Migration and Development: The Nepalese in NortheastAuthor(s): Srikant DuttSource: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 16, No. 24 (Jun. 13, 1981), pp. 1053-1055Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4369935 .

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Migration and Development The Nepalese in Northeast

Srikant Dutt

THE problem of outsiders or im- migrants has been one of the prime issues raised by a number of move- ments currently under way in the northeast. The Nepalese are one such group of outsiders, or 'foreigners' as some of the movements style them; but they are only technically foreign, and to simply dismiss them as foreign- ers would be incorrect. Nepalese migration has taken place throughout South Asia, not just in the northeast alone, and as such must be viewed on a world scale.

Migration occurs throughout the world for a number of reasons ancl its several features must be borne in mind when examining the case of Nepalese migration in northeast India.

It may seem obvious, but the frontier status of the region must be reaffirmed. A contentious argument has often been raised concerning just how much land was or is available for settlement in the region or. more properly, for eco- nomic expansion. It is true, despite arguments to the contrary, that the northeast, particularly its hill areas, were until recently sparsely populated and land was 'open' to settlement by outsiders. Further, frontier lands on the periphery have on a world scale gradually become subject to penetration and exploitation by a wider economic system - in other words.. according to the dictates of world capitalist develop- ment. No one should argue, however, that at a given level of technology and with relativiely sparse populations, hill peoples find the slash and burn agricul- ture best sujited to their needs. What is at stake is that as economic pres- sures from more developed areas (i e, exploited areas) become ever more acute, the peripheral areas are (drawn into the process; rising populations and technological levels in hill areas will increasingly find hill terracing more desirable. .Add to this the fact that from the political-strategic point of view as well as from the view of eco- nomic exploitation, hill terracing and a commensurate growing population makes more sense to centralised pat- terns of political and economic power.

A frontier by its nature is a tempt- ing area for penetration and such pene- tration is in fact inevitable. Adminis- trative measures inspired by paternal feelings to defend 'quanit' peoples can do little to stem the process- in fact can only slow it down at best.

Migrants, particularly peasant set- tlers, are always spurred on by a particular set of economic motivations. It is not so much the prospect of avariciously exploiting the defenceless indigenous people of the northeast (the prospect of land is a strong motive) but the fact that outsiders are driven to migrate through their own dire poverty and are seeking a means of continued survival. Migration, besides that of merchants, refugees (driven by political upheavals) or individuals (such as through marriage links), is caused by particular economic factors in which the migrants' local enmiron- ment offers little hope of economic advancement while a new environment does.

This is the caEe of the Nepali mig- rant who in general is a hill peasant cultivator. The economic clisis forcing Nepali migration has been. briefly: increasing fragmentation of landhold- ing, indebtedness, ecological crisis through intense cultivation and defor- estation, rising population without further land to cultivate and chronic deficits in food production in the hill areas of central Nepal. These pahari migrants are relatively more skilled hil agriculturists than other hill peoples and readily fit in to hill environments elsewhere in South Asia.

Beginning in the mid-l9th century Nepalese from the central hill areas have been continuously emigrating, many of them permanently. The central region of Nepal contains 60 per cent of that country's population but only a (luarter of Nepal's culti- vated land. Between 1911 and 1971 Nepal's population doubled in spite of continuous emigration; and the ezo- logical and economic crisis in the hill areas of Nepal has grown ever more acute. Even in 1900, over 2,50.000 Nepalese - one in every 20 --- were already living in North India. Most of these found jobs as watchmen in factories, policemen and domestics, a role they maintain to the present day.

The other important factor was that from the mid-19th century the British alctively recruited Nepalese into the imperial armies in ewhose service Nepalese travelled throuighout India and abroad which in turn led to some permanent Nepalese settlements abroad. In the First World War 1,10,000 Gurkhas served the British,

56,580 of them outside India. This service in foreign armies continues to the present day, notably in the British and Indian forces. So valued are Nepalese as soldiers that the Sultan of Brumei pays over ? 1 million a year for the upkeep of Gurkha brigades in his country. It was through such army service that some Nepalese, beginning in the late 19th century, began to setttle outside South Asia, in Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore, China. and Mauri- tius. (The Nepalese living in Tibet were a different category, being mostly of Tibetan stock, a legacy of Nepal's victory over Tibet aind exaction of trade concessions after 1856. Most such Nepali Tibetans were expclled in the 1960s.)

