-Pabitra Sunar

The so-called untouchable castes in our country are known as Dalits. It is only because they are born into the Dalit castes that society does not accept water touched by them, they are not allowed inside the house, and they cannot intermarry with other castes. This is inhumane treatment of man by fellow man. There is no greater or more inhumane discrimination in the world. One fourth of the national population is Dalit and nearly half of the Dalits are women. But in many areas of national life they have lagged far behind.

Whenever the problem of Dalits is mentioned, people generally understand it to mean caste untouchability. The problem of Dalit women is lumped together with the general problem of gender faced by other women. But the problem of Dalit women is separate from and more fraught than the problems of other women and Dalit men. The problem faced by Dalit men is the social one of untouchability, insult and economic poverty. Dalit women face these problems as well as the additional ones of total economic dependency on others and gender oppression within the family and in society. While there is no reckoning of the daily oppression around the house, at the kitchen, while shopping or fetching water, or when going to the temple, it is again Dalit women rather than their men folk who bear the brunt of communal violence at public places and torture. Apart from this, Dalit women are also at the receiving end when it comes to being beaten up, forced to eat feces or subjected to other forms of utterly inhumane treatment on accusations of practicing witchcraft. Furthermore, it is commonplace for upper caste males to entice Dalit women into sexual relations with allurements of love and marriage, and then leave them in the lurch. When they go in search of justice, justice is not to be found. The reason behind this is the economic indigence of the Dalits and their lack of access to the judicial and administrative machinery.

Dalits who have land have only enough of it for the produce to last them five or six months of the year. When such is the economic condition of the Dalit community as a whole, it can easily be imagined what the economic life of Dalit women must be like. Economic wellbeing has a big role in improving life standards. Once the economic level improves, education, health and awareness levels also follow. The extremely poor life standards of Dalit women can be put down to economic poverty. More than 70 percent of Dalit women are dependent on agriculture as a vocation. And most of those who are in this calling work not on their own land but on land belonging to others as agricultural laborers. While the overall Dalit literacy rate is 33.9 percent the literacy rate for Dalit women is only l2 percent. According to an Action Aid report, 90 percent of Dalit women suffer from prolapsed uterus. This can be attributed to the hard labor that Dalit women are forced to do to make a living. The life expectancy of other women is 58.9 years, but for Dalit women it is only 48.3 years. Out of the 200,000 agricultural laborers in the country 75 percent are Dalits. As agriculture labor and traditional caste based callings constitute the vocation of the Dalits, these are also life lines for Dalit women. Such economic conditions have made the situation of Dalit women extremely hard.

What the above mentioned facts show is that Dalit women are an extremely deprived lot. Life for this class is hardscrabble. There are in a ditch from which there is no getting out. With the advent of democracy the cause of the Dalit community has been taken up by government/non government organizations. But in practical terms neither has the state implemented the relevant laws nor have non-government organizations been able to make any big impact on society. And while it is the Dalit women who face the biggest problem, their problem has been sidelined. That is why there appears a clear need to bring the Dalit women into the mainstream of development. For this the Dalit women have first to be placed within the target communities. Joint evaluation and monitoring committees and pressure groups should be formed to see whether or not the things that governmental and non government organizations are supposed to do for Dalit women are actually done. Government and non-government organizations should come up with a concrete program calculated to improve the economic and educational conditions of Dalit women and implement these programs. Such a program should include compulsory free education, scholarships for Dalit women, a free medical service fund, employment-oriented skill training, land distribution for landless settlers, equal pay for equal work and a lot of other measures of economic reform. Such a program may be a stride in economic reform in favor of Dalit women, but a different kind of program has to be implemented for removing the social practice of caste untouchability. For this there should first of all be implementation of the law from the government level. With society deeply wrought in traditional ways, awareness should be aroused in the community through door to door campaigns, awareness-oriented training programs and radio and television programming with the focus on the rural community. Radio programming should contain material that is capable of changing the mindset of both Dalit and non-Dalit communities. This should make a positive impact against communal discrimination. Public awareness-oriented media programming can play some role in doing away with the oppression against women within the family. But the main approach to encouraging women in education calls for special initiatives by government along with the instituting of equal rights to parental property. The leadership class in society and the intelligentsia should sit down to eat together with Dalits and participate with them in entering homes. Special security arrangements should be initiated from the local level to cope with incidents of social boycott that confront inter-caste married couples. Yet, if Dalit women are to be rendered capable it is they themselves who should rise up. All these programs hold promise for the upliftment of Dalit women and utmost reform in their favor.

