There are about thirty-five thousand Santhal people residing at Jhapa district. It was we, the Santhals, who first arrived and settled here in Jhapa. We worked hard to make the land cultivable but after that, various other communities Brahmin, Chhetri, Kumai, Newar, Rai and Limbu migrated from hill to here who took over our land and became property owners.

Land and Citizenship

As time went by Nepal became a democratic country. Slogans referring equality and liberty were made popular nationwide but the Santhals had to face yet another problem regarding citizenship. They had to go through various adversity and suffering just for the sake of getting a citizenship. Even the chief district officer stood as an obstacle for them, the Village Development Committees, a lowest administrative unit of Nepal government hardly recommended their citizenship. The Santhals had to show the documents of their land and house just to get their recommendation approved. Many of them have already been lost their land due to the lack of appropriate support and government facility to register the land right in the Land Reform Administration office of Nepal.

In beginning of the settlement of peoples in Terai was hold by indigenous peoples to cultivate land for farming. There was no compulsion to register land for the documentation of land right. The government of Nepal did not provide any appropriate facility to make available support of land right documentation to those indigenous nationalities who were first settle in Terai and cultivate fertile land for farming. Due to the lack of Nepali Citizenship and complicated process of land registration in Nepali format in the beginning of land reform of the Nepal government has made them difficult to follow properly. The government of Nepal also ignored the difficulties of non-Nepali speaking peoples what they were facing the difficulties to register the land right document.

Many Santhal people even lost their land and houses to get a citizenship. The problems regarding citizenship also came up while purchasing a new piece of land. Tara Mardi of Dagibari VDC-1 was compelled to get land registration pass the land in the name of his neighbour Bigyan Shrestha while purchasing a new piece of land. Tara Mardi have to purchase land in the name of Bigyan Shrestha due to the problems of Nepali citizenship. This proves that the Santhals have some serious problems regarding citizenship, which the political parties and even democracy have failed to resolve.

Santhals and the citizenship

Out of thirtyfive thousand, only twentyseven hundred Santhals have the citizenship of Nepal and the rest are still struggling to get one. Few years back Jairam Murmi of Haldibari, Jhapa had to go through various troubles while getting a citizenship for his relative. The chief district officer (CDO) tried to delay the process by bringing out different irrelevant issues. As Jairam was a courageous man, he had the capacity to get the citizenship right of his peoples by any means. Therefore, he took his appeal to the parliament member Krishna Sitaula. After Sitaula pressured the CDO, he provided the citizenship to Jairam's relative promptly.

Is citizenship indeed is the recommendation of a parliament member? The Santhals questioned to themselves whether it is necessary to get the parliament members recommendation or not. The Santhals s it the The Santhals also have the right to get citizenship without any problems or obstacles.