Nepal’s contemporary labour landscape is profoundly shaped by large-scale migration, both internal and transnational, making labour mobility one of the most defining features of its political economy. This paper offers a critical analysis of Nepal’s labour movement through the theoretical framework of Karl Marx’s political philosophy, particularly his concepts of labour, surplus value, alienation and class relations. By situating Nepal labour migration with Marx’s

critique of capital, the paper argues that mobility in Nepal functions not merely as an economic strategy but as a structural necessity produced by uneven development, historical dispossession and the commodification of labour power. Drawing on secondary literature, policy documents, migration data and select ethnographic accounts, the paper examines how Nepali workers, especially those migrating to Gulf countries, Malaysia and urban centres within Nepal, are incorporated into global circuits of capital accumulation. From a Marxian perspective, migrant labour emerges as a form of “abstract labour,” detached from social reproduction and subjected to intensified extraction of surplus value. The remittance-dependent economy, often celebrated in development discourse, is analysed here as a mechanism that obscures exploitation while stabilising both global capitalism and Nepal’s fragile domestic economy.

The paper further explores the paradoxical condition of Nepal’s labour movement : while labour migration has fragmented collective worker identities, it has also generated new forms of consciousness, resistance, and transnational labour subjectivities. Trade unions, returnee migrant associations, and informal worker networks are examined as sites where class awareness intersects with migration experiences, producing a configured yet uneven labour politics.

Marx’s notion of class struggle is revisited in this context to understand why traditional labour movements struggle to mobilise migrant workers whose labour is spatially dispersed and legally precarious. The paper concludes by suggesting that a revitalised labour movement in Nepal must address migration not as an external phenomenon but as a central terrain of class struggle, demanding new solidarities across borders and sectors.