Creating a better life for Nepal’s lowest caste
Graduate student Bishnu Pariyar is changing a 2,000-year-old caste system one woman at a time
By Colleen Mullaney Photo by Rob Carlin
Bishnu Maya Pariyar, a graduate student in Clark’s International Development, Community and Environment Program, stands approximately five feet tall. To the Dalit people, the lowest caste in Nepal, she is a giant.
Pariyar has defied a more than 2,000-year-old caste system by becoming an educated Dalit woman. She is going even further, breaking down the rigid Hindu caste system of Nepal by empowering other Dalit women through education and micro-finance groups.
Pariyar’s story begins in the remote village of Taklung located in the Gorkha Province of Western Nepal. One of 11 children of subsistence farmers, her family lives under a caste system, a strict hereditary social class system in Hinduism that restricts people’s occupations as well as their association with people from other castes. Pariyar and her family are members of the Dalit and the sub-caste, Damai. They are in charge of sewing and repairing clothing for approximately 90 to 120 upper-caste families, or bistas, with compensation of one basket of corn per year. They are also bound to perform traditional music at any ceremonies their bistas may have. This can occur several times per week, with no compensation and relentless abuse and criticism.
Dreaming of a better life By age 10, Pariyar had already witnessed caste discrimination by seeing her father humiliated in front of his children and listening to her neighbor being beaten by her husband. Pariyar knew that she herself could be that woman in a few years. Even worse was the widespread acceptance of this as God’s will unto them, “the untouchables.” But for Pariyar, it was unacceptable.
“I would always hear the crisis next door and say to myself, ‘Why doesn’t she stand up for herself and her children? Why does she not say anything?’” Pariyar recalls. “Then I realized that if she had independence she could take care of her children and herself. If there were laws against this, she could go to the police, but there are none. There isn’t even any solidarity between the women because they are not allowed to talk to each other. I always wanted to do something about it but it was only my dream.”
She collected stray rice and millet grains left after the harvest to save money for the education her father could not provide. Pariyar earned enough to attend a secondary school two hours away by foot, over the mountainside of Western Nepal.
Tormented by students and teachers, unable to drink from the same vessel as her high-caste classmates and unwilling to experience the further humiliation of purifying a vessel touched by her sub-human lips, she spent her days thirsty, tired and abused, but not defeated. Still required to help tend to the chores, Pariyar studied while she took animals to pasture. She was the first girl in her community, of any caste, to graduate from high school. Pariyar attended Tribuvan University in Katmandu on a scholarship from the Himalayan Foundation and earned a degree in social work.
The dream becomes reality Pariyar then worked for the Self Help Development Program, a nonprofit organization created to assist women and children through business and loan programs. After two years of fighting with her director to lend to Dalits, she conceded that this program would never do so. She quit her position, but did not give up.
“They were not helping the poorest-of-the-poor people,” Pariyar says. “I could not help crying every day and this opened my eyes. I said ‘Why don’t I establish my own program to help these people?’”
Pariyar decided to bring her business plan to three American women who, in turn, gave her the seed money to start a micro-financing group for Dalit women. She taught women literacy and basic math skills, then gave them loans to start businesses of their own. She started two more groups, leaving the newly empowered women in charge of their new business ventures. They grew into fully self-reliant, women-led financial organizations with the purpose of educating other Dalit women and men while building their common fund. They inspired many others to become a part of this organization, which was quickly spreading a sense of pride and commitment. So began the Association of Dalit Women of Nepal, now called Empower Dalit Women of Nepal (EDWON).
Impressed by the changes that EDWON brought to Pariyar’s village in Ghorka, an American, Eva Kasell, offered Pariyar sponsorship to attend college in the United States. Pariyar earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Mass. She is currently earning her master’s degree in international development and social change at Clark.
Returning to Nepal Pariyar remains committed to the now 1,500 women she has helped in Nepal. More than 700 children have been awarded scholarships to secondary school. One village was able to purchase its own water tap and build a temple where people of all castes worship together. They now drink from the same vessels—regardless of caste—and they openly confide in one another. Domestic violence has dramatically decreased in villages where these groups have been formed.
After graduating from Clark, Pariyar plans to go back to Nepal. Pariyar feels that she will be most useful working hand-in-hand with her compatriots at the grassroots level—not just talking about change, but teaching others how to implement it. She hopes to apply what she’s learned at Clark to the problems in Nepal.
“I have learned so much from other students and teachers, all of whom have been to other third-world countries,” Pariyar says.
She feels that she has been able to educate her classmates and professors at Clark about the caste system and the plight of the Dalit people, and says she is grateful for the accepting and socially conscious learning environment Clark provides. She knows that she could live a comfortable life in the United States, but her conscience is her guide. She knows it will lead her back to Nepal.
For more information about EDWON, visit the Web site www.EDWON.org.
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Bishnu Maya Pariyar