1. Background
Locals used to know Rajbandhawa Irrigation Project by the name of Baurahawa Kuluwa since 1976. The Chaudhary community here has been irrigating their field with this canal by blocking the source of water with grass and leaves. They had this spirit of working as a group as there was majority of Tharus during that time. They used to utilize the water every year in that manner. They used to take turn in use of water as everybody used to work collectively. But there were still disputes from time to time due to lack of adequate water. Mallas used to rule that area and they used to be addressed as king. The name of Baurahawa canal became Rajbandhawa as the Mallas were called king.
This project was included as a proposed project after filling request form at the District Irrigation Office under leadership of Dipendra Shahi in 1996. Shahi quit the post of president refusing to occupy dual positions once he became member of the District Development Committee in 1997. Man Bahadur Malla was then made the president. Contract process for the project was done in 1999 under leadership of Malla. Dam of the canal was constructed in 2000 and 2001. The canal became deeper due to construction of the dam and supplying water to the field became difficult as a result. The consumers also did not allow constructon of the canal due to failure of supplyimg water and the project failed.
A water consumer committee was again formed under Shahi in 2006 and construction of the new project started. The project was to be completed with a budget of Rs 35 million with a capacity of irrigating 368 hectares, but work was started to increase the capacity to 668 hectares to include everyone after the consumers protested. The project was completed in 2009 but the secondary canals could not be made. Water reached to every consumer in 2010 even though it became difficult to fulfil demands of everyone. There was a minor dispute about the issue of using water also because it was the first year. Most of the consumers did not pay tariff for using water due to the dispute. This contributed in fueling the dispute.
Water reached to every consumer in 2010. There were minor exchanges about the issue of using water because it was the first year. It had happened during the rainy season and again during the season for wheat. Nobody paid attention to resolving this dispute despite its recurrence. The acrimony between the conflicting parties grew instead. The conflicting parties later refused to even pay tariff for use of the water. There was again dispute during the rainy season of 2011 about the issue of supplying water. There were even fights among communities during the dispute this time. There was a monitoring committee in place to resolve the dispute, and the committee summoned everybody to resolve it. But those involved in fighting did not attend the gathering.
Everybody made efforts to take water by using force every season. This created further strain and increased animosity. The consumers started to chide those going to collect tariff for use of the water while tariff could no longer be collected. The watchman stopped getting salary and he also became passive after he was also rebuked. The conflicting parties even vandalized the gates at the branches in ire after not getting water. They even hid the handle used to open the gates. The water flowed everywhere and crops of many were destroyed. The monitoring team formed for distribution of water also became inactive. Cleaning of the canal was also stopped. The Irrigation Project Committee was accused of misappropriating money. Discussions and meetings stopped. Nobody took initiative to resolve the dispute after that.
2. Past efforts for resolution of the conflict and their impact
In 2010, the leaders of village tried to resolve the conflict by gathering all affected people in one common ground. But that effort was futile as conflicting parties did not participate in the discussions. They continued to use water as they pleased and started to go in groups because of fear to be attacked by others while bringing water. Again in 2011, in presence of local chiefs, the agreement was not bicker in coming days. But the agreemet was not implemented and people started to make vengeful threats. Trend of accusing one another had increased. After that nobody made efforts for resolution of the dispute. The powerful ones were having their way and everybody started to pillory the weaker ones. People would come to block water and take it to their land instead if water was being taken to another place. Nobody would dare to go alone to bring water.
