Again on citizenship issues
By BIPIN ADHIKARI (KP 31/08/2006)
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=86068
An amendment bill on the Citizenship Act 1964 enabling all immigrants and their offspring to claim Nepali citizenship is awaiting legislative process of the House of Representatives for its passage into law. According to the bill, citizenship certificates will be provided to all applicants if they are able to prove that they were born in Nepal before the 1990 mass movement or residing in the country since then. The bill has also introduced new provisions in the Act enabling men married to Nepali women and their children to claim citizenship with ease. Surprisingly, under the present formulation, the applicant is not even required to declare his or her intention to settle and reside in the country permanently.
While the year 1990 has been accepted as the cut-off year for distribution of citizenship, it is not clear how the idea is not to grant citizenship en masse (as was originally intended but later dropped off from the draft Interim Constitution last month) but to recognize the claim of every individual who is a de facto Nepali. The formulation that even if there is no written proof, a person can still qualify for the citizenship if he is successful to get recommendations from three Nepali citizens definitely indicates towards the fragility of the legal principles being employed by the government under the amendment bill.
There is no dispute over the fact that there are certain valid claims for the citizenship of Nepal. However, granting citizenship simply because someone happens to be born in Nepal before 1990 or happens to be on the electoral rolls cannot be a rational formulation. Birth is a biological act. Place of performance of this act has hardly any influence on a person's psyche. For the sake of legal convenience, some importance has been ascribed to place of birth in laws relating to citizenship. But that can be no justification for treating it as the only important factor by this law. This is true about the fact of residence as well.
As a matter of principle, for example, international law has a concept of domicile, which is not solely based on the place of birth. Domicile is based on the intentions and mind of the person concerned. One must prove one's domicile in the host country before one becomes eligible for acquiring citizenship of that country. One must also prove one's renunciation of domicile of the country of origin. Tests and qualifications must be prescribed to ensure that the person is truly domiciled in the host country.
Moreover, the proposed amendment does not even make it mandatory for the authorities to verify the antecedents of the applicant in the country of origin. The danger that this poses is a bit too obvious and is surely not far-fetched in a country that is at the neighborhood of the two most populated countries of the world.
Especially, the inflow of people from India is never going to decrease in Nepal given the size of the population of India and the ongoing pace in which the haphazard industrialization process is creating mass poverty and marginalization in that country.
If the idea is to take such drastic measures to end the citizenship problems for ever, as it is being propagated by the government, which has the habit of ruling over the Constitution, then there is no reason why the government is not coming up with a bold determination to immediately start regulating the porous international border that this tiny country shares with India, and thereby starts implementing existing immigration laws and work permit policies to control the movement of the Indian people in Nepal. The inflow of immigrants from across the border and their settlement inside Nepal will never decrease just by attempting to distribute citizenship and 'Nepalize' all these immigrants every eight or ten year.
As two distinguished critiques, Buddhi N Shrestha and Madan Regmi, emphasized this author recently (in response to his earlier commentary on the issue), nothing forbids the government of Nepal to regulate the international border in keeping with its best national interests. In fact, what is necessary now is also to withdraw the provision of the 1950 treaty under which the government of India and Nepal "agree to grant, on reciprocal basis, to the nationals of one country in the territories of the other the same privileges in the matter of movement and privileges of a similar nature."
Our compassionate neighbor has always been too demanding under this clause, and at times such demands have even ignored the long term Indian interests in Nepal. The treaty must be revised or abrogated if the Citizenship Act is being amended in good faith of the poor sovereign people of this country.
It is strange that the omnipotent government, which is so much forthcoming in certain strategic matters of Indian interest is just silent on what is going to be the fate of millions of Nepali citizens living in India without citizenship, and whether the Indian state is going to give the same treatment to the interested Nepalis living out there as at the cut off date marked for this country. Has the government of India in any case proposed similar amendment to the prevailing Indian Citizenship Act, and agreed to repatriate the Bhutanese refugees in the eastern Nepal back to their land? If this is not the basis of Nepali benevolence, then the government needs to explain why these blanket provisions are being proposed.
