According to the Department of Foreign Employment of the Government of Nepal, over the period of ten months (mid-July 2023 to mid-May 2024), over 600,000 Nepali youth left the country for countries including Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia to work as migrant workers. The money they send back home, known as remittance, is the mainstay of Nepali economy. According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), contributions of remittance to Nepal’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was over 22 percent in 2023.
These figures, however, don’t include hundreds of Nepali youths and adults who cross the border from Nepal to India every day in search of work, education or for medical treatment. A latest book from a UK-based Nepali researcher attempts to fill in that void.
Crossing the Border to India: Youth, Migration and Masculinities in Nepal by Jeevan R. Sharma delves into the migration of Nepali youths across the ‘open border’ to India. The book is based on the field research conducted by Mr Sharma, who is now Professor of South Asia and International Development at the University of Edinburgh, as part of his Ph D thesis.
Many scholars have written about the ‘culture of migration’ spanning generations from Nepali hills to Indian cities thousands of miles away. But this book not only looks into push and pull factors of migration but also examines the issue from gender perspective.
According to the author, migration to Indian cities is circular in nature and is facilitated and sustained by social networks. It is estimated that about one million Nepali youths are working in India at any given time. About 90 percent of them are men.
A study by The World Bank in 2010 estimated that the proportion of Nepali migrant labourers traveling to India decreased from 80 percent in 2001 to 41 percent in 2009, mainly because of emergence of other destinations, such as the Gulf States and Southeast Asian countries. This form of migration plays a major role in supporting subsistence agriculture and the livelihoods of marginal households in Nepal.
The unique “open border” between Nepal and India is formalised by the 1950 Nepal-India Peace and Friendship Treaty. It allows citizens of both countries to cross the border without having to produce official documents and also prescribes equal treatment of both Nepali and Indian citizens. In practice, however, “open border” and “equal treatment” do not apply to poorer migrants, who are regularly subjected to interrogation, frisking, ill-treatment, and humiliation while traveling and crossing the border.
Major findings
During the course of his research, the author observed that the very act of crossing the border played a key role in disciplining young Nepali male and turning them into docile migrants. Nepali migrants’ desire to cross the border into India is informed by ideas of freedom from the constraints of life in rural hills, but the very act of border crossing takes freedom away from these migrants by subjecting them to interrogation, extortion, frisking, ill-treatment and humiliation (pg 101).
The author argues that Nepali migrant workers’ exodus to India (and, elsewhere) is also linked to the notion of masculinity present in Nepali villages. “.. Migration to work in Indian cities is part of men’s life in the hills of Nepal. .. Most of them were unmarried when they started to go to India. (Their decision to migrate) was very much related to the masculine identities and the responsibilities of men in the hills of Nepal. .. The choices are far more complex as they are embedded in gendered sociocultural norms, meanings and expectations (pg 97-98).
‘The Open Border’
The author notes that Nepal-India border is a border where a regional and emerging power meets a poor country. Nepal is economically dependent on India, and its only access to international trade is through India. Nepal and India share an “open border” of more than 1,751 km with most of the people speaking same language and sharing the same culture across the border. Article 7 of the Nepal-India Peace and Friendship Treaety of 1950 states, “The governments of India and Nepal agree to grant, on a reciprocal basis, to the nationals of one country in the territories of the other the same privileges in the matter of residence, ownership of property, participation in trade and commerce, movement and other privileges of a similar nature.”
In Chapter 4, the author vividly narrates his journey to India along with a group of three men from western district of Palpa to work in Mumbai. Two (Hari and Anil) were traveling for the first time, while the third man (Kumar) was returning to his work in Mumbai after spending three weeks at home.
With 15 years of work experience in Mumbai, Kumar was the leader of the group. As they took a rickshaw to catch a bus to go to bordering Indian city of Gorkahpur, they were interrogated by the Indian police.
“(The interrogation) was frightening and humiliating,” notes the author. He recalls that other Nepalese crossing the border also told him of hassles created by some NGO staff at the Nepali side of the border. The author says that though the group did not have reservations they went into a reservation coach of the Indian Railway in the hope of securing seats with a bribe. “After paying IRs 250 extra for each person, we managed to get seats to Mumbai, a journey of thirty-six hours,” Sharma recalls (pp. 109-111).
Policy recommendations
The author has, however, stopped short of making policy recommendations based on the findings of his study. While the author provides vivid description of every step of the migration journey where Nepali labourers are exploited or duped, he hints that legal reforms, making law enforcement agencies accountable and bringing the issue of Nepalese working in India on top of the political agenda will help. Media in both the countries could play an important role in this regard.
Most Nepali migrants in India lack documentation and the registration required for basic services such as health care, schooling or subidised food. Language and cultural differences regularly expose many to harassment and political exclusion. “Several migrants I spoke to mentioned that they were exposed to violence, abuse, and ill-treatment both in the workplace and in their everyday lives in Mumabi and that this treatment went unreported, unnoticed, and unrecognized,” the author reports (pg 131).
Despite migrants’ ubiquitous contribution to the growth and development of cities like Mumbai, they have no access to basic services or protection provisions. The relationship between structural inequalities and poor access to justice thus plays a crucial role in perpetuating the structural inequalities that lie at the heart of their maginalisation and poverty, the author observes (pg 131).
Perhaps the most worrying situation is that Nepali migratnts are not only excluded as poor, but politically and culturally as well. “They occupy a liminal position – that is, they are treated as neither foreigners nor natives. The marginal working and living conditions make them vulnerable to health problems, including Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and HIV (pg 137).
Nepali migrants working in India largely remain invisible in the public debate within Nepal, and they remain outside the government of Nepal’s priorities, which focuses heavily on international labor migration destinations such as the Gulf countries and Malaysia. “These low income Nepali migrants remain connected to Nepal, and in important sense keep separate from India, they have very little political space for collective mobilisation to make any demands for their rights in India. Without these rights, their sense of identity and masculinity is being constructed by social forces that are not within their control.” writes Mr Sharma (pg 160).
Conclusion
The ‘open border’ between Nepal and India has not only linked peoples from the two countries geographically as well as culturally, it has also provided a much sought after employment opportunity for Nepali youths for past several decades. The issue of exploitation of Nepali migrant workers in India, however, remains out of public discussions and debate. While third country migration is a major agenda in Nepal and is becoming a prominent political agenda, nobody wants to discuss the issue of Nepal-India migration. The author has done an exemplary job by conducting a high-quality research about the problems being faced by Nepali migrant workers in India and giving voice to voiceless, This book, hence, will be useful not only for researchers and academics but also for policy makers, political leaders and common readers alike.
Name of the book: Crossing the Border to India: Youth, Migration and Masculinities in Nepal
Author: Jeevan R. Sharma
Pages: 176
Publisher: Temple University Press
Paperback edition published in 2024
(A former BBC Nepali journalist, the author can be reached at [email protected])
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