“In this hamlet we are all low caste people. The upper caste who live
further up the village cannot touch us. If they do so they get
polluted”, says Sunga Kami. She is an elder Dalit woman from Ratoli, a
small village in Doti district in the far western part of Nepal. “But
sometimes a woman from one of the higher castes comes to our house. Her
name is Raju Bohara. She likes to sit in our yard. But when she returns
home she has to purify herself by sprinkling gold-treated water over her
body. That is the custom up here”.
Today Raju Bohara, who belongs to the Chhetri caste, visits Sunga
Kami’s household. Her hamlet is only a few minutes away by foot. Raju
sits down in the yard. It is a sunny afternoon and all the women in
Sunga Kami’s household are busy drying lentils and rice grains on straw
mats. A young woman begins to grind the already dried lentils in
a stone
grinding mill. She is dressed in pink and has a yellow marigold flower
behind her ear. Goats and hens are walking around in the yard. It is the
children’s job to keep them away from the straw mats with rice and
lentils.
There are twelve family members in Sunga Kami’s household. Four of
her sons live in India. One of them has just returned to Ratoli to pay
his mother a visit. Two daughters are married and they both stay with
their husband’s families in neighbouring villages. Sungi Kami’s
household belongs to the Kami caste which is one of the many lower
castes in Nepal. A common denominator for the lower castes is Dalit. The
term originally means people living in the swamps (daldal) or oppressed
people, but today it refers to all low caste people in Nepal. The
Dalits is the group of people who are considered untouchable by the
higher castes. It is believed that the Dalits can pollute higher castes
and therefore any kind of close physical contact must be avoided. As
Sunga Kami explained above, Raju Bohara has to clean herself ritually
after a visit to Sunga Kami’s household. She has namely exposed herself
to pollution just by entering a Dalit household.
The untouchability of the Dalits has an immense influence on their
daily life. In most parts of Nepal the Dalits are not allowed into Hindu
temples; they cannot use the wells, taps or other water sources that
are reserved for the higher castes; they cannot enter restaurants and
tea-shops, but have to sit outside and eat or drink from plates and cups
especially reserved for Dalits; at the grocer’s shop they have to keep a
distance while the goods are delivered to them; they cannot enter the
homes of upper castes nor settle nearby the upper castes’ hamlets. In
many ways these restrictions imply that Dalits live on the margins of
the Nepalese society.
The Doti district
We are in the Doti district in the far western part of Nepal. It is a
beautiful mountainous area covered with pine trees and small terraces
cut into the steep mountain sides. The white, impressive Himalayas
follow the northern horizon and to the South one gets a picturesque view
down the valleys. The turquoise blue Seti river winds through the deep
gorges from the mountains to the low lands. At this time of the year the
fields in the valleys are covered with young, green wheat sprout. On
the hill sides the fields are still barren and grey. Only a few kitchen
gardens light up the landscape. Most of these gardens belong to upper
caste people, as do most of the fields surrounding the villages. Only a
few households from the lower castes own a piece of land or a kitchen
garden.
The Dalits in the Doti district belong to three separate low caste
groups – the Kami, the Sarki, and the Damai. Traditionally each group is
linked to a specific occupation. The Kami caste works as blacksmiths,
the Sarki as shoemakers, and the Damai as tailors – occupations which in
Nepal all are considered “dirty” and therefore only should be carried
out by Dalits. The three groups are further divided into different
subgroups, each with a separate occupation, such as Sunar (goldsmiths),
Bhul (leather workers), Lohar (metal workers), Parki (bamboo handicraft
workers), and Tamata (copper workers). The upper castes in Doti consist
of Brahmins and Chhetris. Traditionally the Brahmins are priests or
scholars. The Chhetris are the warrior caste. Today Brahmins still carry
out their traditional occupation, but most Chhetris make a living as
farmers, landowners, or businessmen.
The Dalits in the Doti district all live in separate hamlets apart
from the higher castes. Most Dalit hamlets are densely built-up areas of
small houses with mud walls. Some hamlets are placed on hill tops and
one wonders when the next strong wind will pull them off the ridge.
Round haystacks are kept on wooden pillars in the yards. In the glaring
winter sun the hay shines with a warm yellow colour. A few households
have livestock such as buffaloes and goats. They keep them in small
stables next to the house.
From a few Damai households the sound of an old iron Laxmi sewing
machine crystallises in the air. One or two Kamis spend the winter
repairing ploughs and other farming tools. But today most Dalits in the
Doti district do not practice their traditional caste occupation. In
lack of skills and modern technologies their products cannot any longer
compete with high quality products made in the cities. Instead the
majority of Dalits make a living as day labourers on the higher castes’
land or by taking on different manual work such as cutting stones,
selling firewood from the mountain sides, or working on road
construction. The higher castes rarely pay in cash for the different
kinds of work the Dalits perform for them. Instead they pay with lentils
and rice grains around harvest time – a system known as Bali Ghare
Pratha. The younger generation is not particularly interested in
continuing their parents’ professions as these jobs are considered
“dirty” and are looked down upon from the rest of the society.
