Nathu La was the beginning, Jelep La should be next

India’s border trade strategy in the eastern Himalaya has leaned almost entirely on one pass. That is a strategic vulnerability. Reopening Jelep La would correct it.

On August 1, trade through the historic Nathu La resumed after a six-year halt. The move is welcome- another careful signal of thaw after the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra restarted and diplomatic contacts resumed following the October 2024 border understanding. But if New Delhi truly wants to rebuild economic links across the eastern Himalaya, Nathu La alone is not enough. The next step is obvious: reopen Jelep La, the region’s historic commercial artery into Tibet.

Fifteen kilometres away sits a pass that once dwarfed Nathu La in economic importance. For nearly a century before the 1962 war, Jelep La carried the bulk of trade between Tibet and the markets of eastern India. Mule caravans moved wool, silk, salt, borax and musk over the mountains, feeding a thriving economy of merchants, transporters, warehouse keepers, bankers and artisans. Kalimpong grew into one of the eastern Himalaya’s great entrepôts. Nathu La, by contrast, served mainly diplomatic and administrative purposes.

That hierarchy was never restored. The 2003 India-China memorandum on border trade reopened Nathu La in 2006. Jelep La stayed shut. Every subsequent gesture, including this week’s resumption, has channelled commerce through the secondary route while the primary pre-1962 gateway remains closed. The case for changing that is economic, not nostalgic.

Nathu La’s own numbers make the point. Since 2006 it has been the rare place in the India-China relationship where India runs a surplus, remarkable against an overall bilateral deficit exceeding $50 billion. In 2016, before Doklam, Indian exports through the pass reached Rs 63 crore against Rs 19 crore in imports, a pattern that held in most years. Then came the 2017 stand-off. Trade collapsed by nearly 90 per cent in a single season. The pass sits at 14,400 feet, hard against the Chumbi Valley tri-junction where troops almost collided. Its commercial life is permanently hostage to that geography.

Jelep La is less exposed and more practical. It offers a direct approach into the Chumbi Valley and the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Unlike Nathu La, which closes every winter and operates only from May to November, Jelep La stays open for most of the year. It links, via Kalimpong, straight into the Siliguri corridor and the wider Indian market instead of ending at Gangtok’s Sherathang mart. Reopening it alongside Nathu La - not in its place- would give regulated Himalayan trade a second, more resilient route.

The idea is not new. Jyoti Basu floated it in the early 1990s, Pranab Mukherjee in 2006, and it resurfaced in policy talks in 2012. Each time it died of bureaucratic caution in Delhi, weak advocacy from West Bengal, and nervousness about proximity to the Doklam plateau. That last objection needs scrutiny, not perpetual deference. Nathu La is closer to the tri-junction yet operates on the sensible premise that commerce can be insulated from security postures. The same logic should apply to Jelep La.

In truth, the strongest argument for Jelep La is security dressed as economics. Diversifying connectivity does not weaken vigilance; it strengthens the system. Modern customs infrastructure, digital documentation and integrated border management allow tightly controlled trade without sacrificing surveillance. For two decades, limited border trade has served as a low-cost pressure valve, letting both sides signal normalcy while troops face each other across the ridgelines. Putting the entire experiment on a single, fragile pass is an unnecessary risk. A second channel spreads that risk and makes the arrangement more durable against the next crisis.

There is also a local case that geopolitics tends to overlook. Since the old route closed, Kalimpong has languished as a footnote to Darjeeling’s tourism economy. Reopening Jelep La would do for North Bengal what Nathu La has already done, on a smaller scale, for Sikkim. It will create logistics and warehousing jobs, open markets for local cardamom and horticulture, and eventually place the town on the Buddhist pilgrimage circuit that already draws visitors to Rumtek and Bodh Gaya.

No new diplomatic heavy lifting is required. The same political goodwill that reopened Nathu La, Lipulekh and Shipki La can simply be extended fifteen kilometres. The outdated 36-item trade list- still heavy on blankets and prayer wheels- needs updating in any case. Traders already deal informally in goods outside it. Expanding the list to cover Sikkim’s organic produce, dairy and horticulture, and applying the change to both passes, would deliver more tangible benefits to border communities than any ceremonial reopening.

Nathu La has proved that regulated border trade can coexist with strategic competition. The sensible next move is to build on that proof rather than treat it as sufficient. Fifteen kilometres separate the two passes. Six decades separate current policy from the commercial geography that once made Jelep La the eastern Himalaya’s main gateway. Both gaps can, and should, be closed.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of India Today NE or its affiliates.)