anti-caste

LOW-CASTE NAMES, HIGH-CASTE NAMES

‘Dalit’ kids getting normal names (Republica (Nepal))

“In recent times, the Dalit community has started giving children normal names as opposed to past practice of giving kids odd names so that the names did not match with those of people belonging to higher castes.

“The recent political changes and the ensuing social changes have emboldened the community to give kids normal names.

“‘In the past, priests themselves did not give good names to our children,’ said Chokat Majhi, son of Aghan Majhi of Chorni-7, Parsa. ‘But I named my daughter Pooja,’ he added. Pooja, who is a nursery student, is very happy with her name, he further said.

“Many children who were given odd names are too ashamed to tell their names to people, said Matar Majhi. ‘My father´s name was Tula. But I names my son Raju,’ he added.

Dasai Chaudhary of Bakuliya, Bara, said the Dalit children, in the past, were named according to their color, build, month of birth, day of birth, or behavior.

India Dalit boy ‘killed over high-caste man's name’ (BBC News, December 2, 2011)

“A low-caste Dalit boy has been killed in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for sharing a name with a man of a higher caste, police say. [...]

“Mr Chaudhary, who belongs to a higher caste, had given several warnings to Mr Sumer to change the names of his boys.

“On 22 November, Neeraj left home after dinner to watch television at a friend's house. His body was found the next day.

“Police said he was strangled.”

NEPAL: UNTOUCHABILITY MAKES ORDINARY LIFE A MINEFIELD

Dalit family thrashed for touching non-dalit's feet (The Himalayan Times)

“Members of a dalit family at Kalyanpur VDC-7 have been mercilessly roughed up after a daughter of the family happened to touch the feet of an upper caste woman. [...]

“Roji complained that Narayan Khadka, Yasoda Khadka, Bikas Khadka, Deepak Khadka and Bishnu Maya Khadka Rimal barged into her home and thrashed the family members. [...]

“The unruly group attacked Roji's family after Sujana Pariyar inadvertently touched the feet of Bishnu Maya while boarding on a bus. Sujana is a tenth grader at Ajingare higher secondary school, Kalyanpur.”

NEPAL: IMPOVERISHED LOW-CASTE WOMEN THROWN INTO TRADITIONAL CASTE-BASED SERVITUDE

Dalit women into Balighare profession (The Himalayan)

“An increasing number of Dalit women in Banke district are attracted towardsan annual labour contract called Balighare Partha locally under which so-called high caste people give food in return to their hard work and service.

“Until recently the age-old Balighare occupation was dominated by Dalit men. Prem Kala BK of Chisapani-9 is an example of increasing number of women taking up this profession mainly by women from Bishwokarma community among other Dalit castes.

“Lately she has started working in her forge, where only her husband used to work till some time ago. She melts metal in the forage and crafts kitchen utensils and sickles, knives, hoes and other traditional weapons of neighbours. In return, she gets rice, maize or millets (as per her choice) for her whole year’s works from them.

“Sewing clothes as well making hand drums and other musical instruments are also part of Balighare system in existence in the district from ages taken up by Dalit people as their one of the major sources of livelihood.”

anti-caste: In the balighare partha system, one of several traditional forms of caste-based labor extraction in Nepal, members of (low-ranking) artisan castes provide services to upper-caste landholders in exchange for one meager allotment (perhaps ten, fifteen, or twenty-five kilograms) of inferior food grain annually at harvest time.

See also:

Dalits continue to be exploited in Nepal (Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle, October 24, 2010):

“Dal Man Bishwokarma, a resident of Rautaha village in Udayapur, not only manufactures domestic weapons and equipments used in farming but also repairs them. He provides his service to 21 Bishta families. However, he gets only 10 pathis [about 50 kilograms] of maize once a year from each of them.

“During festivals like Dashain and Tihar, Bishta families provide Dal Man with a mana (one mana is roughly equal to half a kilogram) of rice and Rs 20 each. His family has to survive on this meager income for the whole year. ‘With this income, I find it difficult to make ends meet even for six months,’ he said. ‘For the rest of the year, I have to go somewhere else to work as a laborer.’

