India-Nepal Boundary Dispute Needs Solution

The boundary mess between India and Nepal needs a solution in a manner as mentioned by Nepal's Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal: 'On evidence not emotions', counsels Lieutenant General Shakti Gurung (retd).

With the coming of the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) to power in Nepal, India-Nepal relations are now on centre stage.

Propelled by the Gen Z revolution of September 2025, the RSP led by its young and dynamic leader Balendra Shah, the former mayor of Kathmandu, has promised a transparent and corruption free government to his people.

Putting the baggage of the past three decades behind it, the RSP has laid out an agenda to put Nepal on the map to sound economic development and secure diplomatic relations.

Constituting a cabinet comprising of intellectuals and experts belonging to various sectors with no past ideological affiliations and biases the RSP promises a new phase in Nepal's future.

That relations with India hold centre stage have been more than adequately emphasized by two high level visits by RSP Chairman Rabi Lamichhane followed closely by Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal within the first hundred days of the government.

During his visit, in an interview with NDTV, Shishir Khanal very clearly elucidated the priority areas for improving India-Nepal relations.

Highlighting problem areas Khanal remarked, 'These should be resolved based on hard evidence and not emotions.'

Khanal's remark can be assumed to be directed to the boundary issue that has cropped up concerning Lipulekh, a pass used by Indian pilgrims since the early 1950s on their way to the holy lake of Mansarovar and Mount Kailash.

Rewinding the pages of history, the genesis of Nepal's western boundary problem points to the Treaty of Sagauli signed at the end of the Anglo-Gorkha War 1814-1816.

This was when Nepal had to return all territories it had annexed in India ever since it crossed the Kali river in 1788 beginning its conquests of Kumaon, Garhwal and areas in the Punjab Hills as Himachal Pradesh was then known.

The Lipulekh issue is a fallout of Article V of the Treaty of Sagauli which spells out the boundary between India and Nepal as lying along the Kali river but which does not clearly specify which is the river.

The text of Article V reads as follows: 'The Rajah of Nipal renounces for himself, his heirs, and successors, all claim to or connextion with the countries lying to the west of the River Kali and engages never to have any concern with those countries or the inhabitants there of.'

No map of the area is known to have been attached to the Treaty, which is usually done, due to lack of technical expertise in cartography existing at that time.

From this have now emerged three versions of the Kali river -- Mahakali which flows from Limpiyadhura now known as Kuti Yankti in the west, the Kali river which flows from Lipulekh now known as Lipugadh in the centre, and the stream that flows out of the Kali temple further east.

The first is claimed correct by Nepal, the second by the East India Company and the third by India. This is the problem.

If evidence be the key to resolving the issue one has to relook at the pages of history to the situation that prevailed at the end of the Anglo-Gorkha War 1814-1816 and signing of the Treaty of Sagauli.

The British Case For Lipulekh

The Gorkha army had been beaten back eastwards across the Kali river and it was now time for the East India Company to decide on the boundary between the two countries.

The treaty was signed only on March 4, 1816 and it was sometime in end 1815 that the East India Company decided on the boundary with two things in mind -- the boundary must run along a formidable barrier to prevent any further intrusions from Nepal, and secondly it must provide a passage to enable trade to the north.

Extracts from a reproduced letter from John Adam, secretary to the government, to Edward Gardner, commissioner of Kumaon, dated May 3, 1815, states clearly as to how the boundary was to be decided. This reads as follows:

'7 As soon as the Goorkha troops shall have withdrawn from Kumaon and the passage of the Sarda be secured, your attention will be directed to the introduction and establishment of the authority of the Government throughout the province.

'On the subject, no instructions are deemed to be necessary, beyond which you have already been furnished; except in as much as refers to the boundary which should be assigned to the province.

'All the maps in possession of the government are so incorrect, that no satisfactory judgment can be framed from them with regard what interests of the Company may require in that respect. To the eastward the Sarda appears to present a natural limit.'

'Still the important object of securing the trade with Tartary through the Himmaleh mountains against the interference of the Goorkhas might not be attained by fixing that river as the boundary: you are therefore requested to satisfy yourself on this point: and should it appear that a frontier beyond the Sarda, in the part where it approaches the mountains, will be required for the purpose above-mentioned, the extent of it must be defined; so as that the cession of that tract must be made a stipulation in any negotiation with the Goorkha government.'

Source: General Sir Sam Cowan: Maharaja, Emperors, Viceroys, Borders: Nepal's Relations North and South.

The river Sarda is also known as Mahakali in Nepal. This was later renamed Kuti Yankti by the British. From 1815 to 1816 for more than a year Lord Moira, the governor general of the East India Company, and his staff had debated whether the Sarda was to be the boundary or whether it had to be shifted eastwards.

As the Sarda did not meet the twin requirements of Lord Moira, the option of shifting the boundary to the river flowing from Lipulekh was considered and approved.

To display fairness and genuine concern for the new boundary as also to make strong its claim, Lord Moira went a step ahead accepting to hand over Tinkar and Chhangru the two Byansi villages claimed by Bam Sah the governor of neighbouring Doti province in Nepal in early 1817, as these lay to the east of the river from Lipu Lekh which had been demarcated as the boundary by the East India Company.

Thereafter in the second half of 1817 Bam Sah sent another request for Kuti and Nabhee the two remaining Byansi villages lying to the east of Sarda (Kuti Yankti) as well.

This was done by him to assert Nepal's claim that the Kuti Yankti was actually the main Kali Nadi as it carried more volume of water when compared to the river from Lipulekh.

As expected this was shot down by Lord Moira as not being in consonance with the laid down boundary of the Kali Nadi which was from Lipulekh Pass.

