Kathmandu, July 22- LANCAU (Lawyers National Campiagn Against Caste Discrimination) Nepal has organized the CA Interaction program entitled, “Ensuring Dalit Rights Through Constitution Building Process”.

The CA interaction program began with Inaugural function in the morning at 9:00 on 18 July 2009. The program was divided in two sessions- formal session and informal session. Informal session of the program was cheered by various dalit intellectuals, professionals activists and politicians. The chief guest for the informal session was Honorable General Administration Minister Jeetu Gautam. Expressing the relevance of the program in the present day context, Minister Gautam urged Dalits to take advantage of the Government making him the Minister of State for General Administration, as he showed his commitment to make the administration of Nepal more inclusive and would try his best to draw the attention of the government towards the issues of the dalit community. In the formal session, which was chaired by Damanath Dungana and facilitated by Subhash Darnal, three papers were presented by Adv. Ratna Bdr Bagchand, Adv. Dinesh Tripathi and Adv Narayan Nepal in order.

The objective of the program was highlighted by Ratna Bdr Bagchand (President of LANCAU Nepal) declaring that the program basically aims at interacting with CA members to draw the concrete ideas regarding the dalit agendas to be incorporated in the new constitution. For this purpose three concept papers developed by the three CA committees (Committee for the protection of Marginalized and Minority community, Committee on State Restructuring and Committee on Social and Cultural Solidarity) would be revisited and analyzed from dalit perspectives.

The First paper presenter Adv Ratna Bdr Bagchand made his comments on the concept paper issued by Committee for the Protection of Marginalized and Minority Community. He said that the committee should provide the broader definition of Marginalized and Minorities and asserted, “the word ‘dalit’ is essential for dalit moment, but its mention in Constitution might derive the negative results for the future, and therefore it should be removed and replaced with an alternative word to uphold the dignity of dalit community”. Similarly, he added that a system should be developed to provide citizenship with any surname of a citizen’s choice, because providing citizenship in the name of descent will ultimately promote the racial and caste stigma in the society. In this way, he provided his comments and suggestions to the CA members present in the program in order to make the constitution more scientific and more inclusive.

The next paper presenter Adv Dinesh Tripathi also provided his views on the concept paper issued by the State Restructuring Committee. He expressed that a system of positive discrimination needs to be adopted. The State restructure committee has to adopt the policy for the promotion of dalit occupations. Further, he added that at least 20% seats should be reserved in every level of the state machinery. He clarified that though the concept of non-territorial system of representation is raised by the committee, its details have not yet been explored, and the committee’s rationality of non-territorial system for dalits must be explained in the paper. He also added that laws regarding the positive discrimination need to be enacted within one year of promulgation of constitution.

The last paper presenter of the program was Adv. Narayan Nepal. His presentation focused on the concept paper issued by Social and Cultural Solidarity Committee. After analyzing the paper, he stated that the injustice done to dalit community by the state has to be explicitly mentioned in the preamble of the constitution of Nepal. He showed his concerns that only making Nepal as untouchability free country doesn’t make any difference unless proper laws and their execution made essential, which is unfortunately lacking in Nepal. The committee’s paper in this regard should include all these matters to address dalit issues in Nepal. He also added that Nepalese societal structure is discriminatory, and therefore this structure should be destroyed in order to create equitable society which can provide justice to all discriminated groups in Nepal. He explored the reality that the paper has followed the legacy of Interim constitution with regard to Dalit Rights against untouchability. In fact, only making untouchability punishable under the law will not address the problem, and thus the paper of the committee has to recommend a constitutional mechanism to eliminate the untouchability as well. He also added that in the present context the only way to address the problem of dalits is reservation, and only the reasonable and scientific reservation could provide the justice and bring them into the mainstream.

In this way, three paper presenters presented their papers with a very prositive influence on the CA’s committees. All the CA members appreciated and assessed the relevance of the program in the present context. They have expected similar kind of programs in the days to come from LANCAU, Nepal, and said that civil society and political parties have to put forward their steps simultaneously in this crucial stage in order to make the constitution very effective, realistic and inclusive.

Report by:
Bidhata Poudel
Ass Director (Law and Justice)
LANCAU Nepal