The Newars of the Hills : Remigration and Integration in the Kathmandu Valley

Abstract

This paper describes the Newar’s outmigration from Kathmandu valley to the eastern hills of Nepal and their remigration in the Kathmandu valley. It explores various causes of outmigration such as migration for trade, employment, kin based migration, forced migration and so on. However, the causes of remigration to their ancestral land is not because of their loyalty and being highly patriot to the ancestral land but because of searching various opportunities in the Valley. Based on both primary and secondary data the paper analyzes the ways of their social and cultural integration through different guthi and samaj. The re-migrated Newars are socially, culturally and economically interdependent and unified each other on the basis of their territory and their origin in the hills. Their integration in the valley is based on the social, cultural and economic needs. The inter-caste and interethnic integration in the valley represents both territorial and social structural based identity of the hills. However, the paper concludes that the inter-caste and interethnic based integration may be fragmented due to the economic prosperity of household members and increased number of households of their own caste and ethnic groups.