Still, incidents of discriminations against the nearly five million-strong Dalit population continue to pour in from across the country with troubling frequency. In the latest incident, around a dozen Dalits of Pipariya VDC of Rautahat district were attacked and their houses vandalized by non-Dalit locals on Friday evening. Tension between the two groups had been simmering ever since a group of locals tried to bar Umesh Ram Chamar and his prospective wife, both from Dalit community, from getting married at a local temple. [Break]
Apparently, the Dalit community had retaliated against the forcible eviction of the Chamars from the temple by setting upon some non-Dalits. The Dalit community had also lodged a complaint against the attack on Chamars with the local police. The counterattack and the police complaint seem to have enraged the non-Dalits anew, setting the scene for Friday’s brutal retaliation.
Last year, non-Dalits attacked ten Dalit families of Mulkharka village of Pida VDC in Dhading when a Dalit boy married a non-Dalit girl. Ten Dalit families had to leave the village following the incident. Also last year, a man belonging to the Dalit community in Dailekh was beaten unconscious for allegedly crossing the doorstep of a non-Dalit household. Every time such incidents take place, the government vows to look into the matter and punish the culprits. And indeed, there have been arrests and prosecutions for such discriminatory actions. But these incidents are being repeated time and again because they are still not getting the serious attention they deserve. For instance, the latest attack on Dalit households in Rautahat could have been prevented if the local authorities had decisively stepped in to cool tensions soon after the Chamars were attacked a month ago. But by sitting on the case for so long, hoping it to fizzle out of its own, tensions were allowed to simmer under the surface. It was only a matter of time they bubbled over.
One of the reasons the cases of discrimination against Dalits are so common could be lack of Dalit representation in important decision-making bodies. With vital state mechanisms still by and large occupied by people from privileged groups, the problems of the Dalits, who make up 20 percent of the population but are very poorly represented at state organs, are often brushed under the carpet, soon after the initial furor over attacks like one that took place on Friday evening in Rautahat dies down.
This is a dangerous course. There must be swift and decisive action as soon as a case of discrimination is reported. By this time almost everyone is aware of the criminality of any kind of social discrimination. Hence these incidents cannot only be attributed to lack of awareness. They rather seem to be the result of the state’s failure to decisively impose its writ. What seems missing is not legal measures against discrimination, but the political will to take on entrenched discrimination head on.
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