Bonded labour rehabilitation in Nepal: Livelihood, land reform options "ignored" in new draft constitution

By A Representative
A well-represented Dalit advocacy delegation from Nepal, visiting India to take stock of the type of laws made in the country and how they are being implemented to “safeguard” Dalit rights, has alleged that the new draft Nepalese constitution has “failed” to take a serious view abolition of the dreaded haliya system of bonded labour, prevailing in large parts of the country.
Majority of haliyas are Dalits and are landless. The delegation -- visiting Delhi and Ahmedabad -- had come to Gujarat in order to gather facts on how to insert outstanding issues relating to Dalits while framing of the new constitution. Several members of the delegation claimed to be close to the committee finalizing details of the Nepalese constitution.
Consisting of members of the Feminist Dalit Organization (FEDO) and a few journalists, the delegates, during an interaction with Gujarat’s voluntary organizations, said, a law banning bonded labour was enacted in 2008. “But there is little progress in removing the haliya system, which requires labourers to hereditary work in bonded condition after they take loan from the landed gentry”, insisted FEDO’s Durga Sob.
“Following the law abolishing bonded labour, haliyas have been provided with plots of land for housing, but they have still not been provided with any alternative means of livelihood or land for farming”, added another FEDO activist Renu Sijapati. The interaction with Gujarat-based NGOs took place at Dalit rights organization Navsarjan Trust’s office in Ahmedabad.
Facts gathered by a recent report on widescale discrimination in the distribution of aid to the victims of the devastating earthquake that rocked Nepal on April 25, 2015 said, two of the numerically strong Dalit communities -- Madhesi Dalits and of Musahar Dalits – have 85 to 90 per cent and 95 to 97 per cent no land at their disposal.
The report, titled “Waiting for Justice” – jointly prepared by the Nepalise Dalit Civil Society organizations involved in earthquake reconstruction, Asian Dalit Rights Forum, National Dalit Watch, and the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, India – suggests, it is the haliyas who have been most discriminated against in the rehabilitation of the quake, underway right now.
Most of them have mud houses in some of the remotest areas, hence the aid reached them very late, the report says, adding, the view of the 70 per cent of the respondents was that “although their destruction of mud houses was massive, there was a willful negligence in providing evacuation services to severely-damaged houses of Dalits.”
The delegation suggested, while there is nine per cent Dalit reservation in the government within the 45 per cent slot reservation for vulnerable sections of the Nepalese population, the haliyas have not received any benefit from it either.
“Though bonded labour was abolished in 2008, and on paper the haliya system does not exist anymore, landlords continue employing them at will, as they have no alternative source of living. Lakhs of haliyas are not paid any wages. They are only paid in kind – they are given foodgrains”, said FEDO activist Laxmi Nupani.
“It is not just men who work as bonded labourers in the rural areas of Nepal. The entire family is forced to work as hailya for the landlord’s farms. There have been many cases of haliya women being sexually harassed”, the activists pointed out.
“The extreme form of exploitation led to the formation of the Haliya Mukti Samaj movement, which led to the abolition of the system in 2008. Ever since then, the Nepalese government has been working on schemes to provide land for housing construction to haliyas, which they did not have earlier, the main problem is, they are not being offered any alternative means of livelihood”, they said.
“In the draft constitution, too, there is no provision of providing land to the haliyas, so that they could live a life of dignity. Haliya children do not go school but work on farmland with parents”, a delegate pointed out, suggesting land reforms is not on agenda in Nepal even today.

Comments

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857 By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

The curious case of multiple entries of a female voter of Maharashtra: What ECI's online voter records reveal

By Venkatesh Nayak* Cyberspace is agog with data, names and documents which question the reliability of the electoral rolls prepared by the electoral bureaucracy in Maharashtra prior to the General Elections conducted in 2024. One such example of deep dive probing has brought to the surface, the name of one female voter in the 132-Nalasopara (Gen) Vidhan Sabha Constituency in Maharashtra. Nalasopara is part of the Palghar (ST) Lok Sabha constituency. This media report claims that this individual's name figures multiple times in the voter list of the same constituency.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi* This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman* Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Morbi’s ceramic workers face silicosis epidemic, 92% denied legal health benefits: PTRC study

By Rajiv Shah A new study by the Gujarat-based health rights organisation, Peoples Training and Research Centre (PTRC), warns that most workers in Morbi district’s ceramic industry—which produces 90% of India’s ceramic output—are at high risk of contracting silicosis, a deadly occupational disease.

Search This Blog