and China agreed to conduct trade via Lipulekh, Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement urging both sides not to build roads, expand infrastructure, or conduct cross-border trade in Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh, and Kalapani, which it said are integral parts of Nepal.
Diplomatic expert Dr. Nishchal Nath Pandey says that because Nepal has mostly remained silent at other times, India and China have ignored it.
“Issuing a statement once in five years and not raising the issue at other times clearly shows that both India and China take Nepal lightly,” he says.
He questions why the issue of reclaiming Nepal’s land has not been raised during high-level visits from Nepal to India and China, and vice versa.
“Every Nepali prime minister has visited India and occasionally China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping have also visited Nepal. Why did Nepali leaders not raise the issue then?” Pandey asks. “Why was it not discussed during the recent visit of the Indian Foreign Secretary?”
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had invited Prime Minister Oli to visit India during his recent trip to Nepal.
In this context, Nepali Congress General Secretary Bishwa Prakash Sharma, opposing the India–China agreement, has presented a six-point suggestion to Prime Minister Oli.
He has suggested calling an all-party meeting to form a common commitment, sending another diplomatic note to both neighbors, convincing them based on historical facts, raising the border dispute issue during Oli’s upcoming visits, and submitting the Nepal–India Eminent Persons Group (EPG) report to the prime ministers of both countries.
