The geo-political challenge posed by demographic invasion of Nepal needs to be handled with full allegiance to the state, and in its totality

By Dr. Upendra Gautam

For this Himalayan State of Nepal population movement in this part of South and Central Asia is tantamount to demographic invasion and dismemberment of a country. Driving factors for population movement here are religious and economic security and safety from political and ethnic repression.

Unregulated borders

The country’s extreme vulnerability to demographic invasion is primarily a function of Nepal’s unregulated southern border with the Republic of India (ROC). People from Afghanistan to Burma, Kashmir to Bhutan are pushed into Nepal through the ROC. Even those Tibetans who have been taken to the ROC in the initial stage are sent back to this country at a later stage.

Influx of many Indians into Nepal has taken place on the ground of “filling vacuum” in services and skill markets such as education, health, politics, security, intelligence, industry, business or trade. Added to it, many people from the countries with whom India, not Nepal, shares common borders come to Nepal. Either of the human intrusions adds burden on Nepal’s peaceful and secure development.

First it was Kashmir. Long-drawn conflict between the ROC and Pakistan over Kashmir has remained as the major factor in the past fifty years to send Muslims from the ROC to Nepal. These Muslims continue to come to Nepal for religious and economic security. Then came Burma. It expelled many people in mid 1960s. These people came to Nepal through India. Third, it was East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) in early 1970s. It sent many Bihari Bangladeshis to Nepal through India during Bangladesh’s war of liberation. Next turn was of Afghanistan. Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in mid 1970s sent many Afghans to Nepal through India. Intensification of Khalistan separatist movement in the ROC Punjab in early 1980s sent many Sikhs to Nepal. Struggle in Afghanistan against the Soviets and Khalistani separatist movement coincided with expansion of Tamil ethnic liberation movement in Sri Lanka. Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka sent many Tamils to Nepal through India. Bhutan continued the process of sending stream of people to Nepal through India in early 1990s. The sources of origin from where the people left for Nepal would not complete without mentioning the Northeastern parts of the ROC where the ethnic cleansing and repression of the people of Nepali origin has forced them to leave the places for Nepal. The source-list has all the probability of being enlarged as the military action against ULFA in Northeastern India and sufferings of minority communities (including Christian) intensify in several areas of the ROC. In short, the unregulated Nepal-India border has through out been a designed instrument in pushing two sets of aliens into Nepal: one, who comes directly from India, and the other, who enters Nepal after satisfying needs of Indian security, intelligence and bureaucratic services. According to Dr. Harka Gurung, Nepal showed the highest rate of naturalization of Indians (that is, 62.8 percent) among South Asian countries as compared to 32.1 percent in Sri Lanka, 0.1 percent in Bhutan, and none for Bangladesh and Maldives.

Key Incentive

While the unregulated border works as a convenient springboard to high jump into Nepal from any part of India as well as any country sharing borders with India, Nepal’s citizenship policy, which is ranked as the softest in the world, provides aliens the required incentive to do a Columbus. In other words, the ROC’s unregulated border with Nepal and Nepal’s multiplely raped citizenship policy are highly positively co-related.

The alternative arrangement of ID will ask for repealing the existing Citizenship Act. A new legislation to arrange ID for the country’s residents should be enacted. A separate law dealing with provisions for awarding honorary citizenship to the foreigners who contribute in promoting Nepal and punishing those who fake as the citizen of the country should be enforced.
Nepal’s policy views citizenship as commodities for distribution like a ration card in India. The policy’s operative objective is to distribute citizenship certificate (CC), as if it was an identity card, to all “the eligible” people living in Nepal. The policy aims at solving the so-called citizenship issue once for all. Each consecutive government has established “supremacy” of the CC in such a manner that any aliens’ first natural priority in Nepal would be grabbing of a CC. Without this certificate, banks would not open accounts; college would not enroll the students, you can not buy a motorcycle. For passport, this certificate is needed. The awe-inspiringly engineered need to acquire CC even for daily chores provide great motivation to aliens to get CC by hook or by crook. This motivation is matched by the government’s behavior to distribute CC as expediently as possible. Aliens have amply profited from such a policy. They can just buy it. The exception is many Indian teachers in Nepal. So far they have been deprived of Nepal’s citizenship. This deprivation, however, is not because of their “inability” to get it. They could also buy it like those numerous aliens. They are “deprived” of it because they are known Indians. The Indian Home Ministry has invariably been raising the Indian teachers issue at “the highest level.” This is an ROC way to convey a message for the public consumption, and the message is: Indians are continuously deprived of their legitimate entitlement in Nepal.

