CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 67 of 120

Correct — D, 4. Count the units that touch three or more foreign neighbours and four is what you get. West Bengal reaches Nepal in the north-west, Bhutan in the north and Bangladesh along its long eastern and southern edge. Sikkim is wedged between Nepal to the west, China to the north and Bhutan to the east. Arunachal Pradesh has Bhutan on the west, China across the McMahon Line to the north and Myanmar to the east. Those three are settled and uncontroversial. The fourth is the Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir sector: besides China and Pakistan, India claims a 106 km land boundary with Afghanistan, lying in territory administered by Pakistan as part of Gilgit-Baltistan and abutting the Wakhan Corridor. On India's own map of its territory that stretch falls in the Ladakh sector, which therefore has three foreign neighbours. Every other State stops at two or fewer — Assam has Bhutan and Bangladesh, Mizoram has Bangladesh and Myanmar, Uttarakhand has China and Nepal, and the rest have one.

• (a)1 — Far too few. West Bengal, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh each have three foreign neighbours on any reading, so the count cannot be one.
• (b)2 — Still short. Even counting only the three uncontested States the answer is at least three.
• (c)3 — The tempting stop. It counts West Bengal, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh and then forgets the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh sector, where India's claimed boundary adds Afghanistan to China and Pakistan.

India records land boundaries with six neighbours it borders in practice — Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar and Bhutan — and claims a seventh, a 106 km frontier with Afghanistan that lies within the part of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir administered by Pakistan as Gilgit-Baltistan. Most Indian States meet one or two of these; only a handful sit at a junction where three converge.

The safe method is to walk the border States rather than to guess. Along the Himalaya: Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh (China only), Uttarakhand (China and Nepal), then Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (Nepal only). Across the east: West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya. Down the west: Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat, all Pakistan only. That gives three clear cases of three neighbours. The fourth turns on how the Jammu and Kashmir sector is counted, and it is worth being straight about the ambiguity: on the ground Ladakh meets China and Pakistan-administered territory, so the count of four holds only on India's claimed boundary, which includes the Afghanistan strip. CDS (I) 2020 was written on 2 February 2020, three months after Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two Union Territories, which is why the question says States/Union Territories.

• West Bengal borders Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh; Sikkim borders Nepal, China and Bhutan; Arunachal Pradesh borders Bhutan, China and Myanmar.
• India claims a 106 km land border with Afghanistan, in territory administered by Pakistan as part of Gilgit-Baltistan since 1947.
• India's longest land boundary is with Bangladesh at about 4,096 km; the shortest of the six practical ones is with Bhutan at about 578 km.
• Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and of Ladakh with effect from 31 October 2019, before this paper was set.
• Assam (Bhutan, Bangladesh) and Mizoram (Bangladesh, Myanmar) stop at two foreign neighbours each.

• Stopping at three by counting only West Bengal, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
• Forgetting that Afghanistan appears on India's own list of land neighbours, through the claimed Gilgit-Baltistan stretch.
• Assuming Assam has three neighbours because it is a large north-eastern State; it has two.

As a count, as a 'which State does NOT border two or more countries' item, or as a match of a State to its set of foreign neighbours.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following States shares its international boundary with Nepal, China and Bhutan?

  • (a)West Bengal
  • (b)Sikkim
  • (c)Arunachal Pradesh
  • (d)Uttarakhand

  Answer(b) Sikkim — Nepal to the west, China to the north and Bhutan to the east; West Bengal's third neighbour is Bangladesh, not China.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  India's longest land boundary is with which one of the following countries?

  • (a)China
  • (b)Pakistan
  • (c)Bangladesh
  • (d)Myanmar

  Answer(c) Bangladesh — about 4,096 km, ahead of China at about 3,488 km and Pakistan at about 3,320 km.