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Policy spoke in Haliya rehab wheel
- Ad hoc approach exacerbating their woes
KATHMANDU, APR 25 -
The government’s “ad hoc approach” in dealing with bonded labour is pushing some 20,000 Haliyas’ future towards further uncertainty. As part of its plan, the government is “liberating” these bonded tillers — living in the Mid-Western and Far-Western regions — without making sure how and where they will be rehabilitated.
A similar blunder by the government 10 years ago created a serious problem for some 30,000 Kamaiyas who were declared “free” without any arrangement for their rehabilitation. As a result, 10 years on some 6,000 of them are homeless and still unsure whether they will ever be rehabilitated.
What is common to both these policy decisions is that the government let the landlords completely “off the hook”, without extracting any commitment from them to help rehabilitate the people who slaved for them for years as bonded labourers.
Although the government outlawed Haliya practice on September 6, 2008, unsurprisingly most of them are still working for their landlords.
“When the Kamaiya system was outlawed in 2000, it actually liberated the landlords, not the bonded labourers,” says Laxman Kumar Hamal, member secretary of the Freed Kamaiya Rehabilitation Execution Committee at the Ministry of Land Reform (MoLR). “The same mistake has been repeated in the case of Haliyas.”
For instance, the form that is being used to collect data on Haliyas does not require landlords to express commitment to help rehabilitate the tillers, which officials say is a serious oversight that will create problems in rehabilitation.
“In the original form prepared by experts, each landlord was required to affix his signature. This system was later changed after local political leaders misinterpreted it as bowing down to feudal lords,” says Hamal.
With 15,600 Haliyas having filled up the forms so far, the ministry is not sure how to rehabilitate them. “There is some confusion arising from the exclusion of landlords in the process. We will discuss how to solve it after collecting data on the Haliyas,” said Joint Secretary Bishnu Nepal, who is overseeing the Haliya issue at MoLR.
The Haliyas’ future has become even more uncertain with the government facing problems in finding land for rehabilitation of over 6,000 Kamaiyas in the same area where another 20,000 Haliyas will have to be accommodated.
“We are already facing serious problems in Kamaiyas’ rehabilitation due to land crunch. I don’t know how 20,000 Haliyas will be accommodated in the same area,” said Hamal. The land crisis has deepened with the government decision to increase forest cover from the current 39.6 percent to 40 percent.
“The government cannot shy away citing land crunch,” says Hari Shreepali, Maoist lawmaker and coordinator of the Haliya Data Collection Committee at MoLR. “It must implement revolutionary land reform to get land for distribution and for ending the feudalistic pattern of land ownership.”
the fringe-dwellers
Kamaiya families verified 27,570
Kamaiya families rehabilitated 21,678
Haliya families verified so far 15,600
Estimated Haliya families to be freed 20,000
Posted on: 2010-04-26 07:07
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