Unequal urban rights: Critical reflections on property and urban citizenship

Introduction

Urban areas throughout the world are being transformed as numerous rural residents migrate to settle in urban areas. Increasing numbers are overcoming the entry barriers to urban life, but many are finding themselves unable to settle into it in decent conditions. Possession of property, land and especially a house is not an option for all. Informal ways of living and impermanent forms of housing result in restricted urban rights, including the right to essential resources and services, such as finance, running water and electricity, thus making the urban a battlefield of rights and resources (Appadurai, 2002).

Drawing on Lefebvre et al.’s (1996) imposing work on urban rights, recent developments in the literature on urban areas has revived past discussions over the right to the urban (Attoh, 2011, 2016; Marcuse, 2012; Merrifield, 2014; Pierce et al., 2016). The focus on urban rights in this paper is framed by the discussion of urban citizenship inspired by the noteworthy contributions of various scholars describing cities as battlefields in the continued negotiation of citizenship and rights (see: Hammar, 2017; Holston, 1999, 2008; Holston and Appadurai, 1999; Lund, 2011; Purcell, 2003; Rodríguez Cortés, 2016; Rosbrook-Thompson, 2014; Staeheli, 2008; Swider, 2015). Contesting how even formal citizens do not always enjoy substantive rights, these contributions argue that urban citizenship must be defined more broadly than using formal and legal terms alone. Inspired by TH Marshall’s claim that social rights depend on membership in local communities (Marshall, 1950: 21), in this paper urban citizenship is understood as membership and belonging in an urban community where one’s rights and access to the resources necessary to pursue urban living are guaranteed (Lund, 2011).

Until the late 1990s Nepal, to which this research relates, was predominantly a rural and agrarian society, its urban transition having started just a few decades ago. Social structure and positions in rural societies were systematically defined by caste, kinship and ethnicity, which produced a class-divided society (Lecomte-Tilouine, 2009; Sugden, 2017). Various ethnic groups and castes were divided into the two distinct classes of landowners and the landless. Strict rules for social interaction made social mobility very difficult. Rights were defined in relation to one’s origin and depended on one’s inherited status and privileges. The rural elite had substantial power and controlled local natural resources, including land (see e.g. Caplan, 1970; Höfer, 1979; Mishra, 2007; Stokke and Manandhar, 2010; Sugden, 2017). An unanswered question is whether the rural hierarchy of traditional classes and the division between those who do and do not own property are being reproduced in the new urban areas, or whether the latter are emerging as restructured spaces with different social structures and hierarchies. Furthermore, the historical legacy and continued practices of discrimination make it relevant to assess dependence on property in (re-)negotiating rights in the urban.

Based on this, the present paper aims to situate perspectives regarding property in the discussion of urban citizenship and urban rights by exploring the role of property in the local negotiation of privileges and rights. The intertwined combinations of legal citizenship status and local negotiations of urban membership and of access to essential urban resources and services are scrutinised analytically in the paper with the aim of producing a typology of different classes of citizenship based on access to property among people living in urban areas. Finally, the paper discusses how property comes to define urban rights and how differences in urban citizenship and the right to the urban are linked to historical differentiation and discrimination in Nepal.

Conceptualising urban citizenship

Rights and access to resources are becoming highly dependent on individual and local negations and struggles in fast-growing unregulated urban places (Lund, 2016; Sengupta, 2017). By arguing that citizenship and rights are based on negotiations within a local community related to status and membership, Marshall (1950) became a pioneer in delinking citizenship from its purely formal and legal aspects. However, the relationship between the state and its citizens is not completely absent, as citizenship is always defined as being in some relationship to the state (Hammar, 2017). Conceiving of urban citizenship as more than a purely legal notion consisting of a cohesive set of rights and obligations has lately been re-energised by scholars arguing that the myth of equally applicable citizenship still is a highly relevant topic of discussion (Beebeejaun, 2017; Hammar, 2017; Lund, 2016; Rasmussen, 2016; Woodman, 2017; Zhou, 2018). In the present contribution, urban citizenship is defined as membership of an urban community dependent on acceptance as a member of the community. Although legal status influences local negotiations of citizenship and vice versa, this intertwining and ongoing negotiation shape membership in an urban community, including the rights to the urban services and resources that are necessary to make a living in an urban environment.

Formally, in the relationship between state and citizen, there is a strong link between property and citizenship; property defines one’s citizenship, just as citizenship is defined in terms of one’s access to property (Lund, 2011). In her paper on the paradoxes of propertied citizenship, Hammar (2017) plays with the interrelation between the legal aspect of being a property owner and the subjective and legal sense of being ‘proper’ citizens. Hence, the locally negotiated right to belong to the urban community is similarly dependent on one’s access to (private) property (Lund, 2011). Propertied citizenship defines the status and certainty in having become a ‘proper’ citizen through both the legality of one’s residence and also, but maybe more importantly, the dignity obtained by property ownership (Hammar, 2017). Property is the key to progress as an urban citizen, being a condition for obtaining a loan in many places, for example (Watson, 2009). According to Lund (2016: 1204), ‘Struggles over property – very often in the form of land – can, therefore, be seen as struggles for the recognition of a wide variety of rights to access resources in various ways.’ Hence the location of the land is relevant in defining citizenship-based rights, as people are granted rights and entitlements at a given place (Bauder, 2014). Rural–urban migrants often have to struggle to belong to the urban community and to be granted equal urban rights (Amin and Thrift, 2002; Bhan, 2014). This is particularly true of the Chinese hukou system, which makes a well-defined distinction between urban hukou and rural hukou and the respective social classifications ascribed to them (Chan and Zhang, 1999; Smart and Lin, 2007; Swider, 2015; Woodman, 2017). According to Swider (2015: 704), ‘“the hukou system links one’s access to benefits and entitlements to locality rather than nationality’. Rural hukou-holders do not belong to the urban space and do not have the same rights as urban citizens (Swider, 2015). A similar system called ho khau exists in Vietnam, modelled on the hukou system (Karis, 2013).

The notion that universal citizenship ensures equal rights for every urban citizen was initially identified as a myth by Young (1990) in her book on justice and the politics of difference. For Young differentiated citizenship is a tool for evening out disadvantages and negative social and cultural differences within society, thereby countering the oppression and disadvantage experienced by certain groups (Young, 1989). However, ‘most of the world’s citizenships beyond the North Atlantic are decidedly differentiated’ (Holston, 2011: 338), and no holistic solution to the problem of guaranteeing equality or positive differentiation is waiting around the corner. Urban citizenship is deeply embedded in cultural and historical practices and dependent on one’s background and position in the community (Holston, 2011). According to Kabeer (2011), ensuring equal basic rights for all citizens in relation to the state, regardless of their place in society, is an unlikely utopia in ‘societies where the economic dispossessions of class overlap with social discrimination based on caste, ethnicity, gender, and other social identities’ (Kabeer, 2011: 326). According to Marshall (1950), there is no such thing as a uniform collection of rights and duties: rights are granted by virtue of one’s membership in the society, and membership is closely linked to social class. This means that fundamental citizenship rights are negotiated in stages within the civil, political and social realms (Marshall, 1950). Struggles for citizenship and struggles for the right to have rights are fundamental for each citizen in a political space (Lund, 2016). These struggles take place especially in fragile states and states that have recently undergone a democratic transition (Lund, 2011). The discussion on urban citizenship and how urban membership is defined and negotiated can be extended to understanding how such membership and negotiation can generate massive inequalities in the distribution of rights (Karis, 2013).

Setting the scene: Urban growth, land and citizenship in Nepal

Although still among the least urbanised countries in South Asia, Nepal is currently experiencing dramatic urban growth (Muzzini and Aparicio, 2013; Portnov et al., 2007). Nepal’s rate of urban transition is mirrored in its recent shift to municipalisation, in which the proportion of people officially categorised as urban dwellers has been changed for administrative reasons from 19% to 42% (Government of Nepal Ministry of Finance, 2016). Unclear bureaucratic practices are a well-known barrier to people wishing to settle legally in urban areas (McGranahan et al., 2012; Satterthwaite, 2007; Tacoli et al., 2012), and Nepal is no exception. In order to set the scene for the later analysis and discussion of urban citizenship, the following section briefly outlines relevant aspects of the relationship between the state and citizenship in Nepal. However, it is important to stress that the outline is largely influenced by the inconsistencies that define such relationships in Nepal, a reflection of the turbulent post-conflict period in which shifting constitutional assemblies have failed to draw up a federal constitution (Roy, 2017).

Previous to these developments, the entire Nepalese population was institutionalised under the comprehensive national code called the Muluki Ain, in which Nepal’s numerous different religious groups, castes and ethnic groups were arranged in a hierarchy of five groups that determined everyone’s class (Höfer, 1979). The determination of class in the social code was closely linked to rights to land, the right to own land being granted to some of the classes at the top of the hierarchy, whereas others were bonded labourers (slaves) tied to a specific piece of land as workers without any right to own land (Höfer, 1979). The code was strictly practised throughout the country, providing legal distinctions between people and ascribing different rights and duties to different classes (Lecomte-Tilouine, 2009; Tamang, 2009). Despite the Muluki Ain officially having been abolished, inequality and discrimination are still very much present in Nepalese society today (Adhikari and Gellner, 2016; Pariyar and Lovett, 2016). Although the Muluki Ain fixed social classes, including the landless, a parallel land-tenure system has defined land and rights in Nepal for centuries and remained almost unchanged until the mid-1990s. Despite the numerous land reforms aimed at improving access to land for the landless and near-landless, the ability to purchase land has still not been granted to everyone (Nightingale, 2011; Pariyar and Lovett, 2016; Wily et al., 2008). According to Nepal’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS, 2012), 40% of the urban population live in rented homes. In Kathmandu, the number of people living in rental units significantly increased from 33% in 2003 to 48.5% in 2011 (Bajracharya et al., 2015). In addition, an undefined number of unregistered residents are living on public land (Wily et al., 2008).

Although possession of land is no longer a formal requirement for obtaining Nepalese citizenship or for securing basic citizen rights, landownership is still mentioned in the Nepal Citizenship Act of 2006 in the context of the different procedures for obtaining a citizenship certificate (Adhikari, 2006; United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator’s Office, 2011). However, in cases of internal migration and re-registrations of citizenship in a new place, property and landownership are still important. The relationship between citizenship and the possession of property is best explained by using the Nepali word for migration, basai sarai, literally ‘settlement transfer’. Implicit in the notion of settlement transfer is the requirement that one has a permanent place of settlement to which the transfer can be made, and for this, proof of landownership (a land certificate) is needed. This means that in reality, everyone has the right to move to urban areas if they have the necessary resources. However, those who wish to register legally have to apply for a migration certificate (basai sarai), for which they need to own an urban property (Subedi, 1994). Although there are exceptions of people having obtained approval to re-register without owning land, this is reported to be complicated and problematic. Consequently, migrant renters in Nepal are not registered and are therefore considered temporary residents only, regardless of the number of years they have been living in the same place (Subedi, 1994). However, basai sarai is not attractive for those who own land and can formally register because of the risk of losing their identity and status when they cut existing legal ties because these ties are associated with deserting an important rooted history of home (Subedi, 1994).

Methodology

The present analysis is based on a case study of Balaju, a suburban area of Kathmandu. Balaju is one of the numerous fast-growing suburban areas surrounding Kathmandu. Its growth is everywhere visible, with houses and roads under construction. Balaju was chosen as representing this type of urban growth after visits to several suburban areas. The research in Nepal was conducted in 2014–2015 in several phases, using multiple and mixed methods. Accordingly, each stage of the analysis built on the findings and results of the previous stages. The first phase – mapping the case-study area and its transformation – was based on the analysis of historical archive material, historical maps, cadastral maps and aerial and satellite photos, combined with interviews and focus-group discussions with local stakeholders. The second phase, a survey of general household characteristics (demographics, household size, economy, house/dwelling, migration, occupation, education and landownership), covered 300 people in 120 households and was conducted by a research team of trained field assistants using tablets. The third phase consisted of semi-structured interviews conducted in 20 households targeting aspects of urban rights (land, access, belonging, mobility). The households were chosen ¹ to represent the widest possible diversification of households in the survey. The fourth phase included numerous visits and stays in the seven households, including participant observation, participation in daily activities, informal conversations and in-depth interviews. All interviews in all phases were conducted in Nepali and translated into English. The data have been analysed thematically for this paper, and selected quotes are used to illustrate the analytical findings. The names of the respondents have been changed to conceal their identities, though all the names are known to the author.

