• You are among the very few scholars who analyze Nepali society and its history from a Marxist perspective. It has been almost 45 years since the publication of your first book on Nepal in crisis. In this book you analyze Nepal’s class structure being based on semi-feudal landlord-tenant relations and more prominently dependent peripheral capitalism. How has the class structure and class relation of that time shaped the pattern of migration?

Answer: When I came to Nepal in 1974, it was my first time in the country; the same was true for my colleagues. We tried to understand Nepal’s political economy as we found it. We lived in Pokhara and learned Nepali, and travelled (mainly on foot) across almost every district in what were then Gandaki and Lumbini zones, undertaking a wide range of studies and surveys, including a rural household survey across the region.

Our focus was mainly on rural economy and society, but we also examined the growth of towns. In order to understand what we found in the region (west central Nepal), we felt it necessary to explore Nepal’s history and the wider national political economy and its relationship to India. The result was a number of books, including Peasants and Workers in Nepal, The Struggle for Basic Needs in Nepal, and Nepal in Crisis.

We found Nepal to be a predominantly agrarian economy and society, with the vast majority of rural people living as small farmers or peasants, owning their own land and involved mainly in subsistence agriculture and livestock production. A minority (mainly dalits) were essentially agricultural labourers and some were petty commodity producers. However, in the terai in particular, we found a minority of people involved in a landlord-tenant/bonded labourer relationship that we termed semi-feudal, and an even smaller number involved in capitalist relations of production, as capitalist and agricultural workers.

At that time, foreign labour migration involved mainly working in India, mainly in the private sector (in agriculture, construction and in other generally low paid jobs), but also in the Indian Army. A small number, mainly from specific ethnic groups, were involved in employment in the British Gurkhas. Those working in the lower paid jobs in the Indian private sector were mainly from the lower classes in Nepal, while those in army service generally came from somewhat better-off families, although some were from less well-off families and were able to improve their situation by virtue of this employment.

• Since then due to political movements and the penetration of neo-liberalism has changed a lot. Has this prompted you to revise your analysis now?

Answer: Much has changed in the 50 years since our initial study, both in the region and more generally in Nepal. There has been a relative decline in agriculture and a massive growth in the ‘service sector’. There has, however, despite what some refer to as ‘neo-liberalism’, been no significant growth in industrial production, apart from extractive industries associated with construction. Although Nepal is clearly fully integrated in the global capitalist economy, it remains highly dependent on India and suffers from a huge balance of trade deficit, which is covered largely by remittances from abroad. It is thus a ‘peripheral’ country in several respects. Within the country, regional differentiation, noted in our earlier analysis, has increased, as has economic inequality.

Nepal is clearly integrated in various ways into the world economy, which is dominated by capitalism, but Nepal itself can barely be characterised as a capitalist economy in the classical Marxist sense of the term. There is virtually no industrial or agricultural capitalist class and no significant working class as such. Wealth is largely the result of ownership of assets, including land, and of rent derived from this ownership. It could be termed a rentier economy.

Historically, Nepal has always exported labour to India, for employment in the private and public sector and also in the army. But since the mid-1990s, foreign labour migration to third countries (mainly the Gulf and Malaysia) and what might be termed the remittance economy of Nepal have both grown to the point where today, about one third of Nepal’s GNP or national income comes from remittances. Nepal is responsible for the production of a labour force, much of which is employed outside the country, and is then also responsible for those who return unable or unwilling to work abroad anymore. It thus effectively subsidises foreign employers.

In Nepal itself, the majority of the population is still involved in agriculture but it is now mainly for subsistence, and agriculture as a sector provides a relatively small proportion of GDP compared with when we were doing our original studies in the 1970s. Most people work in the non-agricultural private sectors, notably in small enterprises (petty commodity producers) in ‘the informal sector’, although there has been an expansion of those working in the public sector, both as ‘white collar workers’ and in more menial forms of employment.

Urban growth has been significant in the last few decades as migration to the towns has increased. Many of those migrants retain links to the rural areas from which they came, and some are able to send money home to help maintain the livelihoods of those who remain behind. Others have become urbanised and have either established small businesses or are employed.

• In the introduction of the New Lahures, you commence with tracing origin of the Lahure phenomena back to the ‘Anglo-Gurkha’ war and ‘Gurkha’ recruitment. How has this historical legacy influenced modern Nepalese labour migration?

Answer: Nepal has exported labour since the early 19^th century, most of it to India, where it has been employed in the private and public sector and in the army. Nepalis recruited into the Indian Army fought for Britain in both the First and the Second World Wars. The tradition of military employment survived Indian independence, and since 1947 Nepalis have been employed in the Indian and in the British army. This has involved mainly men from certain specific hill ethnic groups, commonly referred to by the British as ‘Gurkhas’.

