Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah has reignited a border dispute with India after claiming in parliament that Nepal has additionally encroached on Indian territory – a departure from Nepal’s normal stance, which has largely centered on accusing its greater neighbour of occupying its land.
Talking on Sunday in his first formal deal with to the Federal Parliament of Nepal since turning into the nation’s youngest prime minister earlier this yr, Shah, 35, sparked anger amongst Nepali lawmakers along with his feedback.
The long-running dispute between Nepal and India over border territories together with Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani has periodically bubbled up over time. The battle is a mixture of contested historical past, geography, politics and mapping.
Here’s what Shah mentioned, what the border dispute is about, and what this implies.
What did Shah say about Kalapani-Lipulekh?
“You may be shocked to know a indisputable fact that I’ve realized just lately, solely after turning into prime minister: not solely has India encroached Nepali territory, however Nepal has additionally encroached Indian territory in lots of locations,” Shah mentioned throughout his deal with to parliament.
He didn’t elaborate on which components of India he believed Nepal had encroached on.
“Now each international locations ought to examine the info and sit collectively as pals and resolve the problem,” the Nepali chief added.
Shah was sworn in because the PM of Nepal on March 27 this yr. He was beforehand the mayor of Kathmandu, profitable the seat in 2022 as an unbiased candidate. He was a controversial determine, launching a crackdown on avenue distributors that drew criticism from civil society leaders. Earlier than this, he was a musician who used his work to focus on corruption and inequality.
Shah joined the Rastriya Swatantra Occasion (RSP) in December 2025, shortly after youth protests deposed the earlier authorities, resulting in the resignation of Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli in September 2025.
The social gathering, barely 4 years outdated, was based by former journalist Rabi Lamichhane, who’s at present a lawmaker within the Nepali parliament. Lamichhane arrived within the Indian capital of New Delhi on Monday for a five-day go to that may embrace high-level political and diplomatic talks with Indian PM Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP).
Shah added that Nepali lawmakers have reached out to China and the UK concerning the territorial dispute, the latter resulting from its colonial legacy within the Indian subcontinent.
In utilizing British assist, Shah “will not be looking for the UK’s mediation on this subject – moderately help almost about varied authentic survey maps as early as 1827 and 1834, which might strengthen our place when negotiating with India”, Nishchal Pandey, the director of the Kathmandu-based Centre for South Asian Research, instructed Al Jazeera.
Lok Raj Baral, a former Nepali diplomat, instructed Al Jazeera again in 2020 that the nation had traditionally lacked maps of its personal, and so “relied on maps revealed by British India”.
What’s the Kalapani-Lipulekh battle about?
India and Nepal share a 1,800km (1,118-mile) open border – Indians and Nepalis don’t want visas to cross over. One stretch of that border, within the far west, is disputed: the world spanning Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani.
The battle dates again to the 1816 Sugauli Treaty, which Nepal entered with British colonial rulers to outline its western border with India.
“Nepal is the oldest sovereign nation state of South Asia and by no means had any struggle with India, moderately with the British,” Pandey mentioned.
“The Treaty of Sugauli of 1816, which was signed after the Anglo-Nepalese Struggle, depicts that Nepal cedes territory ‘west of the Kali river’ however doesn’t outline the place the river Kali originates from. The treaty additionally didn’t have any map hooked up,” Pandey mentioned.
He defined that this cartographic omission has led to varied arguments in favour and towards the territory of Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani belonging to Nepal.
India pushes again towards Nepali claims over the territory, citing income data relationship again to the 1830s from India’s Uttarakhand state that counsel that the area was traditionally administered by what’s immediately India.
Indian troops have been deployed in Kalapani since New Delhi fought a struggle with Beijing in 1962. Sandwiched between India and China, Nepal selected to remain silent again then and stay impartial throughout the battle between its big neighbours.
However it has since claimed that the Kali river – the demarcation line for the boundary between India and Nepal – originates in Limpiyadhura, whereas New Delhi asserts that the river, which acts because the boundary, emerged from Lipulekh. Nepal says the river that India considers to be the border is a tributary of the primary river talked about within the 1816 treaty.
The disputed land falls between the 2 rivers.
When else has the battle come to the forefront just lately?
Final month, New Delhi announced the resumption of a spiritual pilgrimage by means of the contested Lipulekh Go. It was suspended in 2020 as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
Nepal’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs careworn that the territories of Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani are a part of Nepal, “a place on which the federal government stays clear and agency”.