Right to property

Ownership of property (land and house) is not an equal right for everyone. Property along with the specific place of registration emerged in the analysis as particularly important in local negotiations of membership in the urban community and the right to re-register formally as urban citizens. The translation of the right to property into a new classification of partly new social classes is shown in Figure 1 and is further elaborated below.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Renter-owner-migrant categories.

The first category, of migrant renters, is that of migrants with property at their place of origin but not at their urban destination. Since re-registration at their urban destination requires ownership of land (proof of a land certificate), formal re-registration as urban citizens at their current place of residence is not an option for them. They remain registered in their places of origin, regardless of the time that has elapsed since they left it. This group, therefore, retains the status of informal or temporary urban residents. Formally they are tied to their places of origin, even though they no longer reside there. Their citizenship is legally registered at their place of origin, which is where they have guaranteed citizenship, that is, where they can vote, receive benefits and make or change legal documents. Although migrant renters lack the flexibility to resettle officially, access to property at their places of origin gives them certain privileges of citizenship.

The second category, of migrant owners, is that of migrants with access to urban property at their current place of residence as well as their place of origin. Based on their land certificate, they can formally re-settle and legally become urban citizens. However, there is a preference among migrant owners to retain their registration at their places of origin so as not to cut their ties with them. This means that they have rights in both places: urban rights through their land certificate, and citizenship rights through their registration at their place of origin. Most importantly, they have the right to re-register if they wish.

The third category, of migrant renters (landless), is that of migrants without ownership of property at either their place of origin or place of destination. Those in this category have little flexibility in respect of being able to re-register in a new place, which makes them vulnerable in terms of citizenship rights. They are therefore marginalised, often living in informal settlements. This group exists as a consequence of the historical link between land and citizenship and comprises people who belong historically to the landless caste. A minority in this category never obtain a citizenship certificate: despite a campaign to register everyone and provide them with a certificate, some remain without one.

The fourth category, of local owners, consists of those who are native to the urban area, so that their citizenship is also registered there. They enjoy the privileges of being registered where they live, and often also certain social privileges that are not accessible to outsiders. Unlike the migrant owners, they only have rights in one place, though their status as locals seems to reinforce their social standing.

A fifth category consists of the urban poor and marginalised local renters (landless), who are locals without property. Like the migrant renters (landless), a small number within this group lack citizenship certificates, and the two groups are therefore equally disadvantaged.

Finally, one last group that should be mentioned (not included in Figure 1) consists of those who have a government position, whether migrants or locals. By virtue of their being in government employment, they have sufficient status to bypass the usual procedures in the administration of legal matters.

Right to belong

In the present section, the local negotiation of urban citizenship is analysed by linking the right to property to the right to belong to the urban community. As previously stated, urban citizenship is understood as membership and belonging in an urban community where one’s rights and access to the resources necessary to pursue urban living are guaranteed (Lund, 2011). Apart from the right to urban re-registration, property can influence one’s status as a ‘proper’ urban citizen.

Hence, the sense of belonging, as much as formal belonging, stem from an intertwined combination of formal and local negotiations which I shall illustrate in the present analysis.

The following two narratives, from a migrant owner and a migrant renter, respectively, highlight the different status and degrees of belonging between those migrants who possess urban property and those who are compelled to live in rented accommodation, showing how this influences their respective degrees of inclusion in the local urban communities where they reside:

Living in rented housing creates problems, sometimes relationship problems, sometimes facility problems (…). It is very good that I have my own house now because Nepalese people believe that we should have our own house, and then we will be happy. People think they are more important (if they own a house); they think they are different human beings. Those who are living in rented housing are different and inferior, and they are superior (…) It is our culture (that) if people have money they must have their own house. (…) people show their status by having a house and owning a vehicle plus other things (…). (Interview with Anita on 12 September, in Balaju, Kathmandu, Nepal)

Anita is a migrant owner, and she clearly realises the different status between owners and renters, as she used to be a migrant renter. Now she has her own house she feels the difference, but she also recalls what the situation was like before. The quote from Anita shows that owning property is a status symbol, but in the first line of the quote, she states that there are problems with access to facilities linked to the status of renter, an issue I return to later in this analysis.

