Watch: Kalapani Local Urges ‘Not to Protest in Kathmandu Claiming the Territory’

Kalapani is a territory that is situated in Darchula district of Sudurpaschim Province. It is a major border dispute as the land is also claimed by India.

It is a tri-junction point between India, Nepal and China. It is important to Nepal and India regarding the border dispute. But, not just that, India and China also find the area important as the pass to build a road connecting Indian pilgrims to Kailash Mansarover in Tibet. It is also a place of strategic importance for India and China to logistically build up military troops on the border.

The Oli led government of Nepal on 2020 had published a new map of Nepal, officially claiming the area in which Indian defense minister inaugurated a road few weeks prior to that. Following the publish of new Nepal’s map, every citizen took pride in the decision.

Even though, Nepal officially claims the territory the border dispute doesn’t seems will come to end very easily. Narendra Modi visited the area few months earlier and Nepali officials were nowhere to be informed. The streets of Kathmandu have seen a lots of protest claiming the Kalapani as the territory of Nepal. The shouts were mostly against ‘India to back off’ and government to take action plan. As every proudly claims Kalapani to be a part of Nepal, only few knows the reality of people living there.

In an recent episode of Herne Katha, presenter Bidhya Chapagain travelled to Kalapani to get the narratives of people there. In that video, while interacting with a local, on of them pledged the people from Kathmandu not to protest in capital saying that ‘Kalapani is ours’. He said that the reality of the situation there is very hard as they have to rely on India for their food and facilities. He further went on to say that there is not even a roadway to connect Kalapani with rest of Nepal.

“People from Kathmandu will never understand our situation. We are dependent to India for our daily needs. We have a huge stature of Nepal”s map here in Kalapani with that chuchho but that’s not going to feed us. We don’t have a road to connect us to Nepal. Only we know, how we are surviving here. First of all, lets build a road to connect us and then protest. After the road will be built, we will be the first one to join protest. We want to be a part of Nepal, but reality is not as simple as that,” he said.

Watch the full video here: