The Dalits of Nepal and a New Constitution - ConstitutionNet

The Dalits of Nepal and
a New Constitution
1
The Dalit Agenda: Dignity,
Inclusion, and Social Justice
– Yash Ghai
I This publication
The origin of this document is explained in the Preface.
It contains a number of documents (“Collection”) on the
situation of the Dalits of Nepal, exploring the
discrimination and oppression they suffer in their daily
lives, in almost all spheres of life, in both state and society.
The principal document for this purpose is a background
paper by the distinguished social scientist and activist,
Dr. Krishna Bhattachan, on the origins of the caste system
in Nepal and the contemporary social, economic and
political circumstances of the Dalits. This is supplemented
by extracts from the Jagaran Media website which depict,
through personal experiences, the numerous ways in
which Dalits are discriminated against, their rights violated
and their dignity denied, by upper castes and classes,
and agents of the state.
The centre piece of the Collection is the Kathmandu Charter
of Dalit Rights 2007 adopted by a large number of Dalit
organisations, which sets out the aspirations of the Dalits
for a better future, a life in dignity, and the satisfaction at
least of their elementary rights and basic needs. A number
of proposals for inclusion in the new constitution are
presented in the Charter. This is followed by suggestions
from Jill Cottrell, a well known scholar and consultant on
constitutional processes and law, on how to incorporate
the proposals in the constitution (“From Charter to
Constitution”). A paper by New York University’s Centre
for Human Rights and Global Justice examines how far
the Interim Constitution responds to the concerns of the
Dalits, by reference to rights and freedoms guaranteed
by international human rights treaties to which Nepal is a
party. It recommends specific changes to strengthen the
protection or fill gaps, as a guide to the drafting of the
new constitution. Ankit Dhakal (a law student who interned
with UNDP) examines some key decisions of Nepali courts
on the rights of Dalit, which provide guidance on the way
in which the concerns of Dalits should be formulated to
give the legal effect. Two documents aim to provide useful
background information: a Table (Appendix) compares the
provisions of the 1990 Constitution and the Interim
Constitution as they relate to Dalits (“What have recent
Constitutions of Nepal said about Dalits?”), while the other
document contains extracts from the constitutions of India,
Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and South Africa which in their
different ways have tried to deal with acute problems of
discrimination and deprivation, through forms of
representation and participation and guarantees of both
equality and equity, the latter often by affirmative action.
II Social, economic and
political situation of Dalits
The report is concerned largely with the Dalit community.
But this focus has to be seen within the wider context
of Nepal as it attempts to build a Naya Nepal in which
the country’s ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural
diversity is acknowledged and expressed. As this
introduction shows, the aspirations of the Dalits for the
improvement in their situation and for social justice for
the disadvantaged are fully consistent with the broad
aims of the 2006 jana andolan. Dalits realise that they
are not the only community which has suffered in the
formation of the Nepali state. And that Nepal is a poor
country where nearly 40% of the people live below
the poverty line. But they feel that they are uniquely
disadvantaged; many of the hardships they suffer and
the status they occupy in Nepali society are greater
than of other communities, and are indeed specific to
them.