However, four years after Lord Moira left India, in 1827 based on an Act of Parliament, James Surgh, hydrographer to the East India Company, published a map that showed Kuti Yankti or Sarda flowing from Limpiyadhura as the 'Kalee' Nadi.

Thereafter in 1850 and 1856 two maps (shown below) were published by the Survey of India that clarified what the governor general had decreed in 1815-1816.

These maps showed the Lipulekh pass as the tri-junction between India, Nepal and China and the river flowing from the area of the pass as the Kali Nadi and the western boundary of Nepal.

Even in June 1997 during then prime minister I K Gujral's visit to Nepal when the western boundary issue was first raised officially, there was no mention of Limpiyadhura.

The limit of the western boundary was always along the line of the Kali Nadi which Nepal assumed flowed from Lipulekh.

Nepal's then prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala had even written a note to the national assembly on June 18, 1968 very clearly stating how and why Lipulekh was the tri junction between India, China and Nepal and laying their claim to Kalapani.

In 1879 extensive cartographic surveys with technical instruments were undertaken and a new map produced by the Survey of India drew Nepal's western boundary running from slightly west of the Tinkar Pass at Point 5570 approximately five kilometres east of Lipulekh. This gives an additional 62 square kilometres to India.

The reason for this alteration in the boundary was attributed to changes in the longitudinal methods applied by the 1850 map and the more technically specific 1879 map.

A second reason given for this alteration was the scale used in the 1850 map which was 3 British miles/inch and the 1879 map which was based on 1 inch/mile.

Another possible reason is that the 1879 boundary follows the watershed of the Kali Nadi eastwards of Lipulekh which then turns in a westerly direction making a bowl in which is located the settlement of Kalapani.

The 1879 map was what was handed over by the British at the time of independence to India which the latter believes to be correct.

Furthermore in support of the Indian claim to this map, local knowledge mentions a spring or a pond at the settlement of Kalapani from where flows out a stream deemed to be holy known colloquially as Kali Nadi.

Pilgrims in the past are known to quench their thirst at this spring which is at the foot of an old Kali temple.

The colour of the water is dark that further prompted the name of Kali Nadi. This stream joins Lipugadh flowing down from Lipulekh which thereafter becomes the Kali Nadi.

India therefore believes the stream is the origin of Kali Nadi and not the one from Lipulekh or Limpiyadhura.

The Indian version of Kali Nadi is also fed by streams flowing down from the watershed that surrounds the Kalapani bowl. It is for this reason that India believes that the boundary shown in the 1879 map is correct.

Viewed technically India's contention is right which then makes the Kalapani area and the Lipulekh pass well within Indian territory.

India is thus justified having made the road to Kalapani and beyond securing its claim over the route to Lake Mansarovar and Mount Kailash as well.

In cartography the usual norm is to accept the latest map especially when the publishing agency is the same, in this case the Survey of India.

It would therefore be safe to assume that the 1827, 1850 and 1856 maps had been superseded by the 1879 one which should now be treated as the genuine one. This needs to be accepted graciously by Nepal.

Nepal's Chu Che Naksha Claim

Nepal has gone a step ahead and printed a Chu Che Naksha (Beaked Map) that shows Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani in its territory.

This claim was approved by Nepal's parliament in May 2020 and has the legal stamp of its Lower House.

The area being claimed now amounts to 335 square kilometres from the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand.

However Nepal's new Prime Minister Balen Shah in his first speech to parliament in May 2026 has revealed that Nepal too was in possession of Indian territory in the Terai areas between the Kali (Sarda) and Rapti river basins.

These areas were given to Nepal by the British as a reward and token of gratitude for assisting in quelling the rioters in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.

Not revealed by earlier Nepalese governments the above statement by Balen Shah has shown him to be 'open and positive' to looking at the boundary issue with transparency.

From John Adam's letter dated May 3, 1815 to Edward Gardner it is evident that Kuti Yankti (Sarda) had also been seen as a choice for Lord Moira.

However as the river did not meet both the objectives that Moira had set out for himself, it was ruled out in 1815-1816.

Kali Nadi emanating from Lipulekh met all the pre-requisites and was thus christened by Moira as Nepal's western boundary.

As the East India Company were the victors in the war and as Nepal was still not a nation state and comprised only of numerous kingdoms in 1815-1816, the Company assumed it was their discretion to decide the boundaries.

And as they had just defeated the Gorkha army they went about it as they did. However, this too underwent a change in the map of 1879 that was handed over to India by the departing British at the time of independence, and this is what has been followed thereafter.

In spite of claiming that the 1879 map was drawn unilaterally by India, Nepal too has been following this map in all its discussions and agreements thereafter for 200 years both with India and China till it was first raised in 1967.

Whether this was a failing on its part is an aspect that must be looked into by them alone.

Furthermore on December 21, 1923, the Nepal-Britain Treaty of Friendship that was signed was a landmark bilateral agreement that officially recognised Nepal as a fully sovereign and independent nation.

It even superseded the Treaty of Sagauli 1815-1816 and affirmed that neither country would interfere in the other's internal or external affairs.

This was an opportunity Nepal had to correct the 'assumed earlier wrong' but here again it missed out.

While evidence can go either which way, the boundary mess between India and Nepal needs a solution in a manner as mentioned by Nepal's Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal: 'On evidence not emotions'.

Lieutenant General Shakti Gurung, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, VSM (retd), an alumnus of NDA Khadakvasla and IMA Dehradun, was commissioned into The Grenadiers in June 1975.
During his career spanning forty years, General Gurung held important command and staff appointments in the army and has also served as India's defence attache in Myanmar from May 2000 to December 2003.
He is an M Phil in Military and Strategic Studies, is settled in Dehradun and is actively involved in speaking and writing on strategic and security affairs.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff