Sir Sam Cowan worked with Gurkha soldiers for many years in Nepal but also in Malaya, Singapore and Borneo, eventually becoming Colonel Commandment of the Brigade of Gurkhas and the Chairman of the Gurkha Welfare Trust. In this capacity he interacted with several of Nepal’s key players, including King Birendra and King Gyanendra. After retirement from the army, Cowan started researching and writing articles on Nepali history. This new book brings together a selection of his more popular and important articles in Maharajas, Emperors, Viceroys, Borders: Nepal’s relations North and South.
The first section of the book discusses the Kalapani Lipulekh border dispute, a disputed territory between Northwest Nepal and India, which after festering for several years, exploded into diplomatic animosity in 2020. Cowan provides much needed context and a detailed investigation into major aspects of the case, including a history of the frontier, created in the aftermath of 1814-1816 Anglo-Nepal war and subsequent Sugauli Treaty. Drawing on reproductions of files and maps from the Indian archives and relevant academic studies, Cowan details the roles and limitations of the frontier demarcation and explains that years later, during the Cold War, these territorial disputes were a microcosm of wider fears and tensions in the region. While India felt that in order to provide security from China, India’s sovereignty would only be guaranteed if all the Himalaya was secured, not just the Indian Himalaya but Bhutanese and Nepali too. To do so required a strong military presence near or on other countries’ borders. Yet while Nepal worried that it ran the risk of becoming a mere province of India, it also required assistance guarding its long remote frontier. The Indian military extended an offer to Nepal to help open and run border checkpoints between Tibet and Nepal and from 1952 to 1969, there were 18 Indian military checkpoints on Nepal’s northern frontier.
Moving back to Lipulekh, Cowan claims that there was a long-established diplomatic precedent for China and India treating Lipulekh as Indian territory and as a recognized border post between India and China. Whereas Nepal had made no attempt to create similar diplomatic convention or support, as he writes “Nepal’s case for Kalapani has been badly undermined by long years of silence on the issue by the country’s leaders.” Details of the case are too vast to go into here, but Cowan provides a balanced understanding of the border dispute and the geopolitical realities. Ultimately this is an issue that will rumble on for many more years to come as
India now sees Lipulekh and Kalapani as indissolubly linked, and intimately tied to its larger and now increasingly bitter, unresolved border dispute with China. This is what makes the disputes so intractable.
The book isn’t just focused on border disputes. There’s coverage of the Nepal-Tibet war of 1792, which was a rude awakening for the Gorkhas, who suffered a rare military defeat and were forced to sign a Peace Treaty. Cowan also provides a detailed analysis of the East India Company and its relationship with the Qing Dynasty, and how this relationship directly impacted the EICs own relationship with Nepal. As Cowan states,
it is not possible to analyse British policy towards Nepal at this time, without understanding the reasons for the deep rooted British intent to try to avoid upsetting China.
There’s an in-depth essay on King Mahendra and his role in key events of Nepali history, including the drafting of the 1959 constitution by Sir Ivor Jennings who amid Cold War anxiety placed internal stability over the democratic rights of Nepal’s citizens leading the way for Mahendra’s subsequent coup in 1960. Cowan does an admirable job in portraying not just the fallout and resistance to the coup, but the inner worries and doubts of Mahendra amid threats from the oppositional guerrilla movement.
The deep relationship between the Ranas, who ruled Nepal autocratically for 104 years, and the British, who gave them legitimacy, is explored in an essay on the importance that the many military awards and insignia played in internal Rana politics. As the Ranas greatly desired these awards,
this keenness to get not just an award but the most senior and prestigious one possible gave the British officials more opportunities to try to use the awards to get Nepal’s rulers to adopt policies that were advantageous to British interests.
This essay provides interesting insight on a lesser explored avenue of Anglo-Rana relationships.
Cowan provides great insight over key areas of Nepali history and illuminates some lesser ones. Meticulously researched, drawing on archival access complemented with deep personal experience, Cowan’s research is illuminating and the book an insightful collection on key events in Nepal’s past.