22 January 2026
The formal status of Dalits in Nepal has undergone considerable changes for the better in recent decades. And yet Nepali Dalits remain hugely disadvantaged compared to other groups in Nepal, as Pitamber Sharma and Bhim Subedi have recently demonstrated in relation to levels of literacy. Dalits themselves are deeply divided over what the best way forward is and could be. Here, we provide a sketch of how Dalits are in practice responding to a situation of increased rights but continuing discrimination and prejudice.
There are at least five characteristic ways of avoiding the stigma of the past and embodying an egalitarian future. In real life, people are likely to combine more than one option or strategy. It is also likely that different generations may be more inclined to one or other strategy.
The five options are: i) assimilation: a desire to assimilate and entirely get rid of a stigmatising past, a position characteristic of upwardly mobile and non-activist households; ii) reparation: building a single pan-Nepali identity labelled ‘Dalit’, focused on past suffering and subordination under the caste system in order to achieve reparations and reservations; iii) ethnicising identity: resistance to the official identity discourse of victimhood, and often to the term ‘Dalit’ itself, and trying instead to base Dalit identity on the artisan skills associated with Dalits’ former status as occupational castes; iv) revolution: the option most obviously represented by the CPN (Maoist) party in its heyday and now by extreme leftist, revolutionary Maoist factions; and v) exit: the attempted, or at least wished-for, partial or total exit from Nepali society and culture exemplified by attempts to reject established religious traditions and join a supposedly egalitarian alternative tradition.
Dalits in Nepal are worse off than almost any other social group on most measures of welfare (only Muslims do worse on some). Besides dire levels of poverty, they face systematic exclusion and prejudice, as documented in numerous places. Whatever measure one takes—life expectancy, poverty, per capita income, or remittances from abroad—Dalits generally do worse than other groups. Dalits’ levels of schooling, drop-out rates, exam scores, experiences of discrimination in school, pass rates at high school, and representation in higher education are all much worse than the rest of the population.
The diversity of Dalit situations and of pre-existing Dalit identities in Nepal makes it very difficult for Dalit activists to build a pan-Dalit movement. Unlike the Janajatis, they do not have a ‘homeland’, a region from which they, and only they, can be said to originate. Unlike the dominant Bahuns and Chhetris with whom they are associated and with whom (or even ahead of whom) they spread throughout the country in a process of migration that took many centuries, they do not have a tradition of landholding. In many instances, where Dalits did manage to acquire land, they often lost it subsequently through mortgages, debts, and other means.
Not only are Nepali Dalits ‘homeless’ in a territorial sense, belonging nowhere in particular and migrating wherever there was a demand for their services, they are also, as former ‘low’ castes, often said to be, and believed even by some of themselves to be, ‘without a distinct culture’. And where they do in fact have a distinct culture (as in the memory of the skills required to perform their traditional roles), that culture is stigmatised, considered low and demeaning, and only possible for those both socially and morally ‘low’. As a consequence, Dalits have often abandoned their traditional professions, many times without regret, as soon as alternatives became available, and taken up work that is not ‘caste-marked’. Sadly, and ironically, it can seem as if it is non-Dalits who have made the greatest profits in modern times from professions (such as selling meat or shoes) marked as stigmatised specialities in the past.
Assimilation
There are many ways to assimilate. One such, common throughout South Asia, is Sanskritisation, the imitation of Brahman customs as first theorised by M.N. Srinivas. But imitation on its own does not break caste down, only widespread intermarriage does that. It was Ambedkar’s view (he himself was married to a Brahman) that as long as societal rules requiring marriage within one’s own caste were in place, caste would survive: for ‘the annihilation of caste’ it was necessary to annihilate preferential caste endogamy. Hence, in discussing assimilation, we focus on this most important aspect, intercaste marriage.
In Kathmandu, it is now commonplace for intercaste marriages to be celebrated with full rituals and publicity; nor are such weddings rarities in other towns either. However, there is one big exception to this increasing liberalism about intercaste marriage, and that is in relation to Dalits.
With the recent openness and intermixing in public institutions, intercaste marriages, even between Dalits and non-Dalits, have increased. While the younger generation are more open to love affairs across caste/ethnic lines, families and society generally are not as accepting. That incidents of violence may also have risen is not surprising and is similar to what has happened in India. Part of the rise may also be due to greater reporting of incidents that formerly would simply not have been known about.