[LAWYERS_INC_NEPAL@yahoo.com]
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Granting citizenship en masse?
Granting citizenship en masse?
The kathmandu post 31 August 2006
By BIPIN ADHIKARI
Harka Gurung, a senior scholar, once emphasized political boundary and citizenship as two bases of national identity. On both counts, he said, the situation of Nepal seemed precarious.
This precariousness owes to several factors. The porous international border that this tiny country shares with India is still unregulated under a treaty forced on it during the transition of 1950. While the inflow of immigrants from across the border and their settlement inside Nepal has never decreased, the attempt of the government to distribute citizenship and 'Nepalize' all these immigrants for once and ever (to finally stop the floodgate) has never been successful. Besides, the issue of the encroachment of Nepal's international border is a regular feature in the local news. There are still some parts of Nepal under foreign illegal occupation. Indeed, the country is shrinking physically, and there is no voice against it.
On the 56th year of the 1950 treaty, while the country is in another period of transition, attempts are being made again to play out Nepal demographically. Efforts were made, although unsuccessfully, to propose a provision in the draft Interim Constitution granting Nepali citizenship to all individuals who participated in the referendum of 1980 or took part in the elections after 1990 or whose father or mother is born in Nepal. While the later formulation has some logic, the former two formulations seem to have been imposed on the drafting team after carefully sidelining the citizenship provisions that existed under the 1990 Constitution.
Granting citizenship simply because someone happens to be on the electoral rolls cannot be a rational formulation. The law of Nepal and for that matter any other country (ruled by itself) cannot recognize an electoral roll to be the exclusive proof of citizenship. It is a document created for an entirely separate purpose and with a view to enable the residents to cast his or her vote in a given election. The claim of citizenship has to be established the way paternity or maternity is to be established, and simply because somebody has spent some years in a foreign country does not entitle him or her to the citizenship certificate from this state. This is the bottom line everywhere.
The existing Constitution does not give the government the power to gift the citizenship en masse to foreigners. Every claim for citizenship must be judged on case to case basis and on the strength of the merit of each claim. In most parts of the world, the burden of proving whether one is an illegal migrant or not falls on the very person. There is good and sound reason for placing the burden of proof upon the person concerned who asserts to be a citizen of a particular country.
In order to establish one's citizenship, normally he or she may be required to give evidence of his/her date of birth, place of birth, name of his/her parents, and their place of birth and citizenship. Sometimes the place of birth of his/her grand parents may also be relevant. All these facts would necessarily be within the personal knowledge of the person concerned and not of the authorities of the state. After s/he has given evidence on these points, the state authorities can verify the facts and can then lead evidence in rebuttal, if necessary.
There are definitely some genuine citizenship claims of people in Madhesh which must be settled by all means. Those who have valid claims must get citizenship certificates, and genuine citizens must be provided with the certificate as soon as possible. If necessary, the state should also consider making legal aid available to the concerned claimant on the recommendation of the civil society. But the attempt of granting citizenship en masse and outside the normal legal process is not only questionable but also a serious breach of the loyalty and trust that politicians are expected to demonstrate towards the nation.
Obviously, a lot of money is being spent to keep the public opinion under control in this matter and change Nepal demographically. This is the reason that Nepal never had anti-foreigner agitation as we happen to see around the world every year. Even in India, for example, in the late 1970s and early 1980s anti-foreigner agitations were led by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) which protested the presence of hundreds of thousands of illegal foreigners from Bangladesh in the electoral rolls.
For those of the politicians, and civil society leaders, who are proud to be more Indian than the Indians themselves, suffice it to remind them that in India itself there is a Supreme Court order since April 2002 which maintains that foreigners cannot claim the right to Indian citizenship on the ground that they are enrolled in voter lists, have ration cards and that they have been living in India for a long time. By equating the influx with external aggression, the Supreme Court of India has also pinpointed that the impact of such large scale influx is the root cause of insurgency as well as economic deprivation of the Northeastern parts of the country.
