Understanding untouchability
and castes question in Nepal
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
As I started from Delhi to visit
Kathmandu to participate in World Conference against Untouchability organized
by International Humanist Union, London and Nepal Dalit Commission along with
Society for Humanism in Nepal, the issues raised by one of respected Dalit
rights activist Mr Hira Lal Vishwkarma’s assertion that manual scavenging does
not exists in Nepal and that it is a lucrative business in Kathmandu. The
statement was contradictory as it admitted that there is manual scavenging but
what shocked me was his further emphasis that this work is now done by the
Brahmin and Kshetris too as this has lots of money. In the conference I raised
the issue and Mr Bishwkarma responded to it in the similar way as he had said
in his response to a group mail circulated among the Dalit groups. Many of our
friends working on manual scavenging in India were very disturbed with this as
how come a person speak of such a language. During the conference, I had the opportunity
to interact Hira Lal Bishwkarmaji and other friends and in the next few days, I
decided to explore things further by meeting diverse groups of people and that
too from different regions of Nepal. That apart, I tried to find it with the
people in Kathmandu valley who are engaged in the sanitation work employed by
the municipal corporation and government hospitals mostly. Most of the places,
I found the output of the toilets are linked to local open nullah and just as
you pour water, the entire excreta is flown into it. Most of the places it was
stinky and dirty too. So, if not today, I feel Kathmandu city will have a
dangerous situation if the sewage situation is not dealt with. Despite denial
of people, one question that always haunted me as who clean toilets and
latrines in Nepal ? If manual scavenging does not exists here, it means there
is no caste system or the country has developed a fairly good sewage model on
the lines of European countries only then there was a possibility of non
existence of manual scavenging. On both the counts Nepal remain negative. The
sewage system need to be seen and the caste system of brahmanical variety
exists in Nepal in much stronger way than it is in India. It need to be
understood and seen where it is not visible and why ? Ofcourse, Nepal is a very
diverse country and caste system differ in forms and actions in each regions
and hence all cant be put in the same bracket. Yet, I was never satisfied by the
arguments that friends who suggested me, ‘ I should not look Nepal from Indian
eyes and that they were different’. As a
person who has been visiting Nepal for long and love that country the issue of
Dalits, discrimination and caste system can not be put aside simply under the
nationalistic boundaries when the issue has become international and need
people’s response. Yes, it is true that the ‘big’ brother attitude of Indians
with their ready made solution would not work in Nepal and it is clear that
they have to find answer within their national frame work satisfying the
international laws too which speak against injustice and are for social
justice.
For next two days, I decided to
explore on my own and met a number of friends from hills, Tarai and Newari
community and what transpired in our conversations was absolutely eyeopening
and will definitely give a new direction to the movement for social justice and
participation of various Dalit communities in nation building. These
conversations of mine with Nepal Communist Party leader Mr Tilak Pariyar,
leader from Dom community and now Central committee member of Naya Shakti Mrs
Sunita Dom, Dalit activist from Tarai Mr Amar Lal Ram, activist from Badi
Community Mr Gopal Nepali and a conversation with Deula community members
engaged in sanitation work at the outskirts of Kathmandu will be put online
soon and will definitely help create an understanding of the issue and take the
discourse further.
I visited Deula community locality in the
Indraiani colony in the Maharajganj region of Kathmandu city to have a firsthand
look to the issue, I was shocked to say the least. I thought that Hira Lal
Vishwkarma ji is right because the houses were great and in much better place
unlike India. Over 25 families were
living and each one had well established home of nearly three storied
construction. Some of them had bigger than that. They claimed there was no
untouchability with them when I asked pointed question. Most of them were
working with municipality to clean roads, public toilets and hospitals. A
government job provided them about NR 10,000 to 15,000 which they considered a
better job option. I was a bit frustrated. At the town, I met a gentleman
Mahadeb Deula who runs a public toilet at the Vasundhara chowk. The human
excreta from his public conveniences is flown into the open drainage which
stink all the time. Mahadeb pay NR Three Thousand for the contract and earn
around NR 7000 a month. He has no issue with untouchability as he says he does
not face it. We go along with him to his
Indraiani Colony of Deulas. Bheku Lal works with Mahanagar municipality
and his day start from early morning at 5 am and finish at 8. Later he has to
go again at 1 pm and finish at 6 pm. At this age of about 50 he gets about NR
16,000/- per month. Kanchi worked in Mahanagar Palika and now retired. Its not
good work but they don’t get anything else says a young boy who is working in a
hospital. He could not study after high school. Another girl Pushpa is a 9th
drop out and sit at home. I asked her as why she not pursued her study, she had
no answer though the young boy of the community clearly mentioned that they do
not get any other work.
