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This nation of mine
APR 09 -
Nineteen-year-old Lakshmi Bhaskran should qualify for Nepali citizenship automatically if legal provisions were to prevail. She was born in Patan Hospital; her mother is a Nepali citizen. She has lived in Kathmandu all her life, and is currently doing a Bachelor’s degree here. And though her father is an Indian citizen, she has not even applied for an Indian citizenship. She fits all the requirements that one needs for Nepali citizenship.
Her parents, M.V. Bhaskran and Ranju Bhandari, have run from pillar to post ever since their daughter turned 16, the eligible age for citizenship, to make her a Nepali citizen. And till now, officials at the Lalitpur District Administration Office have turned them away—all because the father is an Indian national.
“The first time we went to the office was in 2004 or 2005. At that time, the official simply said, ‘She is an Indian national, and she cannot get a Nepali citizenship,’” M.V. says, the tiredness showing on his face.
The official’s response was keeping in line with the laws at the time, which followed the 1990 Constitution and said a person’s father has to be a Nepali citizen to be eligible for a Nepali citizenship. Even though the Interim Constitution of 2007 relaxed the rule — allowing either the father or the mother to be a Nepali citizen for the child to stake claim, Lakshmi’s citizenship saga continues. It’s a tale of insensitive officialdom, where bureaucrats have sent the Bhaskran family volley after volleys of taunts. “Once, when we went to the District office again, the official told us, ‘Get your daughter married to a Nepali man. That way, she will automatically get a Nepali citizenship,’” says Ranju, Lakshmi’s mother.
The Interim Constitution says that for a person to get a Nepali citizenship by descent, the father or the mother has to be a Nepali citizen. And, if a Nepali woman marries a foreigner, their child can get a Nepali citizenship if he or she has not taken the citizenship of the father.
The District Administration Office’s response runs contrary to the constitutional provisions.
A defiant Ratna Raj Pandey, the Chief District Officer, put it very bluntly, “If the father is an Indian, we cannot give the child a Nepali citizenship.” However, that is going against the law, because, the Constitution makes it clear: ‘…Laws inconsistent with this Constitution shall…cease to operate three months after the commencement of this Constitution’. Which means, the earlier rules regarding citizenship are no longer applicable. Which also means, a government agency is overruling the constitution, and a recent judgment by the Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court, in Nepal government Vs. Kripal Sahni, on June 28, 2009, had decided that for a Nepali citizenship, it is enough if the mother is a Nepali,” says Mithilesh Jha, an advocate. “What the judgment implies is that either the father or the mother has to be a Nepali citizen for the child to be eligible for a Nepali citizenship.”
At the Lalitpur District Office, the Post found out the labyrinthine ways of Nepali bureaucracy which stonewalls almost all individuals who approach it. After being directed to one room after another without any proper explanation, one gets a sense of how frustrating it must have been for the Bhaskrans, who’ve been doing this for five long years. “When Laxmi Bahadur Shrestha was the CDO, he told me, ‘Why do you keep coming?’” M.V. says.
The Post was asked to get a certificate from the Home Ministry that showed Lakshmi’s father had given up his Indian citizenship. However, at the Home Ministry, Jai Mukund Khanal, the spokesperson, flatly refused one. “A person will not be allowed a Nepali citizenship by descent if the father is a foreigner.” According to him, as Nepal has a “patriarchal society,” both the mother and the father have to be Nepalis for the child to get a Nepali citizenship.
However, this stand by both government agencies also raises an interesting question: if no “foreign national”, or a person of foreign birth, can get a Nepali citizenship, then how did, as was shown by a Post investigation last week, criminals such as Rohit Barma, Babbu Shrivastav and Ashraf Ali manage to get a Nepali citizenship?
M.V. Bhaskran and Ranju’s story begins in 1985, when M.V. came to Nepal to look for a job. Originally from Kerala, M.V. began working at the Modern Indian School in the accounts department, where Ranju’s mother was also working. “It was Ranju’s mother who proposed her hand to me, and I had, by then, already decided that I wanted to live in Nepal,” M.V. says. Lakshmi was born in 1989, the first child of the couple. She wants to go abroad to study now, but the bureaucratic tangle has meant she doesn’t have a passport as well. “The first time she was rejected for a Nepali citizenship, she came back home and cried,” Ranju says.
The Bhaskrans tried for Lakshmi’s citizenship once the laws were changed in 2007, but again, officials denied them any way forward. “They told me this new provision was only for women whose husbands are not alive, or cannot be found.” Given such a situation, it is obvious that most would take the easy way out, which for Lakshmi is to get an Indian citizenship.
Which she doesn’t want to, her mother is adamant. M.V. and Ranju are sure that if Lakshmi gets a Nepali citizenship, their younger daughter, Priyanka, will get one too. “Why we also need a Nepali citizenship is because when the time comes, I want to transfer all my property to our daughters,” Ranju says.
The two government agencies here are clearly overruling the Constitution. Jha says both ministry and the district office are violating the law. Yet, Pandey is unfazed; and so is the District Office. Kamal Raj Bhandari, administrative officer, put it straight: “The Constitution has not been made yet.”
M.V. and Ranju continue to get citizenship forms even now; they are resolute that they want Lakshmi to be a Nepali citizen. Yet, when one speaks to them, there are clear signs that this resolution might waiver. “Lakshmi needs to go abroad for studies. If we don’t get a Nepali citizenship, we have no alternative left but to go for an Indian citizenship.”
Posted on: 2010-04-10 08:35
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