The Indian Supreme Court has in fact made a telling observation: "The report of the Governor, the affidavits and other material on record show that millions of Bangladeshi nationals have illegally crossed the international border and have occupied vast tracts of barren or cultivable land, forest area and have taken possession of the same in Assam as well. Their willingness to work at low wages has deprived Indian citizens and specially people in Assam of employment opportunities."
Nepal has been very modest in citizenship matters. Besides, many non-Nepalis have already acquired citizenship by bribing the authorities, and illegally procuring documents that allow them to claim citizenship certificates. Limited police capacities to combat document fraud and lack of administrative systems necessary to properly document immigrants in the first place has enabled many people to acquire Nepali citizenship. Weak documentation systems have led not only to illegal entry of economic migrants (from beggars to the businessmen), terrorists, and other criminals via document fraud, but to massive electoral fraud as well, which has serious implications for the conduct of democratic politics.Sovereignty is nowhere more absolute than in matters of emigration, naturalization, nationality, and expulsion. It is at the threshold of a state's membership and its territorial boundaries that the rules of entry and residence apply.
If influx continues and citizenship certificates are distributed the way they are being discussed, Nepalis will soon be swamped, and there would be no Nepal left for the natives.
[LAWYERS_INC_NEPAL@yahoo.com]
The kathmandu post 31 August 2006
By BIPIN ADHIKARI
Harka Gurung, a senior scholar, once emphasized political boundary and citizenship as two bases of national identity. On both counts, he said, the situation of Nepal seemed precarious.
This precariousness owes to several factors. The porous international border that this tiny country shares with India is still unregulated under a treaty forced on it during the transition of 1950. While the inflow of immigrants from across the border and their settlement inside Nepal has never decreased, the attempt of the government to distribute citizenship and 'Nepalize' all these immigrants for once and ever (to finally stop the floodgate) has never been successful. Besides, the issue of the encroachment of Nepal's international border is a regular feature in the local news. There are still some parts of Nepal under foreign illegal occupation. Indeed, the country is shrinking physically, and there is no voice against it.
On the 56th year of the 1950 treaty, while the country is in another period of transition, attempts are being made again to play out Nepal demographically. Efforts were made, although unsuccessfully, to propose a provision in the draft Interim Constitution granting Nepali citizenship to all individuals who participated in the referendum of 1980 or took part in the elections after 1990 or whose father or mother is born in Nepal. While the later formulation has some logic, the former two formulations seem to have been imposed on the drafting team after carefully sidelining the citizenship provisions that existed under the 1990 Constitution.
Granting citizenship simply because someone happens to be on the electoral rolls cannot be a rational formulation. The law of Nepal and for that matter any other country (ruled by itself) cannot recognize an electoral roll to be the exclusive proof of citizenship. It is a document created for an entirely separate purpose and with a view to enable the residents to cast his or her vote in a given election. The claim of citizenship has to be established the way paternity or maternity is to be established, and simply because somebody has spent some years in a foreign country does not entitle him or her to the citizenship certificate from this state. This is the bottom line everywhere.
The existing Constitution does not give the government the power to gift the citizenship en masse to foreigners. Every claim for citizenship must be judged on case to case basis and on the strength of the merit of each claim. In most parts of the world, the burden of proving whether one is an illegal migrant or not falls on the very person. There is good and sound reason for placing the burden of proof upon the person concerned who asserts to be a citizen of a particular country.
In order to establish one's citizenship, normally he or she may be required to give evidence of his/her date of birth, place of birth, name of his/her parents, and their place of birth and citizenship. Sometimes the place of birth of his/her grand parents may also be relevant. All these facts would necessarily be within the personal knowledge of the person concerned and not of the authorities of the state. After s/he has given evidence on these points, the state authorities can verify the facts and can then lead evidence in rebuttal, if necessary.