What surprises me was while those
I met (I do not deny they having political influence) did not utter much about
untouchability and discrimination, yet the issue is whether they realize what
is discrimination when they do not get any other work. Now they are complaining
that the work is not there as mechanization is happening and work is being
given to contractors. ‘It is a fact that the contractors are mostly the high
caste Hindus as Dalits do not have that much of money. These high caste Hindus
take the contract work and employ the untouchables to do the sanitation work like
cleaning of septic tanks, roads and toilets. They extract huge money and pay
the people lowly’, said Mr Tilak Pariyar who is the Central Committee Member of
Nepal Communist Party (ML).
But Padam Bishwkarama, who is
editor of monthly journal ‘Dalit Sandesh’ as well as valley coordinator of
Dalit Liberation Front of Nepal, says that Nepal’s Dalit question need to be
looked carefully according to regions. He feels that the Parliamentary system
is never helpful to Dalits and it coopt them. He talks of revolution and unity
of all the Dalits. According to Padam, Dalit question is not the issue of
‘Untouchability’ but that of participation at all level. Sometime the upper
caste want to convert it into an untouchability issue which is wrong, says
Padam Bishwkarma.
However Gopal Nepali, who belong
to Badi community of Nepal and one of the most marginalized and outcaste
community feel that when we speak of proportionate representation system, it cannot
be just in the context of Dalits and non Dalits as we assume. He thunders, ‘Where
is my space as a Badi with in the Dalit movements. Where are jobs for us in the
government services, in Parliament or at the National Dalit Commission? They
have formed a committee for the ‘welfare’ of Badis and therefore most of our
friends feel that we do not need to have a space in the National Dalit
Commission dominated by one or two communities’, he says.
Actually, manual scavenging in
the hills were carried out by the Deulas who are part of Newar community which
has a tribal status. You cannot really understand the peculiarity of the issue
if you feel that it is a Newar issue as many of them have now become
economically well off. Newar janjati
itself has its own varna system and therefore Deulas among them are the
sanitation workers. In the hills there was not much manual scavenging but the
towns of the hills like Kathmandu has this community engaged in the work. There
is a dire need to monitor the work in the smaller town.
In Nepal, the tragedy is that the
issue of manual scavenging has not become dominant because the whole Dalit
discourse is dominated by the hill people while communities such as Doms,
Mushahars, Chamars, Mehatars, Halkhors, which are mostly based in the the Tarai
or Madhesh regions remain outcastes with in the movement. The crisis of Hills
verses plain has also helped to aggravate the issue. The cultural gap is big
and need to cover up. As Kathmandu valley has dominant hill people and
definitely manual scavenging in hills cannot be compared to that in the Tarai
yet one cannot ignore the dark realities. I am not sure how great is the sewage
system of Kathmandu and elsewhere but definitely people clean street, toilets
and some day the septic tanks and as suggested by many earning a ‘good amount’
but definitely now with the machines coming up in the market, it has affected
the job and bargaining powers of the community like Deulas as they only have
the sole ‘monopoly’ over the sanitation work in Kathmandu. Now the contract
work is taken by the powerful people who lease it to Deulas and make money at
their cost and we feel that the community has gained a lot. When I tried to
find out the reason of the community’s good housing, I was told that Deula’s
had land from the very beginning and they had built these houses long back as
the land belong to them. It would be difficult for any sanitation worker to
construct those kind of houses in todays time when everything is so expensive
and there is no security.
However, it would not be fair to
blame to the social movements in Nepal, most of them dominated by caste Hindus
who needed a few ‘Dalits’ to ‘showcase’ to their donors. As Mr Hira Lal
Vishwkarma told me about a big organization working on Land Rights actually
worked to ensure land for Brahmins and Kshatriyas in a village, in the name of
‘land reform’. It was shocking, said Hira Lal ji that when he found that Dalits
and Janjati people did not get any land under the claim ‘land to the landless’.
