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I was appropriately horrified at his views. He chose to forget the years of discriminatory policies designed by those in the majority to keep back minorities and women. The so-called “low caste” citizens, women shackled by centuries of culture and religion-based discrimination, and those who are financially backward – he chose to ignore all who were denied opportunity by society.
Now that a government is taking steps to rectify, in however limited measure, the terrible injustices committed in the past, my friend sees affirmative action as legally sanctioned or reverse discrimination.
For decades Nepal’s government and system were complicit in devising a barrier against women and minorities. Discrimination was institutionalized in many government agencies. Until recently women could not serve in the army except in technical roles, citizens with physical disabilities had limited opportunities in education and employment, and marginalized communities like the “lower castes” or “ untouchables” were forced to accept menial jobs with very little pay, even if they had qualifications for a better-paying position.
Society played along with the government in enforcing these barriers, creating a vicious cycle of denied opportunity and poverty for women and minorities.
My friend and those who believe that affirmative action promotes discrimination against the “majority” have conveniently disregarded the fact that the injustice meted out against women and minorities for centuries cannot be “fixed” in a year or two. Even a decade is insufficient to wipe the slate clean and call it an even playing field.
Let’s go back about 60 years. My grandmother is a young child of five. Her parents think of her as a burden and all she gets are leftovers – food, clothes, care and love. She is married off at the age of eight and pushed into a life of hard labor with no chance at an education, career or life outside her kitchen.
To be fair, a majority of Nepalese then lived in absolute poverty without access to healthcare or education. In her case, her brothers did manage to go to school – a makeshift facility run by a local priest. Later, when the family moved to a bigger city, they went to a proper school. One even managed to get an engineering degree.
Most of the girls born in that era had a life similar to my grandmother’s. They were denied opportunities to better themselves, and as they became mothers, their daughters suffered too. If my grandmother had had a good education, she could have contributed to her household, not only financially but in many more ways that could have helped her children. She could have better guided her children and grandchildren. Because she was pushed aside, our family lost opportunities. The community, the city and the nation as a whole suffered too.
We need affirmative action to set right the mistakes that happened 60, 70, 80, or even a century back. The playing field for Nepali women is not even, because their grandmothers and mothers were denied opportunities, which affected them too. So now, no matter how unjust it looks, they should receive preference. Similarly, those from disadvantaged communities like the “untouchables” and “lower castes” should also get preference.
As I mentioned earlier, affirmative action at first glance may look unjust. Why should a woman get a job because of her gender when there is a man equally or more qualified available for the job? Why should we look at caste, tribe or gender instead of looking at the person’s qualifications and experience?
It is true that affirmative action is a form of discrimination, but it is a positive force. It seeks to encourage those who have been historically and traditionally marginalized.
Former U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger said this about affirmative action in a case about desegregating a North Carolina school:
“All things being equal, with no history of discrimination, it might well be desirable to engage in solely race-neutral employment policies. But all things are not equal in a system that had been deliberately constructed and maintained to enforce racial discrimination.”
This stands true for Nepal too; the country’s system for long benefited a particular gender, caste and class of people. Now is it time to set things straight.
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(Bhumika Ghimire is a freelance reporter. Her articles have been published in OhMyNews, NepalNews, Toward Freedom, Telegraph Nepal, Himal South Asian and ACM Ubiquity. She is also a regular contributor to News Front Weekly in Nepal and Nepal Abroad in Washington D.C.. She can be reached at bhumika_g@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Bhumika Ghimire.)
