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 A sloping piece of land by the roadside in Chinna­masta Rural Municipal­ity-5, Saptari, is inhabited by a Dom community. Eleven fami­lies of the impoverished com­munity, considered ‘untouch­ables’ by ‘higher castes’, live here on a public land. In a neglected corner lies Juktidev Marik’s ‘house’.You have to enter the three-foot square house on four limbs. This shack is perma­nent home for 65-year-old Juktidev. He squeezes him­self to sleep every night, his feet tucked under his chin. The floor is covered with hey, which is Juktidev’s bed. A dirty blanket doubles as his bedsheet. A black plastic sheet forms the roof.

Long ago, Juktidev had a lit­tle bigger hut where he raised two daughters and three sons. Both the daughters—Pramila and Susheela—were married before they were 16. The sons separated as they grew up. The shack was left to Juktidev. Fed up with abject poverty, his wife then left him 20 years ago. Juktidev’s survival depends on the food people give him out of pity.

Juktidev, however, is not alone in this hardship. All 11 families sleep on the cold floors of their bamboo shacks. According to Jayaprakash Thakur, former chief of the ward, these families don’t even have enough to eat two meals a day.

Rita Marik lives in a similar shack, which shields her from neither wind nor rain. Ditto for Pinki Devi Marik. Likewise, Gola Marik’s five-member family lives on a shack built over a pig pen. These families live with constant fear of being drenched during rains, getting charred in summer fires, or of their homes being blown away by wind.

Landowners next to the set­tlement want to see these fam­ilies go away. They have dug big holes near the settlement where water pools, creating the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Doms are Dalit people who go by the surnames of Mallik in Jhapa district, Bansfore or Marik in places east of Saptari, and Marik in Saptari. In Siraha and Dhanusha, they call them­selves Mallik or Dom, and in Parsa they are known as Malli or Raut. According to the 2011 census, there are 13,268 Dom people in the coun­try, and Saptari district has the largest Dom population of 1,871.

In terms of skills, all they can do is make bamboo crafts like supali, dhala, koia, and dhakiya. Although they are ‘impure to touch’, things they make are considered good enough to offer to the gods.

Manilal Biswokarma, author of ‘Condition of Dom and Mestar Castes in Nepal’, says the Dom community lags in all sectors of life. They are socially ostracized and jobless. Their traditional skills find no market. They are denied access to the country’s polit­ical process. Although there are laws to protect their rights, they face all sorts of discrimi­nations. Lack of public aware­ness is largely to blame.

Devnarayan Marik of Chin­namasta-6 says: “Doms face the worst kind of caste dis­crimination. Treating us like other Dalits cannot solve the problem.”

The Dom people are unhappy that their issues are never debated, unlike those of other indigenous and Madhesi communities. “While people from these communities are ministers and parliamentar­ians, we don’t even have a ward chair anywhere,” rues Naresh Marik of Rajgadh Rural Municipality-2. “The govern­ment never thinks of this com­munity although it is socially, economically, and politically most backward.”

As they don’t own any land, they don’t even have access to government support to build their own houses. “We have been living here for genera­tions and yet we cannot build a house,” Juktidev says. “Our worth is less than that of a street dog”

On Feb 8, police arrested Abdul Rashid, a 25-year-old man from India’s Bahraich, with 200 grams of brown sugar. Rashid was car­rying the drug in four plas­tic bags concealed inside his helmet.A joint patrol of Nepal Police’s Narcotics Control Bureau and Area Police Office Jamunaha had nabbed Rashid on his motorbike at Jamunaha near the border. He was on his way to the western Nepali town of Nepalgunj.

According to Police Super­intendent Bir Bahadur Oli, Rashid was a regular smug­gler of the contraband. He was planning to send half of the confiscated amount to Pokhara and half to Kath­mandu. When local online portals broke the news, his buyers went out of contact. “I don’t know their where­abouts. They fled when the news about my arrest sur­faced,” Rashid told the police.

The Narcotics Bureau had opened its Nepalgunj branch in 1994. The amount seized on Feb 4 was the largest to be confiscated from a person in a day since the establishment of the branch, according to Oli.

Police records show that confiscation of illegal drugs has increased in the district since 2011. Also on the morn­ing of Feb 4, Bishnu Giri from Tikapur Municipality-1 of Kailali district was caught along with his brother, carry­ing 18 grams of brown sugar. A police patrol on the highway had nabbed the duo.

On 8 December 2012, Indian national Mohammad Salman Khan was arrested from erst­while Bhawanipur VDC in possession of 110 grams of brown sugar. After that, on 30 October 2018, another Indian national, Sahare Alam, 19, was arrested from Chaulika Chowk of Nepalgunj along with 89 grams of the contraband.

Among the people arrested with large quantities of brown sugar in the past few years, most are Indian nationals. They are all traders of the con­traband.

According to police inspec­tor Bir Bahadur Thapa, chief of narcotics branch Nepalgunj, 200 grams is a big quantity to be confiscated from a per­son. “The Feb 4 arrest is sig­nificant,” he told APEX. The district police in Banke have already seized 2,163 grams of brown sugar since 2016/17. This fiscal year, 2019/20, the police have already seized 608 grams of brown sugar.

The police have arrested 1,025 persons in the past four years for their involvement in the trade. Court cases have been filed against 639. Accord­ing to SP Oli, “The police are serious about controlling nar­cotics trade. All those guilty will have to face action.”

