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After the low of the 2015-16 blockade, Nepal-India ties have again hit rock bottom following the latest disputes over some 372 sq km of land on the border abutting the Kali River. India built a road through the Lipulekh Pass without consulting Nepal. It has also been stationing its army at Kalapani since the early 1950s, purportedly to monitor Chinese movements in Tibet. The latest disputes came to a head when the Indian army chief pooh-poohed Nepal’s claim over Kalapani and Lipulekh, saying that they fall entirely within India, and accused Nepal of raising the issue at China’s behest.

Yet most Nepalis, and their government, are as angry with China as they are with India. They think China should not have allowed India to unilaterally build the road on what China considers a tri-junction between Nepal, India and China. Even worse, did the road have Chinese blessing, they suspect? After Nepal published a new national map incorporating all the disputed territories, China said it hoped both Nepal and India would stop all unilateral activities. It added the dispute over the Kalapani region in particular is entirely up to Nepal and India to settle.

Says Lin Minwang, Professor at Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, who closely follows China’s South Asia policy, “India has territorial issues with all its neighboring countries, and has always insisted on a tough position on territorial disputes, which is not conducive to a stable and peaceful environment.” Instead of solving its outstanding issues with Nepal, he added, India is trying to deflect the blame by accusing China of instigating the protests in Nepal.

The bargain India and China struck in 2015 while deciding to open trading via Lipulekh is still shrouded in secrecy. There is a suspicion in Nepal that since India offers China huge markets at its doorstep, Beijing will silently support India’s bid to link the two regional giants, including through passes like Lipulekh. China will have to do a lot to dispel this doubt in the days ahead.

Nepal-India EPG member Surya Nath Upadhyay thinks as Nepal has in the past supported China in difficult times, Nepal can expect reciprocal support. “We should not hesitate to seek active support of China to resolve the Lipulekh dispute. Without pressure from China, India will not agree to its resolution.”

But as the instigator of the current dispute and as the party that has been reluctant to settle Kalapani for many decades, the onus lies on India to create a conducive climate for Nepal-India talks. Ultimately, a workable solution will have to come through dialogue; there is no other way out. Meanwhile, we hope high-ranking officials in both Nepal and India, and their influential voices in the media and the society, refrain from making incendiary remarks to further complicate the situation. Here is a chance for India to prove its Nepal ties are indeed special.

Following the lead of other urban areas in the country, schools and colleges in Inaruwa municipality of the eastern Nepali district of Sunsari have also started running online classes. But this municipality of around 65,000 people is poorly equipped for it. There is no reason to believe it can effectively run or sustain online classes.

Dipesh Dhakal, an accounts teacher at the local Janak Smriti Secondary School, doubts the feasibility of online classes. He himself runs a few online classes for his students every week, and is unhappy with the outcome. “The main problem is the internet. Nepal Telecom is under government possession and yet charges heavily. The speed is also not good enough to handle online classes,” Dhakal rues.

For one thing, Inaruwa lacks stable internet connection. Worldlink and Y Zone, the two major internet service providers (ISPs) in the area, have only just started optical fiber-based internet.

Next, measured against the average income of the people here, the ISPs are charging too much. A high-speed connection is expensive even during normal times. Now under a lockdown, buying an internet package has become harder still. Worldlink charges Rs 5,000 for three months, or Rs 15,000 a year, for a 25Mbps package (unlimited), the most common household package. Dhakal says many people in the rural areas in and around Inaruwa simply can’t afford them.

Worldlink local representatives refrain from commenting on the rates and service quality. When pressed, they answer that, “everything is mentioned on our website.” The other local ISP, Y Zone, too, refuses to comment.

One option for students is to buy mobile data, but that is even more expensive. The two major data sellers, Nepal Telecom and Ncell, have packages that are costlier than those provided by the ISPs. Moreover, their packages are designed for social media use on mobile phones, not for full-fledged online video classes. A Zoom Cloud meeting consumes anywhere between 500 MB to 2 GB of data an hour—and thus not feasible for mobile phones. Also, there is shortage of top-up cards for mobile SIMs during the lockdown, and online top-up is not a convenient method for most people.

Most students of schools and colleges in Inaruwa come from adjoining villages, where the quality of the internet is worse still. It is impossible for them to take part in online classes. Villages in the surrounding Ramdhuni-Bhasi Municipality and Koshi Rural Municipality don’t have broadband internet.

