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Crossing the Border to India: Youth, Migration, and

Masculinities in Nepal

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction and background of the author...........................................................................1
Publisher................................................................................................................................2
Circumstances under which the book was written................................................................2
CONTENT REVIEW....................................................................................................................3
Summary of the Book...........................................................................................................3
Main theme of the book........................................................................................................3
Layout of chapters/ flow of the book....................................................................................3
Argument and discussion......................................................................................................4
Chapter one Political Economy of Rural Livelihoods...................................................4
Chapter two History and Culture of Migration in Nepal...............................................4
Chapter three Leaving the Hills.....................................................................................5
Chapter four Border Crossing........................................................................................5
Chapter five Marginal Migrant Workers in Indian Cities.............................................5
Chapter six Migrant Risk Behavior in Mumbai............................................................6
Key Findings.........................................................................................................................6
Recommendations.................................................................................................................6
REVIEWER’S ANALYSIS..........................................................................................................7
Different View Points to Be Considered...............................................................................7
Critical Analysis of Arguments and Discussion...................................................................7
Applicability And Usefulness of Recommendation..............................................................7
Recommendations Of the Reviewer......................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................8

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INTRODUCTION

Introduction and background of the author

1. Given the limited economic opportunities in rural Nepal, the desire of young men of all
income and education levels, castes and ethnicities to migrate has never been higher. Crossing
the Border to India provides an ethnography of male labor migration from the western hills of
Nepal to Indian cities. Jeevan Sharma shows how a migrant's livelihood and gender, as well as
structural violence impacts his perceptions, experiences, and aspirations.

2. Based on long-term fieldwork, Sharma captures the actual experiences of crossing the
border. He shows that Nepali migration to India does not just allow young men from poorer
backgrounds to "save there and eat here, " but also offers a strategy to escape the more
regimented social order of the village. Additionally, migrants may benefit from the opportunities
offered by the "open-border" between India and Nepal to attain independence and experience a
distant world. However, Nepali migrants are subjected to high levels of ill treatment. Thus, while
the idea of freedom remains extremely important in Nepali men's migration decisions, their
actual experience is often met with unfreedom and suffering.

3. Professor Jeevan R. Sharma is a Chair of South Asia and International Development;

Co-director-Centre of South Asian Studies. Sharma, is also a lecturer in South Asia and
International Development

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Publisher

4. The book was published by Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2018.

Circumstances under which the book was written

5. Based on fieldwork spanning over ten years, Sharma’s demonstration is convincing,

bringing food for thought to several topics relating to labor migration, an ubiquitous and decisive
social phenomena nowadays in Nepal. Following the migrants from their birthplace to their
working place in Mumbai, he asserts that the migration experience is decisive for the making of
the masculine identity of young men from the central district of Palpa. Through the study of
workers whose geographic mobility offers very little opportunity for social mobility. Sharma
also intends to make the reader understand the cultural meaning of the migration experience, as
told by migrants themselves.

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CONTENT REVIEW

Summary of the Book

6. Noting migrants’ invisibility in the Nepalese public debate, Sharma’s Crossing the
Border to India pays tribute to hundreds of thousands of men who toil in India for their family’s
survival in Nepal. Sharma’s book is a welcome study of circular labor migration through the lens
of masculinity. It is key for a better understanding of migration to India, the most ancient and
constant flow of people out of Nepal, and complements the few studies already made about this
topic

Main theme of the book

7. A central argument of the book is that men migrate not only to earn and provide for their
families, but also to fulfill their prescribed gender roles. Society expects men to earn a living, go
out into the world and gather knowledge and experiences that can attest to their “manhood.” It is
precisely to fulfill such expectations that many young Nepali men from low-income families in
western Nepal migrate to cities in India, where they work as security guards, domestic workers,
waiters and cooks. However, for these men the path towards achieving manhood is filled with
contradictions

Layout of chapters/ flow of the book

8. This book comprises of eight different books describing the various aspects of war. The
brief summary of each book is described in succeeding paragraphs.

