It has also been used as a political pejorative term by the Pahari people of Nepal to refer to Nepalis with a non-Nepali language as their mother tongue, regardless of their place of birth or residence.

[4][5]: 68 [6] Many of these groups share cultural traditions, educational and family ties with people living south of the international border in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

[11][1]: 2 Since the late 18th century, the Shah rulers of Nepal promoted conversion of forests in the Terai to agricultural land and encouraged people from northern India to settle in this region through a series of subsidies granted to new settlers.

In the 1770s to 1780s, famine-stricken Bihari farmers migrated to the Nepal Terai following a severe flood of the Koshi River and subsequent drought.

This increased immigration facilitated the expansion of cultivated land, which provided revenue for the state in the form of taxes by farmers, duties for felling and export of timber, and fees for the grazing of cattle on pastures during dry seasons.

[14] In the mid 19th century, Muslim people from the Awadh region were invited to settle in the far-western Nepal Terai, where they received large forested areas for conversion to agriculture.

[21] As of June 2011, the Nepal Terai's human population totaled 13,318,705 people comprising more than 120 different ethnic groups and castes.

[7]: 143  Caste groups include Bania, Brahman, Dhobi, Kalawar, Kewat, Kshatriya, Kumhar, Kurmi, Kushwaha and Teli.

Their cultural traditions are interlinked with those of Muslim people in northern India; popular destinations for their ziyarat pilgrimage are the shrines of Ajmer Sharif Dargah and Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, respectively.

[23]: 9 [11] The National Population and Housing Census of 2011 knows of 123 languages spoken in all of Nepal and lists:[22] Muslim Madheshis speak Urdu primarily, but also Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Bajjika and Maithili, depending on whether they live in the western, central or eastern Terai.

[27][28] The following religions are practised in the Terai according to the National Population and Housing Census of 2011:[22] The religious practices of the majority of Madheshi people are a mixture of orthodox Hinduism and animism.

[36] After the Panchayat regime was abolished following the People's Movement in spring 1990, disadvanted groups demanded a more equitable share of political resources such as admittance to civil service.

[44][45] The United Democratic Madhesi Front formed by Madheshi organizations pressured the government to accept this concept of autonomy under the motto "One Madhes One Pradesh".

[34] Several ethnic and religious groups in the Terai opposed and resisted this policy under the leadership of Madheshi parties, foremost Tharu and Muslim people.

[53] After the 2008 Nepalese Constituent Assembly election, Indian politicians kept on trying to secure strategic interests in the Nepal Terai, such as over hydropower energy, development projects, business and trade.