Some senior Nepali politicians, who should know better, like to claim that there is no "ethnic problem" in Nepal. Because of Nepal´s ethnic and regional diversity, the potential for conflict and crisis is ever-present, just below the surface. All that is required for conflagration is a few power-thirsty individuals who think nothing of setting a match to the ethnic sensibility of communities. Nowhere in Nepal is this more true than in the Tarai, the strip of tropical flatlands that runs contiguous to the east-west foothills of die Himalaya. An attempt is on today to draw a sharp dividing line between the Tarai and the hills, based on regionalism and ethnicity.
The regionalism has to do with the distinct geographical position of the Tarai. The 34,019 square kilometres of the Tarai makes up 23 per cent of the country´s total area, and it is inhabited by 46 per cent of Nepal´s population. The Tarai has seen a three-fold increase in population over the past four decades, from about 2.9 million in 1952 to about 8.6 million today.
Historically, the Tarai strip was thinly settled by malaria-immune "indigenous" groups such as the Tharu, Dhimal, Rajbansi, as well as some caste groups from the south. At the turn of the century, the Rana regime in Kathmandu encouraged migration from India in an effort to develop the Tarai. This is why some of the Tarai districts today comprise a significant number of people who are of "Indian origin". It was impossible to entice hill groups to settle in an area considered fit only for exile or penal settlement, so-called Kala Pani (black waters.)
After 1960, with the eradication of malaria, the wild lands of the Tarai became the destination of the dispossessed from the hills of Nepal and those known wprabasi—Nepali-speakers from Burma, Bhutan and the northeastern states of India. With the opening up of forests by highways, the spread of agriculture, and the establishment of a timber industry, the Tarai soon emerged as the economic backbone of the country.