Recently, the National Institute for Development Studies (NIDS) organised the third Humla Kachahari (traditional system of community hearing in Karnali) on the district’s development and the significance of the accessibility of transportation services as a prerequisite for it. It was, however, argued that road linkages would not solely contribute to development, as seen in Nepal’s Tarai whose alluvial plains are also home to a vast multitude of Nepal’s poor.

Similar is the situation in Humla too, notwithstanding its remoteness and predominantly mountainous terrain. Culturally, the Humli society remains loyal to the orthodox Hinduism that traditionally subjects women and occupational castes people — the latter referred to as kamsels and branded as the “serving caste” — to extreme deprivations. The latter mainly survive on the Lagi Lagitya system, the local version of master-servant relationship, under which they depend on the meagre seasonal payments made by the upper caste households in return for their skilled and unskilled work.

Humla’s population of 40,749 (2001) is comprised of 14 different ethnic groups, of which the high Hindu caste groups, Brahmin (6.2%), Thakuri (19.5%) and Chhetri (44.2%), constitute the majority. The occupational caste groups — mainly Kami, Damai, Sarki —

together account for some 12.5 percent of the population.

Humla’s extreme remoteness (the nearest bus stop being 12 days away in Surkhet, and would still be 6 days away even after the Jumla access comes along) and its rugged terrain (only one percent land area being cultivable) have together conspired to keep its people in acute poverty. While Nepal with its per capita income of US$ 240 (2004) too remains among the poorest in the world, the district’s average is a mere US$ 186. With its total literacy rate of 21.3 per cent and female literacy at 8 per cent, the district remains almost totally illiterate.

There are only 61,380 ropanis (appx 3,070 ha) of agricultural land including 4,238 ropanis (6.9%) suitable for paddy cultivation to go around in a population of over 40,000. Besides, given the traditionally ascribed high caste monopoly of power and pelf, land is very unevenly distributed. Even as the top 12 per cent of households control some 33 per cent of land, the bottom 16 per cent has to make do with only 4 percent of it. To make matters worse, its high altitude and temperate climate make agriculture physically demanding.

Humla’s distinctive natural heritage (remoteness, vast land mass, high mountain terrain, deep gorges, mighty Karnali river system, immense bio-diversity, small population and tantalising Himalayan landscape) would probably emerge as an advantage for the region at some future date. For the present, however, the district remains trapped in an economy that has kept its people in perpetual poverty. To make their ends barely meet, most able-bodied Humlis leave the village, mainly for India, during the whole of the winter months to feed themselves and earn some cash to provide for the very basic necessities back home.

The Karnali people remain aggrieved by the fact that they have always been let down by the government. Remote Area Development Programme, initiated as far back as 1965, has brought little to cheer about for the people. While civil servants come there mainly for earning grades for their promotion, hundreds of millions of rupees is spent every year with little positive impact in the lives of the local denizens. The Local Self-Governance Act (LSGA) of 1999, enacted by mindless UNDP and DANIDA meddling, emasculated the inclusive institution of user groups, incidentally, a concept deriving from the 600-year-old Jachauri Kulo of a Jumla village and enshrined in the domestically formulated Decentralisation Act of 1982. The LSGA now only ensures the elites capture resources in the villages. The politicians themselves, whatever their ideological hue, are more beholden to their own personal and party interests, and have accomplished precious little to empower and benefit the poor. National planners have only misled the people by writing volumes on remote area development and getting nothing done in practice. The work of the few NGOs has been only of cosmetic significance. In short, control over resources by officials who have little accountability to Humla people has been at the root of the continued tragedy of the Humlis.

Given such a dismal profile of the region’s situation, any initiative for Humla development would have to be based on the exclusive empowerment of the Humla people themselves. The starting point, therefore, must be to provide political space for the Humlis at the grassroots. The builders of new Nepal can make this happen by working on two fronts: catalysis (building their organisational capacities) and facilitation (promotion of linkages with resource centres) for sustainable development. That was the verdict of the Humla Kachahari.

Shrestha is a development anthropologist