KATHMANDU, JUNE 10
On the afternoon of June 5, one day after the death of Besraj Darji, a landless Dalit who passed away in the ICU following the government's forced eviction drive, the Ujwal Thapa Foundation held its sixth dialogue at IACER, New Baneshwor. The event brought together human rights advocates, academics, and community leaders to ask a question the government has so far refused to answer clearly: is this management or displacement?
By the time the panel convened, over 3,500 households had been destroyed in Kathmandu alone. Darji was the fifth person to die as a direct consequence of the state-led eviction campaign that began on Baishakh 12. Some of the children from the demolished settlements were still on ventilators.
The panel included Senior Advocate and human rights defender Raju Prasad Chapagain, feminist and human rights defender Dr. Renu Adhikari, geographer Dr. Sabin Nimlekhu, and Bina Buddhacharya, Chairperson of Nepal Mahila Ekata Samaj. The dialogue was facilitated by Monika Niraula of the Gen-Z Movement Alliance, which co-organised the event.
Buddhacharya opened with a ground-level account of conditions inside the holding centers, three hotels and four makeshift facilities where thousands of displaced people are being housed. Elderly persons, pregnant women, infants, and children are living in cramped conditions with inadequate food, no regular access to healthcare, and no stable shelter. At the Ichangu Holding Center, she reported, a 72-year-old sick woman received no food until 1:30 in the afternoon. Children are being taken to nearby schools without formal admission and are facing bullying from peers, leading many to stop attending altogether. Families have been separated, living in different facilities, with mental health conditions deteriorating sharply across the displaced population.
From a legal standpoint, Senior Advocate Chapagain was unambiguous. No existing law, policy, or court decision supports the manner in which these evictions have been carried out. While the state has the authority to evict people from public land, it is required to follow due process. The current operations, he said, constitute gross violations of Nepal's Constitution, domestic law, and the international instruments Nepal has ratified. The government has also acted in direct contradiction of its own commitments: its 100-point programme stipulated 60 days for documentation and 1,000 days for resettlement management. Neither has been honoured. Active Supreme Court stay orders have been ignored.
This, he noted, is not new. After the 2062 BS civil movement, the government made a 40-point agreement that included provisions against evicting landless people without consent. It was violated then, too.
Dr. Adhikari placed the crisis in the framework of international human rights law, referencing the 2008 UN Eviction Guidelines, which require that evictions cause no physical or mental stress to affected communities. She described the situation as having moved beyond conventional human rights violations, calling it a process of mass displacement that disproportionately targets the poorest communities while serving the aesthetic and development aspirations of the middle class. Despite prior interventions by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in similar cases in Thapathali and Kailali, which had resulted in the government halting evictions, no such response has come this time.
Dr. Nimlekhu situated the crisis within the longer history of urban planning in Nepal, which he argued has never had a pro-poor management principle at its foundation. The idea of a good city in Nepal, he said, was always driven by aesthetics and a particular vision of development. He also described the weaponisation of Newa cultural heritage as a strategy that turned middle-class sentiment against the urban poor, eroding the community solidarity that had historically cushioned people through crises. That solidarity, he said, has now been lost.
The voices from the floor were among the most striking of the afternoon. A young woman from Ramhiti said she had first understood she was a sukumbasi when her peers mocked her for it, and asked whether receiving land documentation would be enough to restore the dignity that had been stripped from her. An older woman described the night of the eviction plainly: "We were attacked. They are now asking us for documentation, but what could we protect when they gave us only a few hours notice and destroyed thirty years of our lives? We could not even save rice for the next meal."
Buddhacharya outlined the demands of the affected communities, which include an immediate halt to forced evictions nationwide, full implementation of Supreme Court stay orders, provision of basic services in all holding centers, an end to government misinformation labeling evicted communities as hukumbasi rather than sukumbasi, and a concrete, publicly available plan for long-term resettlement. She also called for the government to issue a white paper, given that its statements have been contradictory, first promising resolution in 15 days and then 1,000 days.
The panelists were unified in calling for a national parliamentary inquiry and an NHRC investigation, both of which have so far failed to materialise. Dr. Adhikari proposed the organisation of a citizen tribunal. Chapagain pointed to the broader weakening of what he described as the second balance of accountability: the media, civil society, and public pressure that should function as a check on the state. He noted that civil society's response to this crisis has been largely sympathy-driven rather than active, characterised by project-based workers rather than committed human rights defenders.
Dr. Nimlekhu closed the panel with a note of cautious possibility. He cited several examples of successful community-led resettlement in Nepal, including projects in Budhanilkantha, Chitwan, and Kritipur, and argued that even delayed, proper resettlement is achievable with political will. The question, he said, is whether that will exist.