There are definitely some genuine citizenship claims of people in Madhesh which must be settled by all means. Those who have valid claims must get citizenship certificates, and genuine citizens must be provided with the certificate as soon as possible. If necessary, the state should also consider making legal aid available to the concerned claimant on the recommendation of the civil society. But the attempt of granting citizenship en masse and outside the normal legal process is not only questionable but also a serious breach of the loyalty and trust that politicians are expected to demonstrate towards the nation.
Obviously, a lot of money is being spent to keep the public opinion under control in this matter and change Nepal demographically. This is the reason that Nepal never had anti-foreigner agitation as we happen to see around the world every year. Even in India, for example, in the late 1970s and early 1980s anti-foreigner agitations were led by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) which protested the presence of hundreds of thousands of illegal foreigners from Bangladesh in the electoral rolls.
For those of the politicians, and civil society leaders, who are proud to be more Indian than the Indians themselves, suffice it to remind them that in India itself there is a Supreme Court order since April 2002 which maintains that foreigners cannot claim the right to Indian citizenship on the ground that they are enrolled in voter lists, have ration cards and that they have been living in India for a long time. By equating the influx with external aggression, the Supreme Court of India has also pinpointed that the impact of such large scale influx is the root cause of insurgency as well as economic deprivation of the Northeastern parts of the country.
The Indian Supreme Court has in fact made a telling observation: "The report of the Governor, the affidavits and other material on record show that millions of Bangladeshi nationals have illegally crossed the international border and have occupied vast tracts of barren or cultivable land, forest area and have taken possession of the same in Assam as well. Their willingness to work at low wages has deprived Indian citizens and specially people in Assam of employment opportunities."
Nepal has been very modest in citizenship matters. Besides, many non-Nepalis have already acquired citizenship by bribing the authorities, and illegally procuring documents that allow them to claim citizenship certificates. Limited police capacities to combat document fraud and lack of administrative systems necessary to properly document immigrants in the first place has enabled many people to acquire Nepali citizenship. Weak documentation systems have led not only to illegal entry of economic migrants (from beggars to the businessmen), terrorists, and other criminals via document fraud, but to massive electoral fraud as well, which has serious implications for the conduct of democratic politics.Sovereignty is nowhere more absolute than in matters of emigration, naturalization, nationality, and expulsion. It is at the threshold of a state's membership and its territorial boundaries that the rules of entry and residence apply.
If influx continues and citizenship certificates are distributed the way they are being discussed, Nepalis will soon be swamped, and there would be no Nepal left for the natives.
[LAWYERS_INC_NEPAL@yahoo.com]
Citizenship En Masse: Playing With Demographic Fire
By M.R. Josse
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0609/S00205.htm
Minister Hridesh Tripathy of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi) was in an understandably exultant mood the other day. Then, speaking at a public forum, he confidently predicted that the House of Representatives (HoR) would unanimously approve the draft bill on citizenship that the government adopted and intends to table with a view to amending the Citizenship Act 1964.
Tripathy proclaimed that when that happened "everyone" would acquire citizenship, thereby solving the citizenship problem once and for all. He explained to his audience that the HoR would immediately nullify Article 8 and 9 of the present Constitution that hinders the passage of a new law that would in effect provide the right of citizenship to a teeming mass of individuals in the Terai, estimated at around 4 million.
To be noted, too, is that the party, among others, desires that new citizenship certificates be distributed in the Terai with such dispatch that all would have it in their hands – before the proposed elections for the constituent assembly the date for which has not been announced, thus far.
In other words, here is a case of double jeopardy: first sweepingly liberal criteria matched with certificates dished out with super-express speed!
EXULTANT
Since the Sadbhavana Party has been amongst the most vocal in demanding a revision in citizenship laws to empower the 4 million or so it claims has been unrightfully denied, it is easy to understand Tripathy's sense of political victory.
