The citizenship amendment act paves the way for thousands of stateless Nepalis to become citizens, but women continue to be considered second-class citizens
Fijikaran and Sikkimikaran—these two terms encapsulate the fear among Nepali nationalists with respect to India and its intentions towards Nepal. The terms have their roots in the Panchayat era in the country when anti-Indian sentiment was cultivated by the royal family and ruling elite of Nepal. Fijikaran refers to the shifts in demography as seen in the islands of Fiji, where Indian labourers were once indentured to the sugarcane fields by British colonialists and subsequently acquired political power after generations of Indian settlers in the islands. On the other hand, Sikkimikaran refers to the incorporation of the once-Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim into the Union of India in 1975.
Nepali conservatives fear that due to the open border between Nepal and India, and the close familial relations between the bordering districts on both sides, Nepal’s demography—and political power—will substantially shift towards Indian migrants in the Madhes, as a result of which Delhi will succeed in turning Nepal into another Indian state, just as it did with Sikkim. Little attention is paid to the demographic history of Sikkim or Fiji. It was British colonialism that encouraged Indian settlers in Fiji in the same way that it encouraged Nepali migrants to settle in the eastern Himalaya, leading to the demographic change. This change gave rise to the Nepali-origin politician Kaji Lhendup Dorje seeking greater rights and representation from the Sikkim chogyal, resulting in the eventual Indian military action that turned Sikkim into an Indian state.
The terms have their roots in the Panchayat era in the country when anti-Indian sentiment was cultivated by the royal family and ruling elite of Nepal.Dorje’s name has today become synonymous with treachery among Nepali nationalists, with any Nepali individual seen to be aligned with the interests of the Madhes—and India, by extension—labelled as such. Recently, President Ram Chandra Paudel was labelled as such by former Bollywood actor Manisha Koirala after he signed off on the contentious citizenship amendment bill on the eve of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’s India visit, saying it’s ‘not difficult to think why he was given this chair’—alluding to Indian support towards his presidency. Koirala’s social media fury summarised conservative opposition to the amendments. Nepal’s citizenship laws have been contentious since the day the 2015 Constitution was opened up for discussion in the Parliament and promulgated despite protests. Much of the discussion around the citizenship laws and the amendment has revolved around the larger political paranoia against India, the disenfranchisement of a large group of citizens who were rendered stateless due to the law, and the deep schisms between the hill elite and the Madhesis of the plains. It was assumed that revising the laws would address these issues. But even the amended law continues to discriminate against Nepali women–giving Nepal the dubious distinction of being one of the 27 countries in the world which officially limits women’s ability to pass on citizenship to their families.
A group of citizens whose parents possessed citizenship by birth could get citizenship by descent as per the provision.The same act also stipulated that a person whose either parent was a Nepali citizen at the time of their birth was granted citizenship by descent. However, another clause superseded this provision by stating that ‘persons born to Nepali mothers and foreign fathers could only acquire a naturalised citizenship certificate’, which prevented children of single mothers and those whose fathers refused to acknowledge their relations from obtaining citizenship documents. The 2015 Constitution implemented a number of changes in citizenship laws, some of which were more regressive than the 2006 Act. A new provision was drafted under which both parents were required to be Nepali citizens for a person to acquire citizenship by descent. The Constitution also envisaged a discriminatory outlook towards Nepali women in multiple ways. As Nepali author Manjushree Thapa wrote when the Constitution was promulgated, ‘Not only can women not confer citizenship to their children independently of men, the children of Nepali women and foreign men will be barred from high office. No such restriction applies to the children of Nepali men married to foreign women. And Nepali men can, as ever, confer citizenship to their children independently of women.’ With such outright inequality between the sexes and a large number of stateless people, especially in the Madhes, it was no wonder that Nepal saw protests against existing citizenship rules. As such, amendments to the act were introduced in Parliament in 2018, but the proposed amendment turned controversial after the then Nepal Communist Party members inserted a seven-year waiting period for foreign women to acquire Nepali citizenship after marrying a Nepali man. The bill was subsequently withdrawn after protests by the Nepali Congress and Madhes-based parties against the waiting period. A revised bill was submitted in Parliament in July 2022, which removed the waiting period for matrimonial naturalised citizenship for women.
A new provision was drafted under which both parents were required to be Nepali citizens for a person to acquire citizenship by descent.The revised bill was passed by both houses of Parliament, but then President Bidya Bhandari refused to endorse the bill twice. After the 2022 general elections, President Ram Chandra Paudel endorsed the bill in its existing form after a recommendation by the Cabinet. Although a Supreme Court judge issued an interim order to not implement the amended act, resulting in new protests demanding otherwise in which one stateless individual tried to self-immolate, the interim order was dismissed by another bench, paving the way for stateless Nepalis to acquire citizenship finally.
One line of argument suggests since India has a seven-year waiting period for foreign spouses to become naturalised citizens, the same rules should be applied in Nepal.While questions have been raised over whether President Ram Chandra Paudel was within his constitutional rights to approve a bill that was agreed upon by the previous Parliament, much of the opposition around the amendment has centred around the clause that matrimonial naturalised citizenship can be acquired as soon as the foreign woman gives up her original citizenship. It is on the basis of this clause that parties such as the UML, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) have protested the bill in Parliament, who believe such a clause opens up the door to Fijikaran in Nepal (and its eventual Sikkimikaran). This clause is why Koirala and others like her believe President Paudel approved the bill to please India. One line of argument suggests since India has a seven-year waiting period for foreign spouses to become naturalised citizens, the same rules should be applied in Nepal. But as commentators have pointed out, India does not discriminate between foreign spouses of different sexes as Nepal does. In any case, the comparison vis-á-vis India makes it clear discriminatory citizenship laws target historical familial relationships between families in the Madhes and on the Indian side of the border, and are explicitly designed to prevent the Madhes from acquiring political power if the demographic shift as Nepali nationalists perceive will happen because of such laws. The more insidious element in the amended citizenship act is that it continues to regard Nepali women as second-class citizens. Firstly, Nepali women can only pass on citizenship to their children if they meet four conditions: “They must have been born in Nepal; they must be residing in Nepal; the father of the child is either ‘unidentified’ or ‘untraceable’; and they must officially declare that the father is ‘unidentified’ or ‘untraceable’.” Secondly, a foreign man married to a Nepali woman cannot acquire Nepali citizenship by any means—another blatant discrimination between the sexes by the Nepali state. Finally, ‘A child born to a Nepali woman and a foreign man can only receive naturalised citizenship… This is not the case for children born to Nepali men with a non-Nepali spouse. They will automatically receive citizenship by descent.’ This discrimination stems from what scholars have noted as the patriarchal nature of the Nepali state which ‘draw
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Amish Raj Mulmi is the author of All Roads Lead North: Nepal's Turn to China (Context/Hurst/Oxford University Press). He has written for Carnegie Endowment for ...
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