By Meera Rajbhandari Amatya
Gaan Gaam Dana Va, Vasti Vastin Dana Va
Thwa deya khwa: hile ta dana wa
36 years ago in Nepal Samvat 1102, in the context of May Day, Shyam Tamot wrote in the ‘Gathu’ song collection for social awakening, trying to bring awareness to the working class through this song in the context of the distortions in the society and the rights of the workers. However, even though they are residents of the democratic republic of Nepal, when will the poor Newar community become citizens of the new Nepal with social transformation?
When will every citizen of the state be able to realize the human rights to live with self-respect and security of gas, shelter and cotton and the rights mentioned in international treaties, conventions, human rights and other documents? This question is very complicated in the context of Dyola castes of Bhaktapur.
65-year-old Sanu Mai was crouching inside a tin-roofed hut in the harsh winter of January-February and feeding her grandchildren. Some of the houses around his camp were under construction and some had already been built.
Why didn’t you make a house “Bajai” (Grandma)? While asking this question to her she counters questioned in her response and said that she had no son to earn money and no land ownership certificate. As in her own language Newari- “purja maru, dayak Bima kaye maru, thake dheba maru, ale gathe yong daykegu?” then bozu, how to build a house?” (I have no official permit paper, I have no son who could build the house, no money I have, then how can rebuild my home?).
Husband’s demise without getting land ownership certificate! Burden added by the earthquake
Sanu Mai’s husband left this world 34 years ago running from the local authority to the Land Revenue Office (Malpot Adda) to get the land ownership certificate of their house where they were born and died for long. He left, taking with him the dream of keeping Sanu Mai in a small leaky house with a land ownership certificate in his lifetime.
He used to say, don’t worry, even if you don’t have a son, I will make this house better by owning a land ownership certificate, there are daughters. However, his life was spent searching the doors of the ministry and the Land Revenue Office in the hope of getting a land ownership certificate, old Sanu Mai’s voice became sick as he spoke. And she looked at the sky with dismay, maybe to stop the babbling.
Now the Hanumante river has changed its course, the water flowing in the river is sometimes flowing and sometimes dirty, and the process of changing its form has continued. However, there has been no change in the lifestyle of these tribal Newah: a community who have been fishing in the same Hanumante river for centuries and cleaning the towns and villages.
When their house was destroyed by the earthquake in 2007, they were not able to rebuild these due to the government policies and the difficulties of not having a land ownership certificate.
On 25 April 2015 his house, which was built for only a small amount of money, was destroyed. Due to the lack of a land ownership certificate, she was deprived of the amount given by the government of Nepal for house demolition, the amount given for winter clothes and the amount given for house repair and reconstruction, but she is also deprived of the amount given for house reconstruction up to NRs 50 thousand and 2 lakh.
Hundreds of Dyola communities like “Sanu Mai” had to be deprived of the support they would get from the Nepal government during the earthquake due to the lack of land ownership certificates. Only 87 households in Bhelukhel located in Ward No. 5 of Bhaktapur Municipality, which has a total of 1249 households, do not have land ownership certificates.
Most of the houses in this area have been destroyed and some have left only one floor to cover their heads. Due to the lack of a land ownership certificate, the villagers of this area have not been able to repair and rebuild their houses.
In the cold of December and January, the tin roof has become crueller for Sanu Mai. Drops of rain and winter frosts are bothering the old Sanu Mai when holes appear in the thin zinc on the roof.
Election campaign materials are teasing
Now the local government has also come, and a new government is also being formed, when the election candidates came to ask for votes, did you not request the leaders to prepare the house? In response, she said, ‘How many leaders have come and gone asking for votes like this, asking for votes, saying that they will build houses and provide land ownership certificates but it went in vain! Our lifestyle is like this, since 1985, this country is not a boon for poor people like us.
None of the political parties and leaders who have reached different levels and levels of the state has raised their voice for the security of the housing of these indigenous tribal. It hurts the hearts of these people to hear the leaders who have been asking for votes by showing assurances and dreams and have reached the political level after winning and making big speeches.
The residents of this area say that most of the people in this area voted for the UML, Nepal Communist Party in the last local level, House of Representatives and State Assembly elections. They say that they have always voted for UML, in every election held in the past.
Due to the dominance of UML in this area, their experience is that the candidates do not even come to ask for votes. However, at this time in the House of Representatives and the Provincial Assembly, some leaders of other parties have come to ask for votes and hope that the winning party will do something, says Naveen Dyola, a local youth.
In this Dyola village of Bhelukhel, UML’s propaganda materials and flags are still scattered around. Dilapidated and colorless, these promotional materials seem to be teasing the lives of these slum dwellers and the ruins of their ruined homes.