3. Procedural transformation process
Pre-preparation meeting of facilitators
Transformation work was done in a systemtic way in different stages when local facilitators (Rita Chaudhary, Rohit Chaudhary, Pooja Chaudhary and Sabina Tharu) and NRP Ballu Chaudhary started to work in June, 2012. After getting request from local people, the facilitators did documentation of the conflict. Documentation provided general idea of conflict situation and conflicting parties. Based on documentation, the facilitators were self prepared before going to the conflicting parties for conflict mapping. A meeting was held among local facilitators and national resource person. They planned to hold meeting in dhusar village at first. Also agreed to hold meeting with individuals of other villages on the basis of information received from locals of Dhusar village. They decided to move forward with a team of five including four local facilitators and one national resource person during the first stage of meeting. They had also held discussions about what issues to bring forward. They had accordingly planned to bring out detailed information about the place of conflict, start of conflict, manifestation of the conflict, efforts made for resolution of the conflict, current state of the conflict and others despite already having general information about the issues. The preparation stage was followed by stages of conflict transformation process; conflict mapping, spider team formation and capacity building workshop, perspectives collection on process proposal and passing process proposal, identification of issues of conflict and passing common issue, gathering perspectives on alternatives and passing the common alternatives. The conflicting parties reached agreement on six points through the joint meeting on September 14, 2013. The follow-up and support for successful implementation of all agreed points has been done till January 2014.
Mapping of overall conflicted area and parties done by facilitators
3.1 Conflict Mapping
Conflict transformation deals with long-term relationships among conflicting parties while achieving common "win-win" situation. The conflict mapping basically deals with identification of conflicting parties, why they are doing so, since when the conflict was happening and till date what situation they faced, etc. To generalize, in conflict transformation, first and second mapping was done to identify 3P (People, Problem and Process). The first mapping dealt with collecting the background information or diagnosis of conflict (praties involved in conflict, subject of conflict and how conflict come out) while second mapping stress out finding the unique solution identifying the influential party (those who can contribute in decision making and those who can be influenced by that decision) in pursuit of transforming conflict and achieving win-win situation. The conflict facilitators did detail mapping of the conflict from June to October 2012 and identified following parties and subject of conflict.
3.1.1 Parties to the conflict
A. Jurpani Village: Ram Kumar Chaudhary, Chhotelal Chaudhary, Lallu Chaudhary, Dutram Chaudhary, Chandra Devi Chaudhary and others were the respected individuals of the village who can influence the village. They used to take collective decisions and all the villagers would collectively implement the decisions. The villagers used to accuse other parties of not listening to them and always used to complain that they could not use water.
B. Dhusar Village: Sher Bahadur Chaudhary, Bijay Chaudhary, Baliram Chaudhary and others were the respected individuals of the village who can influence the village. They used to take collective decisions and all the villagers would collectively implement the decisions. The villagers stated that the dispute was due to use of force with other parties not listening to them, and due to lack any rule about use of water. They responded that they used water as they pleased as others also did so.
C. Sandhepani Village: Dhaniram Chaudhary, Tejram Chaudhary, Janaki Devi Chaudhary, Asharam Chaudhary, Binu Devi Dahit and others were the respected individuals of the village who can influence the village. They used to take collective decisions and all the villagers would collectively implement the decisions. The villagers stated that everybody was not getting water as the project was not completed and accused locals from Dhusar of taking water using force. They said everybody will receive water once the project is completed and accused other consumers of starting a dispute by not understanding the matter. They also accused other parties of not listening to them and attributed fighting to that.
D. Chitalpur Village: This village seemed to be divided into two factions. Lok Bahadur Bista was the main person of the upper settlement and was respected and obeyed by almost everybody. This party accused that the dispute was due to the fact that oter parties including Siranagar do not understand theit problems. They have been demanding that they be allowed to use water first as they were located at top of the canal. They have also been demanding that they be allowed to irrigate by using boring as the canal water could not be channeled toward their village. They said the dispute was due to the fact that other parties did not understand this problem.
The other party included consumers from the lower settlement. Abilal Bista, Pushpa Raj Bhandari and others were the chief persons of this party who would take internal decisions. This party accused that the irrigation project committee was also involved in corruption. They accused other parties of not understanding their problems and claimed that the assurances made to them were not fulfilled. They added that the problem arose as the female consumers of Chidiya Community Forest, who played a major role in failure of the project, created obstructions.
E. Siranagar Village: Lallu Chaudhary, Prameshwore Chaudhary, Ramkishan Chaudhary, Dilip Chaudhary were the respected persons of the village who can influence the village. They used to take collective decisions and all the villagers would collectively implement the decisions. The villagers used to accuse other parties of not listening to them. They stated that there was dispute every eyar as other parties would come and destroy the dam while supplying water to their village that requires more time lying at a higher altitude.
