Eliminate Kamaiya system

Apart from the religious  significance of Maghe Sakranti which falls today, it is also an occasion to reflect upon a social and economic injustice in the form of bonded labour that remains as persistent as it was a century back. The Kamaiya (bonded labourers) decide on this day whether they want to renew their yearly bonded contract with their landlord or enter into another contract with a new master. Such are the conditions among the Tharus of western Nepal that it is almost impossible for a  Kamaiya refuse to walk into one bad deal from another. And it is not just themselves who are sold into the bond but also their young sons and daughters. Often, the children are used as domestic servants and are thus deprived of their rights and opportunity. The fact that we have allowed this feudal exploitation to continue even to this day, the laws of the land notwithstanding, speaks most eloquently of the human rights situation in the country. To put it briefly, the existence of bonded labour in Nepal is a disgrace to the nation.

The Kamaiya among the Tharus are so indebted to their landlords that more often than not, the labours of their life become a form of debt servicing. When the Kamaiya are paid at the end of the year, they can hardly expect anything more than the paltry sum of two to five thousand rupees. If the struggle for survival does indeed trap the Kamaiya in a life akin to semi-slavery, then government apathy to their plight has condemned them to it. For political parties, Kamaiya emancipation at best serves as a political slogan during election. It is also a fact that many leaders who hail from the landed gentry especially from west Nepal keep Kamaiyas. As for the NGOs involved in this area, their activities have borne little fruit. Though awareness has begun to dawn among the Tharus, they are trapped in helpless bondage.

Successive governments have not been able to eliminate this system of bonded labour although it goes against the principles, the very spirit of the constitution and the law of the land. This is failure to ensure the rights of the Tharus. The government cannot allow this system to continue and it is within its power to put an end to it. First, the laws must be strictly implemented. Secondly, the emancipation of Kamaiyas is possible only if they are provided with the opportunities such as education, and income generating schemes which will enable them to get out of the vicious trap of bonded labour that has been continuing through generations. For this, government agencies and non-governmental organisations must work together. It is indeed high time the government began to take the issue of bonded labour in the country seriously.

A panacea for loss making enterprises

-By Krishna Prasad Acharya

The market failure arguments led to the expansion of public sector enterprises in the world during the 1950s. Governments created corporations to produce goods or provide services because private sectors were unable to offer the services. In the case of Nepal, public sector enterprises were established for providing and expanding infrastructure services, producing and delivering essential goods, creating employment opportunities and increasing government revenue. Nepal  Bank Limited was the first corporate form of public enterprises in Nepal. The majority of state owned  enterprises (SOEs) came into existence during the 1960s and early ’70s. For instance, about 27 enterprises were established during the fourth Five Year Plan which may be called the growth period of public enterprises in Nepal. The main reason for the expansion of public enterprises in this period was that on the one hand the private sector was not fully developed, while on the other hand there was the availability of foreign aid especially for creating new enterprises. By the end of the seventh Five Year Plan there were 62 SOEs in Nepal.

Problems: The global recession of the 1980s prompted many countries to reform their fiscal deficit. The third world governments were severely affected  by this economic crisis. Therefore, public sector enterprises proved to be inefficient and wasteful to economy. They were making huge losses to the government treasury. SOEs were plagued with poor management and auditing system, low productivity of workers, very low performance, employment centre for politicians, political interference, corruption and unsatisfactory pricing policies. Similarly, SOEs were heavily subsidized in input, credit and taxes so that government invested a lot of money to those inefficient enterprises as a subsidy and subvention that resulted in a huge fiscal deficit. Because of these problems state enterprises are still to be called ‘white elephant’ which indicates that government has to invest a lot of money but the return on investment is less than one percent. Hence, privatization has been seen as a panacea for loss making enterprises.

Why privatization: Nepal has followed an open, liberal, transparent and market oriented economy since 1990s. Economic liberalization, privatization and globalisation were the buzz words of every political leader in the beginning of the 1990s. In Nepal, for the first time, the Nepali Congress government privatized three corporations in 1992 through the sale of assets and sixteen public sector enterprises have been partially for fully privatized to date. Other public sector enterprises including natural monopoly are in the process of privatization. Privatization Act also came into effect on Jan 3, 1994.

The main objectives of privatization are to lessen the financial burden of the government to improve efficiency of ailing enterprises and to involve the private sector in the economic activities of the country. Privatization encourages efficiency and efficient market provision and competition reduces government expenditure, lowers costs and increases output and revenue. There are different modalities of privatization, namely, sale of assets, transfer of management and ownership, management employee buyouts, partnership, leases, contract and liquidation. The assessment of privatized enterprises of Nepal indicates that except for some enterprises most of the industries have shown positive results. If the privatized enterprises are run with a commercial motive and in an efficient manner, they can earn profits by increasing productivity that results in cost and price reduction.

Most of the public sector enterprises in the country have incurred heavy losses so that government has to allocate much of its resources to those loss making enterprises as a subsidy, which could be diverted to the social sector, for example in education and health. Although some of the SOEs have been profitable, a large number are economically inefficient. The World Bank has also supported the privatization programme for economic development and reduction of poverty.

