Kashmir — symptom, not cause

• A territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, with China claiming portions of PoK and Aksai Chin. Dates from 22 October 1947; on the United Nations agenda since partition.
• Both claim the entire region; three wars (1947–48, 1965, 1999) and repeated skirmishes.
• Rajesh Basrur — Kashmir is more a symptom than a cause; the main contradiction is a conflict of identity. It is a battle of identities, not only of territory.
• India is relatively status-quoist, Pakistan revisionist. Pervez Musharraf treated Kashmir as Pakistan’s jugular vein; for India the core issue is cross-border terrorism.
• Pakistan argues for self-determination and cites human rights violations while ignoring Balochistan.

Why each side holds on

• For India → strengthens secular identity; strategic location for security and for countering Chinese designs; freshwater availability.
• For Pakistan → part of Islamic identity; Muslim brotherhood; water resources.

Where it stands

• C. Raja Mohan — India’s August 2019 move is stuck in Pakistan’s political throat: it can neither swallow it nor spit it out. Pakistan’s current Kashmir debate is about finding a way out.
• Ashley J. Tellis — even if Kashmir were settled, Pakistan is unlikely to give up jihadi terrorism, since the Army’s grievances are too deeply rooted to forego its most effective instrument for bleeding India.

The other three territorial disputes

Thalweg Principle

Where a boundary is a waterway, it follows the centre of the principal navigable channel. India invokes it at Sir Creek; Pakistan’s reply is that the creek is not a navigable channel at all.

Siachen — possible solutions

• Shyam Saran — the two came close thrice, in 1989, 1992 and 2006, and failed each time over trust deficit. He favours a settlement: the glacial region is a most inhospitable theatre and the extraordinary human and material costs on troops would justify a review.
• Manmohan Singh proposed making Siachen a ‘mountain of peace’ with joint exploration; the Indian Army opposed it.
• Stephen P. Cohen considers the dispute futile and remarks that the conflict is like two bald persons fighting over a comb.
• Options discussed → a ‘glacier of peace’ occupied by neither side; mutual withdrawal without delineation (undesirable and unlikely); mutual withdrawal after jointly recording current military positions and exchanging them as an annexure without prejudice to stated positions, pending final settlement of the LoC and AGPL — the most workable, since Pakistan agreed to it in 1992; conversion into an international site for glacial research.

Territorial disputes — Kalapani, Lipulekh, Susta

• Rajiv Sikri sets the frame: ‘Indians have taken Nepal too much for granted. India’s approach towards Nepal has been dismissive and neglectful. The Indian government and public have never shown adequate sensitivity to Nepali pride and uniqueness.’ David M. Malone adds that Nepal has several concerns beyond worries over excessive Indian interference; Nepalese hold that treaties and agreements are ‘unequal’, which prevents the two from tapping the full potential of cooperation.
• After the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir, India published a new map in November 2019 showing Kalapani as Indian territory. Nepal objected and in 2020 laid claim to the Limpiyadhura–Lipulekh tri-junction.
• The Kali river delineates the border through the Kalapani region; the dispute covers about 35 sq km where the border is marked by the Mahakali. The Gandak forms the international boundary elsewhere. The Treaty of Sugauli (1816) is the basis of demarcation, with a Supplementary Boundary Treaty concluded the same year.
• Susta — about 140 sq km in Uttar Pradesh at the Terai border, under Indian control and claimed by Nepal; the change of course of the Gandak is the main cause. The 1981 Boundary Committee delineated 98% of the border but not Susta.
• India termed the claim a ‘unilateral act’ not based on historical facts and evidence. Nepal’s new political map came in retaliation for the Indian road from Dharchula to Lipulekh.

Kalapani — one river, two readings

• Nepal’s reading — Limpiyadhura is the source of the Kali — higher than the rest of the river’s flow — which places Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani east of the Kali. Evidence cited: Sugauli 1816 · the 2020 political map · about 35 sq km at stake
• India’s reading — The border begins at Kalapani, where the river originates in springs below the Lipulekh pass; the ground north of these streams is not clearly delineated by Sugauli. Evidence cited: nineteenth-century historical, administrative and revenue records · continuous administration since the 1950s · infrastructure development · a 2015 Chinese statement on expanding trade through the Lipulekh pass

Sugauli leaves the ground north of the streams undelineated — that silence is the dispute

The boundary dispute — three sectors

China’s package proposal, and Shyam Saran’s formula

• In 1985 China reinterpreted the package proposal — India to concede in the east (the largest disputed area) for undefined western concessions — and made an explicit demand for the “restitution” of Tawang, hardening its position.
• Shyam Saran suggests an LAC-plus solution — a limited Chinese territorial concession on the Indian side against free access to Tawang for Chinese pilgrims — a ‘Package Proposal without Tawang’ meeting somewhere in the middle.