The Kalapani territory is an area under Indian administration as part of Pithoragarh district in the Kumaon Division of the Uttarakhand state,[4][5] but it is also claimed by Nepal since 1997.

[14] The Nepalese protests regarding the Kalapani territory started in 1997, after India and China agreed to reopen the Lipulekh pass.

[15][16] Since that time, Nepalese maps have shown the area up to the Kalapani river, measuring 35 square kilometres,[2][17] as part of Nepal's Darchula District.

On 20 May 2020, Nepal released a new map of its own territory that expanded its claim an additional 335 square kilometres up to the Kuthi Yankti river, including Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura.

[20] According to The Kathmandu Post, residents of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, which India has claimed for decades, were not counted after the 1961 Nepal census.

[24][b] The Gazetteer continues to state that the united stream of Kalapani flows five miles southwest, where it is joined by the Kuthi Yankti river that arises from the Limpiyadhura Pass (near the village of Gunji).

[27] The Byansis practise transhumance, living in their traditional homes in the high Himalayas during the summer and moving down to towns such as Dharchula in the winter.

This brought them in conflict with the British, who controlled directly or indirectly the north Indian plains between Delhi and Calcutta.

In 1815 the British general Ochterlony evicted the Nepalese from Garhwal and Kumaon across the Kali River,[34][35] ending the 25-year rule of the region by Nepal.

[d] Octherlony offered peace terms to the Nepalese demanding British oversight through a Resident and the delimitation of Nepal's territories corresponding roughly to its present-day boundaries in the east and west.

Surveyor W. J. Webb and other British officials showed that the lesser stream flowing from the Kalapani springs "had always been recognised as the main branch of the Kali" and "had in fact given its name to the river".

[47] Around the same time that the British claimed the Kalapani territory, they had also ceded to Nepalese control the western Tarai regions.

Following the Chinese take-over of Tibet in 1951, India increased its security presence along the northern border to inhibit possibilities of encroachment and infiltration.

[58][59] Nepal expert Sam Cowan states that, from the date of its independence, India "has assumed and acted on the basis that the trail to Lipu Lekh fell exclusively within its territory".

In the Indian view, the Kali River begins only after Lipu Gad is joined by other streams arising from the Kalapani springs.

[67] The CPN-ML faction led by Bam Dev Gautam, which split off from CPN-UML in 1998, laid more expansive claims than the Nepalese government.

Several Nepalese intellectuals drove these claims, chief among them being Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, the former Director General of the Land Survey Department.

[72] On 20 May 2020, Nepal for the first time released a map that followed through with the more expansive claims, showing the entire area to the east of Kuthi Yankti river as part of their territory.

[18] On 13 June 2020, the bill seeking to give legal status to the new map was unanimously approved by the lower house in the Nepal Parliament.