How will Nepal’s citizenship amendment proposal change in India?

The State System Committee of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Nepal has passed the ruling Communist Party’s proposal to amend the citizenship law by majority.

Under the new proposal, foreign women who marry Nepalese men will have to wait a long time of seven years to get Nepal’s citizenship after marriage.

Although most members of the committee have agreed to this proposal, the country’s main opposition party Nepali Congress and some other parties have opposed this controversial amendment proposal.

To get Nepalese citizenship, i.e., foreign citizenship, a foreign woman will have to show proof or renunciation of her old citizenship after seven years.

This decision has been taken in a meeting held at the party’s secretariat on Saturday. This law will apply to all foreign women including India.

Several senior leaders of the ruling Nepali Communist Party say that amending the Citizenship Act 2006, made two years ago in Parliament, is to take the step of neighbouring India where a foreign woman marrying an Indian man is legally entitled to seven citizenship rights. Have to wait for the year.

At the same time, many leaders of the Communist Party, the opposition Nepali Congress and the Janata Samajwadi Party say that this proposal will have an impact on the fundamental right of a woman to get citizenship after marriage.

These leaders say that in the meeting of the Communist Party in which this new proposal has been approved, there were nine male members. He says that inter-country marriages have been taking place between the citizens living in the border areas of India and Nepal for centuries and this new proposal may deteriorate the mutual relations between the citizens.

The leaders are also fearing that the ongoing controversy over the citizenship law may delay citizenship reforms and the approval of this new law from Parliament, and may have an impact on people waiting for citizenship certificates.

In Nepal, the citizenship certificate is a necessary certificate, which is needed for many things, even for taking a SIM card of a mobile phone, it has to be shown.

Citizenship Act: The citizenship of a foreign woman marrying a Nepali man is one of the most contentious issues brought into law in 2006. But even after two years, the dispute on this issue continues. And now the controversy has deepened after this new proposal.

In the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Citizenship Act 2006, some leaders of the Nepali Communist Party had demanded that in this law the provision of giving citizenship and ‘vermilion’ to foreign women at the same time should be abolished. The leaders said that Nepal may have to pay the price for this provision.

Immediately after marriage under the Citizenship Act 2006, a foreign woman gets citizenship of Nepal. Senior Communist Party leader Subas Chandra Nembang said in the meeting that this proposal to change the provision of citizenship is being made keeping India in mind. He said that most of the party leaders agree with the idea of ​​changes in this law.

However, the main opposition party Nepali Congress leader Bimalinder Nidhi opposes this new proposal to grant citizenship to foreign women after a long wait. He says that the Citizenship Act 2006 has appropriate provisions in this regard that do not need to be changed.

Nidhi Nepal is from the well known town of Janakpurdham in the Terai Madhesh area in the south where marriages are common among citizens of India and Nepal. It is believed that Janaki, born here hundreds of years ago, was married to Ram, the prince of Ayodhya, India.

Rajendra Mahato is a senior leader of the newly formed Janata Samajwadi Party which includes former Madheshi leader and former Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai. He told that there are two major problems with the proposed seven-year wait provision in the Citizenship Amendment Act.

He says, “The first is that it will violate the basic right of the woman according to which she should get citizenship of Nepal only after marriage. Second, it will have a bad effect on the relationship between the people of India and Nepal.” There have been inter-country marriages between the two before the Ramayana period or perhaps before that and there is a roti-beti relationship between the people, which can end. “

“It is an attempt to end such relations between the Terai of Nepal and the people of the border India and it is also an attack on our cultural relations. Marital relations of almost all the families are living in the Terai region of Bihar in India. If this proposal becomes law then it will have a deep impact. “

The ruling Communist Party’s proposed amendment to the citizenship law also annoys those leaders who want to end discrimination against women. Binda Pandey, the party’s leader and MLA, talks about ending the discrimination between men and women in granting citizenship to Nepal.

Pandey told the Kathmandu Post that, “Our party’s current structure is not following its own documents, nor of international commitments. Women-free zones are no longer acceptable in the Nepali community.”

They say their campaign is because Nepal’s current citizenship law requires Nepal’s foreigner to marry a Nepali woman Getting citizenship has become even more difficult.

Communist Party leader Prabhu Shah from the Terai region has also expressed his opposition to the decision of the top command of the party. In a conversation with the online news, he said that this can have an impact on the mutual relations of the people of both countries, in such a situation, this decision needs to be rethought.

At the same time, Bipin officials who know constitutional matters do not see any problem in this new amendment. They say that in Nepal’s adopted constitution in 2015, there is a provision to give citizenship to those born in Nepal and now efforts are being made to change this liberal provision.

Foreign women marrying in Nepal do not see any problem in the issue of citizenship. There is such a provision in many other countries including India, America. I think it is right to keep waiting time for foreign woman for citizenship. Citizenship is not something that should be presented before anyone by punishment in the platter, it should also be earned. “