Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Dateline

Niraj Aryal

The issue of land encroachment by our much-loved neighbor whom we love to hate at times and also share age old cultural and religious ties no longer remains a matter of conversation among the people living in this side of the boarder.

The ignorance exhibited by the state that shares jovial relations with India more so after the April change and the mainstream media that remains ever obliged for receiving their share while promoting India originating luxury products in Nepal, issues as such going unnoticed is explicable.

To some extent it is the ever mounting fluidity in the political setup of this country that has since long paved way for the Indian side to advance further into the Nepali territory either in the name contentious border issues or even in the name of controlling the cross-boarder illegal activities.

There is yet again the much repeated issue of the Pakistani terrorists groups using Nepali bordering areas to wage indiscriminate war against India that has also provoked the Indian establishment to spread its tentacles in the Himalayan Kingdom . A bogus issue manufactured by those seated in the South Block who gulp the tax payer's money in the name of ensuring security.

Of late yet another incident of land encroachment by the Indian side has come to the fore and there is a danger as usual that this issue as well will be neglected by the subservient-friendly state in Nepal and the Nepali media that prefers to remain confined within the capital centered political developments.

It is once more the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) that infringed upon the Nepali territory in the Parsa district in the southern part of the country. The locals from the area talking to a local newspaper said that the BSF of late has set up a camp in the Nepali land in the Thori Nirmal settlement in the Parsa district. It was also reported that the camp was built between pillars No. 83 and No.85, part of a chain of pillars demarcating the Nepal-India border. Later, the BSF began subjecting people traveling in that area to security checks and also started clearing trees in that area. A local vernacular weekly (The Dristhi Weekly dated 19 th December, 2006 ) citing local leader pointed out that since five decades the Indian establishment is eyeing on the Thute River that is flowing in the area. Around fifteen years back the BSF had uprooted the pillar No 85 to put forward their claim on this part of the Nepali land, another local told the local weekly. Reports indicated that the area remained tensed for longtime, finally, the retaliation from the locals saw an end to yet another infringement into the Nepali territorial sovereignty.

Amid all these incidents, the state structure located within the mountain locked capital of Kathmandu prefers to keep mum. The nouveau arrived bunch of radicals who came into existence lambasting anti-Indian slogans too have kept a stoic silence which is sufficient to question their democratic as well as nationalistic credentials.

Well well well! When our own leaders kneel down then, our big brother has every right "according to international norms and conducts between nations" to twist our arms.