Kakunti Kumari
Kakunti Kumari from Ratauli of Ward 6 in Pipara Rural Municipality of Mahottari is studying in the third year of her Bachelor’s degree. Kakunti Kumari was married immediately after her SEE exams. She has two sons and a daughter. The responsibility of bringing up the children and looking after the family are upon her shoulders. Despite these difficulties, she has continued her education with the support of her husband.
Her family owns only 2 kattha of land. Harvest from the land is not enough to sustain the family for the year. Her husband works a wage earner at a shop in Janakpur to ensure the family has enough to feed itself. Kakunti Kumari also works as a labourer alongside other members of her family. She sews clothes for the neighbourhood to support her family.
Her neighbourhood has more families from the Madheshi Dalit Chamar community. Although other castes form a
Kakunti says that although Dalits form the majority of the village, all important public positions are dominated by other castes. The other castes own most of the properties. When Dalits go to the homes of other castes, they are made to wait outside the house, or to sit separately from the others.
Kakunti Kumari from Ratauli of Ward 6 in Pipara Rural Municipality of Mahottari is studying in the third year of her Bachelor’s degree. Kakunti Kumari was married immediately after her SEE exams. She has two sons and a daughter. The responsibility of bringing up the children and looking after the family are upon her shoulders. Despite these difficulties, she has continued her education with the support of her husband.
Her family owns only 2 kattha of land. Harvest from the land is not enough to sustain the family for the year. Her husband works a wage earner at a shop in Janakpur to ensure the family has enough to feed itself. Kakunti Kumari also works as a labourer alongside other members of her family. She sews clothes for the neighbourhood to support her family.
Her neighbourhood has more families from the Madheshi Dalit Chamar community. Although other castes form a minority in the neighbourhood, they are more influential. In Kakunti Kumari’s experience, the other castes continue to practice caste-based discrimination and untouchability against the Dalit community.
Kakunti says that although Dalits form the majority of the village, all important public positions are dominated by other castes. The other castes own most of the properties. When Dalits go to the homes of other castes, they are made to wait outside the house, or to sit separately from the others.
She experienced caste-based discrimination from health workers when she was giving birth to her child. She says that such discrimination and indignity hurts her feelings, and asks - Why are we made to live like animals?
She is currently affiliated with Apan Katha, where she is studying about caste, gender and sexual minorities. Her attempt to read widely about these ideas, discuss them, and mine her own life for meaning continues. She understands gender as the division of work and duties between men and women according to their sex. She understands sexual minorities as individuals who may have the physical body of a woman but who hold sexual desires like those of a man, or who may be in the body of men but whose sexual desires are like those of women. In her experience, sexual minorities are invited to dance at homes in her village during the naming ceremony of a new-born child, but they don’t receive the social respect given to others. Instead, they are appeased with donations and alms and sent away.
She wants to engage in a deeper study and understanding of Madheshi Dalit women. She says that a new confidence has grown in her that perhaps something can be done against the suffering, pain, and discrimination experienced by Dalit women. She claims that she has developed the ability to take independent decisions regarding her life. She says that she understands the value of continued education, and that there has been a transformation regarding the things she thinks about. She is happy to note that her family recognizes a change in how she speaks and conducts herself.