F. Tanakpur Village: Bisram Chaudhary, Bhojraj Chaudhary, Krishna Chaudhary and others were the respected persons of the village who can influence the village. They used to take collective decisions and all the villagers would collectively implement the decisions. They accused the chairman of irrigation committee of never showing interest in supplying water to their village and blamed him for all the problems they were suffering.
G. Management Committee: The committee was also dragged into the conflict as accusations were made against it. Committee members claimed that they were innocent and had never misappropriated even a penny. They complained that they have always been accused by the locals despite working so hard for the society and threatened to never do any social works in the future due to that.
3.1.2 Subject of the conflict
Discussion with consumers of Tanakpur Village to identify subject of conflict
The conflicting parties used to quarrel about use of water every year during the season of irrigation. The conflicting parties would fight with each other citing use of water as the main problem. It seemed that use of water was indeed the main problem but after working on this conflict it was found that the main problem was lack of adequate water source. There were also many more problems inlcuding lack of rules and regulations about use of water, cleaning of canal and others. All conflicting parties had not even sat together to hold collective discussons. Nobody apart from the irrigation committee would know who were included in the branch committees. It is therefore needed to hold a collective discussion of all the parties. Facilitators deemed that other problems like lack of rules and regulations about use of water, increasing source of water, supply of water, protection of the constructed physical infrastructure and others can be done gradually.
3.1.3 Parties that can affect on the decision of conflict
- Chidiya Community Forest Consumer Group: The Chidiya Community Forest Consumer Group had not allowed construction of the center to keep stock of water in the past. There was scarcity of water since then. It has been found that that there will be adequate water only after construction of the stock center. Everybody was worried that this party may again oppose while taking decision to again construct the stock center.
- District Forest Office or Area Range Post Office: The District Forest Office can obstruct construction of the stock center in the forest area and hence has been included as a party.
- Irrigation Division Office: There was no certainty about whether the office, that has been providing financial assistance, would allocate budget for constructon of the stock center.
3.2 Spider Team Formation
The facilitators held separate discussions with all the conflicting parties about the qualities and role of spider group members. The consumers were asked to select the name of main persons who are trustworthy, listened to, dedicated, impartial, social hearted, who could spare time for the community and respected in the viallge. Every party had submitted names of three to four individuals after the discussion. Those individuals were invited for formation of the spider group at a fixed date, time and place. Then discussion was done about the number of members in the spider group, inclusion of women, number of members from a party and decide whether consent should be taken from other parties to decide on the name submitted by a party. They first competed to get as many members from their side included as possible but they later gave up their stance for greater representation. The spider group was formed after all the parties agreed to make it inclusive and include 13 members, and concurred for rights to choose the persons selected by other parties. The 13-member spider group was formed on December 21, 2012 at Shree Samaiji Lower Ssecondary School.
Two persons from each party apart from the 13 members were interested to participate in the workshop of capacity building. A total of 26 persons were included in the capacity building workshop conducted on January 24&25, 2013. In the workshop, the participants were formally introduced to each other, they were oriented about natural resource conflict transformation program, the mountain pathway poster of conflict transformation was displayed and discussions were held on various steps of conflict transformation process. The concept of demand vs desire was made clear through an act and the importance of communication was clarified through role play method. The spiders were clarified about the role and responsibility of spider group, discussed on how to act as a facilitator and how will the spider group work in the coming days. At the end of the workshop, the conflict facilitators and the spider team together formed a detailed plan for the further steps in conflict transformation. Members of the spider team were as follows.
|
S.N.
