Sustaining trade routes in the Himalayan borderlands

In this edition, Riya Sinha interviews Dr. Tina Harris, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, on her book chapter, “The Mobile and Material in Himalayan Borderlands,” published in The Art of Neighbouring: Making Relations Across China’s Borders (ed. Martin Saxer and Juang Zhang) in 2017.

The economic geography of the Himalayan borderlands is shifting. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, goods moved from India to Nepal and Tibet. With the introduction of new technologies, advancement of border infrastructure, and change in the geo-political environment, the trade route started to shift in the 21^st century, now mostly with Chinese goods crossing the Himalayan region into the subcontinent. This has led to new investments in border areas to revive the old trading routes and gain strategic leverage. In 2019, for example, China’s President Xi Jingping announced the Trans-Himalayan Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Network (THMCN) with Nepal to create an economic corridor as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Viewed from a nation-state level, borders are categorised either as fixed or mobile. This includes infrastructure that either facilitates or contains cross-border movements and is most often guided by the political environment. For instance, on one hand, there is an emphasis on creating border infrastructure such as India’s new Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) to facilitate the faster movement of goods and people across borders. Two other examples are the sub-regional Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal Motor Vehicles Agreement (BBIN-MVA) or the bilateral protocols to revive the Himalayan and Gangetic waterways as international trade routes.

On the other hand, there is an increasing investment in border fencing to contain free movement, particularly with laser-fencing along the India-Nepal border or the development of the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS) along the India-Bangladesh border. However, all these fixed and mobile initiatives are driven by states, without often taking into cognisance the lived realities of the border regions.

In her chapter, Dr. Tina Harris analyses borders from a bottom-up perspective, that is, how borders are dealt with at the local level. Through extensive fieldwork in the Himalayan borderlands (2005 – 2007), she examines the use of border roads in the region by local traders. She relies on three historical and ethnographic case studies from the China-India and China-Nepal borderlands. First, the British Trade Marts in Tibet in the 20^th Century (roads); second, technological advancements in moving of goods across the borders (vehicles); and, finally, re-opening of the Lipu Lekh, Shipki la, and Nathu la border passes between India and China (land).

Dr. Harris demonstrates that while the opening and closing of borders is decided by the state, the ability of local traders to navigate and circumvent these policies is what sustains cross-border movements. She argues that the shift in Asian economic geographies – particularly with the current rise of a China-driven economy – is ‘steered’ by the traders’ skill to negotiate three elements of trade: the roads, vehicles, and the borderlands (p. 162). Thus, in order to facilitate cross-border trade, it is important to examine the relationship between two factors: first, the mobile, that is, goods, vehicles, and people; and second, the fixed, including roads, land, and rail, that allow these movements to take place.

Riya Sinha: Your chapter focuses on three features of the China-India and China-Nepal border regions, namely, roads, vehicles, and land.  Could you elaborate on how development of border infrastructure affects cross-border connectivity and established networks?

Tina Harris: One of the things that I find most fascinating about studying border infrastructure is that material changes that may seem mundane or even boring at first glance – say for example the construction of a small footbridge, the obstruction of a road, or the introduction of a new vehicle – can fundamentally change the geography of the immediate surroundings, and in turn significantly impact local livelihoods.

A new fence or a washed-out road can mean that social and economic networks that have lasted for decades, even centuries, become blocked – sometimes temporarily, sometimes more permanently. But what is more curious is how these infrastructural changes – whatever the size or impact – do not simply cut off or affect established networks. They simultaneously produce new and sometimes unexpected connections.

For instance, I’ve looked at how the Himalayan wool trade in the mid-20th-century was impacted by the American embargo on Chinese goods in the 1950s. During this time, the international trade in Tibetan wool, which was controlled for a long time by a few elite Tibetan families and brought down through India, slowed down considerably. While you would think that this would cut-off cross-border trade networks, it actually provided opportunities for other traders – especially those who were less elite – to forge new routes and connections across the region, when it came to supplying goods from Europe and India to Tibet during the 1950s and 1960s.

RS: You speak of how, in the 20^th century, “the struggle between the British and Tibetans over construction of the border, its roads, its marts, and its goods, was a struggle over power” in the Himalayan region (p. 152). Do you think this argument can be extended to China’s current effort to increase infrastructure investment in the Himalayan region, particularly in Nepal?

TH: I think you can extend the argument in some ways. While I was interested in looking at how 20th-century British construction in the borderland was about the assertion of British territorial control through the establishment of, say, telegraph-wires, you might say that there is a similar developmental push when it comes to Chinese investment in roads and rail along the borders of Nepal. The difference, however, is that it is – to some extent – more welcome [today].

While investment in infrastructure and development in Nepal is not new, specifically Chinese investment has intensified over the past 5-10 years. This has happened in a specific conjuncture post-2015 earthquake where Nepal was in an extremely difficult position, and where some of the Chinese projects were seen as ‘successful’ compared to investment by other countries in previous infrastructural projects.

