Dubai airport has emerged as a hub for Nepalis working in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries. Frequent flights of budget airlines from Kathmandu make it convenient for workers to first land at the transfer centre and take connecting flights to different destinations in the region. It is also an agreeable alternative to other routes of onward journeys to Europe or long-haul flights to the USA. Even early morning or late night flights on this route are often full.

Compared to the glittering cities that one sees from the window at night when landing at most West Asian airports, the view of Dubai from up in the air during the day is somewhat dull and dispiriting. The city-state of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has invested heavily in creating artificial greenery. The UAE government has hired topnotch scientists for cloud-seeding to draw out rains even from drifting clouds. But no amount of human ingenuity can create the landscape of undulating terrain, cascading waterfalls, meandering rivers, mysterious forests, reassuring farmlands and the ground where wilderness grows out of nowhere during the monsoons.

People may draw inspiration from the bounties of nature and be happy in its laps, but it’s the effort of changing it to meet human needs that creates employment opportunities. Contrary to the commonly held view that reliance on remittances is a new phenomenon, the Nepali economy has drawn substantial income from its labour toiling abroad at least since the time of sending Newa craftsmen and Buddhist preachers to the northern empire, farmhands and cowherds from mid-mountains to the foreign territories in the north-east, menials from Madhesh to the southern cities and the Janjati warriors and workers from mountains to every corner of the world. It’s just that their to-and-fro movements and earnings are now better documented as they take more frequent trips home due to relatively higher income and faster transportation facilities.

There was nothing new in the call of British Ambassador Andrew Sparkes in 2014 that the concept of freedom of religion included the right to adopt, change, revert to one’s faith of birth, remain agnostic or turn an atheist. However, the controversy that the public call for enshrining one of the universally accepted components of fundamental freedoms into the constitution sparked in its wake probably cost the diplomat his job.

In a milieu where diplomats from the capital cities of waning powers are expected to grace art galleries, attend cocktails, spout platitudes and mouth inanities about “long and friendly relations between our two countries”, Ambassador Sparkes often sounded completely sincere and undiplomatically forthright. One of his more blunt statements comes immediately to mind. At a function to release Sujeev Shakya’s book Unleashing Nepal amongst the glitterati of Kathmandu, Ambassador Sparkes had declared: “Nepalese are naturally, temperamentally suited for the service industry”. Perhaps in realisation of the audacity of the observation, the audience had greeted his statement with an embarrassed applause.

Upward mobility

The majority of Nepalis working in West Asia remain in what is sometimes called the “4D sector” of dirty, difficult, dangerous and despicable jobs. However, after almost a quarter of a century of experience, some of them have risen to supervisory levels. The educated ones from among early arrivals of the late-1990s have gone into businesses with local partners. Their number is still negligible, but such entrepreneurs have considerable clout in the diasporic community. Remittance outlets, restaurants, manpower suppliers and travel agencies are some of the common enterprises. Many of them are affiliated with front organisations of political parties back home.

The second category of relatively comfortable and secure jobs are in the field of banking and finance. Dubai dreams to do for South Asia what Hong Kong did for mainland China in much of the 1960s, and what Singapore did to serve the interests of the Chinese moguls of South-East Asian countries in the 1970s, become a safe haven for the life, family, property and prosperity of the ousted elite and ethnic minorities. Despite being an Islamic theocracy, alcoholic beverages are legitimate in Dubai. If that was not enough, Dubai recently changed its Friday-Saturday weekend to Saturday-Sunday to be in line with other global financial hubs. Some schools of the profit sector teaching banking and finance to their business studies students that have interned at reputed outlets back home are often hired with confidence by the booming financial sector.

Back in the Panchayat era, getting a passport was a privilege rather than a fundamental right that made the freedom of movement outside the borders of the country possible. Until as recently as the early-1990s, most Nepalis working in the United Kingdom, the United States of America or even in Australia were highly trained professionals such as doctors, engineers and university teachers. The ex-Gurkhas gave some diversity to the cohort. But when the ease of getting a passport and the difficulty of obtaining a visa to the Western countries developed together after the mid-1990s, the situation got slightly more complicated. The year of schooling of average Nepali workers in the West must have gone down considerably.

Before 2010 or so, high-skilled professionals such as doctors, engineers, dentists and scientists seldom considered West Asia as a desirable place to build a career. Their dream destination used to be the West. It’s no longer so. The prospect of returning home from ethnonational GCC countries are much higher than from the liberal West as sheikdoms rarely grant citizenship rights even to long-term residents. Paychecks are comparable, taxes are lower, cost of living is lesser and life is more secure though infinitely duller. Once negligible, the number of high-skilled Nepali professionals has been going up in West Asia. Though not very significant yet, it’s impossible to ignore the role Madheshi professionals play in the social life of the working class in the region. Such a trend will probably become more pronounced as the job market in Nepal shrinks further.

Status anxiety

Despite the posturing of overseas Nepalis organised under the umbrella of Non-Resident Nepali Associations (NRNAs) in several countries, the number of high-net-worth individuals with liquid assets of at least $1 million is still very small. Their clout comes from proximity to powerful politicos rather than their ability and willingness to invest back home. Some Madheshi professionals may have comparable earnings, but lack the connection and the confidence to gain the respect of other Nepalis in mixed gatherings. That may partly explain the growth of Madheshi socio-cultural organisations abroad.

Successful Madheshis also soon discover that ‘their embassies’ abroad don’t look like home away from home. It’s not just the ethnocentric envoys; the definition of being a Nepali for most other staff in diplomatic missions of the country are not much different from petty officials of immigration or customs at the airport. Seething with suppressed anger, the higher a Madheshi reaches in the professional life abroad, the more intense their desire for change at home becomes. Such was the alienation of the Madheshi diaspora that CK Raut’s now-abandoned agenda of self-rule in Madhesh sought to harvest. He used the ladder to reach where he is now, but the agenda remains unaddressed.