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

The golden crop: How turmeric is transforming women's lives in tribal India

By Vikas Meshram* When the lush green fields of turmeric sway in the tribal belt of southern Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, it is not merely a spice crop — it is the golden glow of self-reliance. In villages where even basic spices once had to be bought from the market, the very soil today is yielding a prosperity that has transformed the lives of thousands of families. At the heart of this transformation is the initiative of Vaagdhara, which has linked turmeric with livelihoods, nutrition, and village self-governance — gram swaraj.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

False claim? What Venezuela is witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat

By Manolo De Los Santos The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence. Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility. In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines: One . The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. Two . Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandone...

The selective memory of a violent city: Uttam Nagar and the invisible victims of Delhi

By Sunil Kumar* Hundreds of murders take place in Delhi every year, yet only a few incidents become topics of nationwide discussion. The question is: why does this happen? Today, the incident in Uttam Nagar has become the centre of national debate. A 26-year-old man, Tarun Kumar, was killed following a dispute that reportedly began after a balloon hit a small child. In several colonies of Delhi, slogans such as “Jai Shri Ram” and “Vande Mataram” are being raised while demanding the death penalty for Tarun’s killers. As a result, nearly 50,000 residents of Hastsal JJ Colony are now living in what resembles a state of confinement.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Search This Blog