Migration and settlement transformed the Nepal Tarai/Madhesh after the middle of the twentieth century, but neither process began in an empty landscape. The plains already contained long-established villages, market towns, pilgrimage centres, cultivated tracts, forests and grazing zones linked across the India– Nepal border. What changed after the 1950s was the scale, direction and institutional framing of movement. Malaria control reduced one environmental barrier; roads and markets lowered transport costs; land policy and resettlement programmes created new opportunities; and population pressure in the hills encouraged movement toward the lowlands. At the same time, cross-border marriage, labour and commerce continued older patterns that cannot be reduced to immigration in the modern political sense. 69.1 Migration and settlement are related processes, but they are not the same Migration records movement from one place to another; settlement concerns the establishment of residence, cultivation, property claims and social institutions. A household could migrate temporarily without settling, settle after repeated seasonal movements, or maintain homes and fields on more than one side of a district or international boundary. Keeping these categories separate is essential because census, land and resettlement records capture different parts of the same social process. 69.2 The Tarai/Madhesh was inhabited long before post-1950 resettlement Older cultivated belts of Saptari, Siraha, Dhanusha, Mahottari and the border plains contradict any description of the region as a vacant frontier. Madhesi caste communities, Muslims, Tharus and other lowland populations formed villages, markets and agrarian relations before national development programmes. Forested and malarial zones existed beside settled landscapes rather than replacing them everywhere. 69.3 Cross-border mobility with north Bihar preceded the modern development state Marriage, pilgrimage, livestock movement, seasonal labour, trade and cultivation connected Nepal’s plains with north Bihar across a politically bounded but socially permeable frontier. Such movement often followed kinship and market networks rather than administrative programmes. Birthplace statistics therefore need to be read alongside the long history of a borderland in which daily economic life crossed the international line. 69.4 The 1950s altered the opportunity structure of lowland residence Malaria control, road construction and the political opening after the Rana regime reduced several barriers to permanent lowland residence. These changes did not create migration mechanically, but they changed the relative costs of moving. Landless or land-poor hill households could now consider settlement in places that had previously carried greater disease risk and weaker transport connections. 707707 GAJENDRA THAKUR Figure 272 — Migration and settlement channels in Tarai/Madhesh 69.5 State planners treated population redistribution as an economic- development instrument Early development planning linked resettlement to three goals: reducing pressure on hill land, increasing cultivated area and agricultural output, and strengthening settlement in strategically important lowland zones. Official documents also presented resettlement as relief for landless households, flood victims, returning migrants and ex-servicemen. These objectives made population movement part of national development policy rather than a purely private household decision. 69.6 The Rapti Valley demonstrated a mechanism but not a universal regional pattern The Rapti Valley Development Project in Chitwan became the best-known example of disease control followed by forest clearance, planned settlement and rapid population growth. Its chronology is important because it showed what state-supported lowland colonisation could do. It should not, however, be projected mechanically onto eastern Mithila/Madhesh, where extensive southern tracts were already densely cultivated and socially organised. 69.7 The Nepal Resettlement Company institutionalised planned settlement in the 1960s Government advice in 1960 led to the creation of the Nepal Resettlement Company in 1963. Its mandate was to organise legal settlement, especially for landless hill farmers, and to combine land distribution with agricultural advice and credit. By 1973 official project documentation reported about 5,600 families settled on roughly 7,000 hectares, a visible but limited part of the wider migration stream. 69.8 A Resettlement Department expanded the administrative machinery after The creation of a Resettlement Department in 1968 separated policy and field administration only imperfectly. In practice the department became involved not only in planned schemes but also in disaster relief and the regularisation or relocation of people already occupying forest land. This blurred the boundary HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II between settlement planning and the management of settlement that had occurred without prior state permission. 69.9 Planned resettlement was far smaller than spontaneous movement World Bank project appraisal material from the early 1970s estimated that only a small minority of migrant families entering the Tarai had been settled through the formal Nepal Resettlement Company schemes. Most movement occurred outside those schemes through family networks, land purchase, tenancy, forest-edge occupation or other self-directed strategies. Official project files are therefore a poor proxy for the total volume of settlement. Figure 273 — Planned resettlement and spontaneous settlement were different systems 69.10 Eastern Tarai settlement did not follow the same land-availability pattern as western projects Formal schemes operated in districts such as Jhapa as well as in western Nepal, but land availability differed sharply across the Tarai. In the eastern and central Madhesh, long-cultivated districts offered less scope for large blocks of planned allotment than forested frontier areas farther west. Migration there more often entered existing villages, market towns and land markets rather than newly surveyed colonies. 