The following quote is from a renter. It stresses how renters generally feel excluded from the local community, feeling that they do not belong to it:

I have been living here for thirteen years (…) I feel like an outsider; I don’t feel that I belong to this area. (…) So far we haven’t been able to buy any land or house here, so yes, I still see myself as an outsider. (…) Once I have my own house here, only then will I feel that I belong here. (….) While I live in rented housing here, I will always be an outsider here. (…) All my friends are renters (…) If I could, I would like to have my own house. (…) But I can only build a house back in our village (…) It’s important for your children to have a house. (Interview with Raju on 8 September, in Balaju, Kathmandu, Nepal)

A number of issues differentiating renters from owners emerge in these two quotes: relationship problems; different rights to facilities and hierarchy; inferiority versus superiority; and the different status of renters and their sense of alienation (feeling like an outsider). These differences are partly embedded in the renters’ own feelings that they do not belong to the community where they are currently living. Although the differences between owners and renters are not directly due to their inability to obtain status legally as citizens where they live, this might nonetheless add to their perception of themselves as outsiders. Their different status as second-class citizens affects their everyday lives, and they experience alienation and access problems. The migrant owner (first quote) describes how, when she became a house-owner, she moved out of one class into another and how it changed her position within the local society. The quotes clearly show that renters are trapped in an inferior position in society until and unless they acquire urban property.

Violations of privacy were a common issue differentiating the right to inhabit of renters and owners, respectively. During an interview with a migrant renter where she lived, the landlord (migrant owner) constantly entered the room without seeking permission. The owner also interrupted the interview, answered questions and reproved the renter brusquely. Her behaviour obviously intimidated the renter and affected her behaviour and answers. Conversely, the renter had never gone into the landlord’s part of the house, as she was not welcome there. The invitation for me to have tea in the owner’s kitchen after the interview did not extend to the renter. Violations of privacy were commonly experienced by renters, who described how landlords would enter their homes without permission. Landlords also controlled their way of living by restricting their right to receive visitors or cutting their right to water and electricity. It is not unusual to find people hesitating over whom they should invite. Practices of discrimination regarding those who are allowed to enter the house stem from the house-owner's traditional need to protect itself from alleged pollution arising from the presence within it of a person from a lower caste. Although the migrant renter did not belong to a so-called low-caste group, her status as a renter placed her in a lower class.

Re-registration as an urban citizen is only an option for the migrant owners. However, it is not compulsory. The benefits of re-registering in the urban area were limited in the views of most respondents. Re-registration could save them from having to return to their place of origin to sign and issue a legal document, but the majority visited frequently anyway. A large number of migrant owners explained that they refrain from re-registering after migrating because they do not wish to cut their legal ties to their previous home. Continual attempts to get migrant-owners to explain why they had not re-registered only led to more talk about how formally belonging to their places of origin was important for their identity. Few mentioned how their formal statuses as citizens in a place defined as rural could provide them with benefits and priorities in relation to scholarships for their children or public employment, but this remains unconfirmed. Others indicated that registration or origin in certain places was more prestigious than in others, mostly because of the physical and economic status and development of the place of registration. However, the most important reason for migrant owners refraining from re-registering must be that it is unnecessary because their legal status as urban citizens is secured through their urban property. Keeping their legal registration at their place of origin results in them having rights in both places. Conversely, migrant renters do not have the right to re-register as urban citizens, nor are their rights secured through the possession of urban property. In reality, they do not belong formally to their urban place of residence, meaning that formally they continue to be temporary or informal urban citizens. Furthermore, the importance of identity as a home-owner and of owning a home as the right way to live generate a sense of alienation among migrant renters, who do not feel that they belong, but feel like outsiders in their current homes, as the quotes state. Those who are excluded in these respects express frustration and feel stuck in a position as urban landless.

Right to resources

The right to the urban space depends on the right to the resources that are necessary to make a living there. The issues of access to water and disaster relief are used as examples in the present section.

