Growing geopolitical differences have struck a discordant note in the music of Nepal and India, with themes of songs that traditionally hailed the friendship between the two countries taking on an angry and accusatory tone.

Residents of Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district, central to the territory dispute that has cropped up between the neighbours, have complained that the new songs being aired on Nepali FM stations, which they have loved and grown up listening to for decades because of the folk themes revolving around nature, love, compassion and the India-Nepal bonhomie, now mostly “brand India a dictator country that is bullying Nepal”.

The Nepal parliament recently ratified a map that includes in that country’s territory Kalapani, Lipu Lekh and Limpiyadhura in Pithoragarh.

Some of the songs, which people in the border district of Pithoragarh who can catch the frequency of the FM stations of the neighbouring country, have heard seek to whip up local sentiments on Kalapani, Lipu Lekh and Limpiyadhura and allege that these areas had been “stolen” from Nepal. The songs have lines such as “Dadagiri chhor Bharat (Stop bullying, India)”, “Go back India”, “Humra ho Lipulekh, Humra ho Kalapani (Lipulekh and Kalapani should be ours)” and “Lutiago humro bhoomi” (Our land has been stolen)”.

“Nepali FM radio stations have started playing hate songs against India. This had never happened before. We have grown up listening to Nepali songs on our culture and friendship. The situation, however, has completely changed now as they are writing and airing songs against our country,” said Bhupendra Singh Basera, a popular folk singer and poet in Pithoragarh.

Basera, a resident of the Devlathal-Bamdoli village bordering Nepal, has now penned songs in the local Kumaoni language reminding Nepal of the shared heritage.

In one such song named “Dhamki dinya ho kile (Whom are you threatening)”, Basera has appealed to Nepal to remember the cultural unity of the two countries and stop calling India “a bully”.

“I want to tell Nepal through my songs that Kalapani and the Himalayas are our common heritage. It doesn’t belong to only one of us. Making it an issue and creating hatred will lead to nowhere. We should be careful and keep developing our common culture. Nepal must think about protecting the Sagarmatha region, which includes the Himalayas and which China has been eyeing for long,” Basera said.

He pointed out that cultural differences have a more far-reaching impact than political bickering.

“It is for the first time in 60 years that I am listening to anti-India songs written and sung in Nepal. These Nepali songs are calling India a dictator and a bully. It is proof of a deepening crisis between us,” said Mahendra Singh, a resident of Pithoragarh whose son is married to a Nepali girl.

The worsening ties have also impacted infrastructure development with Nepal in June stopping Bihar from strengthening a stretch of a decades-old river embankment claiming it lies on no-man’s-land.

Days earlier, Nepal’s frontier police had heated up the settled Bihar border by firing on Indian villagers during a cross-border family meeting, killing one and injuring two. The Nepalese had cited lockdown violations.