A day after Prime Minister Balen Shah acknowledged in Parliament that Nepal had, in some places, encroached on Indian territory, Kathmandu has been scrambling to manage the political and diplomatic backlash. The comment came as Shah answered lawmakers about the disputed Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura and Kalapani area, a strategically sensitive Himalayan sector near the India-Nepal-China tri-junction that Nepal also claims.
Shah said he had recently discovered that encroachment had occurred in both directions, noting that it was not only India that had occupied Nepali land. His admission touched off sharp reactions at home and raised concerns in New Delhi, given the long-running sensitivity of those border claims.
The Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura disagreement traces back to the 1816 Treaty of Sugauli between Nepal and British India. The treaty used the Kali River as Nepal’s western boundary, but differing interpretations of the river’s origin have long fuelled disputes. While roughly 97 percent of the nearly 1,850-kilometre India-Nepal border has been settled, the Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura area in the northwest and Susta in the south remain unresolved.
Tension focuses on Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura because India maintains administrative and military presence there. Lipulekh Pass is also used for the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage route, which Nepal contests, arguing the pass lies inside Nepali territory. The opening in 2020 of an 80-kilometre road from Dharchula to Lipulekh by India prompted Kathmandu to revise its constitution and publish a new political map that incorporated Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura.
Shah’s remarks prompted a flurry of clarifications and criticism from Nepali media, diplomats and former officials. Some foreign policy experts called the prime minister’s comment inappropriate and inaccurate for a sitting head of government. Former Nepali ambassador to India Nilambar Acharya noted that India has not formally accused Nepal of occupying Indian territory in the way the prime minister suggested.
Kathmandu’s foreign ministry moved to limit the damage, saying the prime minister had been referring to cross-border occupation and local encroachment in the Dasgaja area, the legally defined 10-yard (about 30-metre) no man’s land that separates the two countries in some stretches.
Technical surveys carried out by both sides inform parts of the debate. Toya Baral, former director general of Nepal’s Department of Survey and a lead on the 2007 mapping project, told local media that the bilateral GPS-based survey completed that year found cases of people and cultivation crossing the boundary. Baral cited figures showing roughly 1,200 hectares of Nepali land occupied by Indian citizens and about 1,250 hectares of Indian land lying within Nepal’s de facto boundary, based on the 2007 work.
Baral emphasized that many encroachment and possession issues along the international border remain unresolved and are being handled through the border working group. He also said the situation in Susta is a clear case of Indian encroachment, whereas the Kalapani sector is fundamentally a territorial dispute, and that the prime minister’s broader claim that Nepal had formally encroached on Indian territory was technically incorrect.
As officials and experts seek to clarify Shah’s words, the government is working to calm public reaction at home and avoid diplomatic escalation with India. The episode has highlighted the complexities of historic treaties, local land use across a long, porous frontier, and the political sensitivities that surround any public statement about disputed segments of the Nepal-India border.