Thread by @amish973

Good time to recall the debate over status of Nepal's independence during the British Raj, particularly b/n late 19th cent and 1923, when the treaty confirming Nepal's independence was signed by the British. Short 🧵:

https://twitter.com/SamDalrymple123/status/1901555314601713880

Key here is: a) Nepal [and its rulers] always considered Nepal to be beyond the Raj's frontiers and an independent state. It had treaty relations w/ both Tibet and Qing China.
b) The Raj often encompassed territory they didn't 'officially' directly rule[Indian princely states] +

+ and territories that were 'officially' under Raj did not always follow their writ [Northeast India]
The qn is one of semantics: what makes or denies a state's independence? Harvard scholar Michael Herzfeld, for instance, makes a case for dominion in disguise. +

+ I have myself argued elsewhere that under the Ranas, Nepal was effectively an economic colony for the Raj here, with 'access to the best of Nepali resources—men and natural resources—without the need to deal with administration or the pains of dissent.'
recordnepal.com/why-did-the-br…

In any case, what did the British themselves think? While I am yet to fully study the interpretation act as cited above, British officials were often at odds about Nepal's status, & how it tied in with the recruitment of Nepalis into their army:
books.google.com/books/about/Po…

FS Roberts, who was CIC of Raj forces in India, visited KTM. When he returned, he thought 'Nepalese government wanted nothing but peace and friendship with the British government, but they did have a lurking fear of the latter's designs on Nepal's independence' [ibid]+

Raj officials were aware Nepal had been a better ally than Afghanistan, whom they had supplied arms despite fighting wars earlier. 'All that the Nepalese "require politically at our hands", Wylie-like Girdlestone earlier pointed out, was a guarantee of their independence"

Yet, London wasn't convinced. In 1896, when Bir Shamsher wanted a 19 gun salute in England like Jung Bahadur had received, the India Office rejected it. Viceroy Lord Elgin argued otherwise. 'Nepal, the Viceroy argued, was, in fact, not an Indian feudatory state.'

Nonetheless, in 1902, Lord Curzon [perhaps the one Raj official who exemplified British imperialism's ambitions in the subcontinent] thought otherwise in a reply to an official [and thus the peculiar term 'suzerainty' enters the lexicon]:

Thus we stand: for KTM, there's absolutely no qn Nepal is independent of the British. It made the same argument when Republic China invited it to join in 1914-15.
For the British, its status remains ambiguous until 1923, when the treaty is signed. But not everyone was pleased.

After the 1923 treaty, the Maharaja of Gwalior was upset because Nepal’s relations with GoI ‘by no means exceed’ Gwalior’s. The British said Nepal was certainly different than the Indian states, & this was to be conveyed as discreetly as possible.
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