SOCIETY

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Discrimination : Fearing the "great replacement", Nepal excludes a quarter of its population.

By Sébastien Farcis -Libération, 20/11/2022 (summary)

 

Because of a patriarchal conception of filiation, almost 7 million people in Nepal do not have a citizenship certificate, most of them from the south, which is geographically and culturally close to India.

For example, three Nepalese aged 20, 22 and 32 who were born in these lands in the extreme south of the country, but who are now living there as illegal immigrants: says one of them.

The authorities refuse to provide him with a certificate of citizenship, a document that is essential if he is to be granted Nepalese nationality. Like his unfortunate friends, Suraj is stateless in his own country.

Nepal has a patriarchal conception of the transmission of Nepalese nationality : 

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According to the 2015 Constitution, any person

- born to a Nepalese father obtains nationality automatically by right of blood,

- However, if the mother is Nepalese and the father foreign, the child can only apply for naturalisation, which is often complicated, if not impossible.

 

It depends on the goodwill of a fussy administration that is itself patriarchal.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Nepal is one of the last 25 countries to do so - the others being mainly in the Middle East.

It depends on the goodwill of a fussy administration that is itself patriarchal.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Nepal is one of the last 25 countries in the world to operate one - the others being mainly in the Middle East.

 

The result is perpetual administrative hell.

The Nepalese government does not give figures on the number of people affected - and even refuses to talk about "stateless people" - but a study by the Forum for Women, Law and Development calculated that in 2011, , which deprives her of her civic rights, such as registering a marriage or a birth, voting or opening a bank account, and even benefiting from hospital care. As the legislative situation has not changed since then, the association estimates that around 6.7 million Nepalese now live in this perpetual administrative hell, which is destroying their dreams for the future.

In another Kafkaesque scenario, when both parents are Nepalese but the paternal grandfather is not, the authorities may refuse.

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Why this opposition?

The issue of access to citizenship has a major geopolitical impact, as Nepal is surrounded by the world's two most populous countries, India and China.

Hence the irrational fear of the Nepalese in the mountains and hills that they will be invaded.

For China, the fear is less acute because the Himalayas make access difficult, especially in winter.

But the fear comes from the Indian immigrants from the southern plains.

Physically, the Nepalese from the southern plains resemble Indians more than the more slant-eyed Nepalese from the mountains. They share the language, culture and Hindu religion of nearby India. The Indo-Nepalese

Nepalese border is visa-free and easy to cross.

 

Nepal has a narrow nationalism and this nationalism is very masculine, even macho. It turns women into a security risk, because according to its supporters, foreign women will enter Nepal, marry Nepalese men and make ethnic Nepalese a minority.

This is also the argument put forward by the politicians, who play on the nationalist fears of the mountain dwellers and the suffering of the plains dwellers to get people to vote for them.

But in the end, they don't want to solve the problem.

 

I recommend that you read this very interesting article in full. This problem of citizenship also arises for some of NEL's daughters, some of whom were born to unknown fathers and who therefore cannot prove that their paternal lineage is properly Nepalese.

https://www.liberation.fr/international/asie-pacifique/par-peur-du-grand-remplacement-le-nepal-exclut-un-quart-de-sa-population-20221120_BAKMDOSZVVFTNHVQQAISWMZRJQ/?redirected=1&redirected=1