Bhola’s Scoop

I was aware of Bhola Paswan’s steady gaze at the Dharan journalist training. It gave nothing away. I imagined its owner to be solid and reliable, but also slightly unimaginative. Not the type to go out and get a huge scoop. How wrong I was.
Bhola is the only Nepali journalist from the Paswan sub-caste. At [...]

Breaching the Temples

It is in the dusty town of Dangadhi (Kailali district), in the far West of Nepal, that we find some Dalit who have figured out how to breach the temple taboo that is causing some trouble in Lahan, on the other side of the country. This form of religious discrimination is apparently widespread.
The Rastrya (Regional) [...]

The Badi Women of Mudha

The Badi women of Mudha let customers know they are ready for work – which is prostitution (“pesha”) – by wearing thick, blood-red lipstick. We visit them on our way to Tikapur, in Eastern Nepal, where we have arranged to meet with the Community Support Group, a Dalit advocacy organization that is trying to help [...]

The Bonds of Labor

I have seen many people living in degrading conditions on this trip, but nothing can compare with the 300 destitute families we met during a brief visit to the village of Geta, in the West.
These families (none of whom are Dalit) used to be bonded laborers, which meant they were “owned” by their employers until [...]

Incident at Ghudigawm Gudi

The small whitewashed building stands alone in a large field, without a lock on the door or any of the normal visible symbols of religion. It is hard to think of this as a temple, and even harder to understand how it has brought the community of Ghudigawm Gudi to boiling point.
We have heard of [...]

The Nature of Discrimination

Before returning to Kathmandu, we travel to the eastern town of Lahan. This is where Dalit refused to remove dead cows in 1990, prompting a major backlash from the local population. I am told that such acts of gross discrimination are a thing of the past. But Lahan still has a bad reputation for “atrocities” [...]

First Brush with Advocacy

Dalit advocacy has proliferated so fast in recent years that there may be as many as 500 Dalit organizations in Nepal. They have taken grateful advantage of Nepal’s political opening, and the movement for democracy, but at the same time they have their own distinctive agenda. Several Dalit have told me that there can be [...]