Editorial

Sovereign Citizen

Here is paying tributes to the late Dhruba Kumar Deuja who passed away during the initial days of the lockdown in Kathmandu. Old patrons and hands of this weekly will recall us publishing serially in English his Nepali book ‘Simanantar’and advertising the novel gratis for his having dared to deal with the highly politically sensitive topic of Nepali citizen which finally took a clear course this week; parliament having passed a new bill on naturalization. As parochial and partisan as the climes are these days, the lockdown alone perhaps was no reason for avid media watchers here unable to find mention of Deuja’s passing away. He was a former executive chairman of the Gorkhapatra Corporation, he held the similar post in the RSS — the national news agency and was in the news desk of the Radio Nepal for a long period outside of being a columnist in many a vernacular weekly. The passing of a citizenship bill this week that sets seven years as gestation period for a foreigner married to a Nepali to gain Nepali citizenship will surely have pleased the late Deuja. His novel had anticipated that just in five years time from now (2080 B.S.) the population of Indian immigrants would so dominate Nepali politics as a calculated policy of the neighboring state as to render the Nepal-India border virtually changed. Indeed, after each successful Indian sponsored political upheaval in Nepal, the fact that cut-off years recognizing new dates for naturalization had made a firm accommodation of the population in a scientific immigration and, thus, citizenship policy thoroughly politicized at the actual expense of genuine citizens of the country. No room for respite, though. The bill did not command the all party support it need have. And the opposition is likely to make this a cause celebre for street upheaval on grounds of the traditional charges of discrimination. It looks like the Nepali Congress and Tarai parties would want that an Indian bride married in Nepal should be given immediate citizenship while this quid pro quo is lacking for Nepali brides in India. Looks also like the Communist Party used its majority in parliament well making good use of current phase of Nepal-India ties amidst the border map spat. Perhaps the Indian media will take this as another matter of Chinese prompting in Nepal.

Be that as it may, the new citizenship law is merely an inkling of the mountains of differences between Nepal and India piled over the years of appeasement. One hopes that this will put paid the influx of population from the south claiming Nepali citizenship through marital relationship. This ‘small’ country does already seem to have high representation of immigrant families in politics identifiably influential in Nepal’s partisan activities. Well pursed and organizationally well backed, such families already form the vanguard of opposition of a bill that seems a rare dare towards natural objectivity after a long lapse of sanity in the country. The pity is that it is a bill that can be overturned with another majority in parliament. After all a saner citizenship existed before tampering in this sector began at foreign prompting on grounds that natural law citizens were being discriminated against. They were. But the law should have been implemented targeting the eradication of discrimination while what has occurred since has been the inculcation of newly influential migrants. It is not surprising that the then Indian home minister and current defense holder, Raj Nath Singh should put the number of Indian migrants at a third of the thirty million population on Nepal. An authentic assessment published in all major Indian paper in the early 1980s put the number of Indian citizens at about a hundred and fifty thousand.

People’s Review Print Edition