Conclusion: The Ministry of Finance recently published a report about the performance of PEs. It indicated that out of 43 public sector corporations only 13 SOEs were audited in the Fiscal Year 2054-55. The most interesting thing is that the Nepalese government invested Rs 590 billion for 43 state enterprises but the return was just 0.16 percent. It can undoubtedly be stated that the performance of public sector enterprises in Nepal is very poor. Seeing this poor performance, even foreign observers and economic experts have strongly suggested privatization of ailing industries. They have also stressed that the political leaders should give top priority to this matter. Hence, it may be safely concluded that, in the present reality of the country’s overall economic condition and the manner in which the state owned enterprises are functioning, privatization is only one panacea for the loss making enterprises.

Money mystique

-By D L Bhandari

Mankind has compiled a huge  body of knowledge in the course of millennia gone by. To start with only Newton, who set the ball rolling by explaining reasons behind apple that fell, to quantum computer which will solve Fermat’s last theorem and Reiman’s hypothesis within seconds, all discoveries in science have indeed been epochal and fulfilling.

(Remember while the former takes three hundred years to solve, the latter has never been solved to date!) 

But far less people have heard about it or tend to seriously believe at all in researches done in the field of metaphysics and the occult which can be as fulfilling. Have you ever heard that Newton’s third law which reads something like actions and reactions are equal and opposite also governs our efforts to make money, and most important of all, multiply it?

I am talking about money mystique theory which, inter alia, argues that money is something which ought to be on the eternal journey from one person to the other. Newton’s third law has been accepted as the underlying principle. You hand out money (for good causes) and you are handed out the same at remarkably the same frequency.

How nice but how incalculably risky you might say.

To be more to the point, it should be handed out to the needy not expecting it to be paid back if one expects to be rich ever after. Further, the receiver should make it a point to pay the money back unless of course he does not want to be confronted by penury. For borrowing money and not paying back is one of the  major reasons behind one remaining in timeless state of penury, the money mystique theory says.

Said conversely, the giver should refrain from taking back money handed out. Someone else will give him.

One more strand of metaphysical thought associated with money-making mystique is spending it on one’s needs without economising at all. One must eat and dress well (and perhaps live in a beautiful house, if I may say so, in the modern context) to be entitled to dollops of money coming one’s way.

Now let me narrate my own experience. I have personally seen many people pawning and selling the family assets to maintain their flying lifestyle on even keel at all cost. That was in the absence of substantial income coming their way. I have also seen them virtually minting money by millions in their course of life.

Many of us can not dare to do what many in their eventful course of life have done or may do. But one thing which is indisputable at least in the karmic and metaphysical terms is that charity and obeying karmic laws pay. But, as goes without saying, it is near baptism by fire to spend money freely unless of course you can do it. I drop the idea of adding to the personal and family effects a number of times.

In the final run, even as most of us vainly believe in economising and making our life miserable, apologists of the theory have willingly attributed even growing corporate success to charity. To draw an analogy, while Acharya Bhagwan Rajneesh propagated that sexual urges should not be suppressed in the interest of full blown personality and fulfilment, apologists of money mystique theory hold that money ought to spend and spend to attract it towards one. But can all of us do it? I, for one, can’t.

Woman’s fate under dowry system

-By Hari Bansh Jha

Even as the entire world is celebrating  the new millennium with a pomp and show, girls and women of the Terai region of Nepal have not found any reason to be excited, as they are not quite hopeful that the new age will eliminate the plague of dowry system. A fat dowry (Tilak), apart from her beauty, is needed for a girl to get a suitable bridegroom. There is no end to the mental and physical torture that a bride is prone to face in case she fails to meet the greed of their in-laws.

In many unscrupulous families, a bride is tortured and, sometimes, even killed when she fails to comply with the demand of the bridegroom or his in-laws which might be in the form of a wrist watch, a refrigerator, a TV set, a transistor, a motorcycle, a Maruti car or anything like that.

Formerly, the main qualification for a girl to find a good match was her skill in homestead work, including in painting, embroidery, knitting and basketry. Now, education, though important, does not necessarily ensure her the same.

The old Hindu scriptures like the Rigveda and the Atharva Veda give several accounts of the dowry system. The Mahabharat presents an account of dowry, which the bride used to bring in the form of gold, silver, cows and horses. However, little evidence is found of the torture inflicted upon women during those days if they failed to bring adequate dowry from their parents. While the  present day dowry is forceful and thus a curse for women’s dignity, the dowry in the past used to be voluntary in nature.

Unfortunately, only such a person is given a higher status in the society who receives a fat amount of Tilak in the marriage of his son. Likewise, the person who pays a fat dowry for the marriage of his daughter is also given a higher status. In many cases, the guardians of the boy and the girl even take accounts of Tilak by inflating its figure with the objective of achieving a higher status in the society.

