Citizenship from the dictionary gives the meaning that it is a legally recognized subject or national of a state or common wealth, either native or naturalized. And legally, no single ordinary person possesses to handle citizenship of more than one country. In simple sense, a child born in Nepal is called Nepalese and he should be granted with Nepalese citizenship! But is it happening so? Still, there are thousands of Nepalese who were born in Nepal deprived of citizenship.
It’s not my writing to explain who should get citizenship and who should not, but all I wanted to do is make the reader analyze how fair system we have. Let me give few examples. A friend of mine, born in Biratnagar whose father was abroad since last ten years tried to get citizenship from his mother’s name, but they asked for father! Let’s look at other, if a couple get’s away without divorce, like if husband goes away and never returns back the wife obviously won’t have the death certificate of her husband. Now can her child issue citizenship or not? Although the written norms exists, but how effective are they? Bhutanese refugee have been living in Eastern part of Nepal since really a long time, by this time there must have been many child who took birth in Nepal itself, now will they get citizenship or not? If yes, how difficult it is and why is there the difficulty? Now let’s look at the other part, it’s known that there exists maximum Nepalese in places like Darjeeling and Sikkim. They call themselves Nepali owning Indian Citizenship, but has any one seriously analyzed the fact that even many of them possess Nepalese citizenship all because their previous generation too possess Nepalese citizenship. More than that, at the time of CA Poll, when citizenship was made a compulsion many non Nepalese people, especially from the places having boarder with India in the south took the citizenship with their cleaver, bribery, and sources.
The two examples I provided is to show the differences between how easily non Nepalese got and are getting citizenship and how difficult the true Nepalese are facing to get a citizenship. Those people having dual citizenship obviously doesn’t know the value of citizenship but ask those Nepalese who really lack Nepalese citizenship the value of it. They don’t get the job all because they lack citizenship, they can’t go abroad just because they lack the citizenship. They face trouble in getting education even in Nepal just because they lack citizenship! It’s not again possible for the Government to look after every couple who give birth in Nepal or not, but the Government must really be conscious while providing the citizenship because if Government ignores an important issue like this, it’s the most shameful thing that the country is doing. Citizenship is the legal form of showing an identification after all. We feel proud to say Prasant Tamang a Nepali singer, and I do remember huge amount of funds collected in Nepal for his vote, just because he can speak Nepali and is from Nepali origin. We forgot the fact that he possesses Indian citizenship and that legally proves him Indian after all and I still remember Namrata Shrestha having tough time in collecting the huge fund just for the treatment of Kumar Kancha. At this time when the dual citizenship for Non Resident Nepalese is getting a coverage issue, would it be fair to issue them or to maintain the right justice within the prevailing system? Only if fair citizenship could be allowed, there would be lot of skilled people at right positions today. New drafting constitution should clearly define the meaning and the basic elements that is required to be a citizen of Nepal and should adopt the fair citizenship providing policy. Let someone who has never been to Nepal not be with Nepalese citizenship but those who took birth and is living in Nepal be granted with the citizenship.
PUBLISHED IN THE NEW PAPER FEB 12 2012
