Kirant or Kirat refers to the Kiranti group or Kirant confederation that includes the Rai, Limbu and Sunuwar ethnic groups of Nepal. The distinct Tibeto-Burman languages of the Rai, Limbu and Sunuwar are known as Kiranti. Kirant are mainly confined in the eastern part of Nepal. The total population of the Kirant is about one-million, which comprises around 4 percentage of the total population. The Kirant follow their own religion (Kirant Mundhum) distinct from Hinduism and Buddhism. Their holy book is the Mundhum; it is taken as an oral philosophy. The Kirants are mainly known as a land-son. They are believed to worship their ancestors and live in harmony with nature. Mundhum does not believe in concept of cremating to the dead body like Hindu. If it is cremated then the dead soul gets a lot suffering.

Concrete Grave

The practice of concrete grave has begun since 1971, as imitation of British people lives in their camp in Sunsari District. Now, it is developing as a culture to build attractive grave inside the forest. Similarly, delineation of large compound around the grave of relatives, in order to secure place in future and strong desire to stay with them after death, is being practiced. Around 15,000 graves have already been constructed. Now, the practice is spreading in the other hilly area, which was started from the accessible area. If the practice remains constant, it is estimated that annually about 3.5 hectares forest will be converted into concrete city. It is not only deviating from their culture, but also taken as economic burden and loss of bio-diversity and valuable Sal (Shorea robusta) forest.

Efforts to minimize the problem

The effort to minimize the construction of cemented grave was started in 1998, when Pashupati Area Development Trust destroyed all the graves inside its area accusing Christianity. Then conflict started between the Trust and Kiranti people. After that Trust realized its fault and an agreement was made that Kiranti people will stop to construct permanent grave and Trust will re-construct all the destroyed graves. However, initiation was taken by Regional Directorate of Forest since 2002 by organizing interaction workshop.

An agreement was made between government agency and ethnic community in 05 June 2004 to manage the problem. Ethnic groups promised not to construct concrete grave and government will hand over the forest as Religious Forest to those ethnic groups for the purpose of graveyard under existing Forest Act.

Present Conflict

Kiranti applied for religious forest in District Forest Office. The reason behind asking for religious forest is to manage grave in eco-friendly manner and can inspect easily whether people use concrete or not. However, government handed over the forest to manage the grave to Boudhist & Muslim but ignored to hand over the forest to those ethnic groups. Likewise, government is handing over the forest patches, where Kiranti are using as graveyard, to local communities as community forestry.

The Forest Act clearly says that any religious agency, group or community can apply in district forest office demanding religious forest to conserve and utilize the forest area for religious purposes. But government officials do not understand that grave of ancestor is the major worshiping place for Kiranti people. Likewise, Forest Act says that users can form community forestry user group to manage, utilize and protect forest for social welfare. Forest activists define user, who collect timber, firewood and fodder from the forest. But, utilizing as graveyard is also a part of utilization, why they can not broaden the definition of user? These narrow analyses is fueling the conflict and outing Kiranti people from their land rights.

Future Strategy

Culture is dynamic process; it changes with the time being. First, existing graves should be preserved as a culture and can be shown to the future generation. Second, the members of the present communities should make aware for not to construct permanent grave, as this is not their original culture and harmful to the nature. Third, campaigning is essential to create pressure on government to revise Forest Act that should establish the right of indigenous people and work together for the bio-diversity conservation. On the one hand, the future project establish the right of indigenous people, on the other hand, it could be great effort to conserve biodiversity.