There is a difference in attitudes as we go from the eastern to western hills across the country, and from the hills to the Tarai. While Dalit-non-Dalit intercaste marriages are still uncommon everywhere, they are very rare in far-western Nepal and more so in Tarai-Madhesh. The infamous case of Nabaraj BK in Rukum West in 2020—when six people, Nabaraj himself, plus three Dalit and two non-Dalit friends who were part of his wedding procession, were murdered as they arrived in his bride-to-be’s village—was a sign both of increasing social transformation and of violent resistance to such change.
How change is perceived depends, of course, on the age and perspective of the person concerned. Old people from rural areas often express the view that the caste system is undergoing rapid change, reflecting the huge differences today compared to when they were young. One old Bishwakarma man (since deceased), in conversation with Adhikari, was confident that in due course, untouchability would disappear: ‘Society has changed drastically these days. 75 per cent of untouchability has disappeared. Only 25 per cent is to be changed. This will disappear. After my generation, it will not exist.’
Reparation
Rather than waiting for caste to disappear, or hoping for revolution, the dominant position of most Dalit activist intellectuals in Nepal today is that i) development aid should be targeted at the poorest and specifically at marginalised communities such as Dalits; ii) there should be reservations for Dalits in politics, in colleges and universities, and in the police and army, at least in proportion to Dalits’ numbers in the population, and iii) reservations should be extended to the private sector.
From 2008, in recognition of their lower life expectancy, Dalits (and people from Karnali Zone) began to receive an Old-Age Allowance of Rs 4,000 per month when they reach 60; all other Nepalis except widows receive it only after turning 70. Since 2009/10, parents of Dalit children have been entitled to Rs 4,800 per year per child as a child nutrition allowance, for up to two children until the children are aged five, after which they receive support for the costs of their textbooks and school uniform throughout their schooling.
The Civil Service Act of 1993, amended in 2007, introduced provisions for reservations in civil service appointments, and this has been replicated in the military, the police, and public corporations. Those provisions now reserve 4.1 per cent of the seats for Dalits alongside fixed quotas for women and others.
Dalit activists feel that, in an age of identity politics, Dalits have no choice but to pursue an identity as Dalits and that reservations will be needed to create a ‘level playing field’ of opportunity for Dalit youth for many decades. In order to claim these benefits, Dalits need to identify as Dalit and to come forward to press their claims. This requires a degree of self-consciousness and political awareness that most lack. It requires internal divisions to be overcome. In the struggle to forge that unity, the expansion of social media and links with Dalit groups in India and around the world have certainly helped, as has the growing awareness of Dalit issues as expressed in literature (poetry, novels) and song.
Ethnicising identity
Not all Dalits are happy with the term ‘Dalit’. Even many activists have reservations. One Dalit activist pointed out the difficulties that can arise when trying to create these ‘macro-category’ identities that bring together under one label what were previously separate and ranked castes: ‘In the past, “Dalit” was defined as a suppressed group or community; however, this term has put all the group of people into the same basket, which is wrong… We [Bishwakarmas] still feel uncomfortable when we are invited to the home of a Pariyar because we have a kind of uneasiness even in our body. We are not ready to have rice [cooked by them], although we are ready to share tea and other drinks.’
What this activist here openly admitted to was a residual, embodied prejudice that persists even among some Dalits themselves, leading to discomfort at being lumped together with those they consider their inferiors.
Some Dalits are not comfortable with the new allowances that the government gives to Dalits on differential terms. Many live in rural areas and therefore have to live with the resentments of their neighbours. One of them recalled how young Dalit children feel innocently awkward at being singled out in school and offered uniforms or cash support while their classmates do not receive any. This kind of differential support may have negative psychological consequences, if children are made to feel different and inferior resulting, paradoxically, in Dalithood being reproduced. On the other hand, research on Dalits in the school curriculum carried out by Adhikari and Gopal Nepali revealed that children themselves, regardless of background, respond positively, even enthusiastically, to lessons that address, with clear moral direction, the discrimination faced by Dalits in traditional Nepali society.
