Saturday, August 17, 2013

As long as Nepal is crippled by caste, it shall remain an economic untouchable...

Lodged on the map between China and India, the two emerging economic titans, you'll find the tiny, landlocked country of Nepal. While its prospering neighbours dominate headlines, Nepal is a country left struggling to emerge from decades of uncertainty and conflict. The jobless rate is 46 per cent, and over half of the population don't attend secondary school. What's going wrong? The conclusion I've drawn, from living in Nepal is that its caste system, an archaic (and technically abolished, but still observed) form of social stratification, has become an almost insurmountable obstacle to development. It's a country imprisoned by its past.

I dined one night with Arjun, a member of the lowest caste. As we sat round the table in just candle light we ate our rice with lentil soup as the monsoon rain danced furiously on the tin roof. The power had been out for hours. Arjun said, "the lowest cast, to the other three casts, is like what the black man was to the white man". We both paused and took a swig of buffalo milk. He continued "my father worked for his whole life on the land of the Brahmin caste for little reward". Generation after generation, the caste system still divides.

 The Nepali caste system is largely similar to that of India. There are four principle castes: the highest is Brahmin, then Chhetri, the Royal Families caste, then Baise, and finally Sudra, the lowest caste colloquially known as the "untouchables". Beyond these there are intricacies within certain regions and ethnic groups. It's a complex system where your status and a large part of your identity are predetermined. Cultural behaviour is often informed by caste; for instance, a person of the Brahmin is unable to eat food prepared by the lower castes. There are also common surnames to people of each caste and particular jobs related. No one can escape this nightmare. Endogamy, the practice of marrying within one’s caste, is the norm. The son of my host had dared to marry a woman of a higher caste and this 18-year-old mother was disowned by her family for marrying below herself. I was staying in a village in western Nepal of just 300 people, yet – thanks to institutionalised inequality – often your neighbour was not your friend. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Nepal woman attacked as "witch", stripped naked, forced to eat excrement...
  2. Nepal police crack down on long hair...
  3. Nepal mob burns 'witch' alive in horrifying attack...
  4. Nobody wants to help us because we are dalits...
  5. Caste massacre in India. Welcome to 21st.century Indian apartheid.

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