KATHMANDU, NEPAL – “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles and leaps fences,” says Sunita Sahi, 19, as she looks out the window of a bus. Her gaze falls on a young couple, kissing. “We were also in [an] affair,” she says, gesturing to her husband who sits next to her, caressing her hand. “But our families and society did not accept us.”
Sahi married Bimal Auji, 22, one year ago.
Sahi has a fair complexion, an oval face and a slim body. Her looks give away her caste. She is a member of the Thakuri caste. Sahi is from Kanchanpur in the far-western district of Nepal, nearly 400 miles from Kathmandu. Today, she and Auji live in Kathmandu. Auji is also from Kanchanpur, but he comes from a different background. To Sahi’s family, he is “untouchable.”
In Kanchanpur and throughout the country, inter-caste marriage is a sensitive issue. Here, people are still divided based on the ancient tradition of caste. But after carrying on a secret affair for two years, Sahi and Auji say they decided to go public with their relationship.
When news spread that a lower-caste man had proposed to an upper-caste woman, Sahi says her parents were determined to prevent the wedding.
“But our love was like an unbreakable chain,” Sahi says. “Nobody could separate us despite [the] torture,” she says as Auji shows the scars on his arms and hands — remnants of a fight where a group of villagers, including Sahi's brothers, attacked him.
“I don't care about the attacks by her family, I only care for her,” Auji says.
Gyanu Gaire Sarki, local activist for the rights of Dalit or “untouchable” people, says this is a typical scenario. In villages throughout Nepal, hypergamous, when a non-Dalit man marries a Dalit woman, and hypogamous, when a Dalit man marries a non-Dalit woman, couples are victimized for breaking the self-imposed barriers of a caste-based society.
“Many inter-caste couples, like Sahi and Auji, leave their villages due to the fear of being abandoned by the community and loss of reputation among relatives,” Sarki says. “I don't think this problem is going to end very soon.”
The government here has banned caste-based discrimination in the constitution and even offers a cash prize for inter-caste couples willing to come forward. Still, discrimination and violence remain common and one high-level state minister was recently caught forcing an inter-caste couple to separate in his home district.
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