While my work in the chapter is mostly historical, Galen Murton and Nadine Plachta have written about these exact contemporary processes in a forthcoming 2021 piece for the BRI Handbook called “China in Nepal: On the Politics of Belt and Road Initiative Development in South Asia,” and there is already a lot of very interesting analysis being done on Sino-Nepal BRI-related investment featured on your blog.

RS: You tend to humanise Himalayan connectivity by emphasising on the role of traders in determining the future of cross-border infrastructure and interactions. From a bottom-up perspective, what role can the traders play in influencing policy decisions to make the cross-border routes both profitable and sustainable?

TH: There is a wide diversity of traders from many different backgrounds in the Himalayas; some who trade and even barter daily necessities along local routes, and others who have massive warehouses and agents all over the world. So, the role traders can play really depends on the specific traders and the specific policy decisions that need to be made.

However, while ‘bigger’ traders can sometimes influence policy decisions through their economic or political connections, there is a lot to be said for the role of ‘smaller’ traders who conduct regular trade along more limited cross-border routes. They are the ones who are often in touch with the daily needs and concerns of the local inhabitants; they know about seasonal fluctuations for instance, or which areas are prone to landslides during the monsoon. In my opinion, these intimate daily experiences are crucial – alongside local participation and agency – in order to think through what kind of infrastructure (if any at all) is both environmentally sustainable and best for accommodating the wide variety of socio-economic needs along these routes.

I once met with some traders in Sikkim who said that a team of urban planners came all the way from Delhi and quickly wrote up a report about a border road without consulting more than one person who lived in the town that it passed through. According to the traders, the planners were unfamiliar with the region; they were not in tune with the intricacies of the land, nor with the needs of the inhabitants who lived along the many smaller arteries of the route. In addition, I think that some of the traders are also very aware of the imbalance in trade along cross-border roads – there are permissions and trade permits given for some groups and not others, infrastructure that is built up much better on one side and not on the other. These imbalances can create significant inequalities and tensions on a local cross-border level. These complex on-the-ground nuances need to be sensitively understood and taken into account, before plans are translated into policy.

RS: India, Nepal, and Bhutan are investing in building cross-border integrated check posts (ICPs) to regulate trade and travel. Do you think that the Himalayan states have adopted a security-oriented approach to control cross-border networks rather than to increase regional connectivity?

TH: Yes, I do. Many of the recent reports about the introduction of these ICPs seem to be couched in rhetoric about efficient and systematic connectivity, or facilitating seamless, smooth trade connections. But border regulation is really about letting some things or people in, while keeping other things or people out.

I think a useful question to ask about cross-border connectivity and control is, who really benefits from these check posts? What and who are they for, actually? If we look at cross-border networks from a micro-level perspective, traders certainly want connections to be facilitated so they can continue to trade. But if they are being promised smooth access to their counterparts on the other side, and the reality of the border checkpoint doesn’t live up to these expectations, what is happening instead?

While these integrated check posts are said to facilitate trade, they are also about securitisation, control, identification – what other scholars have likened to a sort of ‘performance’ in the name of sovereignty. So yes, I am sceptical about the connectivity rhetoric. ICPs and other kinds of border check posts tend to do the opposite; they serve to strengthen and consolidate state power.

RS: You rely on oral narratives and historical accounts from your fieldwork in India, Tibet, and Nepal as a methodology for your research. How can this methodology be further used to encourage research on South Asian connectivity?

TH: I find that oral and historical narratives of people’s experiences along cross-border routes are extremely important, mainly because they can provide perspectives that bring more depth or even contradict what we think we know about geopolitical change in the region. We often talk about historical events or ruptures that are marked by single dates – for instance, the Sino-Indian War of 1962. Such an event has been described as ‘completely cutting off trade connections’ – but the reality was much more gradual; some of the older traders who lived in the Himalayan borders during that time said that nothing really shifted until well into the mid-1960s, and in fact some of them profited greatly during this time.

There are so many other accounts of connectivity, however. I imagine that people have elderly relatives and friends who have important stories about living in borderlands, stories that are often obscured by national(ist) narratives, particularly, accounts that indigenous groups find important to share. I’ve realised that I’m not really the right person to be doing this kind of work or telling these stories from my perspective. I believe that there are a number of young local scholars out there, from the region, who can take this methodology and research much further, and I would love to see more of it.

About the Expert

Dr. Tina Harris,

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

University of Amsterdam

Email: c.h.harris@uva.nl

Bio: Tina Harris is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, and the Director of the Moving Matters research group at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Sciences. She works on topics such as infrastructure, borderlands, and mobilities, particularly in the Himalayas. Her current research projects focus on understanding issues in aviation through an ethnographic perspective, such as tensions that emerge between international standard procedures and the local experiences and practices of pilots and air traffic controllers.