Transformation of Madhesh

Transformation of Madhesh Region from Agriculture Grain Store House to Foreign Labour Store House: A Ground Reality

Umesh Kumar Mandal

Lecturer

Central Department of Geography

Tribhuvan University, kirtipur

E-mail: umesh_jee @hotmail.com

Madhesh Region occupied 49 % of total cultivable land within the small geographical extent (17%) considerably seen high as compared to Hill (40%) and Mountain (11%) which occupies 67% and 20 % of total geographical area respectively. Even though the role of Madhesh economy has been dominant in share of providing national GDP, people employment and agro-based industries, Madhesh Development in Nepal has been suppressed intentionally by planners, policy makers, rulers as well as political party leaders since ancient time. Consequently Nepal where agriculture as the backbone of economy, was food surplus country till 1970's but now it has been a food deficit and its share to national GDP is also declining. In Madhesh where more cultivated land is found, 30.8 % households don't have own land for cultivation and this figure shows remarkably high as compared to hill(20.6%) , high mountain(7.5 %) and the country as whole(24.4 %). Since ancient time, Madhesh was known as source area of food grain production for the deficit areas of the country while there was less population and more resources because of no migration from hill to terai. But the scenario has been changed with the time and space and it has been suffering not only from vicious environmental problems such as flood hazard, desertification of agriculture land, drought, population pressure, decreasing agricultural productivity, settlement fire etc but also from the diplomacy and strategy of existing governments of different political parties that they didn't pay in the past and still not paying the positive attention for the proper utilization and management of natural and human resources in Madhesh Region i.e. Agriculture and Madheshi Youth and their rational involvement and participation in main stream of national development.

The major challenges for the Madhesh region is that there is rapid population growth due to migration in one side and the productivity of agriculture sector has been drastically decreased due to natural disasters such as flood and soil erosion , shrinking of fertile lack and particularly due to lack of proper agricultural policy and strategy on the other side. It is evident from the fact that population in Madhesh Region has been increased 4.3 times during the 1952/54-2001 considerably high, as compared to 2.8 times of the country's total population as whole during the same period due to migration from the economically depressed highlands to the low lands as a spatial adjustment between population and resource. These two emerging situations have created the excess demographic pressure on agriculture and then Madheshi unemployment problem because agriculture is alone sectoring that absorbs the excess Madheshi youth. It is nationally well known fact that there is very little chance for the Madheshi in the inclusion of government civil services, military army, public administration and judiciary and national legislature. It is not because of the incapability of Madheshi but because of the vested interest of hill diplomats, elite and politicians occasionally made the statement regarding the incapable of Madheshi in international public media also. Madhesh is also seen to be excluded in the participatory representation in various levels of decisions for the formulation of policy, program and strategy of their own agriculture development in Madhesh Region. The input and infrastructure facilities deficit agriculture also does not have carrying capacity for providing increasing human choices and desire for food, fiber and fuel for the pro-poor and poor people living in Madhesh region.

For the ever growing population comparatively more in comparison to remaining ecological regions: Hill and Mountain, there is no alternative besides going aboard for the employment as an international labour force in different gulf countries. Madheshi in Madhesh are forced to spend their productive and constructive lives in unsafe place with various problems of overseas countries for their poor families who are facing starvation, health problem, social exclusion in their native place i.e. Madhesh, because the government has not been conducting any projects and programmes of generating employment in non-agriculture and off-farm sector and modernization and diversification of agriculture sector by constructing hard and soft infrastructures and brining them into the main stream of national development. As per the international labour migration concern, it has been mentioned that Nepal establishes its status as a labour sending country in the 21^st century and Madhesh region supports this reality

