Cut Off From Their Own Country, All These People Want Is a Bridge

GWALABASTI, NEPAL — When Mamata Yadav was a little girl, she dreamt of going to college one day. She loved studying and enjoyed going to school. At the age of 27, she is believed to be the most educated among 250 women in Gwalabasti hamlet of Mechinagar municipality, located in southeastern Nepal on the border with India.

But she did not go to college. Yadav’s education stopped at eighth grade. She wanted to continue her studies, but faced a natural barrier. Like others, she and her older brother forded the Mechi River to get to school. But while she passed her classes, her brother did not. Without her brother, Yadav did not dare cross the river on her own, and her family didn’t want her to either. With that, her dream of going to college started to fade.

The Mechi River serves as the border between Nepal and India. But although the river is the official boundary line, much of the land east of the river is considered Nepali territory, due to changes in the course of the river. For children living in the three Nepali settlements east of the river near Mechinagar, going to school beyond second grade still means wading through the water — there is no bridge connecting these Nepali exclaves to Nepal.

These netherworlds have become oddly isolated zones, deprived of basic needs, including full access to education. As a result, many residents have not gone past second grade because that’s as far as the only school in these settlements goes, says Amal Yadav, president of the neighborhood development committee for the three settlements.

Mayamitu Neupane, GPJ Nepal

A resident passes through the village of Gwalabasti hamlet, Mechinagar municipality, where sprawling vegetable beds grow just beyond the houses.

Between 1818 and 1873, the Mechi River changed course, resulting in some parts of Nepal moving across the river. Gwalabasti is one of the three Mechinagar settlements, along with Jharubasti and Sisaudangi.

In 2001, Nepal’s government established Mechi Primary School for the children of these settlements. But the school only goes to second grade. Mamata Yadav’s eldest son, Suman Kumar Yadav, is 11, the age at which Nepali students are typically in fifth grade, but instead he has repeated second grade at the school for three years now. Yadav worries that her younger children might have to do the same.

In the absence of other schools, most children from these settlements keep repeating second grade so they don’t forget how to write their names. A few dare to cross the river to study at Kalika Primary School. In Nepal, first through eighth grade is considered the basic level of education, or primary school. Kalika Primary, unlike Mechi Primary, has the teacher capacity and infrastructure to teach through eighth grade.

Those who cross the river leave their houses wearing their home clothes, holding their school uniforms above the river’s waters, then change behind tall grass in nearby sugarcane fields. Some also carry their bicycles on their shoulders. “Among the 25 students enrolled [at Mechi Primary School], five students end up crossing the river and going to Kalika Primary School, which is the closest school to the Mechi River crossing,” says Suresh Shrestha, principal of both schools.

Mayamitu Neupane, GPJ Nepal

Teacher Rama Devi Dhakal, kneeling at right in bottom photo, leads children of varying ages through their lessons in a dimly lit classroom at Mechi Primary School, located near Gwalabasti.

At the same time these students cross to the west side, there are teachers from Nepal who cross the river to the east side to teach at Mechi Primary. Rama Devi Dhakal has taught at the school since December 2023.

After the school day is over, Dhakal — almost as a ritual — draws up her trousers to her knees and starts crossing the river. When she started teaching, Dhakal had thought she would not last for even a week. But now she is happy to celebrate small successes with these children. The children’s first language is not Nepali, but Hindi or a local dialect, Maithili, that is shared between India and Nepal. Now, because of her teaching, she says they speak Nepali.

Though three individuals are appointed to the school, only Dhakal and an office worker come regularly. “If I also leave, the students will not even know how to write their own names,” she says.

While other schools in Nepal get a one-month school break annually, Mechi Primary School remains closed for four more months. “The school remains closed during the rainy season because teachers are unable to cross the river that is flooded then,” says Guna Raj Bhattarai, a ward chair in Mechinagar municipality. In winters, and particularly during the windy season in February and March, even the ambulance cannot reach the settlements because the wind blows the sand on the banks of the river, making it difficult to drive or even walk.

Mayamitu Neupane, GPJ Nepal

Residents of Nepali settlements across the Mechi River ford its waters into Nepal’s Mechinagar municipality.

The border between Nepal and India was determined by the 1816 Treaty of Sugauli, signed between this South Asian country and what was then British India. After the treaty, Mahakali River was delimited as the boundary in the west and Mechi River in the east, says Chintamani Dahal, former associate professor of history and former campus chief at Mechi Multiple Campus. As the river changed its course, these settlements were left behind.

Education is not the only basic necessity missing in these settlements. Populated by indigenous groups, such as the Madhesis, and some tribal communities, mostly employed in agricultural work and at tea estates, these settlements look like unnamed colonies with no street names, no shops and no signboards — except for that of Mechi Primary School, and that’s when you know you are still in Nepal. Electricity reached Jharubasti and Gwalabasti last year through the Nepali government, but has yet to reach Sisaudangi. Each settlement has one hand pump, but the water is yellow and tastes acidic. Among the 45 houses in the settlements, no more than three have toilets. People go to the riverbank and openly defecate there.

“What is the point in raising our voice? Even a suspension bridge has not been built for us yet,” Mamata Yadav says. Because of the lack of a bridge, chronically ill Nepali citizens in these settlements are unable to access free government services like dialysis. For the most basic of needs, such as groceries, most residents go to the Indian market.

Locals say the demand for a suspension bridge was first raised in 1991 during parliamentary elections. Madan Pan, 75, remembers that Radhakrishna Mainali, who won from Jhapa Region No. 3 in that election, was the first to promise to build a bridge over the Mechi River. Pan says after Mainali, all those who won the parliamentary elections promised a suspension bridge — that has still not been built.

Then-lawmaker Mainali says he raised his voice not only to win the election, but because there genuinely was and remains a need. “The bridge is not only very necessary for daily movement, but it is also necessary to connect our people to the nation,” he says.

Mayamitu Neupane, GPJ Nepal

Teacher Rama Devi Dhakal, left, and office worker Rajesh Kumar Chaudary cross the river during their daily commute to Mechi Primary School in Gwalabasti hamlet, Mechinagar municipality.

The demand for the bridge evokes emotions of nationalism among the people living in these settlements. “What is hurtful is that people on the other side stand on the bank of Mechi and point to our settlement and say, ‘Look, that is India,’” says Amal Yadav, the neighborhood leader.

Gopal Chandra Budathoki, mayor of Mechinagar, says there is no doubt that there are problems facing these Nepali settlements, but the local government alone cannot solve the issue. He says the local government has appealed to the federal government to help solve the problems.

But Bishwa Prakash Sharma, the federal lawmaker who represents the municipality, says that the issue hasn’t even reached Parliament for discussion yet. “There is a need for a bridge here and we have to plan for a long-term solution,” Sharma says, but “the issue needs to be discussed in Parliament first.”

Meanwhile, Mamata Yadav sighs as she thinks about her past. The river forced her to quit school, she says. Now, all she wants is for her children to not have to live with a shattered dream like she did.