Padmalal Bishwakarma is a name in Nepal’s Dalit movement which needs no introduction. Born in Assam, India in 2007 Bikram Era, Bishwakarma has had formal education upto M.A. and M. Ed.. Although his permanent address is Shantipur, Ilam, he has of late been living in Kirtipur. A lecturer in English at Tribhuvan University’s Kirtipur Campus, he has been actively involved in the Nepali Dalit movement since a long time back. His thinking is that whatever one’s political belief, the Dalit movement should be advanced independently, and effectively. At present he is active as central chairman of the Nepal Oppressed Dalit Caste Liberation Society, an independent, effective Dalit organization and the country’s oldest. What follows is a synopsis of a conversation that Rem Bishwakarma had with him, focusing on topical issues in the Nepali Dalit movement.

-The Dalit problem is the joint manifestation of the problems of class and caste. In the hoary past cast divisions came about in the course of the division of labor. Society’s laborers and artisans became consigned to the sudra caste. With the intention of lording it over them and exploiting them for all times, steps were taken to reduce them to sudra slavery. In the course of time, the feudal practice of looking down on labor and on laborers and artisans resulted in the lowliest sudras being relegated to the status of outcastes and mistreated as untouchables. The community which consequently bore the brunt of caste discrimination and the oppression of untouchability are the Dalits of today. Starting out as a problem of class, the Dalit question subsequently assumed the shape of two special humanitarian problems. The Dalit question is not just a class problem but has become a distinct humanitarian problem also. The biggest problem of the Dalits now is inhumane caste discrimination and untouchability.

-The Nepali Dalit movement finds itself at present in a state of crisis, uncertainty and transition. This movement which took its first steps in an organized form in 2004 Bikram Era had become well organized, integrated and capable by 2049. The historic entry into the Gorkha temple, the struggle for drawing water at Sipapokhari, Sindhupalchowk, the milk movements in Syangja and Nawalparasi, the Katunje water drawing episode in Kavre, picketing and fast at Singha Durbar and the like undertaken by an integrated organization under the name of the Nepal Oppressed Dalit Caste Liberation Society have to be accepted as milestones in the Dalit liberation movement. But this movement had to cope with various kinds of opportunism and schisms before it could complete 50 years. Following the restoration of multiparty democracy, Nepali Dalits became divided under various political parties or took up with project-oriented or sponsored NGO’s. Most of the political parties used the Dalit donor organizations as a tool for party expansion, but never came around to taking up the problems of the Dalits as a political cause. At the same time the innumerable NGOs which have sprung up like a cottage industry have turned the Dalit issue into a means of livelihood, and used the political parties as a bug bear to pull the Dalit movement away from the party movement and help blunt its revolutionary thinking. The political parties opened many fraternal organizations. In the process of running projects for the donor organizations these ended up becoming of the same ilk.

Following the launching of the people’s war by the CPN-Maoists in 205l and its starting a Dalit fraternal organization in 2055, a part of the Dalit movement took to armed revolution. As a result, the role of the fraternal organizations of other parties, independent Dalit bodies and sponsored NGOs became eclipsed, and the state of emergency, the Destructive Activities Control Act and the mobilization of the army, which were resorted to in the name of suppressing the people’s war, rendered the Dalit liberation movement inactive.