“The tradition, which exploits Dalits’ labor, is still in fashion mainly in Bhutar, Nametar, Bhalayodada, Panchawoti, Dumre, Barre, Iname, Jante, Thanagau and Laphagau villages. Harka Bahadur Pariyar, a resident of Jaate village where 24 Dalit families are stuck in this tradition, said, ‘We have been surviving like this for generations.’”

CHILDREN AND CASTE-BASED BONDED LABOR IN NEPAL

Most of Jajarkot Dalit children deprived of education (The Himalayan Times (Kathmandu))

“Based on the findings of a three-month study that it conducted in the district from December-end, the NGO Dalit Women Empowerment Forum states that roughly 60 per cent of the district’s Dalit children — 8,000 of 13,300 — are deprived of education.

“Children from poor Dalit families make the most of the illiterate children.

“According to Gita Sunar, the forum chairperson, most of these children are from landless families. They have been working as khaliya and haliya (farm labourers) to make a living. The report states that 468 Dalit families of the district have been working as haliya and 126 families have been working as khaliya.”

See also:

NEPAL: The Haliya bonded labour slavery system must be abolished without further delay (Asian Legal Resource Centre, August 26, 2010):

“The Haliyas (literally, ‘one who tills land’) are enslaved within a system of bonded labour, and are forced by a landlord or ‘master’ to execute various hard labour duties (usually agricultural) for many years, often for an entire lifetime. Other than the agricultural work, Haliyas fulfil a range of duties, including making tools (such as spades, knives, and sickles) out of iron, grazing animals, sewing clothes, making utensils and pots, and so forth. The labourers are not paid a wage for their extensive work; often they are only provided with a small amount of food. Extreme poverty and debt in the western and far western regions of Nepal has relegated many members of the lower castes, known as Dalits, to Haliya status.

“Haliyas are forced to till a small patch of land in order to repay a debt, and are often held captive with their entire families. The enslaved Haliyas typically have no direct association with any debts; in the overwhelming majority of cases, the laborers are held because of debts accumulated by their ancestors over many generations. Such debts are often so excessive that a Haliya’s work over an entire lifetime will not generate sufficient revenue to even marginally reduce the interest incurred on the debts. [...]

“Despite being malnourished, Haliyas are expected to perform extraordinarily demanding labor duties. According to a custom known as Doli, they must carry exorbitantly heavy wooden carriages on their shoulders for hours at a time. Another custom (Khali) dictates that Haliyas are entitled to no fresh food at all–only leftover goods from the harvest. Despite working excessively long hours to fulfill grueling tasks, Haliyas typically receive only a bowl of white rice per day for their labor. [...]

“The overwhelming majority of Haliyas are Dalits. In fact, Nepal’s system of caste discrimination remains a direct factor leading to both the origins and continuation of the Haliya system.”

And see:

Policy spoke in Haliya rehab wheel: Ad hoc approach exacerbating their woes by Kamal Raj Sigdel (Kathmandu Post, April 25, 2010):

“Although the government outlawed Haliya practice on September 6, 2008, unsurprisingly most of them are still working for their landlords.

“‘When the Kamaiya system [of bonded labor in the Tarai region] was outlawed in 2000, it actually liberated the landlords, not the bonded labourers,’ says Laxman Kumar Hamal, member secretary of the Freed Kamaiya Rehabilitation Execution Committee at the Ministry of Land Reform (MoLR). ‘The same mistake has been repeated in the case of Haliyas.’

“For instance, the form that is being used to collect data on Haliyas does not require landlords to express commitment to help rehabilitate the tillers, which officials say is a serious oversight that will create problems in rehabilitation.”

CASTE IN NEPAL

Magars ban dalits from using well (Republica (Kathmandu))

“The ban came following a dispute between the communities after two Mijar kids were thrashed for trying to drink water from the well when Magars were filling water.

