Deuba wrongly being credited for Kamaiya abolition

South Asia Check / March 11, 2016

Photo: Ashishlohorung (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Sher Bahadur Deuba pictured at a function in Kathmandu in 2008. Photo Courtesy: Ashishlohorung (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

After Sher Bahadur Deuba decided to run for Nepali Congress president, and after his election to the post this week, some Nepali newspapers, radio stations, and news websites credited Deuba for the abolition of the Kamaiya [indentured labor] system and said: “Deuba abolished the Kamaiya system when he was prime minister.”

Several Nepali media outlets have repeatedly published the aforementioned statement [see hyperlinks at the end of the report].

South Asia Check has attempted to examine this claim.

Some of the media outlets that credit Deuba for Kamaiya abolition have stated that the government abolished the Kamaiya system on July 17, 2000.

South Asia Check found that the date of Kamaiya abolition stated in the reports is correct, but on that date, Girija Prasad Koirala was the prime minister of Nepal, not Deuba. Deuba was appointed prime minister on July 22, 2001.

Gorkhapatranew

Newspapers of July 18, 2000 have published reports on Kamaiya abolition. The front page main news of Gorkhapatra of July 18, 2000, states: “Only last month, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had expressed commitment that His Majesty’s Government would take a decision to end the Kamaiya system, which has remained as a form of social inequality, and table a bill to this effect in the ongoing session of parliament.”

Gorkhapatranew1

Gorkhapatra of July 23, 2001 published a report under the headline “Prime ministers after the restoration of democracy”. The report states that Girija Prasad Koirala was appointed prime minister on March 20, 2000 and he resigned the post on July 19, 2001.

Therefore, the statement that Deuba abolished the Kamaiya system is wrong.

http://majdoor.com.np/time.php?id=980

http://www.enayapatrika.com/2016/03/57331

http://www.pahilopost.com/content/-41.html

http://www.dcnepal.com/news/news.php?nid=197455

http://www.onlinekhabar.com/2015/03/257201/

http://www.tikapurfm.org/news_details.php?id=622

http://www.radiopaschimaawaj.org.np/news-details.php?nid=123

http://machhapuchhrefm.com/2016/03/07/%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%97%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%BE-%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%89%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%AF%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8B-%E0%A4%B6%E0%A5%81/

http://khabarsite.com/493594