Indo-Nepal Trade Relations by Shreeram Prasad Upadhyaya

Dr. Shreeram Upadhyaya is Nepal’s prominent historian and educationist today.

Indo-Nepal Trade Relations celebrates Nepalese struggle against the British Raj’s callous moves of suppression and subjugation. It is a first comprehensive Nepalese attempt to explore the economic implications of the dark pages of Nepal’s history of trade with British India. Analytically examining the major aspects of Indo-Nepal trade relations, Dr. Upadhyaya, explores the mood of suspicion that shaped Nepalese attitude towards British India. The British Govt., explains Dr. Upadhyaya, was interested not just in Indo-Nepal trade but also secretly plotted to capture its supremacy over the Tibetan trade through Nepal. But the Nepalese resistance to the imperialist British moves sprang from the fact that commercial activities of the British Raj had ultimately established their colonial rule in India.

 A detailed analysis of the means of transport and communication, different trade routes and variety of commodities that passed through them provide a measure of growth that Indo-Nepal trade witnessed. Nepal enjoyed a favorable balance of trade on account of large exports. Dr. Upadhyaya largely focuses on the major issues of economic history such as commercial policies and monopolies volumes and exchange of commodities, commercial taxes, currency, market and prices of commodities, system of Barter and credit and payment of debt.

 The book is a must for economists, historians, policy-makers and scholars interested in knowing the history of Nepalese resistance against Imperialism.