NEPAL NEW ZEALAND FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY OF CANTERBURY

15 Apr, 2025 Raj Maharjan

Introduction

In the 2021 edition of Namaste magazine, I wrote an article titled ‘Future Direction of the Nepali Community in New Zealand’. As the title suggests, that article discussed what the future looks like for the Nepali community as a collective migrant community of New Zealand.

The essence of that 2021 article was a plea made to the Nepali community members and organisations to widen their horizon of how they think and act. In that article I suggested to shift focus from being inward looking towards being outward looking. That means engaging with and contributing to the wider New Zealand society rather than being focused among ourselves.

In this article, I observe where things are at since the publication of that article four years ago. I will also discuss where we are today, and where we are heading.

Where are we today?

In the 2021 article, I suggested a roadmap and milestones outlined below for us to move from where we were to where we would want to be:

Short and medium term (3-5 years):

Our collective actions such as cultural events and sports contests are well-attended and duly acknowledged by wider members of the Kiwi society.
Our community leaders are frequently invited and acknowledged as important guests at major multicultural events such as Diwali and Chinese New Year.
We are contributing as board members of business organisations, multicultural societies or voluntary organisations. While others are members of the Board of Trustees of our children’s school.
A few of us have been acknowledged by the New Zealand government for our outstanding contribution towards the wider Kiwi society.
We are serving as elected representatives in community bodies such as councils, Health Board and Community Trusts.
Our players have made it to national and regional contests by playing in squads such as Auckland Diamonds (netball), Wellington Phoenix (football) or Auckland Aces (cricket).

Long term (7-10 years):

At least one of us has made it to Beehive as a member of the New Zealand Parliament.
A few of us have made it as councillors in local councils.
Nepal Day is acknowledged and promoted as a major event by Auckland Council and other territorial authorities throughout New Zealand.
Our players are representing New Zealand at international levels in teams such as the Silver Ferns, All Whites or Black Caps.
One of us has been nominated for the coveted award of New Zealander of the Year.

Among the above, one noticeable achievement is the acknowledgement of two of our community leaders in the New Zealand Royal Honours with the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2022 and 2025 respectively.

A few of us have stepped up and taken up governance roles in Boards.

While other achievements might not have come into my attention, in the rest of the indicators, progress has been few and far between. Despite growing in number by a few thousand since 2021, the community as a collective, seems to be more or less at a state of status quo from where it was four years ago. When it comes to our visibility, role and contribution in the wider New Zealand society our position has not moved.

Since the 1990s when our people started permanently migrating to New Zealand, we continue to project ourselves as people from the country of Everest and the land of the Buddha. Those two identities, with which we have very deep affinity with, and rightly so, are rooted in our motherland. They are linked to our past. Projecting an identity, that we have built by our own hands in our new home, continues to be illusive. i.e. the answer to the question ‘what have the Nepali community as a collective contributed to the wider New Zealand society?’ is still largely unanswerable.

The way forward

If we continue to do what we have done in the past, nothing will change. I firmly believe that we can do more and better. This is both in the spaces within our own community and also that in the wider New Zealand society. We must step up and raise the level of our game. Or else we will go back.

In addition to those outlined in the 2021 article, here are a few actions we must be taking today to change our future course:

Change the way we think about our role

We contribute to the New Zealand economy by delivering services in our professions by paying tax. Similarly, we have a unique perspective as a migrant community. We work hard because we are driven to be successful in our adopted home. We are motivated to give our future generation a better life. We are peaceful law-abiding people.

As the first generation migrants, it is natural to have close connections with Nepal. Those of us who have settled here, most of us have built our lives by restarting from zero. New Zealand has given us a new life and a better future. Despite toiling so hard for a significant part of our active life, often I see many of us having a strong sense of belonging with Nepal. That is not a bad thing in itself. It is rather good as we have not forgotten our roots. Further, a healthy connection ‘back home’ is good for our soul. What I am referring to here is an obsessive attachment up to an extent of being pathological. An unreasonable amount of sense of belonging hugely skewed towards Nepal but less or none towards New Zealand is not a good sign. In my view, that kind of tendency is a manifestation of a mind that is stuck in the past. If we continue to do so we would be failing to acknowledge the present. That would hinder us from moving forward.

I call those of us who have adopted New Zealand citizenship to remember the oath you took under the flag and in the name of the Queen/King. You have a duty towards New Zealand since you took that oath at the citizenship ceremony. Yes, our roots are in Nepal but we have adopted New Zealand as our home today. We should understand the meaning of citizenship and what it calls for as our duty towards New Zealand.

