Weena Pun

The Freed Kamaiya Society, representing around 220,000 Kamaiya voters in the country, released on Sunday a list of agenda the political parties should pledge to address in order to receive Kamaiya votes.

The 22-point list urges the new Constituent Assembly (CA), among other things, to declare Shrawan 2 (mid-July), being a Kamaiya Free day, a public holiday; reserve five percent of seats in public and private offices and in overseas employment; provide free education to children of Kamaiyas and free medical treatment to all Kamaiyas; increase the amount of money given to buy land from Rs 150,000 to Rs 500,000 and the amount given to build a house from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000, and distribute ID cards to all freed Kamaiyas and rehabilitate them.

Most of the demands were included in a charter submitted to the government earlier in July. Since the government, so far, has been unresponsive, the Society decided to approach the political parties, enticing them with Kamaiya votes in the upcoming November election for the second CA. “The government keeps us running around. Sometimes, they say, the files have reached the Prime Minister’s Office and sometimes that the discussion with the Finance Ministry has started.

We’ve realised that our demands won’t be met until the political parties take up our issues,” said Pashupati Chaudhary, chairman of the Society.

According to the Society, 32,509 Kamaiyas have received Kamaiya ID cards, of which 11,696 are yet to be completely rehabilitated. While 4,500 are yet to receive ID cards, 2,715 are unable to acquire land despite having both ID cards and land certificates.

”Because the land certificates were handed out during the state of emergency, the officers could not go to the field to see where the apportioned lands fall. As a result, some of the land falls in the middle of the river or on a paved highway,” said Chaudhary.

The Society members will be seeing political leaders with their agenda in the next five days. “Most of the parties are willing to talk to us about raising our issues in the upcoming CA in return for our votes,” said Krisni Tharu, central member of the Society and a former Kamlari.

The last CA had three former Kamaiyas as its members: Shanta Chaudhary, Sukdaiya Chaudhary and Sundara Tharu.

The last two were nominated through the proportional representation system from the party then known as the Communists Party of Nepal (Maoists).

Published on: 16 September 2013 | The Kathmandu Post