Beyond Border Patrols: Why India’s New Mapping Strategy Is Crucial for Himalayan Sovereignty

But India’s Himalayan border region is not just a matter of military forces, patrolling and border posts. Rather, India’s Himalayan border region is also a question of how the territories are mapped, names, and presented. Since borders remain disputed and since claims are often bolstered by cartographic representations and terms used by state administrations, cartography has acquired the importance of a tool of exercising sovereign authority. A map might be regarded as something technical, but when it is the consistent practice of the administration of a state to identify the same village, mountain, pass or administrative district in a certain [...]