Submit your Article

Tetri Devi’s family is suffering because she has borrowed 40kg of rice from a village landlord some 25 years ago. The 55-year-old from Sano Dhirapur village of Matihani Municipality, Dhanusha, says the landlord had made her sign a bond before lending her the rice and now he is using the document to extort her. “My husband was sick at the time and I needed the rice to feed my family,” she says. “I had never imagined it would come to this.” Over the years, Tetra Devi paid Rs 32,000 as interest to the landlord, who, unbeknownst to her, also captured what little land her family owned. “The landlord and government survey officers colluded and left us landless. Who is going to help us now?” Tetra Devi is among dozens of people in her village who have been conned by local landlords. They have been left high and dry by their loan shark landlords. When Garatiya Devi was unable to pay Rs 2,500 loan to Jaikumar Sah, her son agreed to work as a driver at Sah’s home. She says Sah had even agreed to pay her son Rs 15,000 as monthly salary, but he never paid. “My son was supposed to get Rs 45,000 after working for three months, but the landlord [Sah] refused to pay, saying he was keeping the sum as an interest.” But Garatiya Devi’s trouble did not end there, as she would later find out that Sah had filed a case against her for defaulting on a loan of Rs 700,000. “I am still facing the case at the District Court and my properties remain frozen pending the court ruling,” laments Garatiya Devi.  “The landlord threatens me all the time. I get abuses hurled at me and I cannot do anything.” Ramo Khwate is also facing litigation for non-payment of loan after he was unable to pay Rs 50,000 loan that he had taken from Binod Sah at a high interest rate. He had used the loan money to send his son abroad for employment about 10 years ago. “I managed to pay Rs 250,000 as interest for five years and after that I could not manage any longer,” says Khwate. “The landlord has filed a court case demanding Rs 788,000. I cannot get that kind of money.” Khwate remembers Sah taking his thumbprint on more than one bond agreement while issuing him the loan. He claims that Sah misused his thumbprint. “I am illiterate so I agreed to give my thumbprint on three different papers after he told me that the agreement was not correctly drawn up.” Like Khwate, Garatiya Devi and Tetra Devi also feel their landlords took advantage of their ignorance and a lack of political reach. Hopeless, they have demanded the federal government to intervene. Their delegation even reached Kathmandu to press their demand. A government task force formed to look into their demand has already submitted its findings to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Dhanusha Chief District Officer Upendra Neupane says the victims are hopeful the government will deliver them justice. “We have been getting many complaints after the government formed the task force and we found out that most of the cases have reached the court,” he says. “We will take our next step as per the recommendation of the government.”

Firan Pasaman is a third-generation haruwa-charuwa or a bonded laborer serving a landlord in a small settlement of Nunpatti in Shahidnagar Municipality, Dhanusha. The 55-year-old says he is toiling to pay off the loan that his grandfather, Swaruplal, had taken from his landlord’s family several decades ago. Before Pasaman, his father Ruplal too had served the family until his death. Pasaman has no hope of breaking free from this debt bondage. “The interest keeps stacking up and on top of that, I have my own loan to pay,” he laments. He had taken a loan of Rs 200,000 at a three percent interest rate for his wife’s treatment and his daughter’s wedding three years ago. “I have been signing new bond agreements with my landlord every year because I haven’t been able to even pay him the interest.” Pasaman’s only way out is to keep working for his master. He gets seven kilogram of paddy grain as a daily wage, which is roughly equivalent to Rs 140. He has a family of seven to look after. “I am essentially a slave to my landlord. He doesn’t allow me to work other jobs.” Just like Pasaman, Ladubatti and her husband Paltu are also hopeless bonded laborers. The couple, also from Nunpatti settlement, works for the local landlord, Arvind Chaudhary. Ladubatti says after her husband suffered a disease in his intestines, she is the only one working for her landlord these days. “I had taken a Rs 100,000 loan for my husband’s treatment and I have no means to pay it off.” Like Pasaman, Ladubatti also gets seven kilogram of paddy grains as her daily wage. She says her family is getting by only because sons, who have gone to India for work, help out with the expenses. Like Pasaman and Ladubatti’s there are dozens of families in Nunpatti who have fallen into the debt bondage trap of the local landlords. These families are landless and more than half of them do not even have citizenship documents, without which they have been deprived of the state facilities including social security allowance. They cannot report the abuse and discrimination they suffer at the hands of their powerful landlords, who are connected to local politicians and government officials. Shri Prasad Sada is the central vice-chairman of Haruwa-charuwa Rights Forum. But he himself is a bonded worker for Rajaram Kapar, a landlord in Pachaharwa settlement of Shahidnagar. “I had taken a loan of Rs 200,000 to send my son abroad to work, but he returned after a few days because his company closed down,” he says. “The landlord wants the loan to be paid in full before I can find another job.” Sada earns Rs 100 a day and when his sons help out in the work, the father-son duo makes Rs 200. With such a meager wage, they do not know whether to feed themselves or pay the interest on the loan. “The government should help us out.” Government records show there are 1,680 Haruwa-charuwa households in Shahidnagar Municipality. Some non-profit organizations have been working with these households to uplift them from poverty by offering them skill-based training and education for their children. But the government is doing little to nothing. “Keeping a bonded laborer in today’s day and age is an outright slavery that won’t be tolerated,” says Dinesh Prasad Yadav, mayor of Shahidnagar Municipality. “My office will investigate this matter and take necessary action.”