In Madesh Pradesh, approximately 69,000 families of Harawa-Charawa (HC) face the threat of floods and environmental hazards. HC are bonded agricultural labourers, most of whom are landless Dalits. Primarily because of unpaid debt, they are coerced to work as ploughmen or agricultural labourers for landlords.

Centuries of structural inequalities and injustice expose HC to unequal impacts of environmental hazards. David N. Pellow, in his article titled 'Environmental Inequality Formation: Toward a Theory of Environmental Injustice', published in the journal American Behavioral Scientists, argues that environmental inequality results from “the intersection between environmental quality and social hierarchy”. Those like HC suffering economic and social inequalities struggle with disproportionate environmental inequality and vulnerability. Primary information gathered from selected sites of Madhesh Pradesh in the winter of 2022 suggests that for HC climate change makes all of this worse.

Contracts that bind

Mahesh Chandra Regmi, in his treasured work Land Tenure and Taxation in Nepal (1978), explains that the bonded labour system in agriculture, like the HC system, emerged alongside Nepal’s feudal land systems in the 1700s and onward, with the state granting land to its functionaries and service providers, members of the royal family, warrior family, priests, and close kin and officials. Through such a state-facilitated process, a few privileged families accumulated huge areas of land, while the vast majority had to provide free service, known as Jhara, to those landlords.

Over the next few centuries, Nepal’s landless agricultural labourers became increasingly dependent on the landlords for their livelihoods. With accumulated debt, this dependency gradually bonded them. Eventually, this unfree labour system was mapped onto Nepal’s caste system, which positioned members of the most oppressed occupational caste (Dalits) at the bottom of this hierarchy.

As time passed, HC could not detach themselves from their landlords because they feared losing shelter and livelihood. Consequently, such unequal landlord-landless relationships were institutionalised as patron-client relationships. HC would enter into such a contract through a ritualised process, traditionally on the day of Shreepanchami, usually in mid-February. Such rituals legitimised the practice as a social-cultural contract, despite it being discriminatory and exploitative to the laborers.

Caste-class matrix and climate injustice

A convoluted history of caste and class factors in Nepal has resulted in harmful practices and injustice. The same historical process left Dalits bereft of landownership and turned them landless over the generations. It calls for a historical understanding to comprehend the contemporary HC phenomenon in its entirety.

According to research by a non-governmental organisation, Community Self-Reliant Centre (CSRC), 88 percent of HC live in temporary shelters made of wattle and daub, and only 29 percent of them own the land where they have built their houses. Usually, HC settlements are in congested areas, and spaces inside and outside of houses are crammed and of low-quality construction. They are usually located in hazard-prone areas, such as unregistered land along rivers, ponds, canals, and roadsides, or, degraded and low-quality land provided by the landlords.

Additionally, HC suffer from food insecurity. Because of landlessness, 39 percent do not have any food production. Another 27 percent can survive only up to three months from their agricultural products. Only one percent produce enough for the whole year. This shows the vulnerability of HC.

Members of HC families reported that in the last few rainy seasons, settlements flooded, shelters collapsed, and stored food was destroyed. They had to take refuge in local schools. During such events, their mobility was restricted, and they often lost work and wages. Children could not go to school as culverts were clogged and trails were washed away.

Climate change has also created temperature hazards for HC. Many infants and elderly people die of extreme cold in the winter. Likewise, agricultural workers often fall sick or die from heat stroke during the hot season

HCs are not only vulnerable to floods, storms and other hazards but they often get less relief. A Dalit woman told me and my colleagues, “Even if the heavy rain and flooding affect us the most, we always get relief and support at the end”. She added, “We are weaker, therefore we are discriminated against”.

A rights activist working with HC observed, “Because of a lack of access to information, the response is delayed in some cases.” The Vice-Chairperson of Dhanuji Rural Municipality remarked, "The Palika itself does not discriminate, but those who are affected cannot approach the office by themselves on time.” She added, “Whoever is responsible for distributing relief and rescue activities may have delayed reaching to them also because of the limited human and other resources."

As climatic events such as flooding, drought, and other extreme weather become more frequent and severe, HC and other marginalized groups will experience worsening living and working conditions.

Justice to HC

We can’t understand the unequal impacts of environmental hazards like floods without understanding caste-class discrimination. HC face a higher risk of climate-induced stressors and disasters because of economic discrimination based on caste and class. A regional human rights organisation, Forum Asia, reveals that on one hand, climate-induced disasters have been prevalent in Madhesh Province, and on the other, highly relevant climate change projects are found to have been depleting in Nepal with little attention being given to vulnerable groups.

HC are not politically organised and are not economically stable enough to effectively demand their legal rights and push for broader social and environmental justice. HC cannot resist environmental injustice and other forms of discrimination and exploitation; hence for many years ahead, they will continue to suffer disproportionate damage and loss.

The Government of Nepal should recognise the specific needs of HC social and economic positions, and realise that a general framework to address their problems may not work. Policies and implementation strategies must link caste, class, labour, agriculture, and environmental dynamics.

The Constitution of Nepal (2015), the National Land Policy (2019), and some other state policies provide an adequate legal base for eradicating the HC practice. Unfortunately, the government’s unpreparedness to implement those constitutional provisions and policies has not only delayed but obstructed justice for HC. Such barriers to justice will be recorded as a lost opportunity in history.

This article is excerpted from a chapter in the book “Environmental Justice in Nepal: Origins, Struggles and Prospects”.