Problems don’t stop there. While most college students may have smartphones with limited mobile data, lower secondary or primary-level students rarely have them. And students from the villages don’t have laptops to take advantage of online classes. As a result, only about half of the students show up in the few classes that are being run online.

“There are 50 students in my class, but only 25-30 join the online Zoom meeting,” says Karlos Shrestha, a grade-9 student at Janak Smriti Secondary School. “My friends from villages cannot join because it is difficult to do so on a mobile phone. And they don’t have laptops.”

As a result, only a few schools and a handful of faculties of colleges are running online classes in Sunsari district. Yet those few benefiting from them are excited. “These things are new, and hence excite many students,” says Dhakal, the accounts teacher. “Yet online classes will be fruitful only with a wider participation.”

Shrestha, the student, thinks difficult subjects like mathematics can be interesting to learn online with the use of all education outlets at the teacher’s disposal. “We get our homework, and submit them, through email. Sometimes we get assignments where we have to memorize stuff,” he adds. “As everything is new, we sometimes face new difficulties.”

The excitement of a handful of students aside, most schools are struggling to run even traditional classes with their limited resources. It is beyond their capacity to arrange online classes. As there is no way of predicting the length of the lockdown, teachers cannot work towards developing online curriculum and gathering teaching material accordingly. Hence only a few higher secondary schools and undergraduate colleges are running online classes.

Nimesh Bhattarai, a BTech student at Sunsari Multiple Campus, says he finds online classes ineffective. “Our college has started online classes. But there is no real teaching, and even less understanding,” he says. Bhattarai adds that the best way to explain difficult topics is still face-to-face communication in front of a real classroom.

Interested in books? You may want to be a part of this Facebook group then.

bOOkahOlics, a Nepali Facebook group established in 2011, has become increasingly popular among the lovers of books and literature. With 15,000 members, it is a platform to explore reading and writing. Entry to bOOkahOlics is open for all. With apparently no vested interest and profit-making motive, the group conducts various events to enhance the reading culture, and to connect readers with writers. 

Saguna Shah, the founder of bOOkahOlics, proudly recalls the days of the group’s infancy. She, along with some of her friends, including contemporary writer Anupam Pokharel—author of ‘Rumi’ and ‘Sadguru’, among others—started the group to encourage reading. Gradually, readers and writers started connecting and the group grew.

The unique spelling of the group’s name immediately catches your attention. “Yes, the three O’s in the name is meant to be catchy. It has now become our identity,” says Shah. The group’s slogan? ‘Reading is not optional.’ Indeed.

With time many literary figures joined the platform and discussions became more regular and vibrant. In 2014, the group, in coordination with Nepal’s noted research institute Martin Chautari, conducted its first Chakati Bahas (cushion dialogue), which continues till date.

The popular Chakati Bahas is held at Martin Chautari, Thapathali, on the first Friday of every English month. Members gather around to discuss, evaluate, and comment on a literary work, particularly a book. The meeting focuses on thematic discussion and comparative evaluation.

Apart from nurturing the reading culture, bOOkahOlics team occasionally comes forward to help the community. After the 2015 earthquakes, they provided books, stationery, and sports items to needy school children.

During the lockdown, the group has been organizing online poem competitions and Shrasta Sanga Sakshyatkar (‘face-to-face with the author’), virtually. Ganesh Karki, an admin who also coordinates events, says over 400 poets take part in the poem competition on an average.

In Shrasta Sanga Sakshyatkar, every day a literary figure is invited for a live Facebook session. Karki says the event has been helpful in connecting readers with writers. Among those invited are Madan Puraskar winners Krishna Dharabasi and Yuvaraj Nayaghare.

“bOOkahOlics can be exceptionally helpful in helping you find suitable Nepali books, and even international ones,” says Dharabasi, a 2005 Madan Puraskar winner.

There are dozens of posts each day. “The kind of response we have been getting, we can say that people do like to read,” says Karki.

Members and followers talk about the inspiration they get from the group. “bOOkahOlics has made me fond of reading during the lockdown,” says Bishab Pokharel, 22, who is studying computer engineering in India. For Kathmandu-based IT student Dipesh Dhakal, 20, the platform is like a well-stocked library.

As many as 600,000 Nepali migrant workers stranded in the Gulf countries and Malaysia due to the Covid-19 pandemic want to return home. This is in addition to perhaps even more of them who want to reenter their country from neighboring India. Many of them have already lost their jobs while others too await the termination of their contracts. 