Samitis are local committees with a state-provided budget for local development. Their simultaneous engagement in social and cultural activities gives them extensive local power. They take care of several administrative tasks in urban areas, such as cleaning, sanitation, road maintenance and, as in the example below, the distribution of water. Water is distributed to property owners, and renters depend on their landlords to obtain it. The following quotation from the same person explains how the water samiti defines the rules, as it is responsible for local water distribution and water infrastructure, and the distribution is not equal for all categories of urban citizens. This is illustrated in the following quote from a member of a water samiti:

You have to be a member of the committee to get water (…) the cost of installing a tap is different: for locals who are genuine residents, they only have to pay fifteen thousand rupees, but in [the] case of new city dwellers they have to pay 33 thousand. (Interview with Ram on 8 September 2015 in Balaju, Kathmandu, Nepal)

Water is only accessible through the samiti, but the samiti distinguishes between locals and migrants (newcomers), and renters pay over double the installation costs. However, property is not always sufficient to secure rights to water. The board of the water samiti is not democratically elected, and the criteria for who can become a member of the board excludes non-locals:

Our committee categorises people before giving them membership (…) people who are living here for [the] last 33 years are the natural residents, and they can easily get membership; they don’t need any recommendation. If they are newcomers they need to seek a recommendation from five or six people from the local community to become members. (Interview with Ram on 8 September 2015 in Balaju, Kathmandu, Nepal)

Regardless of the legal (re-)registration or ownership of land, the definition of an urban citizen made by this local organisation specifies that it takes 33 years for a migrant to become an urban citizen. There is no specific reason to choose this number, and in addition, migrant membership is only obtainable upon the recommendation of five to six local citizens. The respondent does not regard this unequal treatment of certain urban citizens as discrimination:

It’s the same if you are a Lama or Chettri [caste]. There is no discrimination at all if you are from Gorkha or Palpaor [or] any other place … Newcomer or native, that is the only difference we have. There is no discrimination at all in terms of caste and all the other things. (Interview with Ram on 8 September 2015 in Balaju, Kathmandu, Nepal)

The statement that ‘Our committee categorises people’ reflects normal classificatory practice, and for a number of reasons the respondent is unable to hear his own discrimination. First, the anti-discrimination discourse in Nepal only refers to caste or ethnic discrimination, which by law is a punishable offence. Second, however, the differential treatment of landowners and the landless is deeply rooted in all aspects of Nepalese society.

In another example, following the disastrous 2015 earthquake, relief supplies, such as emergency tents to replace damaged houses, were only distributed to house-owners. Three migrant renters (landless) describe their experiences with the distribution of resources following the earthquake:

A: We renters didn’t get any relief. We had given our name on the list of those who were going to get tents, but they were only giving it to house-owners (…).

B: One organisation came to give us some relief, but the relief was so little that it was not even enough for the house-owner.

C: And unless the house-owner has enough, he won’t give it to renters. (Focus-group discussion on 9 September 2015 in Balaju, Kathmandu, Nepal)

Renters had to depend on their landlords allowing them to stay under the same canvas. In many cases, landlords were not interested in staying together with the renters. For cultural reasons, it is not acceptable to sleep with people from outside your own family. In addition, the renters’ lower status made it impossible for the owner to invite them to stay in the same tent. The renters did not lose their property, as they did not own it, but they lost their homes and had to depend on alternatives to avoid having to sleep out in the rain. Even in times of disaster, different rights to citizenship are evident. The three women just quoted allegedly did not have the right to any of the limited relief because they were lower on the list of recipients than the house-owners. The question of the right to relief shows that possessing or lacking property produces different kinds of urban citizenship.

Property and local negotiation of urban citizenship and rights

Local owners benefit from their legal registration and from being landowners, as ownership gives them status as ‘proper’ citizens who belong in the urban community and secures them access to rights in a situation of mutuality. Local owners seem to be in a better position in terms of their negotiated rights to urban resources than migrant owners. Although migrant owners can register as urban citizens, they retain their registration in their place of origin. Migrant owners draw advantages from being urban landowners, their urban property ensuring them a status as ‘proper’ urban citizens at the same time as they retain privileges from their continuous registration and possession of property in their places of origin. However, they have difficulties in obtaining the same status and rights as the locals, even though they belong to the urban community through their property. Migrant renters are more vulnerable and have a lower social status, as property is an important aspect in defining their belonging to the urban community and thus their urban citizenship. Migrant renters, both those who have property at their place of origin and the landless, are marginalised in terms of their rights, including access to water, participation in the local samitis (local politics) and receiving earthquake relief. The most vulnerable category is that of the migrant renters (landless), who have status and privileges neither where they live nor at their place of origin, owing to their lack of property.

