"Pahilay ijjat thiyo, ahilay chhaina (Before we had respect, now we do not)," says Mohan Bahadur Kunwar, from Bajhang District, who guards the Raj Mohan Villas housing development in Bangalore. He has been here for more than five years, and earns 2700 rupees a month, whereas his relation Ram Bahadur Kunwar, just arrived, earns a thousand a month.
Dandapani Sapkota is just next door to where the Kunwars work. He is from Foksing village in Gulmi District and has worked in the city for 17 years as a house-servant. He says he is tired, and would not recommend his kind of work to anybody. "I save about 12,000 to 15,000 rupees a year, but this is not good nokari (service). The starting salary is one thousand a month, without food. I earn 2200 rupees, but it should have been 4000 by now."
"Fully 99 percent of Nepalis in India are in menial jobs," says C P Mainali, senior Left politician in Nepal, who worked for three yearsorganising migrants in India. "Only one percent might be in technical or skilled fields, and less than 0.1 percent will have an independent income. There is not a paan shop in the name of a Nepali in India, and, less than one in a thousand is a clerk."
Says Sudarshan Karki, Delhi City Committee Secretary of the All India Nepali Unity Society, "The situation of the Nepalis is tenuous. Those with good jobs may earn 2000 rupees, but more are earning 200 rupees. They are on call 24 hours a day, the lucky ones may be for only 12."