Two months ago, Ranju Bishwakarma’s daily routine was abruptly interrupted when Sita Dahal, a milkmaid, informed her that she would no longer sell milk to Ranju. It had been only two days since Ranju had started buying cow milk from Sita.

Sita told Ranju that ever since she started selling milk to her, her cow fell ill and so did her family members. Ranju, a Dalit woman from Sayapatritol in ward 10 of Mechinagar Municipality, has been facing discrimination from society for as long as she can remember. She says she has learned to survive through all the unpleasantness but the incident two months ago was the straw that broke the camel’s back for her.

She decided to go to the police to file a complaint against Sita and one Maiya Dahal, who had cajoled Sita to not sell milk to Ranju.

The incident happened on October 9, but Ranju could not file a police complaint until two days later. When the people’s representatives from the local unit and the local political leaders came to know about what had transpired between Ranju and Sita, they tried to suppress the incident and stop Ranju from going to the police. They pressured Ranju to “settle” the issue and not involve the police. Ranju, however, did not give in to the pressure and eventually went to the police.

“I was already facing discrimination from my neighbours. Now even the people’s representatives who are supposed to fight for our rights were pressuring me to let bygones be bygones,” Ranju told the Post. “Rather than helping me lodge a police complaint, they were discouraging me from seeking punishment for those who did me wrong.”

Section 7 (a) of the Caste-based Discrimination and Untouchability (Offence and Punishment) Act, 2011, with its third amendment in 2018, says a person who commits the offence referred to in sub-sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 of Section 4 shall be liable to the punishment of imprisonment for a term between three months and three years and a fine between Rs50,000 and Rs200,000. Section 4 is related to incidents involving caste-based discrimination and untouchability.

On October 11, Ranju filed a complaint at the Area Police Office in Dhulabari. Registering the complaint was easy, says Ranju, but even the police were reluctant to detain the accused. She believes that local political leaders and people’s representatives used their clout to postpone the arrests of Sita and Maiya until they could persuade Ranju to drop the complaint against them.

Police finally detained the accused on December 6 for caste-based discrimination.

The Jhapa district court on Tuesday released both the accused on bail of Rs20,000 each.

According to Rohit Sharma, inspector at the Area Police Office in Dhulabari, a case under caste-based discrimination and untouchability charges has been filed against the two accused.

“The entire society is trying its best to acquit the accused,” said Ranju. “They are still trying to use their power and influence to scare me into dropping the case against the accused.”

Sita later apologised to Ranju admitting her mistake, but one of Sita’s relatives insists that Sita did not commit a caste-based crime. “She refused to sell milk to Ranju, but it wasn’t because Ranju is a Dalit,” said the relative on condition of anonymity.

Most cases of caste-based discrimination and untouchability rarely go to the police. Such cases are usually settled in the village at the behest of the village leaders. Ranju was humiliated for being a Dalit last year as well, but she did not go to the police buckling under pressure from the villagers.

“I am in an inter-caste marriage. My mother-in-law passed away last year and I was prevented from participating in her 13th-day death ritual,” she said. “I could not seek a legal remedy since the police refused to register a case against my family members. The whole village also pressured me to settle the case since it was a family matter.”

According to the District Police Office, Jhapa, Ranju’s case is the only caste-based discrimination case registered with the police in the Jhapa district in the current fiscal year of 2023-24.

According to Naresh Khati, a representative of the Informal Sector Service Centre (Insec) in Jhapa, the absence of registered cases of caste-based discrimination does not mean that there are no such cases in the district.

“There is a lot of societal pressure, and to some extent, political pressure on the victims of caste-based discrimination to refrain from seeking legal remedies,” said Khati. “The villagers and the locals attempted to settle Ranju’s case as well. But she did not give in to their pressure this time.”

During the Covid pandemic in August 2020, national record-holder athlete Chandra Kala Lamgade was assaulted by a non-Dalit couple. Lamgade, who works for Nepal Police and holds two national records in athletics, was seven months pregnant when the incident happened. The couple beat her up when she confronted her neighbour and former Nepal Army personnel Durga Shrestha, along with his wife Bishnu, who attacked Rajan Darji, a local Dalit man, at around 8 pm allegedly for visiting their eatery in Charali

The local leaders and police had urged Lamgade to reach a compromise, but she refused. Her husband Suman Khati had filed a case at the Area Police Office in Dhulabari seeking justice. The Dalit rights activists claimed that the police had attempted for ‘out of court settlement’ of the case. The police tried to register a case for ‘indecent behaviour’ but they finally registered it as a case of caste-based discrimination following pressure from Dalit rights activists.

In May 2020, six Dalit youths were killed in Rukum West. Following the killings spurred by caste-based hate, the Ministry of Home Affairs wrote to the province police offices to set up a Dalit desk in every district police office. But the instruction remained unimplemented until 2021 when the police headquarters in June of the same year again wrote to the provincial police offices. The decision was implemented only after the then-home minister Balkrishna Khand himself instructed the provincial police offices to set up Dalit desks a few months later the same year.

However, although a Dalit desk has been set up in the Jhapa District Police Office, its functions remain unclear. There is a signboard reading “Women, Children and Senior Citizens Service Centre/Dalit Cell” on the district police office premises. “It is not possible to set up a separate desk only for Dalits. We don’t have human resources for it. Nobody has visited the desk as of now to file a complaint,” said a police officer seeking anonymity.

Legal practitioner Devendra Bishwakarma argues that incidents of caste-based discrimination and untouchability go unchecked due to lax penalties and small fines mentioned in the act. “The incidents of caste-based discrimination and untouchability can be controlled by increasing the penalties in the act and ensuring effective implementation,” he added.