State Capacities, Connectivity and Cross-border Relations: Analysing Different Responses to Adverse Climate Events at Two Himalayan Monasteries

This article is a comparative study of the responses to recent adverse climate change impacts at two Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas, by the respective states and local communities at those sites. The Tabo monastery, located in India’s Spiti valley, and the Halji monastery, located in Nepal’s Limi valley, both lie very close to the respective countries’ borders with western Tibet, China. As such, both monasteries lie in high-altitude, rain-shadow regions which till a few decades ago were marked by considerably lesser precipitation than the windward, monsoon-facing regions of the Himalayas. Besides, there is evidence that both monasteries share historic and artistic origins and similarities. However, the two monasteries are located in regions with very different histories of state penetration, infrastructure development and bordering China. This has resulted in their responding to recent threats from climate change in very different ways, with Tabo’s responses being primarily directed by the Indian state, and those of Halji by the custodian village’s community. Through this comparison, this article emphasizes the significance of institutional, infrastructural, financial and (geo)political embeddings in analysing the sustainability of borderland heritages in the age of climate change.