Revolution
The Maoist movement and its precursors encouraged intercaste marriage within its members’ ranks. It is well known that many of the current communist leaders are Bahuns married to Newars, because they were ‘underground’ during the Panchayat period (1960–90) and took refuge in the houses of Newar supporters in the dense mediaeval cities of the Kathmandu Valley.
There are, more rarely, cases of Dalits within the communist ranks marrying non-Dalits. Durga BK, a member of the first CA and of the 2017–22 Parliament, married a fellow Maoist cadre, a Thapa Chhetri from Gorkha. She claimed, in an interview with Adhikari, that she was fully accepted by her husband’s family. By contrast, in 2017, newspapers reported the case of a Bahun Maoist cadre who married a Dalit; even though the couple stayed away, his family back in the village in Nuwakot was socially boycotted for many years afterwards because of the marriage.
Before 1996, the number of Dalits in the communist movement was low. Dalits rarely had the luxury of becoming full-time political workers—that was more often reserved for dominant-caste individuals whose families and friends would support them. As so often, those who had an education and could take on leadership positions came from the dominant castes. But, as the Maoist movement took off, Dalits were particularly targeted for recruitment, and many did join.
During the civil war, in some places, the Maoists forcibly ended untouchability and targeted priestly Bahun houses, but it often happened that practices reverted to the old pattern once the war was over. Generally, the Maoist vision was that, having captured state power, the government would be able to abolish untouchability by an effort of will. This would be part and parcel of a general attempt to liberate all minority groups and women from the shackles that had hitherto held them back. If this were to be attempted, it would no doubt have to start with names, removing all surnames or titles that index caste status. Whether the Maoists in power would have proceeded by refusing to collect caste/ethnic identities in the country’s decennial census (as has routinely been done since 1991), one cannot know.
Loyalty, voice—exit?
Another option, a kind of ‘exit’—using Albert Hirschman’s famous trilogy of exit, voice, and loyalty—and therefore potentially a more radical step than those above, is to renounce Hinduism and opt for religious conversion. The Sachchai movement is evidently a kind of half-way house: conversion in practice to a form of Christianity, while remaining, at least to begin with, as part of the Hindu fold. For some Dalits, conversion away from Hinduism is attractive. One Dalit activist observed to us that Christians have done far more for intercaste marriage than the Maoists ever did.
Unlike in India, where Ambedkar’s example led millions of Dalits to embrace Buddhism, in Nepal, this is not considered an option though some in the Tarai have started to follow this Ambedkarite path. The simple reason is that, unlike in India, Nepal has an established Buddhist population that still observes, to greater or lesser degrees, practices of caste and untouchability.
Just as Buddhism as practised in Nepal has not broken with caste, Christianity, too, is not wholly free of it. Though churches may promise freedom and shun caste-based practices among themselves, many Dalits and non-Dalits we interviewed were not convinced that conversion is a solution because conversion is an individual quest for freedom, and so it cannot bring about the structural changes necessary, and also because some Christians in Nepal do practise caste restrictions, at some level or other.
Conclusion
The clash of the activist discourse—which requires a separate Dalit identity to be built up and boundaries to be maintained between Dalits and non-Dalits—and, on the other hand, the assimilationist, ‘ordinary person’ view (which also coincides with the nationalist view) can be perfectly illustrated by the 2014 ‘Hami Nepali Teej Song’ by folk singer Pashupati Sharma. It expresses a beautiful idea of Nepal, in which caste no longer matters: all that matters is that everyone is Nepali. The song and the performance are moving precisely because everyone knows just how counter to reality it is.
Dalit activists in Nepal face the same collective-action problems as political and social movements everywhere: how to build a strong sense of identity and maintain boundaries, how to attract support, commitment, and involvement, and, having achieved these, how to prevent defections. The territorially dispersed nature of the Dalit population, combined with extreme poverty and low levels of education, means that the Dalits’ is the weakest of the major population-group movements in Nepal, i.e., the least able to force the state to take cognisance of its demands.
Dalit activists have to cope with the five competing, and to some extent contradictory, and at times overlapping, orientations described here (and perhaps others we have missed). However, at the same time, they have benefited from the general context, in which radical change has been brought to Nepal by other movements, which, of course, explains why many Dalits have thrown in their lot with specific political parties, despite the disappointments that often follow. Dalit activists should not lose heart but should rather attempt to bring into practice and build upon the gains of the 2015 Constitution.
