Gender discrimination in Citizenship laws of Nepal and Statelessness

Gender discriminatory provisions in Nepal’s Citizenship Act (2006) and Nepal’s Constitution (2015) have created a situation of de-facto statelessness for millions of individuals. These individuals remain in a condition of liminality, experiencing the state of in-situ displacement in the country of their birth, hindering their ability to pursue key life projects freely. Simultaneously, the discriminatory laws render women second-class citizens, not allowing them to pass citizenship to their children and foreign spouses on an equal basis with Nepali men. The discriminatory laws are the mixed result of both patriarchy as well as a discourse of Nepali identity, which excludes Madhesi populations inhabiting the Southern plains of Nepal from the mainstream. This paper theorizes on the insecurity experienced by stateless individuals and Nepali women under the conceptual framework of security as emancipation. While doing so, the article examines the structures that create the conditions of insecurity and the scope of transformation of these structures by realizing progressive 'moments of emancipation.' The structure of insecurity is multifaceted. In legal form, it is present in the form of discriminatory laws. These laws represent and promote patriarchal and ethnic structures of insecurity at the societal and political level and highlight the intersectional dimension of these structures. The paper argues that listening to stateless individuals' experiences is the first step in identifying the structures of insecurity. It further identifies targets and resources for emancipation by examining the agency of grassroots mobilizations, campaigns, civil society organizations, both domestic and international. The paper uses data generated from semi-structured interviews conducted with both the victims and experts and the primary and secondary resources such as the UPR submissions, CEDAW shadow reports, and the reports of NGOs. The work of grassroots protests, campaigns, and civil society actors aims to transform legal structures of insecurity, which forms a concrete utopia (moment of emancipation). However, emancipation is a process and not an end goal, and each order has scope for transformation. Transformation of the legal structures of insecurity is not the end goal of emancipatory politics. Further transformation of patriarchal and ethnic structures of insecurity would constitute progressive and dynamic ‘moments of emancipation.’