|
Name of Spider Group Member
|
Conflicting Party/Stakeholder
|
|
1
|
Asharam Chaudhary
|
Sandhepani Village
|
|
2
|
Binu Dahit
|
Sandepani Village
|
|
3
|
Janaki Dahit
|
Sandepani Village
|
|
4
|
Devki Regmi
|
Rajbandhawa Irrigation Project
|
|
5
|
Lallu Chaudhary
|
Siranagar Village
|
|
6
|
Dilip Chaudhary
|
Srinagar Village
|
|
7
|
Ram Prakash Chaudhary
|
Srinagar Village
|
|
8
|
Krishna Chaudhary
|
Tanakpur Village
|
|
9
|
Prerana Bista
|
Chitalpur Village
|
|
10
|
Kalpana Bista
|
Chitalpur Village
|
|
11
|
Bijay Chaudhary
|
Dhusar Village
|
|
12
|
Chhotelal Chaudhary
|
Jurapani Village
|
|
13
|
Chandra Devi Chaudhary
|
Jurapani Village
|
3.3 Process Proposal
Discussion on process proposal draft with conflicting parties
Passing of process proposal is significant as it provides a common ground for all conflicting parties to learn how the conflict transformation process will be implemented in the coming days, when, where and how the meetings and discussions will be held; this type of understanding is important to develop faith in the process which is crucial for successful transformation of any conflict. The perspectives of conflicting parties on process proposal, were gathered through separate meetings and group discussions. The gathered perspectives from parties to the conflict were noted down and the spider team and local facilitators prepared draft of it. This prepared draft was again taken to all parties for consultation and finally the agreed draft was passed through a joint meeting held in February 2013. In the joint meeting all conflicting party represenatives, concern stakeholders and local level political learder and teachers were present. The meeting was run by adopting khat method and passed following points of process proposal;
1. The alternatives to this conflict will be sorted out under mutual agreement through dialogue following the natural resource conflict transformation process operated by NRCTC-N
2. The common issue will be identified in a participatory and inclusive way, it will be passed through a joint meeting and all agreeable and appropriate alternatives will be identified and implemented.
3. All activities performed under conflict transformation process will be done transparently without hiding anything from any party, it will be guaranteed that no one will be left out of the decision making process.
4. The spiders should be impartial all the time, never acting in favor or against any party.
5. Conflict transformation process takes long time so all conflicting parties should give time for meetings as necessary.
6. While working through the conflict transformation process, all parties should be concerned not to say insulting words or behave in way that could hurt people and soil their reputation in the society.
7. While working through the conflict transformation process, if any new problems or developments linked with the conflict is seen, then the spiders or facilitators should be immediately informed about it and all parties should help however they can to resolve that issue.
8. The joint meetings during the transformation process will be conducted in a participatory way through Khat approach; the date, time, venue of the joint meeting will be decided through discussion with all conflicting parties and stakeholders.
|
Khat Method
Khat approach is a commonly used effective method for the conduction of joint meetings in an organized or systematic way. In joint meetings, discussion on process proposal, common issue and common alternative is done through Khat method and after agreement of all conflicting parties also they are passed through the same method. In the Khat method, each conflicting and concerning party sit behind the Khat and separate Khats are also managed for the facilitator and monitoring unit. Two representatives from each party sit in each Khat and representative sitting in the Khat can only allowed to speak in the favor of their parties. If person sitting behind the khat wants to speak then person in khat should be replaced by them to speak. The person of each conflicting party should have to wait for their turn and can speak only in their turn. Spider members always remain behind the Khat as a volunteer to aware people about the rules. While making sitting arrangements, any kind of biasness are be avoided.
|
9. The joint meetings during transformation process will be conducted in a public place equally accessible to all parties.
10. If anyone is not satisfied with anything regarding the process, they should talk clearly about it during joint meetings or process meetings, backbiting should not be done.
11. The common issue will be passed within March, 2013 and the alternatives will be identified and passed within September 2013.
3.4 Common Issue
Spider team meeting to prepare draft of common issue
The agreement on process proposal unlocks the way of conflict transformation process. The conflict facilitators along with spider team collected peaspectives of conflicting parties on issues. They idenfied the position and interest of conflicting parties. Position of conflicting party is the brusting open demand and it is differ than reality. While interest is the genuine need of conflicting parties. So, in this stage facilitators tries to identify interest of conflicting parties. Separate meetings and discussions were conducted from mid of Febraury to March 2013. Gathered perpectives on common issue were drafted by facilitators and spider team. The draft of common issue was again discussed among conflicting parties. After greement on common issue draft, it was passed through a joint meeting organized on March 8, 2013 at the Premises of Samaiji Lower Secondary School. The meeting was conducted in the presence of conflicting parties, media personnel and concerned stakeholders. Certain rules were made to systematize the joint meeting and Khat Method was used to lead the discussion in right track and create justice to each conflicting party. Participants of joint meeting put their views and opinions on common issue and finally following common issue was passed;
"How can water be distributed, by completing construction of the project, in a fair manner in a way that those who are not getting water will get water, crops of nobody are destroyed, and everybody is benefitted?"
