Six years after Nathu La’s closure and the deadly Galwan border clashes, its reopening throws local traders a lifeline
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenJunaid KathjuPublished: 1:00pm, 1 Aug 2026High in the eastern Himalayas, where yak caravans once carried silk and salt between empires, a border crossing closed by suspicion six years ago is stirring back to life.
For the roughly 600 registered traders in Sikkim who used to depend on this ancient route, the reopening means a livelihood restored. For diplomats and analysts, it reflects a broader recalibration of ties between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Trade in those items was the result of an agreement signed in 2006 that reopened Nathu La for the first time since the 1962 India-China war.
But a field study last year by Himalayan researcher Sangay Lachenpa of Shiv Nadar University’s Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies found that many of the items listed in that agreement were no longer traded in any real quantities.
