One of the characters says, “The Neps can't be trusted. And they don't just steal. They don’t think about murder at all either” (45). Desai's work not only problematizes the Nepali community and culture but also questions the respectable space and identity of a Nepali community in India. Desai's portrayal of the Nepalese in his novel calls for a serious debate on the issues of Nepali identity and nationality in the diaspora. Desai, while presenting the undercurrents of the Gorkha National Liberation Front's (GNLF) agitation for rights and justice for the Nepali majority in a northern Indian state, depicts the Nepali culture and community consistently criticized and undermined by the Indian community. Although all the Nepali characters in the novel are Indians of Nepalese origin, they are treated as foreigners, undermined and presented as incapable of accepting India as their country. The idea of ​​India as a nation is derailed and dismantled when its own citizens question its boundaries and its limitation to a narrow configuration of a nation. I argue that civic identity, belonging to a certain state, cannot be separated from national identity, from self-recognition as a member of a nation-state (Donald 173). As Desai presents it, “Many betrayals and bartering took place; between Nepal, England, Tibet, India, Sikkim, Bhutan; Darjeeling stolen from here, Kalimpong snatched from there” ((9) and without considering historical contexts and territorial transactions, cultural and ethnic identity cannot be