Thirty-five years ago an irrigation channel was built to bring water to the fields of a Kumal community in Dhading District. I won’t name the community because of sensitivities about the case. The Kumals are one of Nepal’s 60 or so Indigenous Nationalities, with a nation-wide population of around 100,000 according to the 2001 census. Their educational status and literacy rates sit below the national average.
The channel did what irrigation channels do, making it possible for people to grow a wider range of crops, to produce more food, to improve household income and family health.
Five years later another channel was built to take water to a nearby high-caste community – a community with higher social status, better education, and better political connections. All the water from the first channel was diverted to this new one, although this was not legal at the time.
The higher-caste community had an age-old justification for what they had done. One they have repeatedly turned to in the thirty years since. “The Kumals,” they say, “do not know how to manage the water. They allow the channel to fall into disrepair. They waste the water. They do not grow the crops they should. The water should go to those who can use it properly.”
I’m a descendant of those who stole a continent from its Indigenous owners. I know how it goes.
In the thirty years since, of course, the original channel has fallen into disrepair. The accusations of the high-caste have become self-fulfilling prophecy, reinforcing the discriminatory stereotypes and affirming the “rightness” of the original injustice. The passage of time, too, hallows the arrangement. After 30 years, how can the Kumals complain that they have been deprived? The water has belonged to the higher-castes for as long as many in both villages have been alive.
Eventually, the Kumal community, with the assistance of a local NGO, formed a water users committee. The first aim of the committee was to establish a reasonable arrangement for sharing the water.
Although the Kumals have 11 of the 12 positions on the committee, the committee chair is a man from the high-caste community. “Without me”, he had said, “you will have no voice. You are not educated and you do not understand politics. Local officials will not listen to you and your community will receive nothing. You need someone to manage the committee and make sure it is effective.” The Kumals’ deeply internalised subordination and the sparing distribution of gifts and incentives ensured his election.
This man owns a mill powered by the water flowing through his community’s irrigation channel. Every day the water flows he is able to earn money grinding grain and spices in this mill.
When the water users committee meets, he keeps the records. The Kumals must go to his home and ask permission if they wish to see the minutes of any meetings, if they wish to find out what decisions or actions have been taken. They are aware that it is possible that government funds are available for the upkeep of the irrigation channels. They have no idea if any money has been given to maintain their own channel or that of the high-caste community.
After speaking to journalists, a story about their situation was broadcast on local radio. At the next meeting of the committee, it was agreed that each community should share the water with diversions to each channel on alternate days. Two months later, though, this agreement has still not been implemented. When the Kumals approach the high-caste community, they are told it is not possible. Their channel is still not good. They will waste the water.
They have been threatened with violence should they attempt to divert the water themselves. No one has yet suffered violence; the threats have been enough.
“Our soil is good,” a Kumal woman says. “If we had water we could grow anything here.”
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