A friend of mine forwarded me the following from Nepal Democracy group. I thought it was worthwhile to share it here.
It is about migration. I learnt something from it, though I might not agree with it all.
------
Now, let me put you on the hot seat, since you implied as if we are dishonest people;)
I read a book, very old, more than a century old. It said that if a monkey was on a tree in Kailali, it could reach Biratnagar without ever touching the ground. The whole Terai was so densely jungle, and therefore very sparsely populated. Chitwan, for example, was a hunting reserve of king of Tanahu even before current day Nepal was born.
Description of modern cities also read pretty dismally. Butwal was a small cluster of a few houses--was the description. Hetauda had small houses made by Zorawar Singh.There were erstwhile principalities of Mahottari, Saptari, there were a lot of people in Mithila, but the new cities attracted distinctly two groups of people.
Long ago, I think I read it in a book by Hamilton who visited Nepal in 1803, a group of British took wood from Tarai, and found that those woods were the highest quality wood to make ships. They asked Bahadur Shah to sell the tree, but he set price so high that it was tantamount to the statement, "I don't want to sell." When Ranas came, they didn't need the buffer of Terai, so they started cutting forest. It attracted a lot of Indian migrants, a lot of Indian companies, and in fact, the purpose of our existing railways was to transport the woods. Tarai's population grew from a few lakhs to tens of lakhs.
Here comes Mahendra, who is half Indian. He also is the first king to visit the whole country. (see Tony Hagen's description of why he decided to do so). He finds that pahads are poor, there were no bridges, people walked weeks just to get salt. I have my own relatives who travelled seven days to reach Thori to buy salt, on their way crossing the dense Tarai. For a Gorkhali from Darbung to reach Kerung, the nearest point, to buy salt, it took 2 weeks, and they had to sleep in caves on their way. Those caves were a lot of time also the residences of bears. So you could still see the scarred faces of people.
There is nothing wrong when the king of Nepal thus sees the influx of a lot of Indians to fertile Tarai, and encourages Pahadiyas to go there also. It was forest afterall. What was the population of Terai long ago? 2/3 rd of current day population are most likely from either across the border or from Pahad. Pahadiyas have the rights to move there. It was their own country. The question was not whether they could or not move there, but whether Madhesis were unfairly treated, whether they were discriminated against. Let's make our discussion more cordial by emphasizing that point, not by calling others colonialists.
Now, let's completely reverse this situation.
Now Karnali is not populated. But somehow it happens that the Chinese discover something in Karnali, and start to come in. Suppose they come in flux, grabbing opportunities. What do you do? Be silent, or encourage the rest of the Nepali to move to the north and grab the opportunities?
We must acknowledge one thing: Tarai was better economically than India. Otherwise, our Tarai people would have moved to India and not the other ways. Life in Tarai was definitely better than in India. Why did people stayed there eventhough they had rights (as all Nepali have) to settle in India?
If people were colonialized, suppressed, beaten, murdered or whatever you say, why is that the people from Bihar chose to come to Nepal and not the Madhesi moving the other way?
We are all adept at developing our victimology. It doesn't help an honest discussion. We must focus on
i) how to make sure that Terai remains a prosperous and free society?
ii) How to make sure that Teraians too grow up with the dream that the rest of Nepali see?
iii) How to make sure that a Teraians is not ridiculed by using racial taunt?
iv) How to make sure that a few high caste Brahmins don't monopolize the Teraian resources while low caste Teraians have to live in servitude?
v) How to make sure that opportunity in Terai, along with those in Nepal, are shared by ALL nepalese alike.
vi) Most immediately, how to make sure that racially motivated riots don't occur again?
vii) Teraians have been exploited by their leaders a lot. Not long ago, our own Paramendra Bhagatji welcomed the appointment of Badri Mandal as royalist upa-prime minister, I believe. It doesn't help. A lot of Pahadiyas are more wellwishers of Tarais than some opportunists leaders.
My two cents.
.png)
