Member of federal lower house Kalu Devi Biswokarma has repeatedly spoken of how house owners in Kathmandu refused to rent her a room just because she is a dalit. Around three months ago there was another news of a reputed journalist not being able to rent a place because of his caste; the police had even arrested the house owners in this case. Another bit of news read: ‘A Biswokarma roughs up a Pariyar accused of touching a public well’. Why are these things hap­pening and what do these diverse incidents suggest? A few months ago there was a cyber-crime related case lodged with Kathmandu police. The main accused was a Pariyar and the main victim was a Biswokarma. There was a clear groupism between differ­ent castes in this case, so much so that even the dalit rights campaign­ers found themselves in opposing camps. There are many such unfor­tunate cases of inter-community discriminations in Nepal.

 

Even within the traditionally marginalized communities like dalits, women, janjatis, Madhesis, oppressed classes, and laborers, there is a lot of bad blood. A lim­ited number of people from these communities have usurped all gov­ernment quotas, opportunities and services. This in turn has badly dam­aged their larger movements for collective rights.

 

Of course this problem is not limited to Nepal. Yet that does not undercut the scale of the problem. One dalit discriminates against another dalit because even within the dalit community, there is a social hierarchy which its members accept. So a Biswokarma discrimi­nates against a Pariyar, and a Mijar discriminates against a Gandarva. There is no marriage between dif­ferent dalit castes and in some cases one set of dalits do not even use water that is ‘polluted’ by another set of dalits.

 

If we don’t start a campaign against these discriminations within the dalit community soon then we might as well forget the larger goal of dalit emancipation. Even though we sometimes get to hear members of some ‘superior’ dalit communi­ties speak of the need to end these discriminations, not much has hap­pened on the ground.

 

Nor is this just an issue of dalits. There is as big a problem within Adivasi janajatis as well. For instance there are entrenched discrimina­tory practices within the Newar community, as those belonging to Chame and Pode sub-groups are publicly shunned. While some janajati leaders have reached the higher echelons of power, the janjati leadership is still silent on the problems faced by the poorly-represented Raute, Chepang and Kusunda communities.

 

Likewise, the moment for wom­en’s liberation has been usurped by a few elites and wives and relatives of powerful political leaders. It is not just a problem of Nepal but of South Asia as a whole that for a woman to establish herself in any field she either has to be born into an aris­tocratic family or has to marry into one. Although the fight for women’s emancipation should have the par­ticipation of women from all castes, classes, religions and communities, Brahmin women or women related to powerful political leaders have hijacked the movement. The state of dalit, janajati, chepang, Muslim and Madhesi women is still pitiable.

 

Similarly, leadership positions of major political parties as well as the major Madhesi parties are occupied by a limited number of Madhesi castes. While the Maithil Brahmins, Kayasthya, Tripathi, Bhu­mihar and Yadav occupy nearly all the top positions, the Madhesis from dalit, halkhor, Chamar and Musahar communities, as well as Madhesi women, have little or no say.

 

There are thus big contradictions in all the movements for the rights of the marginalized communities in Nepal. If these contradictions cannot be resolved amicably and in the spirit of inclusiveness, common legal rights and proportional rep­resentation, the fight for minority rights may soon fizzle out. Margin­alized communities cannot make big demands of the state while they themselves are not inclusive.