Nepali Immigrants of Uttarakhand: Construction of Sense of Place

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India shares 1,751 km long border with Nepal and approximately 275 km of this falls in Uttarakhand state of  India (Joshi, 2010). It have been said that sense of “foreignness” for these Nepali immigrants labours is less in Uttarakhand than the Indian plains. Although immigrant community form vital part of this region’s landscape and inevitable part of informal economy there is an apparent lack of literature on their social status and their role in (re)shaping the region’s politics, culture and economy. Prevalent geopolitical discourse has focused mainly on India’s unregulated open borders with Nepal, Nepali Maoist’s claim on the easternmost part of Kumaon region (situated in the Eastern part of Uttarakhand) of India and on the linkages between Nepali labourers in Uttarakhand and the Nepali Maoists. Thus, this study employs critical geopolitics as an approach of “place” particularity which analyses how binaries of the ‘domestic’ and the ‘foreign’ have been diluted or (re)created by the host and immigrant societies living in specific locations. This study also seeks to understand that how Nepali immigrants express their “sense of place” about the particular location. This paper will outline Nepali Immigrant’s sense of place and home around their locality. In other worlds, the aim here is to analyse that how Nepali immigrants feel in Uttarakhand in comparison of their home?  Further, it is proposed that to find answers that how do the agency of immigrant and collective, negotiate with or challenge the institutions of the state?    

In this paper the immigrants sense of place have been apply on the places of immigrants dwellings such as agricultural land, rooms and hotels. Apart from this some major issues that Nepali immigrants face in their everyday life are also discussed.  The paper is not anyhow trying to criticise and sensitised the practice of undocumented immigration between Nepal and India. However paper  sees this practice of seasonal immigration as strength of India-Nepal relation but at the same time paper draw attention of academic circle towards immigrants sense of place that was unexplored earlier in the Nepali immigrants context.