"The country's "feudal governance systems backed by the culture of the caste system have been very resistant to change," the researcher told an audience of more than 100 people at a local hotel. Even after the first 'people's movement' in 1990, "the government had gotten used to discussing gender discrimination...but they were still very hesitant to discuss caste and ethnic discrimination"."
KATHMANDU, Jun 11 (IPS) - In 1955 Nepal's revised civil code outlawed untouchability; in 2002 the government created the National Dalit Commission; and three years ago a new leadership pledged to lay charges against anyone accused of discriminating against untouchables, also known as dalits (the broken).
Since then police have opened just two cases for the crime and neither has reached the courts. "Incidents are happening day-to-day in every corner of the country and are reported in the media butàno one has spent one hour in jail," says Ratna Bahadur Bagchand, executive director of Nepal's Lawyers National Campaign Against Untouchability (LANCAU).
Untouchability is the practice of discriminating against those who Hindu tradition has assigned to the lowest ranks of the social hierarchy -- often by shunning physical contact with the person and objects they touch.
More than a year ago, Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the government to strengthen its law against untouchability. "We watched and waited for the government to do something, but it did nothing, so we thought 'we have to do something ourselves'," Bagchand told IPS in an interview in his office in the maze of alleys just behind Nepal's newly-revived parliament.
After six months of work, LANCAU submitted a draft bill to the house of representatives May 28, just a week before MPs declared "an end to untouchability" on Jun. 4.
"The practice of untouchability will now onwards be considered as a social crime and the government will enact laws in such a way that the inhuman and discriminatory practice is more punishable," said Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Narendra Bikram Nembang.
The declaration does not impress Bagchand, whose group in 2004 declared the years 2005-2015 'Untouchability Elimination Decade'. "They support it only for show, for cheap popularity...If they want to make the country free from untouchability, they must pass a law...the whole nation is in favour of this, including the Maoists."
Neighbouring India, which is socially and culturally similar to Nepal, made untouchability a punishable offence more than half-a- century ago and also reserved seats in legislatures and in government jobs for dalits. But the practice persists in large pockets and is rarely punished.
Full story: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33569
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