Development planners and policy makers are not much aware of the rural livelihood strategies of Madhesh population, their prominent characteristics and spatial variation of labour migration trend even though it covers half of total country's population in narrow belt of spatial extent. For the understanding of these striking issues of Madhesh Region, an empirical research has been carried out by the writer himself in some of areas of the Madhesh region and the fact found that 30 percent to 70 percent out of the total households in the research areas of Madhesh Region have been found as the foreign labour migrants' households and from these households 1 to 4 family members particularly youth have been migrated to foreign countries such as Malaysia, Dubai, Qatar, Jordon, Kuwait and India etc for solving their hands to mouth problems of dependent family in native origin. Such labour migrants and their family are extremely exploited by the manpower and the informal financial intuitions by taking the high annual interest rate ranging from 25 percent to 60 percent for the foreign labour migration loan. The poor migrant households are compelled to take the loan from them at high interest rate due to unavailability of loan from government financial set up such as and bank. Foreign labour migration requires more than one hundred thousand that has to be paid to the agents and then manpower company in Kathamandu. Migrants' households and migrants themselves reported during the field survey that even though three years work agreement was made earlier before going aboard but due to fail in medical re-check, sudden close of company without pre-information to Nepalese manpower and then Manpower to labour, low salary than agreed contracted and risk and painful work, they had to return back their own place against their bright hopes and wishes kept at the time of going aboard.

Dependent migrant's family are themselves realizing the fact that even though there is no much upliftment in socio-economic standard of lives in sustainable way, but they are getting remittance for solving some of the food problems and sending their children to school and long standing suffered patients to the hospital. One of the remarkable facts has been noticed that the foreign labour migrants who has to return back before completing three years from foreign working place within the two to twelve months, they have to become landless from land and homeless from the home because of submitting all foreign amount earned as the principal and its heavy interest to the money lender. It has been reported that the manpower who demanded more than one hundred thousand from labour, has the job responsibility only to sending the labours from the international airport, Tribhuvan Airport rather than fulfilling the agreements made earlier for the industries and factory in aboard. The foreign manpower and factories are having their own rules and regulations related to labour salary, facilities different from the agreed contracted in Nepal. Such manpower and companies exploit the Nepalese labour in monthly salary, overtime, accommodation, medical insurance and plane fare.

Madhesh as Grain store house that was the earlier thought of hill planning experts since early stage of greater Nepal formation as one of their national agenda, has been gradually converting into the labour store house for the foreign manpower companies and countries. Active and productive Madheshi Youth have been spending their bright full lives in foreign soil, people and painful works due to the uncertainty of agricultural production in their native place and Madheshi unemployment problem in this region that have been resulted from the unplanned agriculture development and basically from monopolistic thought of hill dominated policy makers and political parties towards the Madhesh Development. This fact, we all have to understand and should be taken as striking challenge particularly for the three-year interim planners.

Madhesi Youths are bound to spend their productive lives in foreign countries, even though the Madhesh region having the fertile land is capable to support the food grain to all Nepalese citizens. It is result of discriminated thought and exploited policy with regard to support the production hardware and software facilities and infrastructures and agriculture development policy interventions for Madhesh. Agriculture in Madhesh as a lifeline of the country, the present collaborative government has to formulate madhesh and production friendly policy and strategy and their successful strong implementation of rules, regulations and acts against the geo-political exploiter of Madhesh Region. At last it is strongly emphasized the necessity of green revolution on Madhesh agriculture and livestock sector for the optimum management of human and natural resources of Madhesh Region for the substantial reduction of existing ongoing haphazard labor migration to abroad.

The End

Violence in Madhesh

Truth about disparities & violence
3 Jun, 2007 l 0115 hrs ISTlSwaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar/TIMES NEWS NETWORK

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The prime minister says that if we do not check stark inequalities, we will face social upheaval and violence. Now, we should try and reduce inequalities on moral grounds alone. Why gild the lily by invoking a Marxist vision of class revolution that has repeatedly proved false? Violence in India is almost entirely sectarian, based on religion, region, caste or tribe. It is rarely based on class.

Even as the prime minister held forth, Rajasthan was hit by a violent agitation by Gujjars demanding scheduled-tribe status, while Punjab shuddered under the conflict between the Akalis and Dera Sucha Sauda. Both violent episodes had nothing to do with rich-poor divides, and everything to do with sectarian divides.