-Whether one should take to a revolutionary party which is on the right political path or form the Dalit people’s class organization of such a party is a question which is not out of place. But the intention of many political parties which start Dalit fraternal organizations solely for the purpose of using Dalits as a vote bank instead of treating Dalit liberation as a political question is yet to be made clear. The Dalit fraternal organizations of such parties have been corrupting the Dalit movement. The Dalit fraternal organizations of the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, RPP, Sadbhavana and other parties belong to this category. Some so-called Dalit leaders of these organizations have managed to grab political appointments, but there has been indifference to the question of securing the rights of the Dalit masses.

And Dalit NGOs are of two kinds – independent and family type. Some Dalit NGOs have been worked as a business. If only the project-oriented organizations carried out their work honestly, be it within the parameters indicated by the donors, it would be a stride towards creating a favorable environment for Dalit upliftment.

- There is bound to be the odd personality-oriented instance in all movements. Rather than going into whether or not such an orientation reigns, the important question is should such a tendency be allowed to develop within organizations or in the movement itself. A personality-orientation develops when a system of collective leadership is not fostered or there is arbitrary leadership and the activists and workers start currying favor with it, doing its every bidding. Personality-orientation can be discouraged by making an organization’s internal system more effective. I do not feel that this is something that cannot be tackled.

-The forthcoming talks are meant to turn the problem created by seven years of civil war into lasting peace. Ending caste discrimination and untouchability is part of the cause espoused by the Maoist people’s war. It is definitely true that the ruling side has to date been knowingly ignoring this problem. At present when the country is about to transform itself politically, the Dalit community which has suffered the most from discrimination in Nepali society, should be able to turn this into an opportunity to secure its own rights. Organizations which came into being to work for the rights and interests of Dalits will loose their raison d’etre if they do not now go about securing for them due respect and their just rights. All the Dalit organizations should close ranks and work out a common agenda of these rights, make sure that this agenda reaches the talks table, and bring pressure to bear for the proportionate and just representation of their community from the talks process to the round table conference, interim government and election to a constituency assembly. The Dalit community is certain to lag behind for ever if the battle is not joined for time bound reservations in all areas by way of compensation for their oppression to this day through caste untouchability.

The Dalit community should wake up and exert pressure if the impending talks are not to remain confined to the division of the spoils of office among the government, the Maoist party and the other parliamentary political parties. We Dalits have to play a role in order to make these talks result-oriented in terms of being forward looking and the good of the Dalits. Abstract peace is not what we need. Caste discrimination and conflict will not end until circumstances are created that will bring the Dalits freedom, equality and justice in the real sense.

In this context it may be noted that efforts are continuing on the part of the "Dalit pressure group for talks" constituted by 16 non-governmental Dalit organizations under the convenorship of Nepal Oppressed Dalit Caste Liberation Society Chairman Padmalal Bishwakarma with Jagaran Media Center Chairman Subhas Kumar Darnal as member-secretary. This group is pressing ahead with its role in the context of the talks and, in the process, roping in other organizations as well.  

- It is an undisputed fact that without a correct sense of political direction the Dalit movement will naturally and ultimately die a sad death. It is urgent for the Dalit movement to pull together with the caste liberation movement and push ahead on that basis. Marxism is the main philosophy of Dalit liberation also. The Dalit problem in our context is a triangular problem of class, caste and untouchability (CCU). Compounded by caste discrimination and untouchability, the Dalit problem has become a vexed one indeed. That is why this problem cannot be rooted out easily through a resolution of the problem of class alone. For this, additional efforts are mandatory. Additional efforts mean adopting a policy of positive discrimination and reservations until the Dalits are on a par with the high castes and classes. The movement should also forge solidarity with project-oriented NGOs, other human rights organizations and organizations working for the ethnic communities, women and the Madhesis. In sum, the Dalit liberation movement should become an integral part of the national liberation movement.

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