Perhaps, it is here we must realize the importance of the caste and merely
citing ‘class’ will not work. Nothing wrong in helping the landless people of
all the castes but then why ignore the Dalits in this entire ‘class’ exercise. One
has to agree that the Dalit issue need to be understood beyond mere symbolism
even though many times they are important particularly in the regions where
they have been denied participation and right to be as a human being with
dignity. Of course, the Dalit movement
needed as much variety and inclusion of the most marginalized communities which
are victim of untouchability even with in the communities claim to be Dalits.
These questions cannot be place under the carpet in the pretext of internal
issues of the community or non-serious.
But can Dalit issue be just
participation and not discrimination and untouchability. We do understand the
political participation but what happens where Dalits are just a minority or
that too of a miniscule variety whose voices do not get heard in the din of
‘majoritarian’ politics? So, it is not just issue of participation but an issue
of human rights which has protection under all the international covenants. Participation
of Dalits as proportionate to their population in polity and political
structure is one issue but the issue of untouchability and those who are on the
margins cannot be brushed aside under any pretext as Tilak Parihar says that
the Communist Parties failed in it as the representation inside the party was a
matter of great concern. He pointed out that though the revolutionary politics
fought for the Dalit rights and fight against feudal oppression yet in terms of
representation they failed the Dalits. He also said that parties failed to
understand the Dalit issues and its complexity. ‘I was the member of the
previously constituted ‘Constituent Assembly’ and have seen in those discussion
that those who got elected in the name of Dalit communities only raised the
issue of their communities and not others. Therefore, I never heard issues of
Doms, manual scavengers or those of the Tarai Dalits, as majority of us were
from the hills. It is our failure’, he says. Obviously, the issues of Dalits
and Janjatis have to be resolved within the framework of Nepalese constitution
and with maintaining the unity and integrity of the country. Last year an
important leader of Dalits from Madhesh region visited Indian and tried to
create an opinion about the Dalits in Nepal but now the Dalits in that region
complain that the minister has forgotten the Dalits of other communities and
only play his caste card.
Amar Lal Ram belong to Chamar
community from Saptarni district of Madhesh region. The influence of Saint
Raidas and Baba Saheb Ambedkar is now on the community. ‘The youngsters are
going to school but participation in the job is very low. In the Tarai, it is
the Paswans who dominate and they do not care for Dom, Chamars and Mehtars. In
fact, 25 families of Doms face social-economic boycott from the Yadavas in the
region who want these families to leave their homes and settle elsewhere’, says
Amar. We too had an economic blockade several years back but now things are
settled, he said. ‘Why is there a blockade’, I asked. ‘ We live in the towns or
in the villages and when we do not follow their diktats they threaten us.
Secondly, now with a little money, they feel we are obstacles and need to be
thrown away so that they can live without seeing us or touching us.’ But is
there any manual scavenging in your region and if yes who are engaged in it, I
ask. According to Amar, even after the
government’s efforts, manual scavenging is there and mostly mehtars, halkhors
and Doms are engaged in it. ‘ If there is any death of an animal, people will
not pick up as they will only wait for a dom, he says and add that our pain is
that while the upper castes have been willful against us but the powerful
communities of Vishwkarmas and Parihars have taken our share as they are
heavily present everywhere from government bodies to NGOs to IGOs. In fact,
this sentiment is reflected by Gopal Nepali too who said that when the government
appoint a committee and yes it is a committee he says not a commission yet it
was not liked by dominant dalit leaders here. What do we get he says. As a
person from Badi community which is less than forty thousands in Nepal, Gopal
is the first person doing his M.Phil from Tribhavan University, says with pain
visible on his face that we remain untouchables even today. Though, none know
my caste in Kathmandu but if I inform any one about my caste that I belong to
Badi community, I might not even get a house and people won’t even like to
share space with me. Our pain is that our women and men were into music
profession. They danced and yes the feudal exploited our women too. Later it
became for all when there was no employment so many came in the prostitution and
exploited by all. How Hippocratic it is that we are untouchables but there is
no untouchability in sex. Yes, untouchability exists in our water, in our
kitchens and at the marriages, he says painfully.