The different rights to belong are clearly linked to property. Migrants do not belong formally, nor are they regarded or regard themselves as people who belong to the place in which they live, mainly because they do not own property. The implicit discrimination against renters and their treatment as second-class citizens who are not eligible for the same rights to resources were not only reflected in their narratives describing their feelings of being outsiders. Violations of renters’ privacy, as illustrated in one narrative in the analysis, were observed throughout the fieldwork. Renters were talked about, and to, in impolite ways. Owners would disturb interviews with renters, correct their answers and intimidate them in respect of how they replied. Their everyday discrimination and differential treatment trap the disadvantaged in an unequal class position

The ways in which different classes of urban citizen are subjected to different treatment and different levels of access to resources have been illustrated in the foregoing analysis through the examples of water distribution and earthquake relief. The government has assigned to the local water samiti the responsibility for local water resources. However, the right to this resource is subject to local negotiation, as a result of which water is not equally accessible to everyone. While the locals have the easiest access to water, migrant owners need recommendations in order to acquire it, and migrant renters can only obtain access through their landlords. Only after living in the same urban place for more than 33 years will migrants obtain the same rights as the locals. Although the situation produced by the earthquake is abnormal, a similar practice is followed in relation to the distribution of relief. The three renters illustrate their status as second-class urban citizens through the example of the unequal distribution of relief. Furthermore, people’s lack of awareness of the perpetuation of discriminatory behaviour, though in a different form than before, is a complex challenge for Nepalese society. In the quote outlining the discrimination involved in distributing water, the respondent proudly explained that the samiti does not discriminate against people based on their origin, caste or ethnicity. However, he was completely unaware that the practice he represents discriminates in defining who belongs to the urban community and what resources they are entitled to.

Migrants who become urban landowners have the right to change their re-registration legally, but migrants without urban property face de facto exclusion from re-registering and obtaining legal status as urban citizens. Because of this practice, numerous internal migrants in Nepal live most of their lives in a state of informality. In reality, the result is double security for the owners of urban land and double insecurity for urban renters. The privileges and status ascribed to the possession of land make the migration certificate redundant for migrant owners. For them, the privilege of being able to re-register is unnecessary, as they enjoy security through their land certificates. At the same time their position in negotiating their right to urban resources is stronger, as the right to urban resources is normally located where the status of householder or landowner is an advantage. The lack of clarity regarding the re-registration of formal citizenship, leading to the argument that formal and local informal forms of citizenship are intertwined, was clearly reflected in the non-registered migrant-owner respondents’ inability to explain how legal re-registration could affect their urban lives in positive or negative ways. The only answer they provided was that legal documents were to be signed and issued at the place of registration and that that would require them to travel back there. It is obvious that the inconsistencies in the relationship between the state and its citizens and the lack of clarity involved in defining how rights are secured, especially for migrants, cause problems and result in the local negotiation of rights becoming more important, with the ever-present possibility of exclusion and inequality.

Possession of an (urban) land certificate provides formal legal status as a permanent urban citizen, and re-registration is not necessary because the land certificate ensures its holder access to urban rights and services. Hence, migrants can avoid undertaking basai sarai and thus maintain ties to their places of origin. At the same time, their status as homeowners translates into status in relation to locally negotiated urban citizenship. The different treatment of the renters stems from a combination of their lower status as such and their lack of formal and permanent legal status either as residents or through possession of an urban land certificate. The examples of differential access to water resources and earthquake relief demonstrated how the intertwining of official and locally managed systems results in unequal citizenship rights This shows that urban citizenship influences local individual rights and vice versa, thus creating a double-intertwining of the legal and local negotiation of urban citizenship and urban rights. The study found a lack of clarity on the part of the government regarding how people undertake basai sarai and resettle in a new place. This intangible practice is dissimilar to China’s hukou system or Vietnam’s ho khau system, where the rights that are applicable to the different categories of urban and rural citizens are well defined. In Nepal, it is difficult to address the discrimination regarding re-registration because the legal practice is unclear, and the benefits of urban re-registration are both undefined and unequal for different urban groups. This influences how migrants, especially landless migrants, become subordinated urban citizens with restricted urban rights.

