Ram Karan Mandal and his wife Sanju are worried. Winter is here and they are not ready to battle the cold waves. The couple, along with three children, live in a small shack in Hansapur municipality in Dhanusha in southeastern Nepal. The hut has holes everywhere, and it is almost impossible to keep warm inside.
They have patched up the mud hut, but it still has a lot of holes, both on the ceiling and the walls. Inside the hut is a small temporary bed that has a stack of hay on it. Below the bed is another stack of hay where the family sleeps to stay warm.
For possession, the family only has a few old kitchen utensils and clothes donated by others. This year, they have also received an old blanket which they hope will keep them warm.
“We make sure that we cover ourselves with all clothes we have. But, due to our home having so many openings, the cold seeps in. It’s just so hard to sleep as the wind comes in from everywhere,” says Sanju.
Three years ago, things were different for this family. Despite being poor, they had around 360 square feet of land. But one day, Ram Karan suddenly fell ill. As he was the sole breadwinner of the family, they had to sell the land for his operation.
Now, the family has rented out a small space for Rs 500 a month and has built a small shack. As Ram Karan cannot work, Sanju goes to the nearby villages to work as a labourer. But, most of the money she makes goes on food.
“It’s hard you know when your sons complain that it’s cold. It breaks my heart that I can’t offer them warm clothes,” says Sanju.
This is just one example. There are hundreds of families in the Terai belt (Nepal’s southern plains) who fear for their lives during the winter. Almost all of them make beds with hay to keep warm. Almost none of them have money to buy warm clothes and are dependent on either humanitarians or the government to battle the cold waves that hit this region every year, but the authorities do not have any plan to solve this.
The continuous chill
In the past five years, 75 people in Province 2 have died due to the cold waves, the most being in 2017 when 55 people lost their lives. Last year, a further 10 people died due to the cold waves.
But people from the area say the number is even higher. A lot more people have died due to the effects of the cold waves, says activist Bhola Paswan.
“People fall ill due to the cold and as they don’t have money for a cure, they die,” says Paswan, adding that no one has data of people who died due to the effects of cold waves.
To know if a person really died due to cold, a postmortem should take place but in these cases, rarely does that happen. “It takes a lot of money to do that and as we don’t get support from the government, we rarely do a postmortem of a body,” says Paswan.
The provincial government knows this. The officials are aware that thousands of people in the province do not have blankets or warm clothes. The provincial planning commission says that 15 per cent of people in the province are worried about how they will cope with the cold waves as they live every day fearing for their lives.
“Around 900,000 people in the province are directly affected by the cold waves. Most of them don’t even have hay to lay and sleep on,” says Bhogendra Jha, the commission’s vice-chairperson.
Most of the people in the 15 per cent are either Dalits or from the marginalised communities. It is mostly them who die due to cold waves every year. Even though the official statement on their death certificates states death by cold waves, experts say that the actual reason for their death is their poverty.
Year-round woes
It is not just the cold waves that these people need to worry about. During the summer, most faint and die due to extreme heat while during the monsoon, floods and storms make their lives miserable. While many do not care about the heat and rain, they cannot do so with the cold as many do not have means to keep themselves warm.
Local governments of Province 2 say these people who do not have the means to keep warm are the ones that they list as those from the marginalised community.
The provincial government says that around 48 per cent of people in the province live below the poverty line. Jha from the Planning Commission says that out of all provinces, Province 2 is the most prone to disasters.
“It’s hard to control these disasters because there is no prior planning by all three levels of the government,” says Jha.
Authorities’ ad hocism
This is proven by vague answers given by the province’s Chief Minister Lalbabu Raut, who says talks are ongoing to deal with this issue.
“I’ve tried to arrange blankets and firewood for these people along with other essential items to deal with the winter. I’ve talked with the council of ministers about this as well,” he says.
To deal with cold waves, Province 2 in 2018 even drafted an act that would identify these people and help them. But, locals say the act has not been implemented as they would have liked.
“The state guarantees food, shelter and clothes, but those are just words to these people,” says Dalit rights activist Paswan. “It’s honestly disgusting how the state treats these people.”
Paswan says a humanitarian campaign is needed to help these people out. He says that if one rich person can look after one poor person, these poor people will not have to die due to cold waves.
As winter has started, some officials are planning to call meetings of the disaster management committees. Siraha’s CDO Lal Babu Kabari says his district is planning to hold one soon as they plan to distribute clothes, blankets and wood to the needy. But, in many areas including Dhanusha, things are dire.
“We were busy with the general conventions of several political parties here. Now, that it’s over; we’ll make sure we sit down and come up with a plan to help these people,” says Dhanusa’s CDO Bandhu Prasad Bastola.
Other CDOs also sing the same song as they say they will hold meetings and ensure that these people have enough firewood and warm clothes to last the winter. They also add they have asked humanitarian organisations for help.