Punjab was gripped by a terrible insurgency in 1978-93, which killed thousands and threatened secession. The insurgency occurred in India's richest state. It was led not by the poor but by the richest community, Jat Sikhs.

Leftists (and Economic and Political Weekly) had moaned from the 1960s onward that the Green Revolution had produced huge inequalities in Punjab that would lead to revolution. Rubbish, the spark came from religion, not class divides.
Kashmir is India's most egalitarian state (thanks to Sheikh Abdullah's land reforms in the 1950s). It has by far the lowest poverty ratio in India, just 3.5% in 2000 against the all-India average of 26%. Yet, it has suffered violent insurgency for nearly two decades, in which perhaps 100,000 have died. The strife arises entirely from religion, not class.

The north-east has suffered multiple insurgencies, all based on tribal-regional considerations in Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Assam. In Assam and Tripura, resentment against immigrants from Bangladesh is exacerbated by the fact that many are Muslims.

By contrast, there is no insurgency in dirt-poor areas like northern Madhya Pradesh, eastern and southern UP, or Kalahandi in Orissa.

The Maoist uprising in the central India jungle belt, running from south Bihar to northern Andhra Pradesh, is in part class-based. Certainly, the Maoist Party is a class warrior. Yet, the insurgency is overwhelmingly tribal, based on tribal grievances against outsiders. Had the struggle been based mainly on class, the tribals should have turned against millionaire political leaders like Shibu Soren. In fact, these millionaires continue to be heroes of the tribals.

India has many other kinds of violence falling well short of insurrection. These include Hindu-Muslim conflict, inter-caste conflict, inter-regional conflict, and male-female conflict. These arouse far more passion than class struggle. That explains why the Marxists have generally flopped and survived only as regional parties in West Bengal and Kerala.

International experience shows equally that sectarian passion trumps class struggle any day. Iraq is being ripped apart by Sunni-Shia conflict. Lebanon is once again descending into civil war along religious lines. Africa is replete with tribal conflict. The genocide in Darfur, Sudan, is based on tribe, not class. The earlier genocide in Rwanda and Burundi was also based on tribal conflict. Catholics led the insurrection in Ireland, and Basques in France and Spain.

Tamil insurrection in Sri Lanka is ethnic. The many insurgencies in Indonesia are religious (Muslims in Aceh, Christians in Ambon) or tribal (as in Irian Jaya). The hijackers of 9/11 came not from the poorest countries of central Africa but from rich Saudi Arabia. Revolution in Europe has been attempted by well-off, highly educated groups such as the Baader-Meinhoff gang in Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy.

This should surprise nobody. Skills, organisational ability and money are needed to organise insurrections. These are available with well-off educated revolutionaries, but not the poor. The Dalits have been oppressed for millennia, yet have never organised a revolt.

So, the roots of violence and terror lie in sectarian differences, not income differences. I sometimes regret this: income differences are easier to deal with. But sectarianism cannot be wished away.

I repeat, we should seek to reduce disparities for moral reasons. Does it matter whether we do so for moral or class reasons? Yes, absolutely. Class analysis takes you in the wrong policy direction. It assumes that those prospering today do so at the expense of the poor. This leads to the Indira Gandhi myth that garibi hatao requires amiri hatao draconian taxes and public sector dominance of the economy. In fact, that strategy did not diminish poverty at all.

The landless labourer in Bihar or Orissa is not poor because Goa and Maharashtra are rich states, or because Azim Premji of Wipro has become the richest Indian. The poor are best helped by creating conditions in Bihar and Orissa that rival the best in Bangalore, Mumbai or Goa.

The Bihari labourer is poor because callous governments have failed to provide him with education, infrastructure, physical security or income opportunities, and because the local thanedar and patwari are in cahoots with dominant landowners. Correcting this requires root-and-branch reforms in the bureaucracy, police, schools, and judiciary. But politicians dare not ruffle so many vote banks. They would rather pretend that the problem lies in the riches of progressive states or software industrialists.