Rereading Srikant Dutt’s ‘Migration and Development: The Nepalese in Northeast’

Abstract

S Initially delivered as the Srikant Dutt Memorial Lecture, this essay discusses the status of Nepalis in Northeast India on the basis of an article written in 1981 by Srikant Dutt, and provides commentaries based on the present author’s own research. The article deals with some stereotypes associated with Nepalis in the region, such as ‘foreigners’ and ‘immigrants’, though their ancestors were settled by the then colonial government in several strategic locations of the region after they retired from the Gurkha army. Some Nepalis came, by the agency of the capitalist imperialism, to the sparsely populated frontier areas of India. The article also argues that Nepalis in the region are ‘nominal Hindus’, as opposed to orthodox Hindus, a term based on their lax religious habits.