69.11 In Saptari, Siraha, Dhanusha and Mahottari, settlement often meant insertion into an existing agrarian society Newcomers encountered established tenants, landowners, village functionaries, traders and religious institutions. Acquiring land could mean purchase, tenancy, subdivision of an existing holding or settlement on forest margins rather than an original grant from the state. This produced social interaction and competition within an already stratified agrarian order. 69.12 Rural-to-rural movement remained central even as towns grew Much post-1950 migration into the Tarai was directed toward agricultural land rather than factories or large cities. Households moved to cultivate paddy, maize, wheat and cash crops, to work as tenants or 709709 GAJENDRA THAKUR labourers, or to combine farming with petty trade. Urbanisation mattered, but it was layered onto a predominantly rural migration system. 69.13 Roads and market centres reorganised the geography of settlement Highways, feeder roads and railheads changed which villages could sell grain, obtain inputs and reach administrative services. New roadside bazaars attracted shops, repair services, transport workers and schools, while older market centres expanded their hinterlands. Settlement therefore became increasingly linear along transport corridors as well as clustered around cultivable land. 69.14 Land markets translated migration into durable settlement A migrant family became socially rooted when it secured a house plot, field, tenancy or long-term occupation. Rising demand increased land values and encouraged subdivision. Families with cash, salaried employment or trading income could purchase plots, while poorer cultivators often entered as tenants, labourers or occupants of marginal land. Migration thus altered class relations as well as population counts. 69.15 Forest encroachment was a settlement strategy as well as a forestry problem Official forestry sources recorded substantial lowland forest loss through spontaneous occupation and agricultural clearing. For a land-poor household, forest-edge settlement could offer access to cultivable land outside expensive village markets. For the state, the same action appeared as illegal encroachment. The terminology therefore reflects competing claims over land rather than a neutral description of behaviour. 69.16 International migration cannot be inferred from Madhesi language or appearance Colonial and post-colonial administrations often struggled to distinguish long-established Tarai residents from recent migrants from India. Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Urdu and Hindi crossed the border, as did caste names and kin networks. A person’s language, dress or surname was therefore not reliable evidence of foreign birth. Historical analysis must distinguish documented birthplace or migration from assumptions about identity. 69.17 The foreign-born population was concentrated in the Tarai, but it remained a minority nationally Population scholarship using the 1961 census estimated Nepal’s foreign-born population at about 337,620, or roughly 3.6 percent of the national population; the great majority were India-born and concentrated in the Tarai. This is significant for borderland history but cannot be converted into a claim that Madhesi society as a whole was immigrant. Long-established lowland populations and recent cross-border migrants were analytically distinct. 69.18 Citizenship rules turned migration history into access to land and public life After 1951, citizenship documentation became increasingly important for land registration, government employment, political participation and other legal rights. In a border region with old cross-border kinship, weak documentation and substantial mobility, procedures could create uncertainty for people whose HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II residence was locally unquestioned. The politics of citizenship thus became entangled with debates over migration and national integration. 69.19 Marriage migration makes women’s mobility look different from men’s Census birthplace data record many women as migrants because marriage moved them from natal to marital households. This pattern can obscure labour migration and make female mobility appear predominantly dependent even when women also worked in agriculture, markets and household enterprises. A gendered reading must distinguish marriage migration, household resettlement and independent economic movement. 69.20 Male-dominated labour migration and family settlement produced different demographic signatures Temporary male labour movement could leave the household’s main residence unchanged, while land- based resettlement more often moved spouses and children together. Over time family reunification transformed temporary destinations into permanent villages and neighbourhoods. Census sex ratios, school enrolment and household composition can therefore help identify whether a migration stream was primarily labour circulation or durable settlement. 69.21 Language geography changed through mixture rather than simple replacement Post-1950 lowland migration increased the presence of Nepali-speaking hill-origin communities in many Tarai towns and settlement zones. Yet Maithili remained deeply rooted in the eastern and central Madhesh, while Bhojpuri, Tharu, Urdu and other languages continued in their regional domains. Schools and administration expanded Nepali without erasing the multilingual structure of the plains. 