India, Nepal and the Changing Security Landscape

Nepal has always been more than India’s neighbor. It is a shoulder on our northern edge—a place where we feel no threat, where our people mingle freely with our people, where we pray fervently in our temples, and where the Gurkhas come to define valor itself. The long-standing narrative of ‘Roti-Beti’ – the sharing of bread and blood – defines how India understands and manages its relationship with Nepal. Open borders are fostered on the premise of cultural commonalities and civilizational affinities, and are no longer viewed as a policy choice but more as a natural condition. This faith-based narrative has persisted for decades.It has since undergone several drastic mutations. Adjustment and readjustment in India have also been slow. The open border that symbolizes trust has also become a threat corridor that India cannot ignore. The ISI-backed network systematically exploited the border – Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed modules using Nepal as a transit and transit zone. Radicalization quietly funded through foreign channels established an institutional foothold. Counterfeit money, drugs and human trafficking have given rise to organized crime gangs who operate with impunity. Bad money even changed hands in exchange for election funds.India’s response evolved over time—civil police, then central armed police and finally smart border management. This move is necessary. But it makes the relationship stronger. Warm narratives about shared identity gave way to a colder question: How close should it be?As India tightens its border posture, China is making strategic investments in Nepal’s people and natural terrain. China Learning Center sows cultural influence. Infrastructure investment is aimed squarely at development-parched areas where India promises much but delivers little—projects announced with great fanfare and then delayed by unclear timelines and chronic delivery deficits.China built roads and connectivity. India sent goodwill, extensions, films and publicity.The results are predictable. Nepal’s political landscape is deeply divided. The monarchy faced complete collapse. The Maoists came to power. Political instability became a permanent condition of governance in Kathmandu. Meanwhile, India continues to operate through the behind-the-scenes management of the Nepalese power bloc—a habit that reflects a deeper strategic miscalculation. China cannot strike a balance at the level of a small country sandwiched between two great powers. China must maintain a balance at the Chinese level.India has long ignored this core fact. Until 2015, everything changed. Nearly 80% of Nepal’s population lives on 20% of its land – the southern Terai belt adjacent to the Indian border. This demographic and geographical reality has always made the relationship structurally sensitive. After the devastating earthquake in 2015, Nepal was at its most vulnerable. It was at this juncture that the Madhesi community—Nepalese citizens of the southern Talei belt with deep ethnic and cultural ties to communities on the Indian border—launched a trade blockade in Kathmandu to protest what they saw as their marginalization in Nepal’s newly drafted constitution. The blockade has choked the flow of vital supplies into the already hard-hit country. India is seen as not putting enough pressure on the Madhesi group to relieve it and finds itself indifferent to Nepal’s suffering. Either way it’s hard to conclude whether this perception is fair. What is clear is that India was labeled as non-humanitarian precisely at the very moment when its humanitarian status was most important. India has struggled to restore this image.The incident exposed a deeper problem: India is invested in a relational narrative premised on civilizational unity, while ignoring the material conditions that give the narrative credibility. We breed corruption on our own soil, indulge in a patchwork of aid, and allow delivery deficits to accumulate—all while China makes smart investments in infrastructure, liquidity, and connectivity. Long after the ground has changed, we remain stuck in faith-based narratives.Gen Z aspirations exploded first in Bangladesh and then in Nepal. The demands are the same: corruption-free, transparent, accountable governance. The pressures driving this trend are equally consistent – pressure on the agricultural sector, lack of employment opportunities, lack of growth opportunities, unplanned and abrupt urbanization and the challenge of climate change. Taken together, these factors create a generation that is well connected globally but frustrated locally.India missed this shift. The religious civilizational narrative that once served as a soft anchor in Nepal has been completely rejected by this group of people. We also miss a piece of time-tested wisdom: when a son grows up to be an equal to his father, the right response is to give him dignity, space, and the freedom to choose his own path. Forcing old narratives on a changed generation will only create resentment, not affinity.Amid China’s debt-trap diplomacy and the appeals of a new generation, India continues to reason from premises that no longer fit the reality.The geopolitical environment is highly dynamic, filled with multiple conflicts and increasingly dysfunctional modes of governance. New narratives have emerged across the globe – cognitive control, balance of power through the balance of payments, mixed stress zones. China has emerged as a deep state actor in Nepal and has also brought Pakistan and Bangladesh closer to its orbit through multi-modal maneuvers, digital encirclement and high-tech surveillance. The siege on India’s periphery is real.In this context, a basic principle is once again reflected: all wars eventually end in peace. Wise countries always choose diplomacy and negotiation to avoid long-term unrest. Cooperation and mutually respectful arrangements are the only sustainable basis for long-term relationships. Even advocates of the Buddhist tradition have strayed from this middle path—but the principle itself remains sound.India must act urgently now. The 1950 treaty between India and Nepal needs revision – and this is achieved through close, assertive negotiations on the table, not through the public release of ancient baseline maps that reinforce positions and stoke conflict rather than resolve it.Nepal’s new Prime Minister has a mission of corruption-free, transparent and accountable governance. This is a real opportunity, and India must meet it with sincerity and commitment — not manipulation, not a patchwork of aid, not backroom management by power groups.On the ground, this means vibrant village initiatives along the border, shared growth pathways, different institutional linkages, start-up linkages and the promotion of industry clusters to create the right environment for viable relationships to take root. When Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is put into action—beyond fear, psychosis, and religious rigidity—and when unquestioned democratic governance supports these words, powerful, silent communication takes place naturally.If we draw larger boundaries in front of other stakeholders in the system, they will also adjust their positions. Our job is not to match what China is doing. We want to rise above it—in sincerity, in delivery, and in our respect for our neighbors, whose sovereignty and dignity are non-negotiable.The tide is turning. The question is whether India will read it in time.(The author is a former Director-General, CRPF)