[...]

“The well dug by Siraha District Development Committee around 22 years ago is the only means of drinking water for 17 households, including 11 of Magars and two of Halwais, in the Ruwale Tole.

“The Magars, however, claim they have not banned Mijars from filling water. ‘We have let them use the well at other times. They cannot fill water with us as they are from a lower caste,’ argues Tej Kumari, who thrashed the Mijar kids.

“Untouchability has been banned by the law since 1963.”

CASTE IN NEPAL

‘Black’ woman’s tale drives Nepal rights campaign (IANS)

“Dark, untouchable and a slave, yet Kali is the heroine of a campaign to protect the rights of the disadvantaged communities of Nepal, especially women.

“She is the central character in a street play, ‘Kali Aimai’–‘The Black Woman’–which has been sponsored by the UN to tour Nepal's remote districts to campaign against violence targeting women, exploitation and untouchability, and to train local artists to spread the message farther. [...]

“Though the government has abolished the ‘haliya’ system–the practice of slavery that sees a family working for an employer without payment all their lives–it still flourishes in Nepal. So does untouchability and a form of violence particularly targeting women from poor families. This is the ‘bokshi’ phenomenon in which villagers accuse any woman they dislike of being a witch who has caused either deaths or misfortune to them. The accused is forced to eat human excreta and at times beaten to death or set ablaze.”

NO TURKEYS SLAUGHTERED IN NEPAL THIS WEEK

Indians throng Nepal's Gadhimai fair for animal sacrifice (Times of India)

photo by rpb1001

"Thousands of Indians from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other states bordering Nepal swarmed to the Himalayan republic’s southern plains Tuesday to attend a notorious Hindu fair there and sacrifice animals and birds in the hope their wishes would be fulfilled.

"While a debate began to grow in Nepal about the Gadhimai Fair in Bara district and the wanton cruelty it inflicted on animals, the festival drew its strength from zealous Indian attendees who have been flocking to it every five years in a bid to circumvent the ban imposed on animal sacrifices in their own states. [...]

"Ram Mahato, 37, who also came from Sitamarhi, planned to watch the execution of the animals, visit the circus and drink his fill of local liquor that has also been doing brisk sale underground despite an official ban on it. He had not heard of Maneka Gandhi, let alone her plea to the Nepal government to ban the quinquennial slaughter at Gadhimai. Neither had he heard that six people, including one from Motihari, had died after consuming adulterated hooch.

"'Gandhi?' he asked, scratching his head. 'Is she related to Indira Gandhi? But then, they have everything, unlike us. They can afford not to seek the blessings of the goddess.'"

anti-caste: Also prominent in the campaign against the Gadhimai festival has been Brigitte Bardot. South Asian peasants are as likely to take account of her sensibilities in religious matters as she, quite rightly, was of theirs in her career as an international sex symbol.

The ceremony, which takes place over the course of two weeks every five years, attracts up to a million devotees who dispatch more than 200,000 animals—the equivalent of a slow week at Cargill, especially around this time of year.

It is said to be especially popular among untouchables, who are typically barred from Hindu temples and so have little access to ritual services.

It is the local untouchables of the chamar (tanner) caste who traditionally skin and carry away the carcasses, preserving the meat for their own consumption and processing the hides for sale as leather. At the last festival some of the chamars were organized by a non-governmental organization to boycott this work as demeaning. This year, according to the Kathmandu Post, "[a]lthough the festival organisers had hired a contractor to clear out the carcasses, people from the Chamar community chased the contractor and took away the remains themselves." These contradictory responses display the cruel paradox of the untouchable condition—the very activity on which they depend for their livelihood is "unclean" and degrading.

