WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en-GB 00:00:10.200 --> 00:00:15.480 Being a humanist for me means becoming a human being rather than 00:00:15.480 --> 00:00:19.000 dividing myself into different clusters like 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:25.120 becoming the person from this religion, this nationality, this colour, this gender, etc. 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:30.240 I think after being a humanist I became a complete human being 00:00:30.240 --> 00:00:35.460 without dividing myself to different, unnecessary clusters. 00:00:37.940 --> 00:00:43.160 A humanist movement has a very deep root in Nepal 00:00:43.160 --> 00:00:46.420 that's why being a humanist is not that difficult a thing. 00:00:46.420 --> 00:00:53.180 But in recent days, the religious people are becoming more fundamental 00:00:53.180 --> 00:00:58.280 because they think that Hinduism is the best religion in the world 00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:03.660 and they have to protect it and there are different ideas which are attacking 00:01:03.660 --> 00:01:07.300 Hinduism so that they're thinking that we should 00:01:07.300 --> 00:01:11.860 be organised and become more fundamental to protect Hinduism. 00:01:11.860 --> 00:01:16.560 So these kinds of ideas are becoming a threat to the humanists in our country. 00:01:19.240 --> 00:01:25.040 Nepal is dominated by Hindu people, at least 82% of Nepalic poeple are Hindu. 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:29.000 They have a unique, harmful 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:32.080 cultural practice called untouchability. 00:01:32.080 --> 00:01:36.380 Those untouchables are treated as a slave, as bonded labour. 00:01:36.380 --> 00:01:39.820 The elite people, or the upper caste people, 00:01:39.820 --> 00:01:44.280 can do whatever they like to do to those lower caste people. 00:01:44.280 --> 00:01:49.440 So in our recent constitution, practicing untouchability is 00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:53.255 illegal in our country but the whole society practices it 00:01:53.260 --> 00:01:57.720 because they don't care about the existing law but they care about 00:01:57.720 --> 00:02:02.760 their society, their norms and values which have been injected through thousands of years. 00:02:02.760 --> 00:02:07.360 So this caste system, or the untouchability, 00:02:07.360 --> 00:02:11.260 has remained as a grave system in our country 00:02:11.260 --> 00:02:13.900 which is very, very difficult to eradicate. 00:02:16.440 --> 00:02:19.020 There was a village called Kamigaun 00:02:19.020 --> 00:02:23.500 about 60km away from the capital city, Kathmandu. 00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:27.960 97% of the residentes were the untouchables, 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:30.340 so-called 'low caste' people. 00:02:30.340 --> 00:02:35.640 And they can hardly have their food 00:02:35.640 --> 00:02:39.800 available for twelve months for them to eat 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:42.760 and feed their children, so 00:02:42.760 --> 00:02:47.940 they were going to the upper caste people as a sort of 00:02:47.940 --> 00:02:52.360 bonded labour, to work for them and get some 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:55.180 grain out of that and feed their children. 00:02:55.180 --> 00:03:00.480 So we intervened in this village to make that village a humanist model village. 00:03:00.480 --> 00:03:04.540 It means to at least guarantee the fundamental human rights 00:03:04.540 --> 00:03:09.620 of those people, and we organised them and established one co-operative 00:03:09.620 --> 00:03:12.820 it's a micro-financing institution among the villagers 00:03:12.820 --> 00:03:17.140 and then we started intervening on the education system 00:03:17.140 --> 00:03:21.900 and modernising their agricultural system. We worked on 00:03:21.900 --> 00:03:25.040 extending the electricity wires there and 00:03:25.040 --> 00:03:28.220 extending the road in the village 00:03:28.220 --> 00:03:32.340 so we intervened in almost all important things. 00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:37.820 And after three years, we found that everyone in the village, 00:03:37.820 --> 00:03:40.680 every child in the village were going to their school, 00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:44.840 so that village is now able to produce the milk 00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:49.055 and the vegetables, and they are not going to others, to other 00:03:49.060 --> 00:03:54.640 rich people's houses to work as bonded labour but they can work on their own yard 00:03:54.640 --> 00:03:58.440 on their own farmhouses. So I feel, 00:03:58.440 --> 00:04:02.200 I personally feel that at least that village has been transformed now. 00:04:02.200 --> 00:04:06.560 The model village we initated was not about 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:11.140 trying to convert those people or bring them or make them humanist but 00:04:11.140 --> 00:04:15.500 we were trying to assure the basic universal human right 00:04:15.500 --> 00:04:20.240 for those people, like, trying to make them 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:24.940 a human being rather than being untouchables, like living as a 00:04:24.940 --> 00:04:28.200 most marginalised person in our society. 00:04:28.200 --> 00:04:33.640 So there was no intention for humanist organisations to bring them 00:04:33.640 --> 00:04:37.620 or make them a humanist rather than just 00:04:37.620 --> 00:04:42.800 make them in such a position where they can live as a human being. 00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:47.700 So I think many people who are living in the village are still practicing their religion, 00:04:47.700 --> 00:04:51.960 we don't really care about that - this is not our agenda - but at least 00:04:51.960 --> 00:04:55.960 they're living in a better position than compared to four years ago.