By the mid-20th century one in every 10 Nepalese had emigrated. In India alone, by 1970, there were 1.5 million Nepalese, out of a population of 11.55 million in Nepal. The annual rate of migration in 1961 was 82,00 a year, 20,000 of whom remained in India permanently each year.* While the total Nepalese living outside Nepal might reach almost 2. i million, the majority of these emigrants have settled in North India, comprising a working class whose presence is an ac- cepted part of the landscape.

Under the terms of the Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty of 19.;0, the Tri- partite DeNhi agreement of 1951, and the 1956 revised Indo-Nenal Agreee- ment, free interchange and flow of both countries' nationals as well as their right to own property in either country is allowed, unhindered and without i-estrictions. These agreements only made official a situation which had existed de facto from the British period. The reciprocity which the agreements formulated indeed con- tinues today, with at least 3-4 million overseas Indians resident in Nepal. Therefore before one accepts or adopts the 'silent invasion' rhetoric of some of the chauvinistic movements in the northeast cne must understand the actual history of Nepalese migra- tion and settlement in South Asia.

This brings the discussion to an important facet of Nepalese inigration and settlement in the past, namely where it occurred through official sponsorship. As already stated Nepal- ese have long served in foreign armies. It was British policy to try and take care of its demobbed soldiers who had given years of loyal service.. This often took the form of ex-servicemen's re- settleme.nt colonies which could serve * D C Upadhyaya and Jose U Abueva

(editors), "Population and Develop- ment in Nepal", Katbmandu, 1975.

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a dual purpose; to reward ex-soldiers and to play a strategic role. Following such policy, Nepalese settlement of ex-servicemen in northeast India was actively encouraged by the British, as in the case of Manipur immediately following the First World War.

Active British encouragement to Nepalese settlement in the northeast was hot always confined to ex-soldiers but also included many other Nepalese peasants, particularly those from East- 'ern Nepal, the Kiratis. However, while the British were pursuing a deliberate plan, the people so involved, namely the Nepalese, were not actin7 out of some sinister expansionist design. It was their economic condition which allowed their use in imperial schemes. If it had not been Napalese, others would have stepped in to play a simi- lar role.

The British recognised early that the Nepalese, as hardy hill cultivators, could constitute an ideal group, with which to penetrate and form strategic buffers in the northeast and, even more than this, actaally demographi- cally change the composition of the local populations in some northeast hill areas. An interesti-ig element in this process was the fact that the Nepalese were and are nominally Hindu, having more direct links to the cultural heartland of South Asia, whereas the areas in which they were to be, encouraged to settle were cul- turally and religiously different, often Tibetan-Buddhist, animist and later Christian, with ties in other directions.

It was in Sikkim and Bhutan that the British, perceiving the relatively empty land in the southern tiers of these two states, encouraged Nepalese settlement from the late 19th century. This was done with a view to binding these states more closely to the Indian empire and keeping out what they saw as threatening Chinese and Ti- betan influence. Claude White, the Political Agent in Gangtok in the late 19th century, was a major architect of this policy, although the roots of this policy can be traced to Nepalese settlement in Darjeeling following the British lease-annexation of the area in the 1840s.

So successful was this policy in Sikkim and Phutan that by the mid- 20th century 60 per cent of the popu- lation in Sikkim was Nepaiese; and in Bhutan while the official figures speak of a Nepalese population of 25 per cent (2,25,000) the actual figure is closer to 40 per cent (4,00,000). Through a deiiberate policy, coupled with economic causes outlined earlier, Bhutan and Sikkim have become transformed in 100 years into contain-

ing sizeable propulations who are more 'Indian' oriented. Emphasising their role as pioneer agriculturists is the fact that in Sikkim it was the Nepal- ese who introdued hill terracing. The settlement of Nepalese in the colonial period was thus tied to notions of accelerating demographic change to enhance colonial security.

At the same time it is important to bear in mind that the areas in which Nepalese settled in Bhutan and Sikkim were, until their advent, lightly in- habited, thickly. forested and often malarial. Nepalese settlement was not just encouraged by the Pritish; a role was also played by local feudal elites. In both Sikkim and Bhutan certain local aristocrats gained lucrative in- comes by giving tenancy and land rights to Nepalese immigrants in jungle areas. In Sikkim the Kazis of Khangsarpa were from the 1870s intimately involved in Nepali settle- ment. This has translated itself into patterns of political mobilisation in Sikkim in the present day. In Bhutan the powerful Dorji family, previously of low rank in the feudal aristocracy, enhanced its political and economic status by playing an intimate part in Nepalese settlement in southern Bhu- tan. In Manipur it was the royal court which gained financially by granting lands for Nepali settlement. While the British did not al!ow other outsiders to settle in Manipur they exempted Nepalese who settled, significantly, on Khas and forest grazing land not pre- viously under cultivation.