a) Political Economy of Rural Livelihoods

b) History and Culture of Migration in Nepal
c) Leaving the Hills
d) Border Crossing

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e) Marginal Migrant Workers in Indian Cities

f) Migrant Risk Behavior in Mumbai
g) Conclusion

Argument and discussion

9. Nepali labor migration to India dates back centuries. Nepalis have been traveling across the
border to work in the army, in tea plantations, hotels, private homes and other sectors. Although
Nepali migrants in the Gulf countries and Southeast Asia have now outnumbered those in India,
an estimated one million Nepalis still work in India on a long-term or seasonal basis. Of them,
approximately ninety percent are men. The porous Indo-Nepal border and the fact that many
Nepali migrants to India work in “invisible” spaces like private homes and restaurant kitchens,
however, make it challenging to capture the true scale of the migration.

Chapter one;Political Economy of Rural Livelihoods

10. Sharma’s intentions are made clear in the introduction, with key concepts such as
livelihoods, gender and masculinities, structural violence being used throughout the book.
Through the study of the specific vocabulary of work and migration used by men, Sharma
enlivens the migrant’s experiences. This goes together with Sharma’s willingness, as shown in
his departing from a neo-classical or Marxist theoretical framework, to illustrate how migrants
are agents of their own migration, and not only victims or pawns of a system upon which they
have no influence. But this agency is somehow constrained by the structural violence at home
(i.e., the caste system and social inequalities), in India, and on the way.

Chapter two History and Culture of Migration in Nepal

11. In Sharma’s view, migration is not an isolated phenomenon triggered by simple “push” and
“pull” factors. Economic factors notwithstanding, historical, social (especially gender) and
psychological dimensions all play an important role in men’s decisions to migrate. The early
sections of the book provide an overview of the history of migration from the hills, changing
rural economy, differing attitudes to migration among different ethnic communities, and
literary/cultural representations of migration in Nepal. Sharma aptly summarizes the
socioeconomic changes in western Nepal. He presents the expanding roads and market, increased
mobility of people, media access and the growth of non-farm livelihood options as inter-
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connected processes that are closely linked to migration. This section also contains interesting
insights about the local history of Palpa. For example, we learn that eleven Magar-dominated
village panchayats of Palpa were merged with Nawalparasi in 1975 so that the high-caste groups
could defeat Magar candidates in the National Assembly election.

Chapter three Leaving the Hills

12. Men migrate not only to earn and provide for their families, but also to fulfill their prescribed
gender roles. Society expects men to earn a living, go out into the world and gather knowledge
and experiences that can attest to their “manhood.” It is precisely to fulfill such expectations that
many young Nepali men from low-income families in western Nepal migrate to cities in India,
where they work as security guards, domestic workers, waiters and cooks.

Chapter four Border Crossing

13. Herein lies the paradox of the “open border.” Though the open Indo-Nepal border on
principle embodies freedom of movement and equal treatment of citizens, in practice, Nepali
migrants, especially those from poor families, experience a loss of freedom and discrimination at
the border. As Sharma writes, “the very act of crossing the border plays a key role in disciplining
young Nepali men and turning them into docile migrants”. Their experience at the border
exposes their vulnerability rather than enabling them to assert their “manliness.”

Chapter five Marginal Migrant Workers in Indian Cities

14. Consumption is an integral part of migrant life in Mumbai. Workers cannot fulfill their
aspirations of manhood through their jobs, which involve “unmanly” activities like cooking,
cleaning, washing dishes and guarding people’s homes, and enduring various forms of
humiliation. Consumption allows them to “offset the negative effects of menial jobs and to
protect their masculine pride” . Sightseeing, watching Bollywood films, owning a TV and a
mobile phone, splurging on beer and meat, and frequenting “beer bars” where women serve
drinks and perform erotic dances enable young men to partake in capitalist modernity and
perform their masculinity. Sharma argues that the opportunity to engage in such activities is
precisely what motivates many young men to travel to Mumbai despite exploitative working
conditions. In the process of becoming migrant workers, Nepali men from villages also become
urban consumers: it is an important part of their transformation.

