Historical and contemporary political movements in the Tarai have relied heavily on cross- border connections and political patronage from India, and the region became strategically important for the Maoist movement as a place of sanctuary during the ‘People’s War’. It is an open and integrated borderland, produced through close political, social and religious connections and flows and interactions of people, commodities and ideas back and forth across the border. The Tarai region as a whole also has strong ethnic and linguistic ties with communities across the border in the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. But the Tarai has also long been an intellectual and political hub, and a key focal point for successive political and armed movements and ongoing Madhesi activism. This resulted from a range of factors including the building of an east-west highway which bypassed the district centre, Rajbiraj limited state investment as well as the growth of more vibrant and better-located borderland centres such as Biratnagar in neighbouring Morang district. The Saptari district in the Eastern Tarai has been economically marginalised since the 1950s due to declining connectivity.
Many Tarai communities have long felt sidelined in Nepal and the region includes pockets of extreme poverty and high rates of economic inequality. The term Madhesi is generally used to refer to non- pahadi (hill origin) people living in the Tarai of Indian Hindu origin. A further one per cent are identified as ‘Others’. According to the 2011 census, 36 per cent of the Tarai’s population are of hill origin, 63 per cent are from the plains and may be categorised as Madhesis – although some, such as Muslims and Tharus, might not consider themselves Madhesi. The southern Tarai plains cover 17 per cent of Nepal’s territory but are home to approximately 51 per cent of its population.
0 kommentar(er)