Loss of Identity

Unregulated border coupled with the citizenship policy is sufficient to destroy the independent cultural identity of the Nepalis and outnumber them by the CC holders. It also creates a serious development-planning problem. As the demand for CC will grow much faster than growth in any development sector, and that each consecutive government will go on satisfying this demand for the sake of election politics, allocation and delivery of socio-economic services to meet the needs of ever increasing number of CC is bound to make this country more dependent on supply of ready made goods and services from the ROC.

The governments and political parties in Nepal are so eager to provide CC to each and every person in Nepal that they want to give CC to each voter listed in the voters’ list of 1980 referendum. Their love for distribution of CC seems to be so intense that they will like to amend the Constitution of Nepal, which attaches a person’s Nepali citizenship entitlement with his/her parental citizenship. These governments and political parties would like to simply ignore 5 April 2002 ruling of the Supreme Court of India. In this ruling the Court established that a foreigner, in this case he was a Pakistani resident in India, could not claim Indian citizenship on the grounds that he was in the voters’ list and has been enjoying all the state-provided facilities and services for so many years.

The Way out

The citizenship policy so far adopted by the governments in Nepal is clearly anti-Nepali and serves alien interest. The policy looks very democratic and very liberal on its face. In the presence of unregulated border with India, granting of CC to “all the eligible citizens once for all” will never happen in any point of time, unless regulation of the border and one-time distribution of CC including a sharp cut-off date are strictly planed and enforced with utmost honesty. The geo-political challenge posed by demographic invasion of Nepal, therefore, needs to be handled with full allegiance to the state, and in its totality. In today’s interdependent world and intra-regional and inter-regional cooperative arrangements, the country’s population management policy needs to be forward looking. For this, the country must come out from the “certificate citizenry” distribution trap. The state should withdraw and repeal entire CC issued so far. Instead of a CC, it should grant an ID to every person above 14 years age (except diplomats and tourists), who is resident in Nepal irrespective of his or her nationality. Information in the ID should include permanent and current address, place of birth, date of birth and parents name and place of birth. Nepal’s Home Ministry, National Planning Commission, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Election Commission should share this on-line updated ID database. As the tasks involved in creating and maintaining the ID database is extensive and of sensitive nature, the government should solicit the guidance of the suggestions from the independent civil society and political forces to mobilize assistance of neutral and knowledge countries.

ID holder should be able to avail of all the socio-economic services in the country. The presentation of the ID should be made compulsory for use of transport, communication, health, educational, housing and financial services. The ID should serve as pre-requisite to acquire driving licenses and buy means of transportation. It should be recognized for the election processes. Only those ID holders who are born of a Nepali parent (either mother or father who is born in Nepal) should have the right to deal in immovable properties and make entry in civil, security, and political services.

The alternative arrangement of ID will ask for repealing the existing Citizenship Act. A new legislation to arrange ID for the country’s residents should be enacted. A separate law dealing with provisions for awarding honorary citizenship to the foreigners who contribute in promoting Nepal and punishing those who fake as the citizen of the country should be enforced. At the mean time, the governments in Nepal and India should be planning and undertaking concerted collaborative efforts to regulate the bilateral borders.

If an honest regime of border regulation supported by a strictly enforced system of ID would have been in place in Nepal, the country of Gautam Buddha and peacekeeper Gorkhas would not even have to face the tragic situation characterized by a trans-boundary aggression and terror game.

(Gautam is a freelance writer based in Kathmandu and can be reached at cmsug@cms.wlink.com.np The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect that of Nepalnews.—Ed.)

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