Butwal Example
COMING as it does after Prime Minister Sher
Bahadur Deuba’s announcement at the House of Representatives the other day to launch
a renewed battle against untouchability, the plan to declare Butwal a discrimination-free
town assumes a great significance. Dalit organisations have gathered in the town over the
past days in an exemplary exercise to declare the town free of caste-based
discriminations. The response from the local authorities has been encouraging. Butwal
municipality mayor assured a gathering of media people and Dalit activists participating
in a seminar entitled "Information Campaign against Caste Discrimination" that
steps would soon be taken to declare the city so. While a declaration per se would not do
away with this social evil rooted in the age-old practices, such a move would surely have
a meaningful symbolic value. If Butwal is declared a model town that does not tolerate
caste-based discriminations, other towns and villages could find inspiration from it and
do likewise. However, many measures will have to be put in place to change the ground
reality of everyday discrimination that Dalits face all over the country. Of course, there
are some legislations that bar such chauvinism and the perpetrators are liable to be fined
or incarcerated or both. But experience has shown that even with these laws in place,
Dalits face an uphill task in seeking justice for a variety of reasons, so ingrained are
the societal prejudices. Conviction of an offender on the basis of these laws is extremely
rare. There is clearly a need to introduce more stringent legal steps that are pro-Dalit.
True, attitudinal changes take years or even
decades to change, especially when the bigotry is so deeply entrenched. But one has to
question whether enough is being done to bring the Dalit issues into a sharper profile. It
is here that media have a big role to play. In general, Nepalese media have been found
wanting in highlighting the caste-based discriminations with the same zeal that they
employ, for example, in uncovering financial irregularities. One of the recommendations of
the media seminar in Butwal was precisely related to getting media to investigate these
issues while the other urged the government to regularly publicise that the practice of
untouchability was a punishable crime. Dalit issues may come to the fore with increasing
frequency in the media only if there are enough journalists from the Dalit communities.
Both the government and the non-government media sectors should have an active policy to
recruit hands from these communities. In the meantime, may other towns and villages too
learn from Butwal’s example.
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