JYAMIRE (SINDHUPALCHOK): Dalit farmer Dhruba Nepali spends much of his day worrying about the psychological state of his children who are unable to go to school anymore as they are too tired of hearing derogatory remarks from their high caste teacher.
Recently, he took them out of their school in Rampur village of Jyamire VDC when his sons looked too demoralized, more than usual.[break]
The teacher constantly insulted them in front of the whole class calling them ´dum,´ a very derogative term for the Damai caste. He made them sit on the floor and ordered them to clean the classroom after school and constantly scolded them for no reason, making them feel degraded in every possible way.
“They were not paying attention to their studies anymore and I always wondered why they had such poor grades. I realised that they had a disturbed state of mind, so I decided to keep them home,” said Dhruba, who has a tiny maize farm and is now rearing a handful of piglets, hoping to sell them in the market for a good price soon when they grow up.
Dhurba himself never got the opportunity to go to school. He believes that for a Dalit who is uneducated and impoverished at the same time life is really mean.
“But I want to see my children educated. I will not give up easily,” Dhruba adds with a positive tone. He himself suffers every day from endless caste-related snide remarks if he goes near a temple or near a Brahmin´s house.
“I´m used to it. Their words still demoralize me but I have my children to grow into educated people and not live in this village anymore,” he adds.
But before he took his children out of school, he had a glimmer of hope and made a last effort to find justice and ensure protection for his children. He went to the school principal to complain.
“When I spoke to him, it sounded like he already knew about my problem because he didn´t act surprised at all, but he said he would look into the matter.”
However, he did nothing, fearing that his action against the offensive teacher would only boomerang against him under the pressure of his high caste peers and the community.
“Ke garne sir, this is quite normal in the villages. It has happened to my children also,” says Rajendra Nepali, who lost out on options shifting them from one school to another, and eventually, they have gotten used to such discriminatory treatment. “They just want to finish school.”
For many Dalits in this district, their status has barely changed. The song remains the same for them and when political elites in Kathmandu talk about how discrimination against Dalits has ended now and the country has moved on with social change, it is a slap in their faces.
Dhruba and Rajendra are among the many examples of how the hill Dalits suffer terribly from discrimination of many forms in their villages.
Historians and anthropologists still debate the origins of the caste system in Nepal but they have come close to linking its genesis with the reign of the Newar king Jayasthiti Malla during the late 14th century, when he classified Kathmandu into 64 castes.
However, it was the old Legal Code (Muluki Ain) of 1854 introduced by Jung Bahadur that precisely defined the caste hierarchy, dictating the norms and behavior of all caste groups under the strict Hindu system. Since then, Dalits were positioned at the bottom as untouchables. These historical roots still hold strong within the Hindu caste system under which the Dalits (of Terai and Hills) still suffer the worst in terms of social, economic, educational, unemployment and health status and political participation.
Although their marginalization has been addressed over the last four decades and their rights were legally granted finally in 1963 with the formation of a National Dalit Commission, in terms of change in their situation, especially on ending discrimination, the surface has been barely scratched. There are still vivid examples which are not yet strongly addressed as is deserved in the national context.
And here are the facts: at the national level, the poverty line is 25.6 percent whereas it is 45 percent for the Dalits, who make up nearly 25 percent of the total population, according to the Nepal Living Standards Survey-III. Hill and Terai Dalits have the highest poverty level while the Hill Brahmins and Newars have the lowest. NLSS explained that poor families were least likely to educate their children and this is the case with Dalits.
On the political front, the issues of Dalits had been addressed seriously during the first Jana Andolan and more strongly by the Maoists during their violent People´s War. The movement for Dalits gained strength following 2006 but the process of their empowerment and inclusion has been at such a snail pace. Speculations are rife about how discrimination doesn´t exist anymore in urban areas but Dalit parents and children in the villages have a different story to tell.
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"At the end even the Maoists who used so many Dalits to fight their war have done so little after the Constituent Assembly elections. They had a lot of hopes from the Maoist leaders but unfortunately they also let them do”n," said ex-Maoist cadre Shiv Bahadur Danuwar in Danuwar village, which was predominantly a Maoist support base. He explained that everyone there is an ex-Maoist like himself who was a member of the Maoist party but he left after feeling very disillusioned with the party on seeing the Maoists shaking hands with the same parties that they once considered their enemies.
Today, the Dalits are especially disillusioned about the Maoists. Of all the people, the Dalits had the most hope for greater change from the new constitution which was expected to start a whole new process of social inclusion. That dream has been terribly shattered.“
"That change would have been possible through federalism but now these politicians have even killed our constitut”on," said Shiv.
Dalit villagers speaking to Republica said that they were finally expecting a change in the political system through a federal syst“m. "This new change was the last chance for the Dalits to finally fight against this system of discrimination. But it didn´t happen because what can you expect from these part”es," says Sriju Nepali, a female Dalit farmer of Rampur village. “
"The Dalits had expected so much from the People´s War because there was a lot of talk about federal states then. I remember walking with my Dalit comrades, fighting as soldiers together, they had big dreams of ending discrimination. Nothing changed for ”hem," said ex-Maoist soldier Balbir Tamang.
Balbir quit the People´s Liberation Army (PLA) after the war to work in the Gulf to support his family. He got tired of fighting for the Maoist leaders and became more disillusioned and regretful at seeing them fight each other for power.
The only difference today, explains Balbir, is that it was only the Dalits in the Maoist army who had the courage to speak up but not the poor Dalits who still suffer openly from discriminat“on. "But even the ones who can speak up don´t live in the villages any”ore," explained Balbir, who recalled that discrimination against Dalits had stopped during the Maoist war but now it was back to square one.
As witnessed by Republica, the non-dalits show candour in talking openly of practicing untouchability and discrimination. And it is not just a section of the conservative high castes but also the janjatis“
"We interact socially with the Dalits but we still practice untouchability because how can we just abandon our old culture started by our forefathers, and I don´t think that is discrimina”ion," says Singa Bahadur Majhi, a fisherman.“
"When we have to meet, then we just sit outside far from our house compo”nds," he ad“ed. "We don´t allow Kami, Sarki and Damai to enter our houses and we don´t eat dalbhat together, not in their homes even when inv”ted."
This is a normal conversation among non-Dalits about practising discrimination. And this is happening right under the eyes of local human rights workers.
A Bill on Caste-based Discrimination and Untouchability was passed in 25 May 2011 and it prohibits any caste-based discrimination and untouchability in both public and private spheres and criminalizes incitement to such acts.
But the country has seen that laws announced in the capital hardly get noticed at the village level and there is neither investigation nor any complaints filed with the local police. There is still no effective government system in place where such forms of discrimination against Dalits can be registered. A majority of the discriminated victims haven´t been educated or guided either by human rights workers from NGOs, or the National Human Rights Commission or the UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal (OHCHR-Nepal) or even the National Dalit Commission, about existing law and how to fight legally against discrimination.
When asked by Republica whether the discriminated Dalit families have ever met anyone from any of these agencies, they didn´t even know that they existed. Time for these agencies to head back to the villages and start investigations into the violation of anti-discrimination laws. Their failure to act now could only mean a mockery of justice for the Dalit people.
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