You would not know it seeing lone Nepalis at work on the streets all over India, but there are a number of groups intent upon organising them and providing them a level of protection. Almost all these groups are politicised, however, with links to parties and factions back in Nepal. While Nepalis have had organisations in India for nearly a century—to fight Rana rule in Kathmandu or to protect the Nepali language, an India-wide organisation for Nepali migrant workers was begun only in 1959 when one D. Ale, an associate of the communist leader Pushpalal Shrestha, started the Akhil Bharat Prabasi Nepali Kalyankari Sangh (All India Emigrant Nepali Welfare Association). Its activities were concentrated in Uttar Pradesh and in Calcutta.
The two most active umbrella organisations of the migrant Nepalis today are both of left orientation, the Emigrant Nepali Association (ENA), associated with the mainstream Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninists), and the All India Nepali Unity Society which is linked with the more radical "Mohan Bickram group", although now divided into two acrimonious factions. The centrist Nepali Congress has floated its own "Nepali Samparka Samitis" (liaison committees) with branches, it is said, in the main cities of India.
"The Unity Society, set up in November 1979, with its Maoist ideology, is the strongest organisation among Nepalis in India," claims its New Delhi-based General Secretary Bamdev Chhetri. The society is spread over 22 Indian states and has a temporary membership of 60,000 and permanent membership of 125,000, he says. Mr Chhetri´s claim to supremacy would be challenged by ena, which has 11 regional organisations all over India and "regular" membership of 30,000. A major distinction between the two is that the Unity Society accepts all Nepali-speakers as members, whereas the latter concentrates on Nepalis from Nepal only.
Ram Chandra Bhandari, of Palpa District in central Nepal, is the Bangalore-based member of the Central Committee of the ENA. Mr Bhandari, who works as chief of security of Bangalore´s Holiday Inn, says his association´s activities are extremely varied, "from organising volleyball games among Nepali teams of various regions, to holding cultural activities during festivals. We respond to police action against Nepalis, confront employers who harass our members, resolve disputes, fight for compensation, help stranded pilgrims, conduct funeral rites of those without family, and so on."