The post-war decline of Britain as an imperial power led to a drastic reduction in the armed forces, and therefore in the British Gurkhas, to the point where the number of Nepalis employed in the British Gurkhas is around 4,000. There are some 1,800 Gurkhas in Singapore and the Gurkha Reserve Unit in Brunei numbers around 500. There are still some 40,000 Gurkhas in the Indian Army, which serves to maintain this military tradition.

Importantly, however, the total number of Nepalis working abroad, in India and in other countries now amounts to several million – one estimate indicates approximately 4 million – and the vast majority of these are employed in the private sector, usually at relatively low wages. This is not, for the most part, related to the historical legacy of the military tradition,although it should be noted that the reputation of ‘the Gurkhas’ has enabled a small number of Nepalis to be employed both in Nepal and abroad, in what might generally be termed ‘the security sector’, as anything from a chowkidar guarding a building to employees of professional security agents (eg in Iraq and Afghanistan).

• As you discuss in New Lahures, migration and remittance have transformed rural economy. Do these inflows reinforce or challenge existing class and caste structure in Nepalese Villages?

Answer: The flow of remittances from abroad has grown from a trickle in the mid 1990s to a torrent in the 2020s. It has helped reduce poverty in both rural and urban areas, but it has probably tended to increase inequality. Remittances to the rural areas from the towns have also contributed.

The poorest of all in the countryside have no capacity to leave home to work abroad; the poor tend to go, if they go abroad at all, to India where wages are not that different from at home in Nepal and where they can go without formalities or having to pay a fortune to a manpower agency. The somewhat more comfortable are able to go abroad or send a family member abroad, either to the Gulf or to Malaysia. The better off are able to secure better paying jobs abroad or to secure employment or other economic opportunities in Nepal.

In so far as caste and class coincide – and this is not always the case by any means, although dalits always tend to be among the poor – the least privileged have benefited least from foreign employment and remittances, and the most privileged, the most. This tends also to be the case for those rural households with household members in the urban areas and sending money back home.

• There are scholars like Emmanuel Ness who analyze labour migration as economic imperialism. How do you see the relationship between concentration of capital and the pattern of labor migration inside and outside the country?

Answer: As I have already said, Nepal remains a peripheral country in the global world economy. In so far as labour migration is concerned, the costs of reproducing labour are borne largely by the households of the migrants and the employers in the countries where they go to work benefit from this. They are also able to secure a labour force that is generally less organised than any local labour force and able to pay relatively low wages. Migrant workers are exploited (in the technical Marxist sense of having surplus labour appropriated by the employer) even if the wages they earn are higher than they could secure in Nepal.

In addition to this, it could be argued that Nepal ‘loses’ these migrants, who might otherwise (if the jobs and other economic opportunities were available) be contributing to the development of Nepal’s economy. Furthermore, when they return home, it is their household in Nepal that looks after them if they are no longer able to work – adding to the burden on these households and saving the foreign employer sick pay or any form of pension.

So, foreign labour migration could be said to be a form of ‘imperialism’, in so far as it provides cheap foreign labour for employers in the ‘receiving’ country; but it also benefits the ‘sending’ household, and the local, regional and national economy of Nepal by virtue of the remittances it generates. Far better, however, to create and provide employment in Nepal, particularly to create and provide local employment or other economic opportunities, for all concerned in Nepal.

• Nepali economy has become heavily reliant on remittance which is highlighted in your analysis too. What are the long-term risk of this dependency and how does it perpetuates structural inequalities?

Answer: It follows from what I have said above, that the reliance on the remittance economy is a form of dependency; but it does have benefits for the households concerned, as well as for the local and regional and national economy. However, the whole system tends (as was explained above) to increase inequalities, both regional and socio-eonomic, within Nepal, and one risk is that the labour market will, for some reason, suddenly shrink (as to some extent it did during the COVID pandemic).

In the longer-term, there is the risk that AI and other technological changes may reduce the demand for the kind of labour that Nepalis provide, and also that Nepal will, by its very reliance on remittances to ‘solve’ certain economic problems in the domestic economy (ie lack of employment and other economic opportunities), fail – as indeed it has done for the last three decades – to ‘solve’ those problems by promoting investment and job creation in Nepal, thereby reducing the need to depend on remittances from abroad.

The same logic applies generally to labour migration to the urban areas in Nepal and remittances from the urban to the rural areas.

main source of income is always risky, at any one time, it may be a better option – if it is reliable and rewarding – than not taking up this opportunity. Many households in Nepal,especially in the rural areas, do not see other options as equally rewarding.

• In Lahure Woman you focus ‘the silent fortitude’ of women left behind by migrant men. How has migration reshaped gender roles and family structures in Nepali society?

Answer: Historically, the vast majority of Nepali foreign labour migrants have been men, but there has always been a small number of Nepali women, accompanying their husbands or on their own. In so far as the tendency has been for men to go away to work and women to remain at home, there has been a tendency for women’s burden to increase. This is especially true in the case of less well off rural households.