On independence, then, India in- herited in the northeast a pattern of Nepalese settlement which had been a part of imperial security policy in frontier regions. In some areas India ambivalently allowed this policy to continue; in others India formulated a new po!icy - that of favouring the indigenous populations.

The development efforts launched in the region, as roads and projects be- gan to be built which required large quantities of labour, were other new factors. The Border Roads Organisa- tion found Nepalese labour most suit- ed and t*his process iniected further numbers of Nepalese into the hill re- gions of northeast india as well as Bhutan. Again this labour migration became the precursor of some per- manent settlement.

In Sikkim, while demographic change was complete by 1947, India chose to play a political balancing game be- tween the court the Lepcha-Bhutia minority and the Nepalese majority. In Bhutan, after 1955, India virtually abandoned the Nepalese cause, fore- going a lever against the Bhutanese

monarchy. In other regions of the northeast the attitude of the Indian government seems to have been more ambivalent.

For security reasons, specifically to contain the various insuirgent move- ments in the northeast, large numbers of Nepalese serving in the Iiidian army and paramilitary have been present in the northeast from 1950. This in turn may have played a part in f urther Nepalese settlement. While engaged in security duties, Nepalese have na- tura'ly looked to protect their kin settled in the region and this has fuelled anti-Nepalese feeling as oc- curred in Mizoram and Meghalaya in 1967 and now occurs in Maniipur. Un- wittingly or knowingly, the Nepalese continue to play a vital security role for the Indian government in the re- gien.

Even as India has continued inherit- ed administrative norms such as the Inner Line and other restrictions, their breach in the case of Nepalese is significant. Not just as road labour, but even as peasant settlers, the Nepal- ese do not usually pass formally through checkpoints or apply for meaningless scraps of paper; they mere'y clear the land, often with the connivance of local vested interests. It can often be several years before the authorities take any notice.

In Manipur, from 1951 to 1976 the number of Nepalese rose from 2,860 to 36,604; they began to settle in hill areas in that state in the 1960s. A disguised number of Nepalese began settling in Arunachal Pradesh as it gradually began to be opened up, from about 25,000 in 1961 to 85,000 in 1971. In Meghalaya too, the number of Nepa!ese rose from 6,000 to at least 10,000 in 1971. In Mizora-n due to in- surgency their number has remained stable at between 2,000 and 4,000. In Nagaland the figure was 14),-00 in 1961. In Assam there were 2,15,213 Nepalese in 1971.

The political implications of post- 1947 Nepalese settlement in India have been scarcely expiored. While the key role which Nepalese personnel have played in India's armed forces has been highlighted, their role in the wider political system has baen barely understood. The demands whlich the Gurkha Lqague and others in North Bengal have made for the official re- cognition of Nepalese language lhas im- portant if tantalising implications. One reason that India has not acceded to the demand is that it has nlOt wished to legitimise the presence of almost two million Nepalese residing in Ind3ia. Rather, India has wished to ambzival-

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ently keep the Napalese beneath the surface of India's political and econo- mic life. The fear has been that by re- cognising the Nepa!ese presence, India would bolst2r the legitimacy of the kingdom of Nepal, or play into the hands of a 'Greater Nepal'. A con- trary view might however suggest somewhat different implications. By recognising and legitimising the Ne- palese presence in India, the kingdom of Nepal would be destabiliseci and Nepalese brouhlit further into the Indian system, with a means to voice their grievances. By following such a course India would be returning to British imperial policy: but such a pro- spect is remote at present.

Nepalese settlement in the northeast

has not been part of an insidious scheme but is the outcome of the development process itself, in which the Nepalese as a poor and mobile hill community play a part in frontier areas, where roads are being built, towns are being founded or expanded and the area is being more fully ex- ploited. As long as thev peoples of the northeast do not analyse the economic realities of their own position and the economic realities of any frontier re- gion, they will persist in pursuirng millenial dreams of a glorious past. One set of outsiders wil! merely be re- placed by others if those who are indigenous to the area do not seek to develop their own resources through their own efforts.