There is a bill for electricity and water, but there is no Land Ownership Certificate, why?
Most of the 87 households in Bhelukhel, which have small houses built on an area of a small sum of money, have electricity and electricity bills. Even though there has been no distribution of pipeline drinking water for years, the payment of water bills continues.
Even though the water and electricity bills are paid, now due to the lack of wealth, it is difficult to divide the houses that have been separated, from dividing the houses to install new electric lights. The problem of not being able to build a house destroyed in an earthquake is the same.
After all, why is there such a difference with Bhaktapur? The reason for this is the dispute with other local ethnic groups. According to the locals, the fight over the kites that took place in the year 1970 may have continued until now.
In the year 1970, on the day of the Dashain Teeka festival, there was a fight between local Bhelukhel residents and other communities over a kite. The dispute was prolonged and reconciled only in 1976.
When the surveyor came in the year 1985, it was not possible to survey the houses of the tribal tribes. When the staff of the surveyor refused to measure again saying that the survey map had already been done in the past, the local people including Maila Babu started running to the surveyor’s office including the local Nagar Panchayat.
The secret is that most of the villagers left their homes when the Land Survey Department of the year 1964 comes because of the fear that he has come to catch them or kill them. Discarded and deprived of education in the past, they became the victims of wars and killings during the Rana Regime, these indigenous Dyola could not understand why the workers came to measure their households.
Due to the lack of identification of who owns the house, the surveyors have just surveyed one block where they mapped the houses, drainage, villages, and public lands and they disappeared after submitting the report to the Land Surveyors Department on 23 August 1965.
In this way, their households could not be included in the survey map even in the survey of the 1985 year due to being missed in the survey at that time.
At the same time, after the re-establishment of democracy in 1989, the locals submitted a joint petition of 82 people to the then Land Revenue Office. Dyolas requested the land ownership certificate after re-surveying their place and collecting the evidence.
Even after the letter reached Kathmandu via Bhaktapur Land Revenue Department and the operational activities for the necessary action, the necessary action for Land Ownership Certificate has been halted until now because the then administration did not show interest.
At the same time, 87 households including Maila Babu Dyola and Motimaya Pode submitted a request to the then Minister of Land Reforms on 23rd September 1997, asking them to re-measure the land and map their houses and give them the land ownership certificate.
In the petition, it was also mentioned that the landless Squatter Commission was formed when the UML was in power in 1994 and that the petition was filed by the victims but there was no hearing.
Time and again, sometimes going through the Bhaktapur Land Commission Office to reach the Land Commission Department in Kathmandu and sometimes knocking on the door of the Minister of Land Reforms, finally when the then administration showed no interest in the re-survey map, they reached the then UML Prime Minister Madhav Nepal in 2009 with detailed information on the matter.
However, the voices of the victims could not be addressed even by the leadership of the UML, which showed the dream of a new Nepal with social transformation. Even though the then Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal said that an initiative would be taken for this, it was not heard.
Mailababu’s question
The General Secretary of “Newa De Dabu” Central and President of Dyola Samaj, Maila Babu Dyola, has his house map passed for reconstruction by the Bhaktapur Municipality in the year 1973. “If this land was not our land, then, on what basis did the city panchayat pass the map?” Maila Babu asks – “Isn’t this something that will cause grief to the innocent poor?”
The innocent dream of the Dyolas to demarcate the real estate in their birthplace and get the landowner’s supply was overshadowed due to sometimes the restoration of democracy, sometimes the ten years of armed conflict of Maoist and sometimes the massacres for the people’s movement of 2005/2006.
Due to internal conflicts, these issues and sufferings were never seen by Nepal’s bureaucracy and leadership. Nor did the issue of registering them as residents and giving them Lal Purja even enter the parliament meetings.
For the past 34 years, they have been waiting to get a land ownership certificate by registering them as an indigenous tribe Newah: to the concerned department, but their effort went in vain in the years 1985, 1997, 2006, and 2009 respectively and even after the massive earthquake on 25 April 2015, the indigenous people of 87 households, including Mailababu Dyola, are living in the hope of getting the land ownership certificate.
Elsewhere, some of these 87 households have died after hearing the news that the other people have received land ownership certificates in the name of squatters in the other district and that they have gradually made economic progress. However, the hope of getting a land ownership certificate during they get alive is still not dead.
Article 25 of the Constitution of Nepal 2015 has guaranteed the right to property to every citizen. Article 37 clearly states that under the right to housing, every citizen has the right to suitable housing and according to the law, no citizen shall be removed or encroached from the housing owned by him.