Although the legal aspects of linking property and citizenship in Nepal have changed, the local negotiation of actual practices and the right to urban resources are rooted in traditional ways of classifying people as landowners and landless, respectively. Differentiation between the landowning and landless classes exemplifies the perpetuation of social codes that have been officially abolished. This differentiation has been neglected as a political issue, resulting in landowners tacitly dominating the social structure. In particular, the resources and services available to local urban communities are controlled by local political bodies, which seem to be pervaded by ideas of social segregation and discrimination that are at the centre of community-based activities. In this sense, the reproduction of traditional structures still haunts the social hierarchy.

Concluding remarks

By examining the citizenship categories found in Kathmandu’s Bajalu district, this paper has demonstrated that people inhabit the city on different terms and enjoy different privileges. Hence, the paper has raised the discussion of the right to the city and contributed to the ongoing scholarly debate over urban rights (see: Attoh, 2011, 2016; Marcuse, 2012; Merrifield, 2014; Pierce et al., 2016). The paper has demonstrated the link between property and the right to belong to the urban community, which in this paper is used as a definition of urban citizenship. Inspired especially by Lund (2011) and Hammar (2017), the paper adds perspectives on property, propertied citizenship and being ‘proper’ citizens to the debate over urban citizenship, which has been further refined by recent noteworthy contributions (Beebeejaun, 2017; Hammar, 2017; Lund, 2016; Rasmussen, 2016; Woodman, 2017). Equal citizenship is a myth (Young, 1989) and the paper does not argue that access to property is the solution in securing equal urban rights and urban citizenship. It is rather, a call for an understanding of how and why most of the world’s citizenships beyond the North Atlantic continue to be decidedly differentiated (Holston, 2011: 338) through phases of large-scale spatial transformation. The paper has shown how inequality and discrimination stem from the interrelated aspects of property in legal and local negotiations of urban citizenship.

This study has shown how unequal rights to property have created new classes of urban citizens. The process of assessing access to urban services and resources has been a useful lens through which to consider the complexity of urban dwellers’ rights in urban areas. One of the major findings is that different aspects of urban rights are related to property ownership and permanence as urban citizens. The right to belong to an urban community and thereby obtain urban citizenship depends on property both in legal terms, as property ownership ensures legal registration, but also in local negotiations, as a home-owner is regarded as a rightful citizen belonging to an urban community. Migrants and local-born renters are systematically excluded from participating in local samitis. The local political system, as practised by the samitis, is biased in favour of the permanent residents who own land. Critically examining the link between property and citizenship contributes to the understanding of unequal rights to urban membership and urban belonging, whereas citizens without property are prevented from re-registering their citizenship in the urban space. As a result, they are compelled to inhabit the urban as temporary and informal urban citizens. Paradoxically, the paper finds that, for those who can re-register legally, re-registration is made redundant, as they have already been made secure through their possession of a land certificate.

Through its analysis of differential access to urban resources in Nepal, the present study has gone some way towards enhancing our understanding of different rights to the urban space, and it also indicates that social practices that have been abolished formally in Nepal are being kept alive in disguise. The analysis shows that the local negotiation of citizenship rights depends on citizen’s statuses as owners, locals or migrants. This reflects the fact that the intertwining of local and legal urban citizens is based on their possession of land. These perspectives add to the argument first raised by influential writings on urban citizenship refining the notion of citizenship as a matter of more than just legal and formal issues (Holston, 2008; Holston and Appadurai, 1999; Purcell, 2003). All Nepalese citizens are officially guaranteed equal rights, but they are faced with a reality in terms of a lack of consistency in legal practice, a discussion that has been surprisingly absent in both the political and scholarly focuses on Nepal’s urban and demographic transition. In this paper, this has been achieved by re-classifying urban citizens as an analytical tool for understanding urban citizenship. The focus on the right to the urban, analysed by concentrating on property-related rights, shows the relevance of further discussions of other aspects of the right to the city.