Effective implementation of policies stressed

By A Staff Reporter

KATHMANDU, Dec. 22: Minister for Physical Planning and Works Narayan Singh Pun handed over today Rs. 100,000 to a blind couple, who were ostracized by the society for entering into intercaste marriage.

"My guardians expelled us from the home after they came to know that my wife, Rupa, came from a scheduled caste, said Gyanendra Nepal of Chandeshwari, Kavre adjoining Kathmandu. Gyanendra, a Brahmin married Rupa from Jita of Lamjung two years ago.

According to Nepal, he had asked the Blind Welfare Association to find him a bride who would love him. The association had proposed Rupa. "Although they told me she was of the Biswokarma caste, I accepted it heartily," said Nepal. But my uncle, Hari Prasad Nepal, former president of Chandeshwari Village Development Committee and a CPN-UML member told me to take her back or leave the house, Gyanendra told journalists. So I brought her to Kathmandu under the protection of Feminist Dalit Organisation (FEDO).

"We have neither any job nor a home to stay. God has not heard our prayers," they said.
This is not a penultimate incident in Nepalese society. There are many couples who must face ordeals due to prevailing racial discrimination in the society. Saying that all human beings are equal, Minister Pun said that discrimination is a bi-product of our society, so we must solve the problem ourselves.

At the programme, Minister Pun declared himself the guardian of the couple and gave assurances that he would bring sound programmes for the welfare of the dalits.Dalit women are doubly discriminated in our society, said Durga Sob Bishwakarma, president of FEDO. "Firstly, they are victims of patriarchal values, and secondly of racial segregation," she said.She, therefore, called for gender mainstreaming. Extreme poverty and deprivation often leads to sexual and other exploitations of these woman. A dalit woman's life is painful and miserable," she said.

Ten per cent of the Nepalese population and 20 per cent of the women face extreme difficulties.
Assistant Minister Prakash Chitrakar Pariyar for Land Reforms, stressing on the effective implementation of policies and laws, said that discrimination not only exists in between dalits and non-dalits but also among the dalits themselves. "So, unless we change our mentality, we can not rid the society of discrimination," added Minister Pariyar.

At the programme on 'Racial and gender discrimination resistance for development: intercaste marriage for social change', Dr. Durga Pokhrel, president of National Women's Commission, Rishibabu Pariyar, National Assembly member, Padam Bishwokarma, president of National Dalits Commission expressed solidarity with the women and dalits for their rights.

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