Mercantilist ideas of paper currency are now the gold standard and the whole world is commercialised but the barter system, where services are exchanged for commodities, still prevails within Nepali rural households as the dominant means of trade. Balighare Pratha has managed to sustain itself even after the enactment of the Civil Code half a century ago, which legally abandoned the caste system. It is thus imperative to figure out the socio-economic demerits of Balighare Pratha on Dalits and construct social and legal mechanisms to better eradicate it.
Begging for pay
Balighare is a system where so-called lower castes (Dalits) serve so-called higher caste people with their traditional skills/occupations and in return get food grains (bali) periodically from each harvest. As the amount of grain as pay is decided by the rational interest of the payer, Balighare Pratha can be called a pay-in-kind system too. This patron-client relationship is known by different names like Khalo Partha (Western Nepal) and Khan System (the Tarai region). Most Dalit craftsmen engaged in their traditional occupations practice this system. According to an International Labor Organization report, Dalits and Labor in Nepal: Discrimination and Forced Labor, 42 percent of Dalits are engaged in traditional occupations.
Commonly, the adjective kamayeko (assigned to work) is placed before the caste name of Balighares to differentiate them from others. For example, kamayeko damai means Balighare tailor and kamayeko kami means Balighare blacksmith. Similarly, the word bhag magne is used to refer to grain collection. Literally, bhag means a part of something and magne means to beg. Therefore, asking for wages in Balighare Pratha is paralleled with begging.
Upper caste people are mostly engaged in agriculture and are called bistas by these artisans whereas the Shudras either do not have land to cultivate or have small plots of land that are not enough for subsistence. Thus, they are bound to eke out a living by serving Brahmins, Chettris and Vaishyas as well as to the upper castes within the same strata.
Despite working the whole year round, the Dalit artisans themselves need to go to their bistas’ homes to collect grain as remuneration. Without any respect for the work, they are treated like beggars. Balighares are more stigmatised than other artisans who choose to work for cash.
As a confluence of labour, art and skill, Dalits should be wealthier and more successful. Instead, caste discrimination and untouchability act as powerful weapons of economic supremacy and exploitation where workers are peasants with small land holdings or are landless while the dependents are landowners. In the past, people favoured by the royal family were
provided with land as birta. Government servants were also provided with land instead of cash. The lands distributed in the name of birta were formerly owned by Dalits and the indigenous.
Roots of discrimination
To understand Balighare Pratha, it is necessary to uncover the roots of caste-based discrimination in Nepali society, which stands on the foundation of the Hindu religion. Religious epics exclude Shudras from the mainstream socio-economic dynamics of society. Some verses within those scriptures are prominent causes of the extreme marginalisation and deprivation of today’s Dalits. It is very important to point out such wrong teachings that have been suppressing the Dalit community from time immemorial.
The hymn (Purushashukta 90:12) of the Rig-Veda states that Shudras are destined to be servants as they are created from the feet of Purusha (the perfect man). Brahmins are called the mouth of Purusha and their duties are as priests; Chettris (Rajanya) were created from Purusha’s arms and wield the sword and spear as soldiers; Purusha’s thighs became agriculturists and tradesmen called Vaishyas. Finally, from the feet, Shudras were produced, whose duties were labour work to serve the three other castes.
In the Vedic period and later, slavery or serfdom was the basis of social production. The Bhagavad Gita takes Dalits as divine slaves. It teaches to do work (karma) without the expectation of the fruits (fal). This verse is taken to be the base for the exploitation of Dalits through the extraction of their free labour and contravenes Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 8 of Civil and Political Rights. Similarly, verse 2/129 of the Manusmriti exhorts Shudras not to earn money even though they are physically and mentally capable. The reasoning for this is that if they earn money, they will affect the upper caste Brahmins and Chettris and ultimately, social hierarchy.
Financial capacity
However, it is also a fact that poor Dalits face more discrimination than comparatively wealthier Dalits. Generally, the households that practice the Balighare Pratha are lower on the socio-economic ladder than those who work for cash. Consequently, this makes a difference in how non-Dalits perceive the Balighares.
Robin Jeffrey of La Trobe University, a scholar of India and development studies, stresses the economic transformation of Dalits through the acquisition of financial capacity as a guarantee of dignity. Similarly, technocratisation of traditional Dalit occupations is important to remedy untouchability. The status of menial workers in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Japan and Senegal’s Wolof people were uplifted by technocratisation.
Educated Dalits have already abandoned Balighare Pratha. Hence, Dalit leaders need to come up with ways to provide possible remedies for supplanting Balighare Pratha with cash. Political parties and leaders need to focus on eradicating the strong bond between casteism and occupation, which is still a barrier for social mobility.
Senchurey is publisher of Conflict Management monthly and Nepali is a fellow at the Alliance for Social Dialogue
source:- the kathmandupost
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