In the same way, the Directive Principles of the state said that policies will be adopted to identify farmers and herdsmen, landless squatters, etc.
However, despite drawing such blueprints in the constitution and laws for the landless or squatters, it has not been possible to do so in practice. Similarly, the International Labor Convention ILO 169 and other treaties have also provided for the rights and access of indigenous peoples to the land. That too has not come into the practice for landless Dyola.
Who is Dyola?
Nepal is a country with a mixture of ethnic diversity and sub-castes. On top of that, the caste structure and diversity within the Newar community are intertwined. The Newah: are indigenous Nationalities of Nepal. Dyola community exists as a sub-community of this Newah: community.
Although this community was considered untouchable in the past, the same community is considered as priest or protector in various temples. There is no reason to call them untouchables or Dalit because they have been given important responsibilities such as arranging “Yosin” in Newah: Fairs (Jatra) along with the arrangement of offering free pigs, ducks, fish etc. in various temples and especially in Taleju Temple of Bhaktapur.
Since there is ethnic diversity in the Newah: community, there is no evidence in the history of Nepal as to where the Dyola community came from. From an anthropological point of view, Rash Joshi, a professor of Nepal language, has mentioned in his book ‘Newah: Samajaya Dyola’ that today’s Dyolas can be considered the first or the oldest Indigenous people of Newah, based on the fact that the first indigenous people lived near the river or on the right and left side of the water or river.
Similarly, comparing them with the “Chandals” mentioned in the travel diary of Chinese traveler Huyan Sang, Fahriyan and Kautilya’s Economics, there is a stark difference in the lifestyle and role of the mentioned “Chandals” in society.
In the Newah: society, the lifestyle and role of Dyolas do not even match with the current so-called Dalit community. Since the Dyolas are in charge of taking care of the priests, patrons and the ornaments of the gods and goddesses in various temples and “Peeth” (Ancestorial Devotee Place: there may or may not be such idols but carved or not carved simple stones for worship are placed for ritual porous, where Newah: civilizations (communities) worship in the occasions of ceremonial events belongs to the womb to tomb) in places like Bhaktapur, Banepa, Kathmandu and Panauti, there is a lot of bases for them not to be divided into Brahmins, Kshetris, Vaishyas and Shudras based on the Hindu Religion Barnashrama.
Dalits based in the current so-called Hindu Varnashrams are not even allowed to enter the temple. Also, the rituals of Dyolas and the worshipers of some temples of the supposedly higher level and Guthi who live with Dyolas or “Dyo:pala” have to eat each other’s impure food, it is confirmed that the Dyolas are not the supposed Dalits and the ancient Shudras or Chandals of today.
It is proved that the Dyolas belonged to the Dyola caste as it is mentioned as ‘the settlement of the Dyola in one of the records obtained from the Guthi of the Dyola of Bhaktapur Bhelukhel or Bhelukhyo: (Nepal Samvat 879).
Jayasthiti Malla re-introduced the caste system with the help of five Maithil Brahmins Kirtinath Upadhyay and others under the pretext of establishing a legacy in an unorganized and unrestricted society. It can be considered that the ancient religious castes such as Brahmins, and Doms who entered the Lichhavi period, after entering Nepal, were mixed or mixed in these places and were placed in the category of Dom who entered with the Lichchavis over time. Based on this, there is a lot of evidence that the Dyolas are older residents than the other tribals or Licchavis here.
If we think about the Newah: architectural structure, these Dyola castes are considered to be fighters who are assigned to safeguard the city, sitting outside the main gate at the head or side of it. Scholars say that they had their own country and state in the past, but over time, after other races won the state, the leaders committed suicide and the rest of them were kept at a very low level.
However, the tradition of Dyoalas in temples including Suryavinayak in Bhaktapur district still remains. In Kathmandu, Takhati Azima, Kankeshwari, Maitidevi and in Lalitpur Mahalakshmi, Chamunda and other temples, the tradition of Dyolas as priests are still intact.
Nareshbir Shakya, a Nepal language expert and journalist, says that even though every ruler came to Kathmandu valley over time, they had to remain confined to the same status due to their lifestyle and discrimination and behavior by the state.
Even now, there has been no significant change in the lifestyle and customs of the Dyolas. The tradition of debating among the five groups (Panchas) to settle their disputes since their house quarrels are still in place. They consider this as a state ritual before losing their state power.
However, the tradition of Dyolas in temples including Suryavinayak in Bhaktapur district still remains. In Kathmandu, Takhati Azima, Kankeshwari, Maitidevi and in Lalitpur Mahalakshmi, Chamunda and other temples, the tradition of Dyolas as priests are still intact.
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