KIRAN PANDAY

The superstition that married women should not wear white clothes or plough the fields is still live and kicking in Nepali society. Recently, a woman in Kailali District was publicly humiliated and then forced to leave her village for flouting tradition.

Locals of Chaumala VDC, Rajipur, took offence at Basudevi Sunar's white clothing and the fact that she ploughed her fields to plant paddy. Having mistreated her, they ostracised her. Sunar had little choice but to leave with her two daughters. "I don't know where to go and what I am supposed to do," she was quoted as saying.

On Monday, Sunar went to the fields with her daughters Saraswati and Sunita to prepare the land for paddy seedlings. As the soil was too hard to dig up with a spade, she resorted to the plough. A crowd was waiting for her when she got home. They painted her face black and forced her to wear a garland of shoes, then paraded her around the village's main thoroughfares from 9am to 2pm. Egged on by the crowd, Bir Bahadur Sunar shaved her head on four sides.

The crowd also tore her daughters' clothes and kicked them, and manhandled her 75-year-old mother. According to Basudevi Sunar, Kumari BK, Bhawati Pandey, Dilli Panday, Mahadev Dhungana and Tej Damali were among the 150 people who mistreated her.

Sunar said that she was compelled to plough the fields as her husband does not stay at home or take care of his family. "We have no source of income other than farming. My husband does not work, so I have to work to run the household. And now I am punished for this."

Sunar claims that the police simply stood and watched throughout the whole episode.