According to a preliminary government report, around 500,000 Nepali migrant workers—mainly from the five Gulf countries of Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman—want to return immediately. Even among them, around 100,000 need urgent rescue. But the federal government is yet to come up with a solid repatriation plan. 

“The way I see it, evacuating migrant workers stranded abroad is going to be a bigger challenge than fighting Covid-19 at home,” says Arjun Kanta Mainali, a former joint secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who closely followed the Gulf region while at the ministry. “The government’s first duty is to find out the exact number of people who want to return, or have no other option after losing their jobs. If necessary, we can send a fact-finding mission to those countries,” says Mainali. Without finding out the actual number, he adds, the government will struggle to come up with a credible plan on evacuation, quarantine, and social reintegration of those workers.

Nepal issues work permits for 130 countries. Almost two-thirds of those with work permits end up in Malaysia or in the Gulf countries. Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, who is in regular contact with Nepali missions abroad, accepts that Nepali migrant workers abroad are facing severe hardships due to the corona pandemic—and the situation could get worse.

Speaking at a parliamentary committee meeting on May 6, Gyawali said preliminary assessment showed “10-30 percent Nepali migrant workers are likely to lose their jobs.” In the past decade, Nepal issued over 3.5 million labor permits. (Nepali workers don’t need permits to work in India.)

Herculean task

The main problems Nepali workers are facing relate to expiry of visa, termination of job contracts, and legal problems arising from visa expiry. Nepal is looking to buy time. Prime Minister KP Oli and Foreign Minister Gyawali are trying to persuade their counterparts in Gulf countries to delay the return of migrant workers. “We cannot evacuate all those who want to return at once, so we have to give priority to those in crisis,” says former government secretary Purna Chandra Bhattarai who worked in the Labor Ministry for a long time.

The first challenge is to arrange their return flights with the state’s limited financial resources. As all stranded migrant workers cannot pay for their tickets, the government will have to pitch in for them. It will also have to hire foreign airlines to airlift them. It will also be a time-consuming process. As the number of workers in Gulf countries and Malaysia is very high, it could take months to complete evacuation even if the task were to start now. “Coming up with a comprehensive repatriation plan is thus difficult without thorough discussions with all the concerned stakeholders,” says Bhattarai. 

The second challenge is arranging quarantine facilities for those who return. Local governments can help arrange quarantine facilities, but they are short on resources. They are asking for cash from the federal government, which in turn is struggling to meet their demand as it too is under considerable financial pressure. As local units have struggled to quarantine and monitor even a handful of people up until now, it is hard to imagine them handling hundreds of returning migrants. 

“Let us say that we as a country are thoroughly unprepared,” says Mainali. Even in the case the Nepali workers are not immediately sent back by their host countries, they will surely come when international air travel resumes. “It’s not like we have an option of not taking back our people,” he adds.  

Scary numbers

The top nine destinations for Nepali migrant workers, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are Malaysia (700,000), Saudi Arabi (400,000), Qatar (365,000), the UAE (250,000), Kuwait (70,000), South Korea (40,000), Bahrain (25,000), Oman (20,000), and Israel (3,000). 

Although there is no official estimate of the number of Nepali migrant workers in India, a report by the South Asian Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SWATEE) says that it could be as high as 2.8 million. Thousands of Nepali migrant workers go to various parts of India as seasonal migrant workers. Thousands more work in the hospitality sector. Many of them could lose their jobs. 

Creating jobs for those who return will be another big challenge. According to Nepal Labor Force Survey 2018, there are approximately 20.7 million working-age people in the country. Of them, over half are believed to be working in the informal sector. An estimated 500,000 people enter the Nepali labor market annually. Before the onset of the corona crisis, as per the Finance Ministry’s 2018-19 economic survey, the government was planning on transferring unproductive surplus labor force from “agriculture… to service sectors including industry, trade, tourism, education and health.”

With the decimation of these other sectors due to the corona pandemic, the government has been forced into a U-turn, as it now plans on a massive expansion of the agriculture labor force. The hope is that revitalization of agriculture will soak up Nepal’s surplus labor as well as many of the returning migrants. Yet the agriculture plan is short on specifics. 

This lack of seriousness could be costly. It is hard to foresee the socio-economic and political consequences of the state’s failure to adequately integrate the mass of returning migrant workers.