Krishna Yogi: Who is Jogi community of Eastern Nepal, in short?

Krishna Yogi: Who is Jogi community of Eastern Nepal, in short?: "There is a history of explicit and often legal discrimination in Nepal since the division of population into distinct castes and ethnic gr..."

Who is Jogi community of Eastern Nepal, in short?

There is a history of explicit and often legal discrimination in Nepal since the division of population into distinct castes and ethnic groups in five caste hierarchies with order precedence. The Nepali government has recognized 59 indigenous communities only in 1999. However, social scientists believe that there are more indigenous people/communities than recognized by the state.  The recognition accorded by the state to 59 communities does not recognize many not well-known communities. An in-depth anthropological-sociological survey is necessary for ascertaining the true number of such communities and people. In this line, JOGI is one of the endangered and minority ethnic communities, which is unlisted and unrecognized group in Nepal. JOGI is not an ascetic sect (Sanyasi) or saint caste, as perceived in general due to the connotation of idiom. Some people claim that Jogi is a colloquial term for the word Yogi who practices Yoga as part of the daily rituals and overtime this led to the formation of a separate Hindu caste. Nevertheless, historically and socio-culturally, it does not mean the Jogi community. The Nath-Yogi group resides in western Nepal who are a Hindu community and serve as Mathadhis, Pir, Mahanta and Priest of the Hindu Shiva temples in Nepal, is more related to that claim. Jogi is not under/or a part of Nath sampradaya (Nath-Yogi, Bramhachari, Debnath, Jangam, Kanwar) and Dashanami sampradaya (Saraswati, Tirtha, Aranya, Bharati, Ashrama, Giri, Puri, Parvata, Sagara and Vana).

Jogi is generally non-Hindu with its distinct identities regarding religious beliefs, social practices and cultural values. However, due to the Hindu hierarchical caste system, this group was forbidden from following its centuries' old rituals. This doctrine virtually incapacitated this group and subjected to servitude throughout the modern history of Nepal. Jogi has a distinct identity, own obscured language, religion, tradition, culture and civilization, own traditional egalitarian social structures, traditional homeland and geographical area with oral history and Jogi is exclusively a separate caste group, however, it  has not got any identity and recognition from the state. There is no any anthropological-sociological survey/research has been done and no literature about the history and identity of Jogi community is found. The Jogi people are found only in eastern part of Nepal, densely in Oyakjung VDC of Tehrathum, then a few populations in other districts of Eastern Region.

Identity of Jogi community in Nepal?

Nepal is the poorest multi-ethnic country, which is known as the home to a mosaic of ethnicities and languages. Among the various ethnicities, Jogi community is one of the ancient human groups of Nepal residing in their ancestral territories in the eastern hill range from time immemorial. The Jogi community has not been recognized by the government and is not included in the official list. Jogi is religiously animist or shamanist. This group has population only between 5,000 -10,000; which may be endangered and on the verge of extinction. The socio-economic condition of this group is deplorable. The people of Jogi community have very limited access to land and means of production. These peoples depend largely on farming and blowing Pheri in night, which is their culture and tradition supposed to do only for two months Kartik and Chaitra but now it is being followed as occupation, for their survival. They have limited livelihood opportunities. These people are lagging far behind the privileged sections of the society in literacy.  The average literacy rate for Jogi is as low as 27%. The percentage of educated in this group is very thin. The status of health of these people is miserable with no economic access to health services. The participation of Jogi community in governance system is almost zero.

Article 1.1 and 1.2 of International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No.169 relating to indigenous peoples refers to self-identification. Jogi community identifies itself as a Janajati/Matuwali community based on its social-cultural practices and exclusion. The criteria being used so far by the Government of Nepal to recognize the indigenous peoples, known officially as Indigenous Nationalities, under the NFDIN Act, 2002 have been widely accepted as “not complete and exhaustive”. As a result, like as Jogi community, many ethnic groups have either not been included in the official list of Janajatis or been subsumed by other Janajati groups. The Interim Constitution provided a historic opportunity to address such issues. It failed to address these anomalies and used different definition and criteria to refer to the indigenous peoples of Nepal.

For the first time, the government of Nepal included the indigenous peoples in the development process in the also charted a broad range of The policies and strategies of government in ninth five-year plan (1997 to 2002), tenth five- year plan (2002-2007) and interim plan for empowering the indigenous peoples through affirmative action benefited only the recognized and enlisted ethnic groups in some extent but the unrecognized and unlisted groups like Jogi were left excluded from development and the process of implementation of the policies/programmes by government and I/NGOs sector, as the government seldom recognizes the Jogi community and government including I/NGOs follow the official list of recognized groups. Data is not available to demonstrate how Jogi community is affected/marginalized or excluded by structure of state and governance system. Despite its relationship with other ethnic groups as Janajati in the society, Jogi has no any socio-cultural identity and recognition that it falls in which groups-on Bhramin, Chhetri, Janajati or Dalit. Therefore, the Jogi community has been excluded from the contemporary development processes through political exclusion, through economic exclusion and through social exclusion.