If you ever take an international flight from or to Nepal, it is nearly impossible to avoid running into groups of Nepali workers, with light bags and bewildered looks. With 300-500 Nepali workers leaving the country every day, this is hardly surprising. Yet, these hardworking and honest people are an invaluable resource to Nepal's ailing economy. Statistics from Nepal Rastra Bank, the country's central bank, reveal that the Nepali economy in 2004/05 earned over USD 922 million in remittances from overseas workers — accounting for 12.4 percent of national GDP. With 30 to 50 percent of these remittances being transferred through informal channels, total remittances for that year could easily top USD 1.5 billion. More importantly, however, this money is spread throughout the country, providing significantly greater security against a potential economic crisis. In explaining the value of remittances to Nepal, the representative of the Asian. Development Bank, Sultan Hafeez Rahman, recently noted: "Remittances are one of the great equalisers in otherwise inequitable economies. People who go abroad are randomly and evenly distributed from across "the country."
Migration for employment has long played a crucial role in shaping Southasia. With over 40 percent of the regional population still living on less than a dollar a day, migration to meet basic needs and improve standards of living will continue to play an important role in the region. During the oil boom in the 1970s, the labour-surplus economies of Southasia were able to supply cheap labour to meet the growing labour demands in the Middle East. These labour markets, including those in East Asia, proved vital for Southasian economies. According to the World Bank, by 2004 remittances were injecting USD 3.4 billion into the Bangladeshi economy, USD 4.1 billion into Pakistan, and a staggering USD 23 billion into India — accounting for over 5 percent of the GDP in all three countries.
Although Nepal was a late entry in taking advantage of Middle Eastern labour demands, the country has a long history of job migration. With the drawing of Nepal's borders in 1816 through the Sugauli Treaty with British India, the. Gorkhali hero Bal Bhadra Kuwar left Nepal to join the army of the Punjabi Sikh King Ranjit Singh. Subsequently, an 1839 treaty allowed Punjab to undertake large-scale recruitment within Nepal. Although Bal Bhadra Kuwar was the country's most famous expat worker, he was not the first. The British East India Company had already started recruiting Gorkhali warriors in 1815 from their Nepali prisoners of war, while major recruitment started following the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny. During the two world wars, over 300,000 Nepali men fought for the British, suffering over 45,000 casualties.
This massive migration of able-bodied men had a disastrous effect on the traditional agricultural economy. Having seen the outside world, most of those who left did not return. According to historian K Mojumdar, only 3838 Nepali soldiers returned home upon being discharged after World War I. With little to no economic development occurring in Nepal under the autocratic Rana regime, a significant number of Nepali workers proceeded to migrate to India. With the establishment of the tea estates in northeastern India, a considerable number of Nepali workers immigrated and established communities of their own in the region.