Other voices, however, are not quite as upbeat. For, among other things, they argue –rightly, in my opinion – that the new criteria for eligibility would open a floodgate. That would result in not only a drastic transformation in the basic demographic character of Nepal but could, in a few short decades, even render genuine Nepalese a minority in their own land.
Who doesn't know that it has become something of a national sport to flay the panchayat era's reservations with respect to granting en masse citizenship especially in the Terai that shares a long open border with India? Yet, very much less is said of the fact that the several democratic governments that followed in the wake of the 1990 Change did nothing about fundamentally altering the panchayat-era situation, in that regard. One however suspects that there must have been good reasons for their caution in the first decade of multi-party governance.
Before going any further into this discourse, it may now be recalled that under extraneous pressure – need one be more explicit and mention the source? – a Nepali Congress government in 2000 attempted to overturn the status quo on the Terai citizenship front.
It is salutary to remind ourselves that when they went down that slippery path, they did so by attempting to make desired changes embedded or camouflaged in a finance bill.
Though it was passed by the HoR it was roundly rejected in the Upper House. In those circumstances the late King Birendra had no constitutional option but to refer it to the Supreme Court which in turn stymied the government's attempt to alter the existing citizenship laws through in such a fashion.
What seems to have changed in the interregnum is that the Maoist insurgency provided the momentum to the lurch towards en masse citizenship rights in the Terai. That it did, among other things, by encouraging political groupings in the Terai to work for an autonomous region.
Against the backdrop of envisaged elections for a constituency assembly to write a new constitution, it would now appear that the government has attempted to pull the rug from under the Maoists' feet by being more revolutionary than the rebels.
To be noted is that the bill approved by the government and now being readied for passage in parliament has been timed BEFORE the Maoists join an interim government. In other words, it would clearly seem that the intention of the constituent parties forming the government is to claim credit for the same – and hopefully translate the expected satisfaction among the newly enfranchised citizens of the Terai into valuable votes for their respective parties.
Even without going into the nitty-gritty of the proposed law, it is shocking that there is a provision that, in the absence of relevant documents proving birth in Nepal or residence since 15 April 1989 or even being including in electoral rolls, acquiring three bonafide Nepalese citizens' recommendations in that regard would be adequate!
It hardly requires any great imagination to assume that anyone, not merely an Indian national, could easily coax/bribe his/her way into citizenship.
The above is not, of course, to argue that genuine cases for citizenship – whether in the Terai or elsewhere in the country – should not get their due right to citizenship without hassles.
It is merely to point out that, one, it is simply suicidal to adopt a blanket policy of citizenship, merely for the asking, not least given the geo-political setting of the Terai, cheek-by-jowl to the open Nepal-India border and the fact that, over the years, there has been a constant flow of immigrants from India into Nepal, particularly in the Terai.
For another, one can hardly forget not merely that India has the world's second largest population but also that the Nepal Terai borders Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the two most populous states in India.
Sometimes, smug arguments are heard about liberal immigration policies in countries, say, such as the United States and Canada which are huge territorially, have small populations as compared to their expanse, a low birth rate but whose appetite for cheap labour is virtually boundless. Is Nepal is such a position?
On the other hand, let us not forget that there are countries such as Japan, much admired around the world, which does not grant citizenship even to those born in Japan, if the mother is married to a non-Japanese. As the Himalayan Times stated in a recent editorial (surprise, surprise): "if all the Nepalis emigrated southwards, or northwards, the population increase would be just about two percent but if only two percent of the population of either poured into Nepal, its population would double, creating a demographic upheaval.
FLAWED CRITERIA
Besides, since none can guarantee the accuracy of electoral rolls, citizenship should not be granted merely on that basis. After all, as Bipin Adhikari reminds us in an opinion piece in the Kathmandu Post, the anti-foreigner campaign in India's state of Assam during the late 1970s and early 1980s protested the presence of hundreds of thousands of illegal Bangaldeshis in electoral rolls in Assam.
