In 2013, age 19, I stood in a small immigration office in Kathmandu’s international airport with my mother, confused. We were heading for Mongolia, where my father was posted. We had valid passports and visas, and a clear familial purpose. Yet, we were stopped, interrogated for over an hour, and were told that our documentation wasn’t enough. We were also unnecessarily told that we needed a letter from the Nepali Embassy in Beijing.
After my mother explained how their questions were unjustified, the focus shifted to the amount of money we were carrying. Our passports did not indicate we had exchanged money through the Government of Nepal, as it was not required. The officials insisted that we couldn’t go if we hadn’t exchanged foreign currency. Finally, my mother had to produce an international credit card, and we were let through immigration. This was the start of my unease with Nepal’s immigration practices at the airport, which has now escalated into a national embarrassment.
Today, I know what I didn’t understand back then; anyone holding a valid passport and visa has the constitutional right to travel freely, without being stopped or questioned arbitrarily by immigration officials unless there is a clear and justified cause. With age and experience, I now also know all the things I wish I had said at that moment to bring the needless inquiry to a stop. On the contrary, government practice has worsened since. Citizens ’right to mobility continues to be attacked every day and in the hundreds.
This issue is as old as time in Nepal, and it speaks like a refrain of a well- known poem. With the recent controversy surrounding ‘visit visa’, a long-overdue question can be raised: whether the Nepali government violates its citizens ’constitutional right to mobility in the name of public safety. The Constitution of Nepal guarantees every citizen the right to mobility and the ability to exit the country with a valid passport and visa.
Yet in practice, the government has superseded the constitution through a guideline (Karya Vidhi) issued on 10th Magh, 2080 which enables immigration officials to stop citizens from travelling even if they have all the necessary documents. This guideline was not just a routine
administrative note, it was a samsodhit karya vidhi, an amended procedure, issued without legislative debate or public accountability. What does it say about responsibility in Nepal’s governance when a Karya Vidhi can override the constitution, and more importantly, who should be held accountable?
Even more troubling is that not a single parliamentarian has raised their voice on what is arguably one of the most significant constitutional violations in recent times. But it turns out restricting a fundamental right to mobility after all had a purpose: that of building a kleptocratic network of manpower agents, middlemen, and corrupt immigration officials to seek rent from ordinary Nepali citizens.
It is a cruel fallacy where a government that fails to provide jobs inside the country is now harassing those who seek opportunities abroad. This surveillance regime preemptively targets working-class Nepalis, especially women. Though the constitutional violation here is fragrant, the uproar has not produced a single public interest litigation, and it is unlikely to prosecute any political leaders.
Nepal has become a country where women traveling to places like Dubai to visit family are treated with suspicion, interrogated at the airport as if they were criminals. This alarming reality has been widely reported and criticized by various publications. Since 2071 BS, Tribhuvan International Airport has seen 24 different immigration heads, while the Department of Immigration has had 13 director generals during the same period. The nation has rightly recognized that this is far from normal bureaucratic turnover.
Moreover, national guidelines continue to be issued overnight, drafted without citizen input or independent review. Historically, a situation where executive proceduralism takes precedence over constitutionally guaranteed liberties is not new. Nepal has incited societal fears with executive overreach. Recall when Achyut Kharel cut the long hair of young people in the 2000s under the premise that it would eliminate crime. The visit visa policy also fits this mold, a solution that solves nothing but asserts state power.
Also like every bad policy, Karya Vidhi was formulated without adequate research, and stakeholder consultation. If the concern was trafficking, where are the safe migration or information channels? If the fear was human rights violation abroad, what have we done as a state to sign bilateral labor protection agreements?
In 2013, my mother and I eventually were let through. Today, many others are not so lucky. The visitor visa case is merely the latest in a long history of how the Nepali state responds to issues by using a convenience over justice approach. They do not reform broken institutions or build durable solutions, but burden ordinary citizens with taxing regulations. Whether it’s migration, market access, even morality, their political instinct lies in legislating downward. Instead of reflecting on their failures, the state outsources accountability to the public, and they mask their own incompetence with control. And in the end, the solution to this problem is simple, cancel the Karya Vidhi, restore the fundamental right, and the visit visa issue will resolve itself.
Neha Pokharel is a political science graduate and an entrepreneur. She writes about governance, policy, and institutional reform for Niti Foundation.
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