Nepal-India border dynamics

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, thousands of Nepali migrant workers working in India returned home to be with their families during the challenging time. After exhausting their savings and sensing limited to no employment opportunities in their home country, they have now begun returning to India, with better hopes for jobs there. On a completely different note, India recently banned onion export owing to its domestic shortage. This ban resulted in a massive price hike in the Nepali market. Given the Nepali people's preference for Indian onions over the Chinese onions, the price will continue to rise until India relaxes the export. These two isolated examples paint only a small picture of Nepal's (inter)dependence on the Indian economy, which often gets noticeable attention in the debates concerning Nepal-India relations. What often remains under-stressed is the people-to-people relations between the two countries. While negotiating the 'special' relationship between the two countries, leaders often forget that the Nepal-India bond is more than a relationship between Delhi and Kathmandu. Its fate cannot be decided merely by political elites.

Earlier this year, Vice-chairman of ruling CPN Bam Dev Gautam expressed his desire to build a five-meter tall wall along the Nepal-India border. Given the issue's sensitivity due to the recurring border disputes, strict restrictions along the border may appear to many as a logical response. However, the romanticism of such harsh measures ignores the ground reality of thousands of Nepalis living along the border, whose livelihoods depend not just on Nepal's amicable relationship with India but also on the open Nepal-India border. The flow of people and goods between the two countries is so vital for the survival and everyday lives of the people living in the border regions that no border control measure ever completely shuts the nuanced dynamics of the border. This has been evident during the coronavirus-related national lockdowns of the two countries. Although the border remains 'closed' officially, people who live near lesser-known and informal border points continue to visit their families and shop from the towns across the border. Such cross-border activities are unavoidable necessities of the people, which even the deadly pandemic has not been able to tame. National debates on the Nepal-India relationship and border control fail to consider such complexities and nuances of the cross-border dynamics.