Treaty of Sugauli

Sugauli Treaty

Bhimsen Thapa's Gorkha troops (right) at Segauli, (c. 1849)
Drafted	2 December 1815
Signed	4 March 1816
Location	Sugauli, India
Condition	one fourth of Nepalese controlled territory was ceded to British East India Company
Expiration	None
Signatories	Parish Bradshaw Guru Gajaraj Mishra
Parties	East India Company Nepal
Language	English
Full text
Treaty of Sugauli at Wikisource

The territorial effects of the Treaty of Sugauli (1816)

Map of Hindostan or India (1814) by Mathew Carey.

The Treaty of Sugauli (also spelled Sugowlee, Sagauli and Segqulee), the treaty that established the boundary line of Nepal, was signed on 4 March 1816 between the East India Company and Guru Gajraj Mishra following the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814–16.

Background

Following the Unification of Nepal under Prithvi Narayan Shah, Nepal attempted to enlarge its domains, conquering much of Sikkim in the east and, in the west, the basins of Gandaki and Karnali and the Uttarakhand regions of Garhwal and Kumaon. This brought them in conflict with the British, who controlled directly or indirectly the north Indian plains between Delhi and Calcutta. A series of campaigns termed the Anglo-Nepalese War occurred in 1814–1816. In 1815 the British general Ochterlony evicted the Nepalese from Garhwal and Kumaon across the Kali River, ending their 12-year occupation, which is remembered for its brutality and repression.

Octherlony offered peace terms to the Nepalese demanding British suzerainty in the form of a British resident and the delimitation of Nepal's territories corresponding roughly to its present-day boundaries. The Nepalese refusal to accede to the terms led to another campaign the following year, targeting the Kathmandu Valley, after which the Nepalese capitulated.

Terms

Historian John Whelpton writes:

Negotiations for a general settlement produced a draft which was initialled at Sagauli in Bihar in December 1815 and required Nepal to give up all territories west and east of its present-day borders, to surrender the entire Tarai and to accept a permanent British representative (or 'resident') in Kathmandu. The Nepalese government initially balked at these terms, but agreed to ratify them in March 1816 after Ochterloney occupied the Makwanpur Valley only thirty miles from the capital.

Article - I

There shall be perpetual peace and friendship between the Honourable East India Company and the King of Nepal.

Article - II

The Rajah of Nipal renounces all claim to the lands which were the subject of discussion between the two States before the war, and acknowledges the right of the Honourable Company to the sovereignty of those lands.

Geographic Context

Nepal boasts a salt trade route to Tibet that has been in installment for many decades. This was significant to the economic well-being of the valley of Kathmandu. As the British East Indian Company had profited from Indian trade routes, Nepal’s trade routes were desirable to conquer.

Nepal was a relatively newly established nation that did not have well-established boundaries with lax enforcement around the supposed borders. In conjunction with its frustration with this, and its desire for the trade routes, the British East Indian Company declared war against Nepal known as the Anglo-Nepalese War from 1814 to 1816. Nepal’s advantage lied in their highly esteemed army of men known as the “Gurkhas” whom were also of interest to the Company. As a smaller and less developed country, Nepal eventually relented in the war and agreed upon a ceasefire under the terms and conditions of the Sugauli Treaty.

Ongoing disputes

Among the border dispute of the Indo-Nepal boundary, the most significant are in the Susta and Kalapani regions. The two regions cover some 40 km of the Indo-Nepal border.

See also

• Nepal–Britain Treaty of 1860
• 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship
• Gurkha War
• Kingdom of Nepal
• Naya Muluk - land in western Terai restored to Nepal in 1860
• Prithvi Narayan Shah
• Sikkim
• Unification of Nepal

Bibliography

• Atkinson, Edwin Thomas (1981) [first published 1884], The Himalayan Gazetteer, Volume 2, Part 2, Cosmo Publications – via archive.org
• Atkinson, Edwin Thomas (1981) [first published 1884], The Himalayan Gazetteer, Volume 3, Part 2, Cosmo Publications – via archive.org
• Chatterjee, Bishwa B. (January 1976), "The Bhotias of Uttarakhand", India International Centre Quarterly, 3 (1): 3–16, JSTOR 23001864
• Cowan, Sam (2015), The Indian checkposts, Lipu Lekh, and Kalapani, School of Oriental and African Studies
• Dhungel, Dwarika Nath; Pun, Santa Bahadur (2014), "Nepal-India Relations: Territorial/Border Issue with Specific Reference to Mahakali River", FPRC Journal, New Delhi: Foreign Policy Research Centre – via academia.edu
• Manandhar, Mangal Siddhi; Koirala, Hriday Lal (June 2001), "Nepal-India Boundary Issue: River Kali as International Boundary", Tribhuvan University Journal, 23 (1)
• Rose, Leo E. (1971), Nepal – Strategy for Survival, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-01643-9
• Rose, Leo E. (January–February 1999), "Nepal and Bhutan in 1998: Two Himalayan Kingdoms", Asian Survey, 39 (1): 155–162, doi:10.2307/2645605, JSTOR 2645605
• Schrader, Heiko (1988), Trading Patterns in the Nepal Himalayas, Bow Historical Books, ISBN 978-3-88156-405-2
• Shrestha, Buddhi N. (2013), "Demarcation of the International Boundaries of Nepal" (PDF), in Haim Srebro (ed.), International Boundary Making, Copenhagen: International Federation of Surveyors, pp. 149–182, ISBN 978-87-92853-08-0
• Upadhya, Sanjay (2012), Nepal and the Geo-Strategic Rivalry between China and India, Routledge, ISBN 978-1-136-33550-1
• Walton, H. G., ed. (1911), Almora: A Gazetteer, District Gazetteers of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, vol. 35, Government Press, United Provinces – via archive.org
• Whelpton, John (2005), A History of Nepal, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-80470-7

External links

• Treaty Text and Related Documents
• Indian-Nepalese Border