The Other Border Problem

On November 20, 2003, a secret meeting is said to have taken place betweensome top-level Nepalese Maoist leaders and Madhav Kumar Nepal, a seniorpolitical leader and secretary of Communist Party of Nepal -- United MarxistLeninist (CPN-UML), at Lucknow. The meeting raises a number of issues regardingthe management of the Indo-Nepal border and the extent to which the NepaleseMaoists have succeeded in establishing a base, or securing safe havens, inIndia. These issues had been raised earlier as well, particularly after August17, 2001, when Maoist leader Prachanda conducted a meeting with Nepal's otherLeftist parties in Siliguri, West Bengal, immediately after the declaration ofthe cease-fire.

There has also been reportage of Maoist insurgents establishing linkageswith a mélange of Indian left-wing extremist groups -- most prominently thePeople's War Group (PWG) and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) -- and at leasttwo insurgent groups active in the North-East [the United Liberation Front ofAsom (ULFA) and the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF)].

Such subversive activity has once again brought India-Nepal border managementpractices under scrutiny. Increasing counter-insurgency operations by Nepalesesecurity forces since the breakdown of the cease-fire on August 27, 2003, havealso led to an influx of Maoist insurgents into areas bordering the Indianterritory. Moreover, events in the past suggest that whenever the Nepalesesecurity forces up the ante, Maoist cadres sneak across the largely unmonitoredand porous border to find safe haven in India.

The Lucknow meeting between the principal leader of the CPN-UML andcontending candidate for Prime Ministership, Madhav Kumar Nepal, andunidentified senior Maoist leaders, was held ostensibly to request theinsurgents to resume peace talks. Even as confusion relating to the actualintent of the Lucknow rendezvous persists, there is mounting evidence ofsubstantial movement of the Maoist leadership in India, and their close linkswith proscribed Indian Left-wing extremist groups, especially the PWG and MCC.

An Associated Press report of December 13, 2003, stated that at least 128injured Maoists from Nepal had been treated at hospitals in Uttar Pradesh, whichshares a 780 kilometer-long border with Nepal. An Uttar Pradesh Home Departmentofficial, Anil Kumar Singh, confirmed, further, "The actual number must bevery high, and many rebels, who operate through their local contacts, gettreatment at undisclosed locations."

Three suspected Maoists were arrestedon December 8 while attempting to take an injured insurgent to a hospital inLucknow. N. Ravindra, the police chief in the border district of Balarampur, where thearrests took place, disclosed that he was reportedly wounded while makingexplosives. The arrested suspects have been handed over to Nepal.

Earlier, on November 16, 2003, 7.5 quintals of sulphur, reportedly meant for Nepalese Maoists, were seized by Indian security forces in the bordervillage of Nautanhawa in Maharajganj district, Uttar Pradesh. An urgent meetingof officials from India and Nepal was subsequently conducted to beef up securityin the border areas by increasing the strength of border forces in Rupandehi,Nawalparasi and Kapilavastu in Nepal.

The India-Nepal 'open border' is unique in the sense that people of both thecountries can cross it from any point, though there are specific border checkposts as well, including 22 major and 143 sub-posts for bilateral trade. Thereare, however, six transit points for nationals of other countries, who requireentry and exit visas to cross the border. The extremely porous 1,800 kilometre-longborder, which has been maintained according to the Peace and Friendship Treatyof 1950, offers uninterrupted passage for illegal smuggling of goods, arms,ammunition and narcotics, as well as human trafficking from either side.

Indiansecurity forces began to make some efforts to check the immigrants' identitycards, citizenship papers and work permits after the IC-814 Indian Airlineshijack from Kathmandu in December 1999. Though some efforts have continued tocheck the intrusion of subversive elements, they have had little impact atground level, largely as a result of the unique border arrangements between thetwo countries. The problem is compounded by the fact that both countries haveweak, indeed, virtually non-existent, national identity and documentationsystems.

These movements constitute grave risks to security, not only for Nepal, butfor India as well, as the Maoists develop linkages, not only with ideologicallysympathetic groups in India, but with a number of other subversive groups on apurely opportunistic basis. Sources in troubledAssam indicated in November 2003 that there was increasing evidence that theproscribed ULFA was forging links with the Nepalese Maoists and may soon set upbases in the Himalayan kingdom. ULFA and the Maoists are reported to haverecently agreed to have the former operate three new bases in Nepal. Earlierreports suggest that the ULFA may already have been operating some camps inNepal. Further, ULFA and the Maoists have also reportedly agreed to sharetraining resources.

