Janak Raj Sapkota: The dark underbelly of remittance

The dark underbelly of remittance

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- NAYAN P SINDHULIYA,

Aug 20, 2016- There is some kind of acquired familiarity about the characters in journalist Janakraj Sapkota’s second book, Kahar. These are men and women from diverse ethnic and geographic backgrounds, but a similar economic plight. They are united in their pursuit of an increased prosperity for their families and children. They nurture many dreams and make unimaginable sacrifices to go abroad as migrant workers. They all share common fate in the end—that of death and devastation. These are stories that have become all too familiar in our recent collective memory.

Maybe, we as a society have become rather numb to this. Maybe a memory so recurrent, no matter how excruciating, also dissipates in the parallel world of reciprocal indifference. Remittance has become such an enormous phenomenon with transformative consequences in our lives that it is difficult to imagine progress and prosperity without it. Kahar is a collection of deeply felt, meticulously researched, and agonising yet humane accounts of blood and tears, of individuals with dreams of more prosperous lives through migration. It details the innocence and fraud, hope and despair, and families broken and mourning with alarming frequency.

In three decades, between 1990 and 2011, remittance as the share of Nepali GDP increased from a mere 0.21 percent to a whopping 28 percent. According to the 2011 census, almost two million Nepali youths were working abroad. Some studies put the current number at almost four million. From banking to real estate, and transformation of rural economy, the impacts of this have been both real and irreversible. Remittance has no doubt opened doors for an upward mobility, especially for the youths from absolute socio-economic margins and depravity. But it is the fraudulent process, supplemented by frighteningly weak and corrupt system, that results in such devastating ends for a significant portion of the population. The sheer number and frequency of this make up a tragedy that is enormous, and looks certain to continue for generations.

We keep hearing the number of incoming coffins in Kathmandu’s international airport everyday—latest reports suggest there are, on an average, four coffins of deceased migrant workers arriving to Nepal daily. Journalist and writer Sapkota follows the family members of the deceased to the airport, accompanies them to the remote villages of their birth with the coffins, and witnesses the death rites. He visits the families over and over again—the conversations are tough, often punctuated by long silences. The outcome is a book that paints a comprehensive picture of incomprehensible pain and loss.

But Sapkota’s book is more than just an emotional tear-fest. The hard-hitting journalist in him does not spare the foul-players—from the crooked middlemen in villages to an utterly inept and corrupt government agencies, and the heartless employers of Gulf countries and Malaysia. The most sobering aspect of the book is to learn as a reader that so many of these deaths could have been prevented had we had a proper system at place, and if these innocent people were given proper information on their rights.

Throughout the book, Sapkota cites numerous reports and studies conducted in recent years, on the plights of Nepali migrant workers, including by prominent international human rights and labour organisations. And they all paint a familiar, bleak picture. And as a reader, it all feels ridiculously infuriating.

The desperation of Nepali migrant workers, in recent years, has garnered significant media and institutional interest—both national and international. But there probably isn’t anything that details the far-reaching consequences of this tragedy on the family and the community like Sapkota’s book. As a journalist who has done some remarkable reporting on issues of social and popular importance recently, he seems very comfortable dealing with very sensitive and distressing emotions of those who have lost everything. He uses unpretentious, almost folksy, language which probably adds to the readability of the book, but at the cost of a compromised literary flair. This is rather unfortunate because with more polishing and better editing, the book could have possessed a greater literary merit. There’s plenty in the book to suggest that Sapkota is a naturally gifted writer and story-teller.

Kahar is probably one of the more important books to come out in recent years. Some of the stories are almost too painful to read through. But that’s precisely what it does best—it ridicules our indifference to a tragedy that is becoming all too common. And if we really think about it, we are all benefiting from this money that is tainted with blood and tear of so many. It is only fair that we acknowledge the cost of our own privileges and aspirations, and do what needs to be done to make the whole thing at least a little better.

http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2016-08-20/the-dark-underbelly-of-remittance.html

Published: 20-08-2016 10:10

http://bit.ly/2bDW17J

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Janak Raj Sapkota

The dark underbelly of remittance

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