Addressing caste discrimination
and untouchability questions are important to create an egalitarian society but
it is important to handle them with great sensitivity. A solution which might
be applicable in the hills might not be applicable in Tarai. The issue of
Newari community is entirely different. Constitution of Nepal has recognized
Dalit as an issue and as communities. Positive side is that constitutionally,
they did not use the term ‘scheduled castes’ and scheduled tribes’ as in India
but Dalits and Janjati which is positive as it will remind people of the
historic wrong. Padam Bishwakarma is very clear about that when he says that
Dalit question cannot be resolved unless we talk of honorable compensation for
historical wrong done to us but do the revolutionary politics understand it, I
ask. He says, yes, the only answer to discrimination against Dalit is the
revolution against the feudal caste structure as Parliamentary democracy will
not bring our true representatives and there the success of a few is shown as
the model for all.
While Tilak Pariyar candidly
understand that these brahmanical Marxist parties are not really Marxists as
they fail to understand Dalit question and only talk of class when caste is an
important factor of oppression in our society, Ms Sunita Dom, who is now in Nayi
Shakti party of former prime minister Babu Ram Bhattarai, exposes the character
of the ‘revolutionary’ parties when she said that her father being an important
member of the Central Committee of the Maoist Party faced caste discrimination.
It was sad that party leaders would not eat along with him and he was always
served in a separate plate outside the dining hall. This is scathing attack on
the brahmanical desease that exists inside these closed quarter of
‘revolutionary’ parties. I was shocked to hear this from a woman who hail from
Dom community who are even untouchables among untouchables. Most of these
parties have kept their door closed for the Dalits but as both Tilak Pariyar
and Padam Bishwkarma mention that the revolution happened in Nepal because Dalits
supported and participated in it. My point was that is great but why you need
Dalits as rag pickers of your parties and not at the highest level. How come
people are unable to come to the highest level despite sacrificing their lives.
Yet, it is also true that merely
condemning the parties will not work. Nepal’s Dalit now look for change through
revolution alone. Those who are ‘mainstreamed’ in NGOs and INGOs may have a few
success stories while mainstream political parties busy with their vote calculations,
Tilak Pariyar is simply not satisfied with the constitution. It talks a lot but
gives nothing. For the 275 strong Parliament, 165 Members will come through
First Past The Post system while rest 110 from Proportionate Electorate System.
Now, most of the mainstream parties says that constitution is giving everything
as per proportionate at every level (it is mentioned in the constitution and
Nepal that way shows inclusive constitution but it has a long way to go) but
there is no assurance of reservation or protection of seats for Dalits in FPTP
as no seat is reserved for them. It means that a majority of seats would be
open for manipulations during the elections and prone to encourage corrupt
practices as happens in India. Among all this proportionate, how do we ensure
that Badi, Gandharba, Chamars,Halhors, Doms, Mehtars and many other communities
get their due. How will there be a representation of Deulas from among the
powerful Newar community.
Nepal’s Dalits are separated from
each other on regional lines. There might not have been any interaction with
them and definitely the brahmanical political parties whether Congress variety
or revolutionary one cannot escape from being blamed. As far as social
movements is concern, the big INGOs have spoiled independent movement to grow
and very unfortunate part is that upper caste still play patronizing role in
‘developing’ Dalit movement. We still here discussion similar to ‘return to
Vedas’ of Vivekanada and that varna system was ‘scientific’ and was based on
your work and not that of birth. People quote copiously from religious texts to
prove that Vedas are sacrosanct and everything is a late entry. That shows the
influence of Brahmanism on thoughts and process of politics, academia and
society. While Ambedkar is reaching there yet being used in a very ‘limited’
way as both the revolutionaries and Congress variety of parties have realize
the danger to the brahmanical order from a radical Ambedkarite movement. The
oppression has been very high and people were made to believe that they are
fighting a ‘class’ war and not a brahmanical caste oppression hence villages
are isolated and deeply entrenched in caste system.
We would not like to give our
solution to Nepal as it has to come from their communities and within the frame
work of its constitution but unless Nepalese parties understand the whole issue
of Dalits and their participation, things will not succeed. Nepal revolutionary
politics will not succeed unless it understands the aspirations of those
communities who have been denied their dignity and rights for centuries. In the
21st century, Nepal need to show the world that in our continent
revolution is not possible without smashing Brahmanism and the illegitimate
social order that it has created to suppress the Bahujan working masses in our
societies.
