English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

Chapter9The forgotten forces:The role of migrants in postconflictstate building1. IntroductionAnita Ghimire 1Bishnu Raj Upreti 2Migration has always been an important socio-economic aspect of Nepalilife. Nepalese have their names as ‘Lahures’ 3 describing their migration forjobs in British and Indian army in previous times. They had been significantto the Nepalese society. This significance was then accorded basically dueto their economic contribution to enhance livelihoods of their families backhome. It was also due to their roles as agents who would introduce Nepalas the land of ‘brave warriors’ to the outside world. Little was noticed onwhat besides these obvious factors the migrants could do to the state.Recently, however, the aforementioned fact has become very visible- not much through research but more through general observation. Ifwe observe specific communities such as of Dharan and Pokhara, wherethere are concentrations of Lahure family, we can see that they arevery well-structured and managed. The physical make-up (house androad structures, planning of settlements along such infrastructures) andmanagement (for example, sewage and garbage, cleaning roads, streetslight facilities) of these community, as any observer can see, is influencedby the style of a more developed western world. So are their patternsof daily lives. This shows that it is not only money that flows back to thehome community, but whole new ideas, culture and attitude towardsdaily life practices do so. As Wimmer and Schiller (2002) write, perhaps itdid not seem so evident ‘when the sun was at its zenith’- in the promisesfor a similar development given during the pre-conflict phases or in the1PhD Researcher on Conflict Induced Internally Displaced People in Nepal at the HNRSC, KathmanduUniversity in collaboration with the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR North-South); bhattarainitu@gmail.com2South Asia Regional Coordinator, Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR North-South); bupreti@nccr.wlink.com.np3Decades ago, many Nepali youths did go to Lahore, a city now situated in Pakistan, to seek abroad jobs.One who did go there to earn was known as ‘Lahure’. Thereafter, the term ‘Lahure’ in Nepali denotesespecially to those persons recruited in foreign army (eds.).167