Many people believe that the power of the caste system is on the wane and that the advancement of technologies, including social media platforms, has provided the oppressed masses with an alternative media space to voice their concerns, demand change and mobilise themselves against oppression. This observation is true to a degree; however, in many ways, the Dalits (and women and religious and sexual minorities, etc.) have been further exposed to bigotry and intolerance in the virtual world. This is a growing challenge for all concerned.

Village versus virtual

It is clear from numerous sociological and anthropological studies (such as the classic works of eminent Indian scholar MN Srinivas) as well as from the Dalits’ lived experiences that remote villages have traditionally been the epicentres of caste hatred and humiliation. This is true of both Nepal and India and Hindu societies in South Asia and beyond. But now, the intensity of caste oppression is gradually declining in many villages, thanks to political movements and transformations, not least the 10-year bloody People’s War (1996-2006) launched by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

Now the position of the hinterland as the breeding ground of caste hatred has been rapidly taken up by the virtual world. This neglected area (as in other aspects of Dalit issues, particularly in Nepal) needs extensive research and analysis. A recent study conducted in India by scholars Damni Kain, Shivangi Narayan, Torsha Sarkar and Gurshabad Grover, titled “Online Caste-Hate Speech: Pervasive Discrimination and Humiliation on Social Media” (published online on December 15, 2021) found that online hatred and domination had badly hurt Dalit wellbeing.

The transfer of domination from the village to the virtual has not only made caste discrimination widespread on a global scale (fuelled by an increasing trend of Nepali emigration) but also rendered it increasingly difficult to punish the perpetrators of the caste-hate crime.

Until the popular use of Facebook and TikTok (currently banned in Nepal but still being used through different channels) and YouTube and X (formerly Twitter), Dalits experienced direct exclusion and domination in rural homes, temples, wells, taps and religious gatherings—all within their villages or neighbourhoods. Given that caste does not manifest physically, there was a great degree of anonymity that shielded Dalits from humiliation and exclusion once they moved out of their ancestral villages to the urban areas in particular. I guess more than 70 percent of Dalits rent flats and other properties in Kathmandu using their fake surnames.

Now that we have a dedicated law against caste discrimination, the perpetrators in the same villages, towns, or neighbourhoods can be taken to court. It’s a different matter whether the victims of casteism will actually get justice; in most cases, the criminals evade prison. It is a totally different scenario, however, when it comes to discrimination in virtual communities.

I feel the same psychological pain, mental agony, sense of hurt, low esteem and indignity—whether abused in person or online. Increased online activities have worsened Dalit situation, leading to far greater incidents of caste-based hatred and humiliation directed at them through social media than in our society.

Worse, online offenders cannot be easily punished because the offence has become deterritorialised. Now the perpetrators no longer need to be in my vicinity, neighbourhood, town, country and continent to offend me; they can instantly put me down from any place on the planet with an Internet connection. They can spill their casteist vitriol on any poor Dalit living in a remote Nepali village from the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan, for example.

As technologies advance and space travel becomes a reality, people will be able to spread caste hate from outer space, even from the surfaces of the moon and Mars! What’s the limit?

Technological advances have thus complicated the problems of the caste victims and enabled and emboldened the offenders. They can easily humiliate us and make us feel low and miserable, now with much greater impunity. The use of fake accounts on social media further protects them from legal action.

Nepal doesn’t have an effective legal system anyway, and online caste and other forms of abuse are a new and complicated issue. Even the highly advanced countries have found themselves quite confused and incapable of suppressing online abuse and bringing the perpetrators to justice. How could a country like Nepal with little resources and substandard rule of law face this growing challenge?

Possible remedies

Yes, the problem of cyber humiliation and domination of Dalits (and of other suppressed groups like women, religious minorities and LGBTQ) seems overwhelming. That doesn’t mean we do nothing about it. It’s time Nepal took cyber crime—cyber caste discrimination in particular—more seriously.

First off, the Nepali government should allocate more funding to the cyber crime bureau of the Nepal Police. It should also provide up-to-date training to law enforcement officers, empowering them to understand the seriousness of the problem of online abuse against all oppressed groups, including Dalits. The latter deserve greater attention as they are contemporary Nepal’s most dominated and excluded groups, in the hills and plains.

Donor agencies should encourage the Nepali government to act more proactively on this front and financially and technologically support it. Civil society and community groups, too, should pressure the state to control online caste hate speech. Working with other governments and non-government bodies, Nepal must act to make social media platforms more accountable. Like the US senators grilling Facebook and TikTok bosses, Nepali parliamentarians should make these international companies much more sensitive to the issue of online abuse amongst Nepalis, particularly centred on Dalits and similar other outcasts or marginalised groups.

Simply banning one company, TikTok, for whatever reason (seems mainly due to geopolitical reasons more than anything else) is not the solution. The stated goal of banning TikTok is also not to protect the victims of online abuses but to protect societal values by blocking off the voices of the victims—women and girls, ethnic minorities, Dalits, Muslims and Christians—instead. This is not the acceptable behaviour of a (presumably) secular and democratic republic.