There is also some speculation that the ammunition and explosives seized inJune-July 2003 from the Jogarpara village of Bogra district in Bangladesh wereto be smuggled into Nepal for the Maoist insurgents, with the ATTF acting as aconduit. The police had arrested, among others, a suspected  cadre of theATTF, a tribal insurgent group operating in Tripura.

There have been many instances that establish the fact that the NepaleseMaoists have been procuring weapons and are conducting joint training campsalong the Bihar-Nepal border. In the recent past, the Maoist movement along the735 kilometre-long Bihar-Nepal border has been significant in the Sitamarhi,Sheohar and Madhubani districts. Similarly, Darjeeling and Siliguri have alsobeen utilized by the Maoists to establish links with Indian extremists.

The Maoists are also in a process of strengthening their alliance with otherSouth Asian left-wing extremist groups through the Coordination Committee ofMaoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) to create andeffectively utilize the Compact Revolutionary Zone (CRZ). Along the border areasin north Bihar they have formed an 'Indo-Nepal Border Regional Committee' (INBRC)to co-ordinate their activities. The porous Bihar-Nepal border, the generalbreakdown of rule of law, poor governance, and lack of sincerity and incapacityof the police forces provides a context for these groups to operate withrelative ease.

Meanwhile, the rebels have also started strengthening their position in theTarai region all along Nepal's southern borders, which constitutes 23.1% ofNepal's total area and 46.7% of its population. In a meeting of top-securityofficials in Kathmandu on October 14, 2003, Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapacandidly accepted the increasing Maoist presence in the Tarai region and the"lack of coordination among the security forces in quelling theinsurgency." In the past, the mountainous terrain of the Central and Westdistricts has proven ideal for the Maoists' hit and run guerrilla warfare, butthe plains of the Tarai do not lend themselves as easily to these tactics, andthe security forces have generally had an upper hand.

Nevertheless, the chronic neglect of the 19 districts in the Tarai region iscertainly helping the Maoists spread their tentacles all along the 15 borderdistricts in the Tarai, as also enabling increased movement from and to India.The increasing activity of Indian Left-wing extremist groups in the districts ofnorthern Bihar, close to the Nepali Tarai region, especially MCC, which wasearlier confined to southern Bihar, is evidence of the deepening nexus betweenthe Nepali Maoists and Indian extremists.

In another deeply disturbing development, on December 7, 2003, BaburamBhattarai, chief of the United People's Front, the 'political wing' of theMaoists, claimed that they were trying to 'organize' the approximately 10million Nepalese in India. These Nepalese are primarily concentrated in Sikkim,Darjeeling, Siliguri, Shillong, Dehradun, Himachal Pradesh and theGorakpur-Lucknow belts. It is plausible that much of this 'organizing' would berouted through the Akhil Bharatiya Nepali Ekta Samaj (ABNES), which is aproscribed group in India under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), 2002.ABNES was originally founded to work for the 'unity and welfare' of Nepaleseresiding in India. Gradually, it evolved into a front organization for theNepalese Maoists and is increasingly identified with the demand for a 'GreaterNepal', which includes Indian territories.

Sources indicate that ABNES secretary Bamdev Chhetri had visited Jammu inSeptember 2001 to establish contact with Kashmiri militant groups in order toset up a supply line for arms for the CPN (Maoist). Chhetri was eventuallyarrested by Indian authorities in September 2002 and subsequently deported toNepal. The arrest of Chandra Prakash Gajurel, a member of the Maoist politburo,at Chennai airport in Tamil Nadu in August 2003, when he was trying to travel toEurope to lobby for external support for their cause also needs to be seen inthis context.

While India has been primarily concentrating on securing its borders withPakistan and Bangladesh, its open border system with Nepal is now evidentlythreatened by continuing Maoist transgressions. It is imperative that existingborder management practices are reviewed in light of the rapidly changingdynamics of insurgency within Nepal, and their overflow into India, as well asof the need to maintain a 'terror free' border between the two countries.

P.G. Rajamohan is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management.Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal