Birth is a beginning…not an end, unlike how the Caste System in Nepal treats it.
In Nepal's brand of groupism, the most important and valuable functional unit is the extended family. That and following the dictates of the caste system means that we live and move within small social bubbles. Who one forms alliances with -- such as marries, works, socializes with etc. -- depends a lot on ones ethnicity and caste. It's as if like we are still tribes living in the hunter-gatherer phase of human evolution!
Outcastes, foreigners, according to the caste system, are supposed to be of lower status than Dalits, and therefore even more "impure." At one time, some category of them were treated as such. But no longer. Nepalis changed their views of, attitude towards, and behaviors with them within a little more than a generation. When will we do the same when it comes to fellow Nepalis and stop discriminating against them so so much more?
When pointing out systemic and structural issues in Nepal, the structurally privileged, the hill so called high caste Hindus either go on the defensive or offensive. One of the offensive tactics they use is to accuse the person of "pointing fingers" at them! I have had that. What would have been welcome, among other things, is them listening to our analysis and evaluations and working with us to establish a more just and equitable society.
The fifth one in the series about Nepal needing a revolution…a revolution of the mind.
Here’s more of one of many MANY reasons why.
Birth is a beginning...of unrealized, unpredictable, unimaginable potential! But the Hindus will have you believe that it is an end and make many suffer for it, consequently. Of course, that's completely WRONG.
This is another #LifeEh observation but about other people's lives, not mine. The observation comes from the lives of two gay men from my old school of St. Xavier's Jawalakhel in Kathmandu and their very divergent fates.
