Endogamy, hierarchy and violence

Only a free flow of ideas can help society move its culture and traditions in sync with the times.

The present century began for Nepal with the royal massacre of June 1, 2001, in which nine senior and junior members of the country’s royal family were shot dead by the crown prince at a family gathering inside the royal palace in Kathmandu. It was the country’s 9/11. Two decades later in 2020, on May 24, four Dalit youths and their two friends were beaten to death and thrown into the Bheri river in mid-western Nepal by villagers of a so-called higher caste. What caused both incidents of horrendous violence, one at the apex of the religious, social and political structure in the heart of the capital city and the other at the bottom of the hierarchy, in a remote rural mid-hills outpost?