Winter time is low season for day labour work. Men, therefore, hang
around, waiting for spring to come where the seasonal agricultural work
begins. Women are, on the other hand, always busy with the daily house
work, such as cooking rice (dhal), lentils (bhat), and flat, barley
bread (chapati), fetching firewood and water, feeding the buffalo or
goats, etc.
Winter time is, however, a good time for weddings according to the
Nepalese calendar. If a couple is married in January or February their
life together will be endowed with prosperity and fortune. One morning a
Kami visits the local Brahmin astrologer. He wants the astrologer to
find the most suitable date for his daughter’s wedding. The Kami brings a
steel plate with uncooked rice, an orange flower, and a five
rupees-note as payment for the astrologer’s prediction. While the
astrologer figure out the time for the marriage to take place, the Kami
has to sit outside in the courtyard and wait for the answer. If he here
by mistake touches the earth – since he is a Dalit – it has to be
ritually purified with cow dunk. “It is our custom and we have to
protect out culture”, the astrologer explains, while the Kami is leaving
with the most suitable date for his daughter’s marriage: the 30th of
January at 5.00 am. “This is how we have done it for generations. And
how can we, the higher castes, change caste behaviour when the Dalits
also differentiate among themselves? A Kami thinks that he is superior
to a Damai and treats him accordingly. Also, if I meet a Dalit person on
the path he will automatically step aside in order not to touch me. So
he is just as well keeping up the tradition, isn’t he?”.
The Nepalese caste system
Nepal is the only Hindu kingdom in the world. The caste system is
closely related to Hinduism. The Vedas – the 2500 years old sacred
Sanskrit texts which Hinduism is based upon – separate the population
into four groups: Brahman, Kshetriya, Vaishya, and Sudra. The four
groups are hierarchically ordered with the Brahmins in the top and the
Sudras in the bottom. According to the Veda’s creation myth, God created
Brahman from his mouth, Kshetriya from his arm, Vaishya from his thigh,
and Sudra from his feet. The Dalits or untouchables belong to the
Sudra, those created from the feet and thereby the lowest of these
categories. 20 % of Nepal’s population (22.6 millions in 1997 figures)
are Dalits. More than 4 million people in Nepal are therefore considered
untouchable.
In 1990 the practice of caste based discrimination and untouchability
was declared illegal and punishable by law in Nepal. A person who is
found guilty in caste discrimination can now be sentenced up to one year
in prison or be fined to pay 3000 rupees (1 US $ is 74 Nepalese
rupees). The law is, however, seldom taken into practice and numerous
cases of discrimination against the Dalits are still taking place. As
such the caste system still forms an essential part of the cultural
landscape in Nepal.
Many Dalits explain their low status and untouchability as determined
by the Gods. As Mohan Baral Kami, a Dalit goldsmith says, “God created
the caste system and we have to accept our low caste status if not to
make the Gods angry with us”. However, many high caste people also
consider the Dalits to be impure because “they are dirty”, “they don’t
keep their houses clean”, “they eat animals dead from accident or
disease” – an explanation to the “impurity” which also are heard among
Dalit themselves.
From a socio-economic perspective poverty is an important marker of
the untouchables. Dalits are not only culturally inferior but also
economically deprived. Since most Dalits in the hill regions own no land
and only receive a small amount of grain as payment for their work,
they are forced to take loans from higher caste people to buy food and
other daily necessities. They hereby become a kind of “bounded
labourers”, as they are obliged to work on the upper castes’ land to pay
off the interest without much chance of ever being able to repay the
loan. Most adult Dalits in the hills are illiterate, especially the
women. Today some Dalits attend school, but rarely beyond second class
for the girls and forth or fifth grade for the boys; quite a large
number of Dalit girls do not attend school at all.
Migration and new strategies
Today almost every Dalit household have one or two male family
members who work in India, either seasonally or for a longer period such
as 5-10 years at a time. In India they find jobs as watchmen in hotels,
dish washers, drivers, and other kind of casual work. Hill-Dalits have
also begun to migrate to the Terai, the low land in the southernmost
part of Nepal. In the Terai they hope to buy a piece of land or find new
kinds of job opportunities.
The migration to the Terai also provide the Dalit families with new
strategies to improve their social status. It is quite common among
hill-Dalits to change their surname or leave out the caste indicator in
the name – e.g. Kami, Damai, and Sarki – when they move to the low
lands. By doing this they hope to get different and better possibilities
within the caste system which they hope especially will be profitable
for their children. Recently it has become popular among Dalits to
convert to Christianity as a way of avoiding the caste system. Up till
now about 10 % of the Dalits have taken on this new religious belief.
The caste system and its many manifestations has a strong impact on
the every day life of Dalits in Nepal. But the caste system seen as a
social system also opens up for individual strategies or multiple ways
of choosing to navigate in this cultural landscape. As the local Chhetri
healer, the Dhami Jhankri, in Doti tells: “Up here in my village I will
never accept food from a Dalit’s hand. But if I travel to the capital
Kathmandu I will eat food from everywhere, since in Kathmandu I don’t
know the people so how am I to know who have cooked it?”.
source: msnepal.org
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