LAW OF THE SEA

Changing Scenarios Frederick Clairmonte

John Cavanagh

SINCE 1873, oceanographers have known that significant segments of the ocean bed are strewn with potato- sized nodules that contain large quantities of important minerals: manganese copper, cobalt, nickkel, and mo-.ybdenum. It was not, hlowever, uintil the 1960s that technology to collect the nodules and extract their minerals was created. By the mid- seventies, it was estimated that the market value of these minerals scaled three trillon dollars, ten times larger than OPEC's combined 1980 export revenues.

Cognisance of this raw materials El Darodo galvanised two separate forces, one corpor-ate and the other inter- national. At the inception of the seventies, a considerable number of giant transnational corporations form- ed five separate corporate consortia to pioneer maritime and mining technology tc exploit these nodules. Simultaneously, the United Nations launched niegotiations for setting up a comprehensive treaty which would govern all activities over, on, and under the world's oceans.

In February 1981, as the treaty was about to enter what was billed as its fimal and decisive session, the present authors 3dvanced a central thesis con- cerning the section of the treaty that would set up an international autho- rity to govern the mining of seabed nodules. We argued that the very treaty which is ostensibly blueprinted to enhance so-called 'thir-d world'

sovereignty over the seabed served instead to legitimise and buttress cor- porate power whose goals stand in blatant confrontation to such sovere- ignty. The crux of this argument is that the treaty provides international political stability for seabed mining -withourt jeopardising to any significant extent the most lucrative profit centres in corporate mining: processing, mat- ketcig and distribution.' The con- clusion we drew was that the treaty would pass and that the ul timate beneficiaries would be Big Capital, and only to a peripheral extent, the third world.

Despite major changes since Febru- ary, our arguments have withstood the test of time. What the intervening passage of time suggests is that the period of hard bargaining before the treaty is finalised will be longer, and potentially greater TNC rewards can be expected. A few days prior to the 'final' session, the Reagan administra- tion dropped the bomnbshell that no treaty could be considered prior to a major review. Our current concern in this article is to examine briefly the convergent and divergent interests which stem from the Reagan ad- ministration shift, and analyse the gainers and losers of the shift. For analytical purposes, these interests can be grouped into three major cate- gories: those directly concerned with the immediate passage of the treaty; those in quest of the treaty's revision; and those seeking its eNimination.

THE PROTAGOmSTS

The protagonists of immediate pass- age consist largely of third world countries aiid specific interests within the state and corporate world, speci- fically navies and oil corporations. - In the case of third world spokesmen, whose interests are often dovetailed to those of Big Capital, their push for immediate passage derives from their desire for the slightly larger share of the seabed pie that the treaty accords them. The Singapore spokesman of the Group ci 77 wvent so far as to assert that "if the US does not re- spond positively between now and the proposed next session, the chances are we will go ahead and sign the treaty withouit the US".2 This statement is part of the bargaining rhetoric since a treaty minus the United States is basically impotent.

In the developed countries some of the major protagonists are to be found among the mnilitary, in this case the navy, which would obtain from the treaty guaranteed access to the world's 116 major straits. There are also certain important decision-makers in the civi- lian bureaucracy who have stressed the importance of immediate passage. Ac- cording to Elliott Richardson, Carter's special representative for the Law of the Sea conference, "the draft conven- tion represents neither a loss for the United States nor a victory for the Group of 77. Rather, it embodies balanced and, I believe, acceptable compromises that emerged from tough and protracted battles between the conflicting ideologies and interests of both sides. This would not have been possible had not the representatives of the United States fought tenaciously and articulately on behalf of the free enterprise system and its benefits for the world community as a whole."3 The very fact thaat such a public figure (a cabinet member in several administra- tions, a leading American corporate lawyer and a professor at Harvard) labels the treaty as defending "the free enterprise system" is an indicator that the American ruling class can certainly accommodate themselves to the treaty.

A third element of the treaty"s pro- tagonists are to be found among the oil corporation members of the seabed con- sortia, inasmuch as the treaty also gua- rantees the right of a nation to exploit offshore natural gas and oil resources within a two-hundred mile limit as well as free passage of the world's oil through the ocean's straits. As a spokes- man of Royal Dutch Shell (which is a partner of the Ocean Minerals Consor- tium) puts it: "[The treaty] is pro-

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