Fact Check: Did Nehru reject the proposal of Nepal-India merger?

On social media sites, many claims are made about India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. One of them is that he rejected the proposal of Nepal-India merger.

A Facebook user named Sanjeev Kumar Das has written a long post. In this post, Sanjeev has included eight mistakes of Nehru. In the first mistake, Sanjeev has claimed, “In 1949, the King of Nepal proposed to unite Nepal with India. My uncle refused.”

The same claim has been made in the article published by youngisthan.in.

 Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy also made the same claim in a tweet on June 4, 2020. He wrote in English, “Today, another folly of Nehru emerges from historical records: when the Ranas ruled Nepal, and the monarchy of Nepal was in India. Like other kings in India, the Rana rulers offered to merge with India in 1950. Nehru refused!! A genetic defect runs in a family – so remove the family rule.”

At the same time, former President Pranab Mukherjee’s book also mentions Nehru’s rejection of the proposal of Nepal-India merger.

Fact check:

On the subject of Nepal-India merger, we searched on Google with the help of some ‘keywords’. We found reports published by some media houses.

A report published by Prabha Sakshi states that the royal family of Nepal “Rana” ruled from 1846 to 1951. It followed the policy of self-isolation.

King Tribhuvan was the king of Nepal since 1911. After defeating the Rana rulers, he again became the king of Nepal in 1951. He established democracy under the constitutional monarchy in Nepal. The Nepali Congress was formed in 1946 after the merger of the Nepali National Congress and the Nepali Democratic Party.

In its report, The Quint, a member of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) and professor at JNU, S.D Muni has been quoted as saying, “Nehru knew how the politics of international alliances was against China at that time and how much opposition there was against India due to the merger of Goa, so nehru did not consider it possible to merge Nepal with India due to technical reasons, but due to close relations, It was definitely in the 1950 treaty, which took place during Rana’s time. ”

The report quotes former ambassador Dr. Lokraj Baral as saying, “This is a rumour, not Rana but Raja Tribhuvan had said this, but it was just a rumor. I don’t think Rana wanted to merge Nepal with India. I haven’t found any such evidence yet.”

According to a report published by NYZ 18, an article on India’s foreign policy towards Nepal and Bhutan published in Shodhganga states that Tribhuvan wanted to merge Nepal with India after ending the rule of the Ranas, but Nehru rejected the offer. Professor Muni clarifies that there was no such clear proposal on Tribhuvan’s side.

Professor Muni explains that one, Tribhuvan did not talk about any merger even when he opposed the federal structure. Secondly, India’s Ministry of External Affairs does not have any document to prove that Nehru had such a proposal. These were just rumours.

For information about this, DFRAC spoke to historian, author and founder of thecrediblehistory.com Ashok Kumar Pandey. “While reading contemporary history, I have not found any reference in which there is any proposal for Nepal’s merger with India. Nepal has never been a part of India in history. Even during the British rule, it was an independent country and a friend of the British. Such rumours are only part of a dirty campaign to defame Nehru.”

Conclusion:

It is clear from this fact check of DFRAC that the proposal for Nepal-India merger is a rumor because it is not even mentioned in any government document, so the claim being made by social media users is fake and misleading.

Claim:

Nehru reject the proposal Nepal-India merger?

Claimed:

Social media user .

Fact check :

Fake and Misleading.