If that was the sorry state of affairs in Assam then, why should one assume it is different here now, not least given the endemic corruption, less than robust policing capabilities and a weak or non-existent documentation system?
To quote another example from Adhikari's write-up, recall that the Indian Supreme Court issued an order in April 2002 that maintains that "foreigners may not claim the right of Indian citizenship on the ground that they are enrolled in voter lists, have ration cards and that they have been living in India for a long time."
If Nepal is not to be swamped with a deluge of foreigners armed with Nepalese citizenship certificates in the near future, the fine print and the haste with which the government has apparently bulldozed through must be thoroughly debated before genuine Nepalese are placed on the endangered species list.
Incidentally, the same irrational haste and lack of proper study comes across in the Kathmandu Post's editorial lauding the government decision which – in that paper's learned view – would bring a "great sigh of relief for over 40 million" (repeat, forty million) as the "historic decision to embrace the 40 million people (again, the same figure) will definitely make them to take part in reconsolidating the national integrity and unity."
Need one remind the Post that with Nepal's current population estimated at around 25 million, an infusion of "40 million" with dubious claims to citizenship is hardly likely to reconsolidate either national integrity or national unity.
Its unseemly rush to please the powers that be has, like that of the government, been severely blemished by a blatant disregard of the demographic and other facts on the ground.
But, then, such is the very essence of today's "loktantrik" Nepal!
By M.R. Josse
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0609/S00205.htm
Minister Hridesh Tripathy of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi) was in an understandably exultant mood the other day. Then, speaking at a public forum, he confidently predicted that the House of Representatives (HoR) would unanimously approve the draft bill on citizenship that the government adopted and intends to table with a view to amending the Citizenship Act 1964.
Tripathy proclaimed that when that happened "everyone" would acquire citizenship, thereby solving the citizenship problem once and for all. He explained to his audience that the HoR would immediately nullify Article 8 and 9 of the present Constitution that hinders the passage of a new law that would in effect provide the right of citizenship to a teeming mass of individuals in the Terai, estimated at around 4 million.
To be noted, too, is that the party, among others, desires that new citizenship certificates be distributed in the Terai with such dispatch that all would have it in their hands – before the proposed elections for the constituent assembly the date for which has not been announced, thus far.
In other words, here is a case of double jeopardy: first sweepingly liberal criteria matched with certificates dished out with super-express speed!
EXULTANT
Since the Sadbhavana Party has been amongst the most vocal in demanding a revision in citizenship laws to empower the 4 million or so it claims has been unrightfully denied, it is easy to understand Tripathy's sense of political victory.
Other voices, however, are not quite as upbeat. For, among other things, they argue –rightly, in my opinion – that the new criteria for eligibility would open a floodgate. That would result in not only a drastic transformation in the basic demographic character of Nepal but could, in a few short decades, even render genuine Nepalese a minority in their own land.
Who doesn't know that it has become something of a national sport to flay the panchayat era's reservations with respect to granting en masse citizenship especially in the Terai that shares a long open border with India? Yet, very much less is said of the fact that the several democratic governments that followed in the wake of the 1990 Change did nothing about fundamentally altering the panchayat-era situation, in that regard. One however suspects that there must have been good reasons for their caution in the first decade of multi-party governance.
Before going any further into this discourse, it may now be recalled that under extraneous pressure – need one be more explicit and mention the source? – a Nepali Congress government in 2000 attempted to overturn the status quo on the Terai citizenship front.
It is salutary to remind ourselves that when they went down that slippery path, they did so by attempting to make desired changes embedded or camouflaged in a finance bill.
Though it was passed by the HoR it was roundly rejected in the Upper House. In those circumstances the late King Birendra had no constitutional option but to refer it to the Supreme Court which in turn stymied the government's attempt to alter the existing citizenship laws through in such a fashion.
What seems to have changed in the interregnum is that the Maoist insurgency provided the momentum to the lurch towards en masse citizenship rights in the Terai. That it did, among other things, by encouraging political groupings in the Terai to work for an autonomous region.