As per the Narcotics Control Act 1976, a person trading up to 25 grams of any contraband will face imprisonment from 5 to 10 years, or a fine ranging from Rs 5,000 to 25,000, or both. Those trading 100 grams or more will face 15 years to life imprisonment, or a fine ranging from Rs 500,000 to 2.5 million, or both O

The price of garlic shot up from previous month’s Rs 245 per kilo to Rs 555 this week. The unexpected rise in the price of the popular kitchen ingredient, which is known for its immunity-boost­ing properties, comes at a time when other vegetables are getting cheaper, according to the Kalimati Fruits and Veg­etable Market Development Board.Likewise, drug dealers say the price of disposable face masks has surged from a retail price of Rs 500 per packet to a wholesale price of Rs 800.

The reason behind both price hikes is the same: the unfolding coronavirus crisis.

The outbreak has affected people’s lives as well as tour­ist arrivals in Nepal. Experts fear the health crisis spread­ing out from northern neigh­bor China may harm the national economy. Nepal’s private sector is mostly con­cerned with its likely impact on tourism.

“Tourist arrivals in January were down by half compared to the same period last year. We foresee an extreme impact of coronavirus in tourism and the Visit Nepal campaign,” says Satish Kumar More, Pres­ident of Confederation of Nep­alese Industries (CNI).

Chinese contractors work­ing in Nepal are yet to return from China after celebrating Chinese New Year (January 25) in their hometowns. Pri­vate sector representatives fear that projects may be delayed.

According to Bhuwan Kumar Dahal, president of Nepal Bankers’ Association, the banking sector could also be badly hit. “Hotels and other hospitality businesses will be harmed,” he says. “So we may lose income from tour­ism.” China is a major source country for Nepal’s tourism dollars. Banks are concerned that they may lose their invest­ments in hospitality and avi­ation due to the coronavirus tourist slump.

“Hotels in Pokhara are already in trouble,” says another banker. “With the fall in number of Chinese tourists, the revenue of travel and air­line companies will go down as well.”

Banks last year increased their investment in hospitality and aviation anticipating good turnout during Visit Nepal 2020. “Banks have invested even in reopening closed hotels,” says another banker, adding that such investment may not bear fruit in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

Hari Bhakta Sharma, former CNI president, also thinks the virus scare may invite a finan­cial crisis. “Our manufactur­ing is dependent on imported raw material. As China cuts down exports of raw material used for medicines, fertiliz­ers, pesticides and the like, our industries may face prob­lems,” he says.

There is also a risk of gen­eral inflation. Nepal imports electrical items, readymade garments, shoes and other consumer products from China. If supply from China decreases and Nepal has to import from third countries, the products may become more costly.

Nepal’s foreign currency reserves cold also be battered. Both Chinese aid and tourist arrivals will go down, caus­ing Nepal to lose foreign cur­rency income. This adds to the worry because Nepal Rastra Bank has already projected foreign currency income to decrease in its annual mon­etary policy this year. Bank officials say Nepal’s ability to purchase goods from abroad maybe affected by the virus outbreak

Little knowledge is dangerous. Perhaps this adage is no truer than in the case of the MCC compact. Everyone is talking about it. Asks a taxi-driver in Kathmandu: “Is it true that America will launch missiles against China from Nepal after its passage of the MCC?” A coffee-shop owner in Teenkune questions as curiously: “Will Nepal lose its inde­pendence if it signs the MCC?” A Nepali TV channel conducts an MCC debate with rockets and missiles shown flying in the background. How did we come to this?The unsettled debate over whether the MCC compact is a part of the ‘military’ Indo-Pacific Strategy—an imperial American construct targeted against China, in the eyes of many ruling party leaders—is one contributing factor. Thanks to the paranoia this debate has fanned, speculations about American boots marching on Nepali soil naturally follow. But whether or not the compact is related to the IPS, the way the issue has been handled by the ruling party is immature. Yet perhaps it was also inevitable that such an ‘imperial agenda’ would be used to fight proxy wars inside a communist party.

The much ado about the compact could have been avoided had our government been honest. With the American offi­cials themselves admitting the MCC is part of the IPS, why does the NCP government have to lie to its own people? Why not rather have the guts to argue that it really does not matter whether the MCC is a part of the IPS because it is in our national interest? After all, even if we are to go by the government’s own diversification policy, greater American engagement in Nepal will help balance India and China—always dangerous for a small landlocked country to exclu­sively rely on its giant neighbors.

The Americans have themselves contributed to the sus­picions by so strongly lobbying in the compact’s favor and giving muddled answers over its IPS link. Having made their case, why not let the sovereign government apparatus of Nepal settle it? And what is the harm in unequivocally saying that, yes, the compact is a part of the IPS, which, in fact, is the overarching American foreign policy formulation for the Indo-Pacific region?

Even some NCP leaders who were initially skeptical of the compact have come around to seeing its benefits, and it is likely to be eventually passed. But the unfolding MCC fiasco also offers an important lesson. It is dangerous to politicize a foreign policy issue—and one related to the world’s sole superpower at that—for partisan gains, and mislead the public.

After listening to those in the know, it seems the MCC agreement was signed in keeping with Nepali laws. There maybe grander ‘American designs’ behind it. But then the same speculation could be made of China’s BRI or India’s ‘Neighborhood First’. Again, I am not asking for blind accep­tance of the compact, as I am also only a learner on the subject. If you too are interested in it, don’t be satisfied by superficial answers—dig a little deep.