3.5 Common Alternatives
The same process followed in process proposal and common issue was repeated to gather perpectives of conflicting parties on alternatives, preparation and discussion on common alternative draft and passing of common alternatives through the joint meeting. The common alternatives were passed through a joint meeting held on September 14, 2013 at the premises of Dasharath Higher Secondary School. The meeting was conducted in the presence of all conflicting parties and concerned stakeholders. All the conflicting parties putting their opinions had agreed on the following common alternatives.
Conflicting parties signed six-point agreement:
We have reached agreement from our respective sides on the following points agreeing to not bicker from September 14, 2013 after the dispute about distribution of water of this Rajbandhawa Irrigation Project has been transformed through the transformation process with help of the Freed Kamaiya Youth Society and Natural Resource Conflict Transformation Center-Nepal.
Points
We all will follow the rule about distribution of water
During Rainy Season:
The rules and basis for distribution of water are as follows:
We will take turn to use water according to the branch. The first criteria for distribution of water will be area of land, the second will be the time needed for water to reach the area and the third the number of households. The rules are as follows:
Rules about Distribution of water (Rainy Season)
|
S. No.
|
Name of Branch
|
Time required for water to reach
|
Area of Land
|
Number of Households
|
Days when use of water is allowed
|
Total Days
|
|
1
|
Chaudal Branch
|
1
|
47 bighas
|
72
|
2
|
3
|
|
2
|
Mahunyal Branch
|
1
|
130 bighas
|
143
|
3
|
4
|
|
3
|
Chidiya Branch
|
On the same day
|
31 bighas
|
49
|
1
|
1
|
|
4
|
VDC
|
On the same day
|
36 bighas
|
54
|
1
|
1
|
|
5
|
Dasharath Branch
|
On the same day
|
79 bighas
|
130
|
2
|
2
|
|
6
|
Division
|
1
|
48 bighas
|
72
|
2
|
3
|
|
7
|
Dammari Branch
|
Only some of the land irrigated
|
87 bighas
|
152
|
1
|
1 as water cannot reach all the areas
|
|
8
|
Tilkeni Branch
|
1
|
95 bighas
|
102
|
2
|
3
|
|
9
|
Khaireni Branch
|
|
53 bighas
|
94
|
2
|
2
|
|
10
|
Samaiji Branch
|
|
12 bighas
|
19
|
1
|
1
|
|
11
|
RPC Branch
|
1
|
176 bighas
|
231
|
3
|
4
|
|
Total
|
|
|
|
1309
|
|
|
Note:
- Have not been informed about the area where water does not reach
- Water has been distributed looking at the state of area where water reaches and where it cannot reach
Rules about Distribution of water during wheat season:
- Consumers of the lower belt will use water first and allow others upstream to use it. Water should be ejected through the canal after using it. Nobody’s wheat crops will be destroyed by doing so.
- We will all protect the constructed and under-construction physical asstes as they are common assets of all the consumers.
- We agree to keep a watchman for protection of the physical infrastructure and diseemination of information to everybody for compliance of rules. We agree to remunerate the watchman with the tariff collected by us for use of water.
- We will clean the canal and repair and maintain it every year by holding discussions with everybody. Or agree to clean and do repair and maintenance as necessary.
- We agree to construct water stock centers at three places to ensure that the water can be distributed to even those who are not getting it. We agree to form a separate committee under the chairman to search for financial resources to complete that work.
- We all will adhere to the aforementioned points. If there is any dispute we agree to resolve the dispute through this process with help of the dispute resolution group.
4. Agreement Implementation
All points of agreement have been successfully implementated except the agreement to construct water stock centers at three places. Due to lack of money, members of the committee are searching fund for construction of stock center and have reached the ministry too. But this point has yet to be implemnetd as budget has not arrived until now.