Rise above individual interests

Many of us have been successful in our personal life and profession. We built that success, brick by brick, by our talent and hard work. This is a great achievement. We must be proud of that.

The discourse I am intending to spark through this article is not about our individual success. It is about our role as a collective. I am of the belief that every individual has a role and duty towards the wider society. The social and administrative framework of New Zealand have enabled us to be successful. Our family life or professional and business success does not operate in a vacuum. It is part and parcel of the wider social structure. Everyone of us must be thinking really hard about how we could be contributing to the wider society. One thing is very important before we do this. We have to take responsibility to establish ourselves first. Then only we would be able to do something for the wider society.

If we are to earn respect from the wider New Zealand society, there is no way other than to advance our collective cause. We need to work towards building an identity that is rooted in our achievement and contribution in New Zealand. We must institutionalise such achievements so that our new generation, who are born in New Zealand, continue to build and advance our common cause. At the moment our new generation are noticeably not engaging with us and our community programs. This is not a healthy sign. We have to figure out why this is happening and take action to turn this around.

Overhaul the role of our community organisations

The discussions in this article, in one or other way, relates to our community organisations. There are about twenty community organisations registered as Incorporated Societies. Key role of those organisations continues to be to look after the cultural and social well-being of their own members. That in itself is a noble objective. However, interaction outside our own community is an exception rather than a rule. The limited interactions that we have beyond our own community members tend to be at an individual level rather than at an organisational level. In that sense the role and action of our community organisations continue to be inward looking. This has hardly changed since the inception of the first community organisation back in the 1990s until today. This calls for a change.

Only a few minor inconsequential tweaks here and there in a few clauses of the constitution are no longer going to work. There must be a paradigm shift in their objective and scope. It almost looks like our community organisations are haunted by their past. We can’t seem to let go of our past. Our focus and activities tend to be static i.e. same or similar activities every year. We continue to serve similar audiences from a narrow section of the overall Nepali community. Barring a few exceptions, the newly arrived migrants do not engage with those organisations. Moreover, I have noticed that this disengagement is getting worse as time goes by. That speaks a lot for itself. The organisations have to cater for the changing demographics and dynamics that have evolved with time. We must be doing things so that we catch up with the present instead of dwelling in our past. We should proactively engage with the wider section of our own people. Then only we would be able to do something in the wider New Zealand society.

In the month of January 2025, two new migrants from Nepal committed suicide. While their own personal circumstances might have had a role in the tragic end of the precious lives, we cannot turn a blind eye towards our role to help the new migrants and international students from Nepal. This is not about blaming anyone or calling names. I acknowledge that this is a very sensitive topic and we need to tread very carefully when we talk about this. There are some of us who genuinely help others. Again, the concern here is that such good deeds occur at an individual level. We tend to be reactive after an incident has occurred. We act on an ad-hoc basis. Helping new migrants and international students must be happening proactively at an organisational level. How many of our community organisations are doing this today? How many of our community organisations operate with such objectives?

If we cannot look out for our own people, we would never be able to achieve our goal of giving back to the wider New Zealand society. There would always be a tension between the settled and newcomers. In some sense, I have noticed this on many occasions. This is a tragic situation. If this continues, it will prevent us from moving forward as a healthy and productive community. If our own house is not tidy, how can we go out to help others? Each of us is capable of doing better. It is our individual responsibility to build our future in our adopted home. That is not the point. The matter that I want to raise is that of a collective initiative.

Our new generation who are born in New Zealand are hopelessly disengaged with our community organisation activities. Why? Because while devising those programs, we have forgotten about the new generation and their needs. It is as simple as that. It is high time we realise this or else our new generation will continue to drift apart. If we keep on doing what we have been doing, soon for our new generation our community organisations will be irrelevant.

Finally, I want to leave you with a couple of questions:

Do we actually need our community organisations?
If today we dismantle all of our community organisations, will it make any material difference in our lives?’

Conclusion

If we continue to do the same, we will get the same result. To change the future of the Nepali community in New Zealand, we need to think and act differently. In the article published in 2021 and this, I have laid out a roadmap that could change our course.

The future that has been envisaged above in this article is our collective future. It is not about our individual responsibility or success. If we as a collective are to be respected, we have to be giving back to the wider New Zealand society. Only taking and not giving back is unhealthy. Our duty to give back to New Zealand society starts with looking after our own vulnerable people, mainly the newcomers and the international students.

If I have completely missed the mark by discussing what has been discussed here, Or if no one else is interested, only writing such an article will not achieve anything.

I truly believe that the points outlined in this article are genuine matters. We cannot change our past but we can shape our future. To do that, we must go back to the board and ask ourselves the following three questions: