When will Dalit lives matter?

Despite voices being raised in the Capital and across the country against the injustices inflicted on Dalit people, their plight remains the same. The Post takes a look at the events that took shape last year and why they were not enough.

Every day a number of people pass by a stencil memorial drawn on one of the exterior walls of Lalitpur Engineering College in Chakupat. The memorial has eight people: Bijay Ram, Ajit Mijar, Shiva Shankar Das, Angira Pasi, Samjhana Kami, Mana Sharki, Shambhu Sada and Nawaraj BK —all of them belong to the Dalit caste, all of them were killed brutally in separate persecution incidences in rural parts of Nepal. Among them, five were killed in 2020. Their portraits in Lalitpur are engraved with the words: ‘Not Forgotten’.