Happy to live in the Dalit community

Manju Pariyar was born a non-Dalit and comes from a rich family. When she was 18 she married a Dalit.

By Malene Lærke

09. March 2007

“I did not know the life of a Dalit. When I married my husband I did it because I love him and now I have experienced the life of Dalits with discrimination and poverty,” tells Manju Pariyar who lives in Babanaghar Kuti, ward no. 8 in Kohalpur VDC in Banke district.

She met her husband when she was 18 years old and chose to flee from her family to marry him. Today she is 31 years of age and has a daughter and a son. She has not seen her family which lives in Nepalgunj since she fled in the middle of the night. When she thinks back on her life before her marriage she tells it was a happy with enough to eat.

“I always thought that Dalits are poor and uneducated and that they are only concentrated about their own community. That was what I was raised to believe. Now I have myself experienced discrimination and I know what it does to a human being,” she says.

“When I met my husband I knew it was love and I did not care about what would happen. It was my personal choice to follow my heart instead of my father’s opinion and I am always happy. I am a bold woman and I think I am 100 percent successful in what I have done,” tells Manju Pariyar.

Moving from the home of a rich landlord to a poor Dalit community was quite a change for the young girl but she finds that she made the right choice.

“It was a change but because I was with my husband it was no problem for me. My husband is educated and loving and he has always been providing everything for our daughter and son. He is always nice and kind and I don’t regret anything. In his family everybody are well educated so I did not feel that this is a Dalit family. The only thing that is shrinking my heart is that that my children cannot go and visit my family during Dasain,” she concludes.