Sometimes, this has led to greater responsibility and influence – and even freedom – for women, but for the most part they have remained subordinate to those menfolk who remain at home, including older men.

When men go away from home to work, whether in Nepal or abroad, family structures are inevitably affected. Children see less of their fathers; female siblings of their brothers, parents of their sons and grandparents of their grandsons. The stress of this is often devastating, and in all cases has its negative effects. When it is women who leave home to work elsewhere, there may be equally significant effects, some of which may be positive but others which are negative.

Much depends on the particular circumstances, however, including the position of the migrant worker in the household, the size of the remittances sent back, the length of time the migrant worker is away from home, etc.

• Your book highlights women’s contribution to community leadership. Can you share examples of how migration has empowered woman in Nepal despite the burden it imposes?

Answer: I have no examples that I can share of how migration has empowered women from first hand, but I am sure there are many examples. In general, however, it is my opinion that the personal and social disadvantages of migration – both for those who migrate and for those who are left behind – can often outweigh the economic benefits. This is not to say that, in some cases, there may be personal and social benefits as well as economic benefits.

As I said before, much depends on the particular circumstances, however, including the position of the migrant worker in the household, the size of the remittances sent back, the length of time the migrant worker is away from home, etc.

• Some Scholars argue that labour migration creates a global underclass living in precarious condition (as they have no political and trade union rights, poor workplace security, etc.) but back to the home countries like Nepal labor migration cause altering the old ‘class-relation’. How do you analyze this phenomena?

Answer:  This is rather similar to Question 5.

Foreign labour migration is undertaken by people of different class backgrounds under different circumstances. Professional and skilled workers are generally able to secure better contracts and thus jobs with higher incomes than those from less privileged backgrounds. Most Nepali workers abroad, however, experience difficult circumstances and their employment is, by definition, as you imply, precarious.

However, the wages they earn abroad may mean that they are able to save and send home remittances, in which case there is a possibility that these remittances will improve the circumstances of the household as a whole. But generally, the remittances that migrant workers send home reflect pre-existing class differences and also tend to maintain if not exacerbate class inequality.

There are, of course, individual exceptions to this, and there are many individuals who have been able to ‘better’ themselves through incomes earned abroad and then deployed back home, either to improve living conditions and homes, or to invest in small businesses. Overall, remittances have tended to reduce poverty in Nepal, but to increase inequality.

• Particularly the policies of government of Nepal seems to oscillate between discouraging brain drain and encouraging labour migration as seen in policies like free visa free ticket and promoting labor markets like Israel, South Korea, Japan G2G agreements. Does not it look contradictory? Is it apathy of the Nepali state or predicament as a peripheral state?

Government policy towards foreign labour migration has been primarily concerned to maximise revenue to the state. Its policy has been neither consistent nor particularly influential as far as the major developments in the volume or pattern of foreign labour migration are concerned. Far more important have been the changing opportunities for Nepali migrant workers – the labour market demand – which have largely determined where they go.

Even government attempts to prevent women from working abroad, in the Gulf states or in Israel, for example, have proved largely ineffective, as many simply go abroad through informal channels, usually via India. It has also meant that women are largely unprotected as migrant workers, with often unfortunate and harmful consequences.

Efforts to reduce the importance of informal money transfers, such as the hundi and hawala systems have resulted in some increases in the volume and value of remittances but have failed to stem the much larger flow of money into the country which remains unrecorded and unaffected.

Government policy on foreign migration is – and always has been – contradictory. This is, in my opinion, the result of the inadequacies and shortcomings of government, in part related to the nature of party politics in Nepal over the least three decades – which has been more concerned with personal and political position than with meeting the needs of the country and its citizens.

• Overviewing the historical migration pattern from recruitment to modern day labour migration as analyzed in your work, what kind of suggestions you like to give to the government of Nepal and Nepali people to transit from migration dependency to self-reliant state where equitable distribution of resources among lower class people and minorities is possible?

For the last 20 years the government of Nepal has represented the vested interests of the rich and powerful more than those of the majority of Nepali citizens. Investment for the long term in productive enterprises, of the kind associated with the classic process of capitalist development, has not taken place. Rather, investment has been in real estate and other forms of asset that provide their owners with a rent. Nepal has a predominantly rentier and ‘service’ economy which does not provide sufficient economic opportunities for the majority of its citizens.

Despite the labels with which Nepal’s main political parties identify themselves – Maoist, Marxist-Leninist, Socialist or Social Democratic – their leaders have proved themselves unwilling to dedicate themselves to serving the people they are supposed to represent and have preferred to seek personal gain and privilege instead.

Only when there is a truly democratic government, representing the best interests of the Nepali people, will the kind of economic development needed take place and the need to seek employment abroad be reduced.