Transit country's 'metal free' farce

After crossing the four hills around Kathmandu and landing the ship in the valley, there is a scene of welcoming international passengers - a written notice of metal free, a hoarse voice ordering metal free, security personnel searching international passengers with metal detectors, and tired passengers queuing up to obey the order.

In general, there is no practice of making passengers metal-free after passing through the immigration desk at the international airport (at least I have not experienced this in more than 30 international airports that I have traveled to, even in the USA, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, where security is the most sensitive). There was no arrangement, no). However, money sent by Nepalis from abroad and foreign tourism is the main source of dollars in our country. It can be assumed that the government must have introduced the Gorkhe wisdom of metal free as a solution to the problem of gold and alcohol being imported. However, the meanings conveyed by the apparent metal free government formula are multifaceted.

Ten years ago in 2014, in this daily, I wrote in an article titled 'Sadness of a youth-dominated country' - 'A country that is enjoying remittances by exporting labor power, importing almost all agricultural products, has transformed from an agricultural-dominated country to a youth-dominated country. The past ten years have been spent in earthquakes, new constitutions, federalism, various levels of elections, the ups and downs of coalition governments. Stability is unmatched in one question, the Nepalese youth who are moving abroad. Looking at the restlessness of young people under the age of 30 to go abroad, the country has turned into a 'transit state' in the last 10 years. In the

'Transit State' there are various dimensions of youth's own restlessness and leisure. Young people stretching their chests waiting for British or Indian army recruitment (currently ready to go to Russia...-Ukraine war), standing in passport queues, waiting for visas, running consultancy for student visas, paying tens of millions to brokers and traveling to America for months, TOEFL, IELTS or Korea and Japanese Studying a language or waiting for a work permit. There is hardly any family in Nepal whose family or close relatives are not on the verge of going abroad. Even the youth who are in their final years of adolescence wonder - when will they turn 18 and carry their bags. It seems that the current Nepali society, economic system, politics and the state are collectively adopting a single policy, pushing every youth in the country towards Tribhuvan International Airport. The pain of young people from distant hills who cannot make a passport to travel to India to become seasonal workers is old.

In the current situation, there is no sign of stopping the lorry going abroad, although it can be expected that they will return at some point with some money, experience and skills, especially from Arab and Malaysia. According to a worker friend, when they talk at home in the evenings working in Malaysia and the Gulf, they say, 'I will return soon', but at the same time I have a knot in my mind, 'What will I do when I return to Nepal?' Have you earned, what experience have you gained, what can be done from that experience?' . Last year alone, more than 780,000 people took work permits. About 2,500 people fly from Tribhuvan Airport daily. According to a statistic, more than 4 million people traveled through Tribhuvan International Airport in 2023.

The state that is encouraging the youth to go abroad is shocked when the youth from abroad send remittances for the education of their children, brothers and sisters, for the protection of their parents. The country receives about one and a half billion remittances every day. If we also calculate the amount coming in from the informal sector, about one billion rupees are coming in as remittances every month. In this way, the parent state of the Nepali economy, which is running on the strength of remittances, is terribly afraid of the two bottles of alcohol, two tolas of gold and two mobile phones that the workers bring when they return to the country. According to

news, about 100 kilos of gold is illegally imported into the country every day, it can be estimated that the smugglers must have invested a lot to arrange the settings from top to bottom to bring in that 100 kilos of gold. On the other hand, in the alliance of the state, brokers and smugglers, gold worth about 1 billion is being smuggled, on the other hand, the government is busy searching the bags of workers and tourists who have returned to Nepal by knocking on the doors of metal detectors. The workers who have returned after working for two or three years should not leave home with a little bit of happiness. Let's say that the economy is going to have a serious accident due to these two kinds of happiness brought by the workers to share with their family and relatives. That's why when returning to Nepal, the first welcome is from the metal detector.

Is the flow of remittances always like this? It may not be so, the state does not seem to have a detector to detect the micro-economic-social signals inside and outside the country. While coming to Nepal via Qatar last month, a Nepali was saying, 'It's been 12 years since he came to Qatar, nothing else could be improved, his son was sent to Portugal.' He was happy to believe that his son had been freed from the misery of working in Arabia for two to three years. Like those men, if the thinking of the majority is that they are going to suffer in Arabia and send their children to other prosperous countries in the West, then the remittances flowing from Arabia will fly again and land in a Western country.

Understanding the depth of the problem, instead of taking sustainable policy initiatives, the ad hoc solution of immediate announcements and directives has become the original identity of the Nepali state. In the circle of new announcements and directives from the Secretary, Parliament, Minister and Prime Minister, there is only a hunger for momentary publicity rather than a lasting solution.

According to the definition of the Nepal government, the population of the age group of 16 to 40 years is about 41 percent. Based on the data of demographic bonus, some economists are distributing the lollipops of economic development and prosperity. However, there is another fact that cannot be ignored when talking about the demographic bonus or youth bulge. The theory of the youth bulge of German scholar Professor Gunnar Henson states that a country with a high population of young people under the age of 30 will experience social, economic and political instability. In 2006, when studying 60 countries undergoing demographic bonus, it is no coincidence that the majority of countries are experiencing internal conflicts and instability.

Passport is made in a day but you have to wait months to get a driving license, the only thing to say is, youth, go your own way. Perhaps the state is giving support to the economy through remittances to young people who have gone their own way without having to worry about employment, while also protecting the society from possible internal strife and idolatry from Gunnar Henson's theoretical point of view.

Recently, during the international investment event, how much investment will be brought by the potential investors who have passed through the metal free and how many jobs will they create, it will be seen at the right time, but Nepali who are trying to return to the country after staying abroad have to face many obstacles in the form of metal detectors to do business in Nepal. is also Those declarations and directives will certainly not go away, a deep understanding of the problem and sustainable thinking of the solution is necessary. Why not start with a metal detector and welcome the returnee to Nefal?

– The views presented in this article are the author's private, he has no connection with the related body or organization.