KATHMANDU, JUNE 4 Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has called everyone to devote themselves to building the nation by ending all forms of discriminations.
The discrimination against the Dalit community must end in practice, Prime Minister Deuba said while addressing a programme organized by the Inter-Party Dalit Women Network, and Dalit Women Centre on the occasion of the 17th National Day of the Elimination of Caste Based Discrimination in the capital on Saturday.
The prime minister said discrimination against Dalits is against social justice.
“Caste-based discrimination is inhuman, immoral and criminal activity,” he said, recalling that issues against caste-based discrimination and untouchability had emerged in Nepal since last seven decades. “It is a shared responsibility of all to make a civilized society by ending all sorts of discrimination and implementing laws effectively.”
Prime Minister Deuba also reminded that Nepal was declared an untouchability-free country and Dalits’ rights were mentioned in the Constitution in the Interim Constitution 2007 while the National Dalit Commission was set up in 2001 with the resolution to end untouchability.
He claimed that the movement launched by the Dalit community helped the government in making relevant policies and laws.
PM Deuba further said caste-based discrimination and untouchability are social blots.
“Every citizen must be ensured equal rights to live a dignified life,” PM Deuba stressed. “Government is committed to ending the situation in which Dalit people have to lose their lives.”
Today, the making of a film ‘Sarbajeet’ based on the life of the trailblazer of the Dalit movement, Bhagat Sarbajeet Bishwokarma, has begun in Kathmandu.
On the occasion, Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Prem Ale expressed commitment to provide his five months’ remuneration for making the film ‘Sarbajeet’.
