The longer New Delhi takes to modernise transport links with its neighbours, the greater will be its heartburn at the unstoppable Chinese penetration of India’s borderlands. The more anxious India gets about new rail and road links between China and Nepal, the stronger will be Kathmandu’s enthusiasm to demonstrate its ‘foreign policy autonomy’ from New Delhi.

India’s answer will have to be three-fold. One is to upgrade its own rail and road connectivity with Nepal. India does have plans — on paper — to extend the current rail links with Nepal deeper into the Terai.

Second, India needs to get bolder and come up with a project to take a rail line right into the Kathmandu valley. In the past the presumed costs of cutting through the mountains had reinforced India’s strategic timidity. If China can bring a rail line across the daunting terrain of Tibet, why can’t India take it across the Himalayas?

Finally, India must link up its own transport projects in Nepal with those of China. Instead of worrying about something it can’t stop, New Delhi must join Beijing in opening up the Himalayan borderlands — including Tibet and Xinjing — for benefit of India and China and all those in between.

Do consider the contrast between the border policies of Beijing and New Delhi. China is building road and rail links with its neighbours in Central Asia to the west, the subcontinent and Burma to the south, and Indo-China to the southeast. India is doing the exact opposite — building fences and raising more security forces to police the borders.

... contd.