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Chapter six Migrant Risk Behavior in Mumbai

15. The final chapter offers a critique of the public health discourse on migrant workers.
Whereas the 1990s anti-trafficking discourse projected female migrant workers as HIV carriers,
at the turn of the millennium the focus shifted towards male labor migrants in far-western Nepal.
Sharma is sharply critical of organizations that place overriding emphasis on HIV and STIs at the
expense of migrants’ overall health and well-being. He describes how NGOs and international
agencies depicted migrant workers as carriers of sexual diseases and made them into an “object
of intervention” without taking their social and economic realities into account.

Key Findings

16. Labor migration to India is, for Sharma, a way to escape the oppressive social structure of the
village, to travel, to face modernity, and to come back home a responsible man. But the reality of
migrants’ position in Indian cities leads them to be as exploited as the Indian proletariat. Their
invisibility, partly due to their work as night watchmen hampers self-assertion at work. These
“liminal beings” partly find satisfaction in consumption, which represents a small facet of the
men’s crave for modernity and a way to assert themselves as men in their home village.

Recommendations

17. Regarding the socioeconomic dimension of migration, Sharma insists on the divorce between
people and farming. The diversification of livelihood means that “rural Nepal is increasingly
integrated with the national and global economy and culture”. Old patterns of caste relations are
disappearing, whereas Dalit or other subjugated groups assert their rights to participate in society
as “political and economic agents”. This is in part the result of labor migration. According to
Sharma, this transforming power of migration is, however, poorly taken into account by
development agencies.

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REVIEWER’S ANALYSIS

Different View Points to Be Considered

18. The trend of emigrating to India is not solely limited to foreign employment. Poverty,
manhood and maturity, political aspects etc are also the factors for emigration to India. Some
workers have changed their destiny and fate in India. At the same time STDs, discrimination,
torture etc are amongst many Nepali. In this sense crossing borders have brought back home both
challenges and opportunities.

Critical Analysis of Arguments and Discussion

19. One of the strengths of this book is the thorough treatment given to the political economy of
Nepali migration. Until the fall of the Rana regime in 1950, opportunities for labor migration
were severely restricted, with the exception of the Gurkha military recruits who served with the
British and Indian armies. After 1950, Nepal began opening its borders to the wider world and
negotiated an open border policy with India that is still in effect today. Sharma argues that the
open border renders young migrants docile, liminal subjects who live beyond the protection of
their state, but these young men work in India legally and are not subject to the persecution of
thehost state, as in much of the rest of the world

Applicability And Usefulness of Recommendation

20. There is a radical shift for foreign employment from India to Gulf countries. Youths
today are leaving the nation not only for employment alone, seeking the prospects of higher
studies and career. There are considerable group of Nepali abroad. Had government been able to
export semi skilled and skilled manpower, many cases of discrimination, suppression and such
behaviours on part of Nepali workers would have been resolved. Carrying out the effective
awareness programs would reduce the challenges of STDs as well.

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Recommendations Of the Reviewer

21. Sharma’s book is easy to read and the numerous quotations enable the reader to get an
inner view of the migrants’ world. Apart from these few drawbacks, Sharma’s book is fully
recommendable, both for those interested in migration and masculinity studies and for those who
want to better understand migrants’ mindset in a time of mass migration from Nepal.

CONCLUSION

22. Crossing the Border to India is a coherently written ethnography that contributes a significant
account of a seldom-studied phenomenon. Cross-border migration between Nepal and India
plays an increasingly important role in Nepal’s economy and in the livelihoods of the young men
who embody that role. One limitation of this book is the that much of the material presented is
dated and does not reflect many of the recent developments in Nepal. A reader may think after
reading this book that the Maoist insurgency is still raging in Nepal’s hills (it ended in 2006), and
there is little mention of the political and economic turbulence that followed, which must have
had some effect on migration practices. This may be due more to the slow pace of academic
publishing rather than Sharma’s neglect, but this book might have better placed its findings in
historical perspective.

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