69.22 Market towns converted migration into occupational diversification Janakpur, Birgunj, Biratnagar and smaller district centres drew traders, transport workers, teachers, clerks, artisans and service workers as well as cultivators. Migrants could move from agriculture into wage or salaried employment after settlement, while village households maintained commercial links with towns. The result was a regional labour market extending beyond agriculture. 69.23 Seasonal and circular migration continued alongside permanent settlement Even as more households settled permanently in the Tarai, seasonal movement to Indian towns, farms and industries continued. Some families combined a Tarai farm with temporary wage work elsewhere; others maintained kin-based circuits across the border. Permanent residence therefore did not end mobility. Settlement often became the stable base from which further migration occurred. 69.24 Remittances and multi-local households helped finance land acquisition Income earned in towns, India or foreign military service could be converted into house construction, livestock and land. Such investment linked outward migration to inward settlement. A household might therefore appear simultaneously as an out-migrant household in labour statistics and as an expanding landholder in a Tarai village. 711711 GAJENDRA THAKUR 69.25 State schemes also resettled disaster victims, ex-servicemen and other targeted groups Official resettlement policy was not limited to generic hill peasants. Flood victims, returning migrants, landless families and former servicemen could receive priority in particular schemes. These categories show that settlement policy served welfare, security and agricultural objectives at the same time, and that the social composition of planned colonies could differ from surrounding villages. 69.26 Increasing demand reduced the amount of land available per settler Historical resettlement summaries report a decline in the average plot size available to participating households as easily allocable land became scarcer. This is an important measure of frontier closure: migration did not move into an unlimited reserve. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, programme emphasis shifted westward partly because accessible eastern Tarai land had become more constrained. 69.27 The 1971 and 1981 censuses show the Tarai becoming Nepal’s principal internal-migration destination Official retrospective migration analysis identifies the Mountain and Hill as net-losing ecological zones and the Tarai as the principal net gainer. For 1981 it reports net losses of about 0.26 million from the Mountain and 0.42 million from the Hill, balanced by a Tarai gain of about 0.69 million. These figures confirm the direction of redistribution without identifying the legal or ethnic status of each migrant. Figure 274 — Net internal migration balance by ecological zone, 1981 69.28 Migration accelerated lowland population growth but did not account for all of it Between 1971 and 1981 the Tarai’s population grew rapidly through both natural increase and migration. Census analysis attributes part, not all, of that growth to net internal movement. High fertility, declining mortality and the age structure of migrant households also mattered. Demographic transformation therefore cannot be reduced to a single migration rate. HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II 69.29 The political meaning of resettlement remains contested Development agencies described resettlement in terms of land pressure, agricultural production, disaster relief and national planning. Later Madhesi and Indigenous scholarship has emphasised unequal access to land, cultural change, citizenship and the possibility that state-sponsored movement altered local political power. These interpretations need not be collapsed into one motive: state objectives and community experiences could differ sharply. Figure 275 — Settlement pressure became a self-reinforcing lowland process 69.30 Conclusion: settlement created a new social geography without erasing the older borderland Post-1950 Tarai/Madhesh society was remade through multiple streams: long-standing cross-border mobility, state-sponsored resettlement, spontaneous hill-to-lowland migration, intra-Tarai movement, marriage, labour circulation and urban growth. The outcome was not a replacement of one population by another but a more densely settled, internally differentiated and politically contested lowland. The older India–Nepal borderland economy persisted inside this new demographic geography, even as citizenship, land law, roads and state institutions gave settlement new legal and political meanings. Table 69.1 — Evidence domains for reconstructing migration and settlement Evidence domain What it can establish Principal limitation Population censuses birthplace, previous residence, definitions and district ecological-zone flows, sex boundaries change; birthplace composition and broad does not reveal motive, migration direction citizenship or ethnic identity Resettlement-company planned schemes, family formal programmes captured and department records allotments, target groups, only a minority of total hectares distributed and settlement administrative objectives Land, cadastral and purchase, allotment, tenancy, poor households and informal tenancy records subdivision and the conversion occupants can be under- of migration into durable recorded property claims Forest and encroachment settlement on forest margins, administrative labels such as records clearance, regularisation and “encroacher” reflect state tenure changing pressure on land categories, not neutral social descriptions 713713 GAJENDRA THAKUR Evidence domain What it can establish Principal limitation District and market roadside growth, bazaars, coverage is uneven and usually records schools, transport links and stronger for administrative changing settlement hierarchy centres than villages Oral/community histories kin networks, displacement, retrospective memory requires local memory, gendered dating control and comparison movement and the social with contemporary records meaning of settlement