Responding to criticism of India’s handling of Nepal during a discussion in Rajya Sabha this week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj asked some members of the Indian parliament to get their facts correct.
Swaraj criticised Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s TK Rangarajan for misleading the house with his falsehoods. “Your speech was full of factual errors,” she said. “For example, Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s first visit was not to Nepal. He visited Nepal only after Bhutan and Japan.”
Swaraj also asked Indian National Congress (INC)’s Mani Shankar Aiyar and Renuka Chaudhary to judge the Modi government’s policy on Nepal on the basis of facts.
“In the 17 years before Prime Minister Modi’s first Nepal visit, no Indian Prime Minister went there. And Nepal-India joint commission meeting had not taken place in 23 years until I took this initiative last year,” she said.”These are facts, and based on these facts, I will leave it up to you to decide how India-Nepal relations were before the Modi government was formed.”
But Swaraj herself misled Rajya Sabha with her misrepresentation about Nepal’s new constitution. She said: “Nepal’s interim constitution had ensured naturalised citizenship for those Indian women married to Nepali men. But these provisions have been removed from the new constitution.”
This is a rumour spread by supporters of the Madhes movement, and Swaraj discussed it as if it were a fact. She was either herself manipulated or deliberately misleading the Indian parliament.
The article 11 (6) of Nepal’s new constitution says: Foreign women married to Nepali men can apply for Nepal’s naturalised citizenship as per federal laws if they want.
The article 8 (6) of Nepal’s interim constitution says: Foreign women married to Nepali men can apply for Nepal’s naturalised citizenship as per existing laws if they want.
Indeed there is no vast difference between Nepal’s new and interim constitution. The only difference: the word ‘existing’ has been replaced by ‘federal’ and it makes no difference at all. What Swaraj said in the Rajya Sabha was not quite correct.
As for naturalised citizenship for foreign men married to Nepali women, the new constitution is silent. But the interim constitution was also silent on this matter. The draft of the new constitution stated ‘ foreign men married to Nepali women can acquire Nepal’s naturalised citizenship after spending 15 years in Nepal and forgoing his original citizenship.”
Women rights activists criticised the draft constitution saying it was more regressive than the interim constitution in terms of citizenship rights. This provision regarding naturalised citizenship for foreign men married to Nepali women was removed before the new constitution was approved.
source nepali times
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