Right to access water and Dalits

Always wondered whether the shortening of Bishwa Karma to BK is okay or not?

Nepal: Dalits beaten for requesting access to drinking water

Two Dalits Karna Bahadur BK and Bimala BK in Dailekh district have been beaten for requesting access to drinking water, the state-owned Gorkhapatra daily reports on Saturday.

According to the report, locals Jay Bahadur Bista and three others of Lakuri Village Development Committee beat them as they requested their village administration to manage access to drinking water for the Dalit community at Ward No. 4 of the same village.

Jay Bahadur and his men had argued against providing the Dalit community an access to drinking water while the victims had argued that it was their natural right to access to drinking water.

The victims currently spend two hours a day for collecting their drinking water.

In Nepali villages afflicted with massive illiteracy, political and socio-economic inter-caste discriminations, superstitions, the Dalits (also socially tagged as ‘untouchable castes’) are widely discriminated against as ritually ‘impure’ to co-exist with other so-called high castes. When the Dalits seek to voice their rights as human beings, they are more likely to face assaults in such remote Nepali villages. Even the most educated persons in such villages spontaneously follow the psychological patterns of caste discrimination in the name of social traditions or beliefs.

The state forces, mainly the law application mechanisms, have failed to empower and mainstream the oppressed Dalit community despite the constitutional provisions intended to implement their fundamental and human rights. Those violating the law of equality are never punished as regards the discrimination against the Dalit community.

Most of the Dalit leaders, belonging to different parties, serve partisan interests as vote collectors.

From Mohan Nepali for Public Journalism >

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