India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs responded by asserting that Lipulekh has been utilized by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Bon followers for the pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar in Tibet since 1954.
“This isn’t a brand new improvement,” a spokesman mentioned. “India has constantly maintained that such claims are neither justified nor primarily based on historic info and proof. Such unilateral synthetic enlargement of territorial claims is untenable.”
In Might 2020, India inaugurated an 80km (50-mile) Lipulekh street to function the shortest route between the capital New Delhi and Kailash-Mansarovar, a revered pilgrimage web site within the Tibetan Plateau. Nepal protested against India’s inauguration of the Himalayan hyperlink street.
“The Authorities of Nepal has learnt with remorse in regards to the ‘inauguration’ yesterday by India of ‘Hyperlink Highway’ connecting to Lipulekh (Nepal), which passes by means of Nepali territory,” Nepal’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs mentioned in an announcement again then.
Is that this the identical Shah who unveiled a ‘Better Nepal’ map?
Nepal’s PM Balendra Shah has, previously, backed the thought of a “Better Nepal” – with components of present-day India included.
In 2023, after India put in a mural of “Akhand Bharat” (a Greater India) within the Parliament of India – encompassing lots of its neighbours – Shah hung a “Better Nepal” map in his workplace, together with territories that after belonged to Nepal however now lie inside India’s borders.
Neither map is a political map with clearly demarcated current‑day borders and labels like Lipulekh or Kalapani. As an alternative, each the Akhand Bharat mural and the Better Nepal map enchantment to maximalist historic visions of territory. It’s unclear the place Lipulekh and Kalpani have been on these two maps.
In June 2023, as mayor of Kathmandu, Shah ordered cinemas within the capital to cease screening Hindi movies. Screenings resumed later that month after a excessive court docket, appearing on a petition from the Nepal Movement Image Affiliation, issued an interim order telling authorities to not halt Hindi film screenings.
Basana Thapa, a parliamentarian representing the opposition Nepali Congress social gathering, demanded clarification on Shah’s feedback, the Nepali main each day, Kantipur, reported on Sunday.
In keeping with the report, Thapa mentioned: “If the prime minister’s assertion in regards to the border of the 2 international locations with out info will not be appropriate, I want to demand that it’s faraway from the document.”
Ramesh Kumar Malla, a parliamentarian representing the Nepali Communist Occasion (NCP) – additionally in opposition – described Shah’s feedback as “a derogatory assertion in regards to the nation’s nationwide integrity”, Kantipur reported.
Nepal’s former ambassador to India, Nilambar Acharya, instructed Kantipur that Nepal has not encroached on Indian land, opposite to what Shah had claimed.
“No land of India has been encroached on by the Nepali state. It’s not because the prime minister mentioned,” Acharya was quoted as saying.
On Sunday, Nepal’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs launched a response to Shah’s feedback.
The ministry assertion mentioned that each Nepal and India “have expressed their dedication to resolving border‑associated disputes by means of diplomatic channels and mutual dialogue” pertaining to the Lipulekh Go.
“The federal government’s willingness to have interaction with India on the boundary dispute is neither new nor shocking,” Anurag Acharya, a former journalist and Kathmandu-based political analyst, instructed Al Jazeera.
Acharya defined that earlier governments in Nepal have additionally tried it, with the Oli authorities and India agreeing to determine a joint Eminent Individuals Group (EPG) in 2016 to comprehensively evaluate Nepal-India relations and counsel methods to resolve all excellent bilateral points.
“Nonetheless, the train was haunted by the identical belief deficit that it got down to deal with,” Acharya mentioned.
Nepal’s Overseas Ministry mentioned that Shah had meant that there may be technical, native mismatches between authorized borders and precise land utilization or “cross‑border occupation”. For instance, Nepali residents may very well be farming or dwelling on land that, legally, is on the Indian facet of the outdated boundary line, and vice versa.
“To handle the lengthy border between Nepal and India in an orderly and scientific method, the boundary‑associated mechanisms and technical groups of the 2 international locations are energetic in areas the place mapping has been accomplished,” the ministry’s assertion mentioned.
What does this imply for Nepal?
“The prime minister’s ‘off-the-cuff’ remarks on a diplomatically delicate subject, contained in the parliament, can have severe penalties for Nepal in its bilateral negotiations with India as we negotiate on contentious border disputes,” Acharya, the Kathmandu-based political analyst, mentioned.
“I feel will probably be a baggage that Nepali negotiators must carry, if and once they sit to debate this tough subject.”
