What is a NGO?

“I am so sad. This is so unjust”. With tears in his eyes Lalji Murau starts telling the story of his misfortune. How his land lord has cheated him and his family, and how the Nepalese court system has let him down.
In 1956 Lalji Muraus family was working in 5 bigha (amount of land) in Baidali Kapilvastu. Both his father and grandfather used to work on this land before he was born. After the land reforms in 1964 his family was entitled to have Ukhada land. But even though his father paid government tax he never got proof of the legal right to the 5 bigha land.

At some point the land lord told Lalji Murau that he was ‘Mohi’ (tenant), which is another type of category in the many land right cases in Nepal. By labeling him as a ‘Mohi’, the land lord implicated that he could have half of the land according to the law. But only this was not true since Lalji’s father and grandfather paid taxes and thereby were in the category of ‘Ukhada’. It seems the land lord deliberately changed the facts in order to maintain some of his land despite the law telling him to give it all to Lalji Murau. So the landlord split the land in two parts and later he split the land belonging to Lalji Murau in two parts again. Today he works in only 1 bigha and 9 katthas of land which is not in his own name.

In 1984 Lalji Murau started to find out his legal rights. Some neighbours made him aware that he was not ‘Mohi’. His grandfather had paid taxes so his case was an ‘Ukhada’ case. This new information made Lalji Murau visit the land office in Taulihawa on a regular basis. And since the visits did not result in any changes, he decided to take things in his own hand. He sold his two buffalos and from the 10,000 rupees profit he paid the government office to make him a paper saying he was ‘Ukhada’.

At the district court he won his case in 1994-95. But the land lord took the case to high court where Lalji Murau lost his strenuously obtained right to land. The farmer knows the reason why: “The land lord bribed the authority 50,000 rupees in order to not give me my land.”

Still Lalji Murau is confident that right will be right. The fact that KSSC has taken up the struggle for the Ukhada victims has given new hope to Lalji and the 16 members of his family: “This is like a rescue. Bringing it to district and governmental level will help us and if I will have my land in my name it will be like being born again. I will die for this land.”

Lalji Murau who is a Nepali citizen has given his application to the Ukhada office at KSSC and his case is now in progress. The farmer was not in contact with KSSC before. As a matter of fact he has never heard the term ‘NGO’s and has not been in contact with any other social organisation before.