Even if the guardian of the girl is not in a position to pay Tilak in cash and in kind, he does so by taking loans or by disposing of his landed property. Many parents go bankrupt and become paupers when they have to pay dowry for the marriage of their daughters. At times the marriage between a girl and a boy even breaks down when the guardian of the girl fails to pay the agreed amount of dowry.

Yet, there are some people who neither give Tilak nor accept it which is called aadarsh bibah (ideal marriage). But the number of the people opting for such kind of marriage is rather low. In fact, many of the parents who claim to have gone in for such marriage of their sons are even found to have extorted from the girl’s parents property to an worse extent. Such hypocrites give an impression as if they have not received Tilak during the marriage of their sons. But they take it secretly on top of receiving many valuable items, like golden ornaments, TV sets, refrigerators, motorcycles, cars etc.

Tilak is customary both among the rich and the poor people in several communities of the Terai region. The price of the boy like that of a commodity or an animal depends largely on his property, educational background and the nature of job he does. In the poor families with no educational background, dowry amount might range between US $ 100 to 200. But the price of a boy having secondary level eduction and with some parental property is no less than US $ 2000 no matter whether he is jobless. If one is a graduate or post graduate degree holder and is having employment, one’s price may even exceed US $ 4000.  An engineer costs something like US $ 5000 to 7000. And an MBBS doctor costs something between US $ 7000 to 14,000, over and above a car, a TV set and several other items. Though the figures given here are in dollar considering the interests of the international community, the dowry deal is invariably in Indian currency rather than in Nepalese currency.

Bindu Jha, a girl from Janakpur is so disenchanted with the dowry system that in one of her articles in The Rising Nepal she wrote, “I’d rather remain a spinster than marry a man who demands dowry. I call him a beggar, respectfully, a high class beggar.”   Indeed, a  man who looks for an educated and beautiful wife but at the same time rapaciously seeks money is not educated in the real sense. Rather, such a man is actually getting married with Maruti car, motorcycle, TV set or refrigerator..., but in no way with the girl in question.

Interestingly enough, every year a marriage fair is arranged among the Maithil Brahmins of Nepal and India at a place called Sabhagaachhi, which is located in Madhubani district of Bihar, India. In this fair, the guardians of the girl and the boy participate and settle the marriages of their wards. Dowry serves as a basis for settling the marriage. Because of the open border between Nepal and India, several Nepalese Brahmins also participate in this fair. Yet, people now feel humiliated to go to this place as many organisations and even women’s groups have protested against the dowry system.

The Shiva Linga near the Sabhagaachhi is grossly misused during the settlement of marriage. Since the guardian of the boy is unknown about the girl, he wants some proof of the girl’s qualification. Because there is no tradition of bringing the girl to the Sabhagaachhi, guardians of the girl take an oath in support of his statements by touching the Shiva Linga.

In the past, Sabhagaachhi was widely revered among the Maithil Brahmins of Nepal and India. Thousands of boys with certain educational background used to participate in academic debates. It was there that the guardians of the girls selected suitable boys for their wards.

Because of the rise in awareness in the recent years, several women of the Terai region of Nepal have expressed their feeling against the dowry system. Daulat Pandey says, “The girls will have to be united in their right fight against the dowry system.” One Sumitra Jha says, “Equal legal rights in the parental property can alone reduce the dowry system.” Likewise, in the opinion of Raj Kumari, one should neither take dowry nor give it. “I oppose the dowry system because I am not capable of paying it,” reports Bina Devi, whereas Indrakala Devi observes, “Dowry system will be eliminated once the women challenge this cancer-like disease.”

Dr Banshidhar Mishra, MP ( CPN-UML) states, “The dowry system has been a serious problem in the country, particularly in the Terai. The girls and women should be given adequate education to get rid of this problem. Experience has shown that those who educate their daughters are less burdened by the problem.” Khushilal Mandal, a senior member of Nepal Sadbhavana Party, observes,  “The dowry should be banished because it is an injustice against women.” Parashu Narayan Chaudhary, President of Terai Development Forum and Vice President of Rastriya Prajatantra Party states, “The dowry system is spreading as a cancerous disease in various parts of the country. This problem is affecting the Tharu and even certain hill communities. The concerned bodies need to take appropriate steps to address this problem.”

In their bid to raise social awareness against dowry, certain groups in the Terai region of Nepal made documentary films, including Mithilak Byatha and Hansha Chalal Pardesh both in Maithili language. The pathetic life of the Maithil women and also the dowry related problems were shown in these films. There are also certain documentary films on dowry system in Bhojpuri language.

In Nepal, the Social Customs and Practices Act prohibits the dowry system but there is not a single case where guilty are punished. Watch groups should see to it that the law is implemented. Students, government as well as non governmental bodies and even international organisations should launch awareness campaign against the dowry system. Inter-caste marriage, groups marriage and the participation of women in the decision making should be encouraged to tackle this social evil. Human rights groups must incorporate the dowry issue in their agenda, as it is a direct violation of women’s rights.