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Shackles Taken off but Ex-Kamaiyas not Still Liberated

It took nearly eight decades for the democratically elected government of Nepal to do away with its vestiges- the Kamaiya system after the then Rana Prime Minister banned the practice of slavery. Freed though they are from bondage, the ex- Kamaiyas are as apprehensive as ever about their future because the government is yet to provide land to most of the ex- Kamaiyas, who are born and brought up with the soil. The Kamaiyas have begun living a free life, but the untold miseries of suppression and injustice they experienced while living as a Kamaiya can hardly be put into words. Find below some cases that speak of their past and various facets of the Kamaiya life culled from a book that will soon come out. -Editor

After they had eaten, they would give me the remains of their meal and the burnt rice from the bottom of the pot. I had to wait with hope like dog waits. It would be late and my children would say: “Mummy, give us rice.” I would comfort them, saying: “My son, I will give you rice when the master gives it to us.” The children would fall asleep. What could I do? After putting them in bed I would cry my heart out.

When my daughter was 9 years-old the landlord encouraged my husband to send her to Kathmandu. He told us that she would get good food and jewellery and look beautiful. I didn’t want her to go.

Each year the landlord paid me 1,000 rupees and a set of clothes. The money was deducted from our loan. So I didn’t get any cash. Just one set of clothes. My husband got 7 quintal and 20 kg of paddy, 5 liters of cooking oil and 3 or 4 kg salt. That was his wages for the whole year. When the food was not enough for us, we had to borrow rice and corn from the landlord then pay off this loan the following year. But it was never enough. We always had to borrow.

BASE (Backward Society Education) urged one Kamaiya from each village to go to Kathmandu and fight for our rights. We held a meeting and my older brother decided to go. But when the morning came he changed his mind. He said “If I go to Kathmandu the landlord will be angry with me.” So I decided to go. In Kathmandu we got orientation about our rights. We went to the parliament and the politicians came out to talk to us. Then the police took us to jail.

Other Kamaiyas heard the news about Kamaiya freedom over the radio. They carried the news to us. When we heard that Kamaiyas were free, we decided to leave the landlord’s house. He said: “Repay the debt and go!” But all the kamaiyas said with one voice: “Now we don’t have to repay the loan. We have been freed. We go. “And we came here to live in this camp.

After working for seventeen years as a Kamaiya in the landlord’s house, the landlord threw me out. He said, “Now you are free, go away.”

Now I am free. I want to find a job. I am used to working hard in landlord’s house but now I am jobless. I stayed at home just eating because I don’t have work. My brother is still a Kamaiya. Others are also working as Kamaiyas. So sometimes I feel alone. But I don’t want to work as a Kamaiya again.

We are on good terms with the landlord. His field is planted with vegetables and he says we can take the extra vegetables. He says: “Come and visit me from time to time. Stay in touch.” But we will not return to live there now because the landlord won’t give us any land. We don’t get enough to eat there. So, we will stay here. But we continue to work for him. He pays us daily wages. When we were working as Kamaiyas we got 1,000 rupees a year but now when the landlord hires us he pays us 80 rupees each day. So life is better now. It is better to live here by our labor work than to live there under others.

Yesterday we went to the government land office to rigister ourselves as Kamaiyas. Those who are registered are those who will get land if the government decides to give us any. The government refused to give me my registration paper. They said the landlord gave us land. We have no paper for this land. Yet they told us we had land and refused to rigister us.

This old man has been working as a kamaiya since his childhood. His four sons also started work as kamaiyas when they were children. Two sons freed themselves. The other two sons still work as kamaiyas. They built this house and started to cultivate some land in the forest, but the landlord and the forest committee destroyed the house. The forest committee claimed to be protecting the forest. Yet none ot the other farmers’ houses in the forest were destroyed… the landlord in angry that the kamiayas are emancipated. So he had their house destroyed.

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