Neither Brigitte Bardot, Maneka Gandhi, nor any of the activists concerned for the lives of several hundred thousand water buffaloes, goats, pigs, chickens, pigeons, and rats seem to have anything to say about the oppression of this community, nor about the insecurity and want that drive so many in this region and around the world to seek solace in religious superstition.

photo by rpb1001 (from a remarkable set on Flickr)

NEPAL: UNTOUCHABLE LEATHERWORKER STARVES IN CAPITAL CITY

Life not shining for polishing shoes (Gorkhapatra)

"Kathmandu, Oct. 16: Krishna Bahadur Nepali arrives early in the morning at Damkal Chowk of Lalitpur from Dhapakhel and spreads his paraphernalia at the roadside. He spends the whole day by mending and brushing shoes.

[...]

"'Unlike in the past it is hard to earn two meals. Our traditional means of livelihood of sewing and mending shoes is ignored and the ever swelling market price has added the woes,' he said."

HINDU MONARCHY CRUMBLING

King No Longer Sacred in Nepal (Reuters)

"'Gyanendra, thief, leave the country' is the warcry of the tens of thousands campaigning against his rule, a slogan that would have been heretical just a few years ago when the Shahs were worshipped by the Himalayan nation as reincarnations of the Hindu Lord Vishnu."

See also:

This Turbulent Monarchy: Nepal and the Shah dynasty (AsiaMedia, February 17, 2005) traces the rule of the bloody Shah dynasty from its founding by the eighteenth-century military king Prithvi Narayan Shah, who upon conquering Kathmandu Valley "cut off the lips and noses of every male citizen of the city-state of Kirtipur (save those who were musicians) after they successfully resisted his invasion force." (Obviously a music-lover.)

And see:

Turmoil (The Hindu, February 20, 2005) discusses the recent social context:

"The democracy movement had politically mobilised the voiceless, but post-multidemocracy, the representational pyramid remained even more restricted than under the Panchayat regime. Bahuns (Brahmins) and Chettris (including Ranas, Shah-Thakuris) made up 29 per cent of the population and monopolised 70 per cent to 90 per cent of the jobs and political representation. Many of the 69 indigenous nationalities which fought for multi-party democracy would turn to the Maoist revolution for their liberation. Indeed the insurgency is a testament to the failure of Nepal's experiments with (autocratic and) democratic governance to make a real difference to the desperate poverty and plight of the vast majority of Nepal's 24 million people. Forty-two per cent of them remain under the poverty line ... ."

But the Maoists offer no political alternative. They actually made a bloc with the old king, Birendra. One of their leaders declared in 2001:

''Many Marxists called the Maoists royalists. There were similar thoughts between King Birendra and us, with reference to many national interests. There was unannounced unity in the approach between us in many contexts. So, it was natural for the colonialists and their brokers to be frightened.''

See Maoist ideologue blames India, US for massacre [of royal family] (rediff.com, June 6, 2001).

And in fact there is no political solution to the deprivation and oppression of the Nepali masses within the national limits of this deeply impoverished country. But though there is only a small industrial working class inside Nepal, up to a million Nepalis—one out of eleven adult males—now work in India, making up part of a growing proletariat that has the power to transform the whole region. (See Nepal's Dependence on Exporting Labor by David Seddon.)

Update: (November 21, 2006) The Maoists have joined the bourgeois government and will liquidate their militia into the national army. See Nepal celebrates peace deal with rebels (The Guardian (UK), November 22).

CASTE IN NEPAL

Caste-based Discrimination Endures in Nepal (OhMyNews.com)

"Dalits in Nepal are prohibited from walking in front of upper caste people and need to make an alternate path behind them."

See also:

more on caste in Nepal from the same journalist: When Caste Overshadows Humanity

UNTOUCHABILITY IN NEPAL

Touch of Dalits still unholy in Dipayal (The Kathmandu Post)

"They are not even allowed to share public taps and enter temples. They also have to speak in a demure tone with the so-called 'higher caste' people."

MASS ATROCITY IN NEPAL

Inter-Caste Marriage Became a Cause of Destruction (Asian Human Rights Commission)

"The young couple, who had an inter-caste marriage, has been kidnapped by the girl's relatives and the Dalit community, which the male victim belongs to, was attacked by 200 upper caste people and forced to leave the village."