Rule about distribution of water is being implemented without any dispute during the season for wheat and rainy season. Spider group members have been monitoring from time to time and Chief of the party concerned convincing consumers of the party after detecting any difficulty
No gates have been vandalized now and four new gates have been constructed at sub-branches.
A watchman has been appointed and is being regularly remunerated. The watchman has been keeping an eye on the canal and disseminating information. Nobody threatens the watchman now.
After the agreement everybody are following the agreed points and no any disputes were seen until now. The spider group is monitoring from time to time.
5. Changes Evident in the Community
There used to be accusations and counter accusations among the conflicting parties, with everybody displaying holier-than-thou attitude before working on this dispute. They would complain that others have not understood their problems but would not try to understand the problems of others. They felt that the committee should do everything and provide water be it in an easy manner or with difficulty. Nobody had a sense of responsibility. The conflicting parties believed that water can be obtained only by use of force and the system will continue for ever.
There has been a great change in the communities after this process. Those who talked about thrashing the chairman of the irrigation committee are now embarrassed and concede that they said so without understanding the issue. They now understand that others also have family to feed and are trying to progress financially, and are obeying the rules and regulations for mutual benefit of each other. Whole face of the project, whose infrastructure earlier used to be vandalized every year, has changed now. The canal has been cleaned and new gates have been constructed at branches. All the consumers have realized that the canal is their common property and they themselves should protect it, and are regretting their past mistakes. They state that the money spent on constructing new gates could have been used for other works had they been protected in the past. They now live peacefully and amicably and visit one another’s homes. They hold discussions to take decisions.
Process
A remarkable change has been seen on the way people deal with conflicts; now in case of even a minor dispute, the villagers hold discussions giving each party a chance to tell their side of the story rather than observing the fight as a mute spectator. The grievances of all parties are addressed by the chairman of the irrigation committee who convenes a meeting for that purpose, discussions are held, decisions are taken in mutual agreement and the representatives of conflicting parties convey such decisions to their respective villages. People are also stressing on formation of an inclusive impartial body to monitor the implementation of agreement and resolve issues arising during the process of implementation.
|
There were accusations of financial irregularities by the irrigation committee and they had even tried to thrash us. This transformation process has helped end the environment and fear and acrimony, and all those charges have been proved to be false now. This has given a big lesson to those who do not pay attention to petty issues. They now know that ignoring petty issues can one day lead to a big problem and a frightening situation.
Dipendra Shahi; Chairman of Rajbandhawa Irrigation Committee
|
Content
With the transformation of this conflict, the passed agreement is being duly implemented. All parties are complying with the rules and regulations; the Rajbandhawa irrigation canal has been maintained and cleaned regularly, the infrastructures have not been vandalized and a watchman has been appointed to make sure of it, decision is being taken on various issues such as the distribution of water, cleaning of canal, collecting tariff etc. in a participatory way. Along with conflict transformation, other development activities have speeded up in village.
|
This transformation process has been able to make the spades that were once raised to attack others, to be used now to dig canal. This process has helped in creating harmony and an environment of trust in the society.
Dal Bahadur Bista; Nepali Congress member and coordinator of VDC Council
|
Relationship
The relationship among conflicting parties has been visibly improved; there were times when these people did not speak to each other, they even attacked each other with spades but now there is no animosity among these people, they talk to each other, laugh along in gatherings, they have joined hands to dig the canal, they even invite each other to supper.
|
This conflict transformation process taught us to respect one another.
Dhaniram Chaudhary Village Chairman
|
Even those who are fierce opponents in the past are now supporting each other in personal as well and community works. They fought with each other for water in the past but now they are happily sharing the same limited resource with an understanding that it is a common resource and everyone should invest what they can to develop it and everyone has equal rights to use it. Community people ignored other group of same community in different social cultural events but now they become well wishers in wedding ceremony when alive and back support in funeral when dead.
|
The committee that never used to listen to our grievances in the past has now constructed gates at four places after this process.
Consumer of Siranagar Village
|
