A recent visit to the beautiful Indian city of Chandigarh was a revelation of sorts. Everywhere I turned, I seemed to run into fellow Nepalis—at hotels, at restaurants, street food stalls, the banks and even government offices. I had only heard that the city, the capital for the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, was a favoured destination for short and long-term migrants from Nepal, but to witness the sheer number engaged in all walks of life here was illuminating.

Jagadish KC, a 41-year-old employee at the office of the Secondary Education Directorate at Chandigrah, has called the city home for three decades. He is among the many second generation workers, who migrated with their parents in the 70s and 80s.

Chandigarh is one of India’s earliest planned cities, following its independence from Britain. Often described as Nehru’s Dream City, Chandigarh was conceived of after the Pakistan-India partition in which the previous capital of the region, Lahore, became a part of Pakistan. The Indian government at the time hired pioneering architects and urban planners, including Albert Mayer and Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, to develop and plan the new capital city. By the 1960s, as the city began to take shape, and in the decades after, Chandigarh began attracting migrants from all over the region, India and even Nepal.

“All those years ago, I came here following my father,” says KC, who moved to Chandigarh as an eleven-year-old, “Now there is an entire second-generation of Nepalis living as a community here.” According to KC, who is originally from Khanikhola of Rolpa District, once Nepalis became acquainted with the city, they began attracting more migrants from their hometowns. He, alone, claims to have facilitated jobs for at least three-dozen friends and family over his 30 years at Chandigarh.

It is a claim easily verified. As a sample, I spoke to 15 Nepali workers, out of which 12 hailed from the mid-western districts of Dang, Rolpa and Rukum—the heartland of the Maoist insurgency. Chhabilal Bhattarai, Chairman of Punjab State  Prabasi Nepali Sangh Bharat, a sister organisation of the CPN-UML, believes that easy road access has made Chandigarh an attractive proposition for many Nepali migrants. “Chandigrah-Haridwar-Nepalgunj is an easy, convenient route for Nepalis

in the mid-western region. So, they prefer this location because home remains accessible, even if a little distant,” Bhattarai said, adding that the city also attracts throngs of seasonal Nepali migrants who travel for work from November through March.

Though official data is scant, Bhattarai estimates that there are up to 40,000 Nepalis currently living in Chandigarh, which in 2011 had a total population just north of a million.

As a union territory governed directly by the central government, Chandigarh boasts the highest per capita income among all of India’s states and territories. According to a study by the Government of India, Chandigarh is also one of India’s cleanest cities and its happiest. An emerging hub for India’s IT boom, the city also plays home to many notable Indian and multi-national companies including Quark, Infosys, Dell, IBM, TechMahindra, Airtel and Amadeus IT Group. According to a 2014 survey, Chandigarh is ranked fourth in the top 50 cities identified globally as “emerging outsourcing and IT services destinations,” ahead of cities like Beijing.

Which has meant that for Nepali migrants like Nabin Pun, there is plenty of work to go around. “In the morning, I earn 15 thousand washing cars for five houses, in the daytime I work in a private bank, and in the evening I work at a restaurant,” he says, content with the INRs 50,000 that he draws every month.

Interestingly, there is a sizeable population of Nepalis employed with the many administrative offices in and around the city—Chandigarh, which houses the Chandigarh Administration, the Punjab government and the Haryana governments, is described as a “pensioner’s paradise,” with the government remaining the city’s largest employer. According to a study, in Chandigrah High Court alone, there are approximately 300 Nepalis employed as aides to the judges. Similarly, there are a lot of Nepali employees in the Irrigation Development Authority and Electricity Department and other government offices. “In the past, government offices were facing an acute problem recruiting staff for the large number of position available,” Bhattarai says, “Indian officials even offered jobs to Nepali workers stationed in railways and bus stations, in order to fill the vacant spots in the lower rungs of civil service.”

Over the years, with more and more Nepali migrants choosing seemingly lucrative positions in Malaysia or the Gulf, Jagadish KC sees Chandigarh as a fail-safe option that does not require a large overhead like some of the other destinations. “The youth, who used to flock here from Nepal’s mid-west now prefer the Middle East,” he says, “but with Chandigarh emerging as a leading city, not just in India but all of Asia, and with it already host to a settled, expansive Nepali Diaspora, it remains one of the prime destinations for migration, even if it is often overlooked.”