The Dalits of Nepal

Bhim Bahadur Rasali, freedom fighter!

Day 2 continued – The Dalits of Nepal

The most notable thing about day 2 was just how crowded the hospital became and how many people jostled to be seen. This day I also met Bhim Bahadur Rasaili (first name Bhim, pronounced “Bim”), a local man who is a reporter and who came to talk with us. He publishes and prints his own paper, the Himalpariko Awaj Weekly. He's a most impressive guy—he fights for the rights of the Dalit, who are the untouchable class in Nepal. Nepal does indeed have a class system and it is supposedly modeled off of the Hindu class system of India (http://www.dwo.org.np/dalit.php). We were very interested in talking with Bhim—unfortunately by the time we sat down, it was after dinner and I was so jet lagged and tired that the conversation wasn't as thorough as I would have liked. Between being exhausted and freezing cold in the dark room that we met, I did the best I could to absorb information from Bhim. Bhim is himself of the Dalit class. He also happens to be an albino, and from his self-possession I can't tell if this fact has been an added impediment or an added incentive to become the self-made man that he is. On the day I met him at the hospital he was full of questions to me, including inquiries into my opinion on the differences between Nepal and the United States and the rights of women, and other similar concerns. All I could think of was how impressed I was that this man could rise above his class designation (which relegates people to low-level unskilled labor with no hope of mobility and assigned restrictions across the board including who one can marry), to be this sharp and intelligent reporter, courageously defying barriers that most of us in the US have barely even had to think about, and he continues to try to inform people like us of what happens to those in his class. Subarna, his longtime friend, calls him a 'troublemaker'. He let us know how grateful for our services the Dalit people were—that they were happy to be treated well. That they were happy not to be treated differently than others. That most don't get treated at all on a regular basis. And he made light of his wish that they would be able to have increased services in this area, in particular for dental issues. If we could ever find funding for a dental clinic that would be most appreciated. We just wished it could be that easy, but it was indeed great to hear first-hand how impactful the clinic already was being. His information also led me to be more mindful of the class system around me. Just this day I had woken up very early and had gone to the eating area of our rooming house, at 5am, and was watching the sun rise over the grey peaks as I edited pictures. At some point I noticed a rustling from the end of the table and realized someone was sleeping on the floor at the end of the guest eating table, and finally saw that it was the house maiden that slept there, the girl who was awoken at dawn by the hotel owner's wife and who immediately set to work manually scrubbing the floors Cinderella-style and spent the rest of the day cooking, cleaning, and washing dishes. Her face was initially like stone but at many other moments, namely when being addressed, yielded to one both adorable and beautiful; she was a girl who when given the time of day and a serious gaze and smile would light up like a lotus in bloom. I asked Bhim if he thought she would be a Dalit and he said yes, of course. She almost seemed owned by the owners of our hotel but then again they were themselves likely not much higher up on the scale. Later in the trip some of our troupe wondered how this class system could exist in a country so heavily Buddhist in belief. It is a great question, and it begs us to remember that in our own country it has only been a mere half decade since our first real transition into desegregation between whites and blacks began; Rosa Parks took her historic stand on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. And as a largely Christian nation, that same divide between dogma and practice surely had to be thrown into the debate. Perhaps someday these long-held and systemic class divides will ease, at least to become as passively less stark than in the United States...


Patients not so patiently vie for space around the door to the family clinic as things get very busy. There is no such thing as HIPA/privacy in the hospitals of Nepal.