2024/07/23 by Puskar R. Joshi, Zohreh R. Eslami, Héctor H. Rivera · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Global Educational Policies and Reforms #Peace and Human Rights Education #South Asian Studies and Conflicts
paper · doi:10.1080/18918131.2024.2372142
openalex publication_date 2024/07/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
When Nepal promulgated a new constitution in 2015, discourse around the ‘New Nepal’, post-monarchical rule, was powerful; the new constitution was perceived as a landmark text to provide a clear vision for New Nepal’s overall development. The poor state of Dalits’ human rights and educational realities were widely cited as critical issues requiring attention and expedited intervention during the constitution-writing process. Almost a decade later, however, no outstanding progress is evident regarding the overall development of the historically marginalized Dalits. This paper aims to interrogate the perpetuation of the dominant ideology, as the basis for the marginalization of people lacking power, in the new constitution’s fundamental and educational provisions by exploring its marginalizing semantic elements. We selected these semantic elements or linguistic categories through reading the new constitution. Our analyses expect to unfold the link between Dalits’ poor state of human rights and educational experiences and the provisions of the new constitution. This study helps expose the roots of inequality, exclusion, and social injustice by appraising policies of public interest in situations where human rights violations, illiteracy, and poverty have distressed the lives of marginalized people, as well as encouraging research on the problems faced by extremely vulnerable population like Dalits, who are not only marginalized in their place of birth but also in the diaspora.