Against the backdrop of envisaged elections for a constituency assembly to write a new constitution, it would now appear that the government has attempted to pull the rug from under the Maoists' feet by being more revolutionary than the rebels.
To be noted is that the bill approved by the government and now being readied for passage in parliament has been timed BEFORE the Maoists join an interim government. In other words, it would clearly seem that the intention of the constituent parties forming the government is to claim credit for the same – and hopefully translate the expected satisfaction among the newly enfranchised citizens of the Terai into valuable votes for their respective parties.
Even without going into the nitty-gritty of the proposed law, it is shocking that there is a provision that, in the absence of relevant documents proving birth in Nepal or residence since 15 April 1989 or even being including in electoral rolls, acquiring three bonafide Nepalese citizens' recommendations in that regard would be adequate!
It hardly requires any great imagination to assume that anyone, not merely an Indian national, could easily coax/bribe his/her way into citizenship.
The above is not, of course, to argue that genuine cases for citizenship – whether in the Terai or elsewhere in the country – should not get their due right to citizenship without hassles.
It is merely to point out that, one, it is simply suicidal to adopt a blanket policy of citizenship, merely for the asking, not least given the geo-political setting of the Terai, cheek-by-jowl to the open Nepal-India border and the fact that, over the years, there has been a constant flow of immigrants from India into Nepal, particularly in the Terai.
For another, one can hardly forget not merely that India has the world's second largest population but also that the Nepal Terai borders Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the two most populous states in India.
Sometimes, smug arguments are heard about liberal immigration policies in countries, say, such as the United States and Canada which are huge territorially, have small populations as compared to their expanse, a low birth rate but whose appetite for cheap labour is virtually boundless. Is Nepal is such a position?
On the other hand, let us not forget that there are countries such as Japan, much admired around the world, which does not grant citizenship even to those born in Japan, if the mother is married to a non-Japanese. As the Himalayan Times stated in a recent editorial (surprise, surprise): "if all the Nepalis emigrated southwards, or northwards, the population increase would be just about two percent but if only two percent of the population of either poured into Nepal, its population would double, creating a demographic upheaval.
FLAWED CRITERIA
Besides, since none can guarantee the accuracy of electoral rolls, citizenship should not be granted merely on that basis. After all, as Bipin Adhikari reminds us in an opinion piece in the Kathmandu Post, the anti-foreigner campaign in India's state of Assam during the late 1970s and early 1980s protested the presence of hundreds of thousands of illegal Bangaldeshis in electoral rolls in Assam.
If that was the sorry state of affairs in Assam then, why should one assume it is different here now, not least given the endemic corruption, less than robust policing capabilities and a weak or non-existent documentation system?
To quote another example from Adhikari's write-up, recall that the Indian Supreme Court issued an order in April 2002 that maintains that "foreigners may not claim the right of Indian citizenship on the ground that they are enrolled in voter lists, have ration cards and that they have been living in India for a long time."
If Nepal is not to be swamped with a deluge of foreigners armed with Nepalese citizenship certificates in the near future, the fine print and the haste with which the government has apparently bulldozed through must be thoroughly debated before genuine Nepalese are placed on the endangered species list.
Incidentally, the same irrational haste and lack of proper study comes across in the Kathmandu Post's editorial lauding the government decision which – in that paper's learned view – would bring a "great sigh of relief for over 40 million" (repeat, forty million) as the "historic decision to embrace the 40 million people (again, the same figure) will definitely make them to take part in reconsolidating the national integrity and unity."
Need one remind the Post that with Nepal's current population estimated at around 25 million, an infusion of "40 million" with dubious claims to citizenship is hardly likely to reconsolidate either national integrity or national unity.
Its unseemly rush to please the powers that be has, like that of the government, been severely blemished by a blatant disregard of the demographic and other facts on the ground.
But, then, such is the very essence of today's "loktantrik" Nepal!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)