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Dalit with Disabilities Association Nepal (DDAN) was founded on the lived experience, leadership, and lifelong commitment of its Founding Senior Technical Advisor and Disability-Inclusive Development Expert, Mr. Krishna Gahatraj. Born into a poor Dalit family in Sudurpaschim Province, he acquired polio in early childhood due to the lack of timely access to basic health services, an early reflection of the structural inequalities faced by marginalized communities in Nepal. As a Dalit child with a physical impairment, he faced multiple layers of exclusion, including denial of accessible education, forcing him to begin schooling at the age of eight with the support of his elder brother. Despite these barriers, he excelled academically and completed his School Leaving Certificate.
After moving to Kathmandu for higher education, with the arrangement and facilitation by the Professional Development and Research Center (PDRC) and the Dalit Welfare Organisation (DWO), and supported by an academic scholarship from the Nepalese Youth Foundation, Mr. Gahatraj became actively involved in the disability rights movement and worked with national and international development organizations. Through this work, he realised that he has personally experienced structural barriers and observed a critical gap: Dalits with disabilities remained largely invisible, even within the disability sector itself, despite being among the most excluded and underrepresented groups.
Motivated by these unfair treats, injustice, and drawing on more than fifteen years of experience in disability and development work, Mr. Gahatraj founded Dalit with Disabilities Association Nepal (DDAN), an organization founded and led by Dalits with disabilities, dedicated to advancing legal recognition, dignity, equality, and meaningful participation and representtion. DDAN today stands as a human rights-based movement committed to amplifying the voices of Dalits with disabilities and challenging intersecting caste, gender and disability-based discrimination.
Dalits with disabilities, for Dalits with disabilities.
A just, inclusive, and equitable society where Dalits with disabilities enjoy full dignity, rights, and opportunities, free from caste, disability, and gender-based discrimination
To empower Dalits with disabilities by advocating for their rights, dismantling caste- and disability-based discrimination, promoting inclusive development, and strengthening leadership and participation at all levels of society.
To emancipate Dalits with Disabilities from all forms of discrimination and enable them to become economically independent.
Dalit with Disabilities Association Nepal is an emerging non-for-profit making organization of persons with disabilities purely founded and led-by Dalits with disabilities. DDAN is formally registered at district administration office of Kathmandu in September 15, 2023 and has affiliation with Social Welfare Council. DDAN is unique in its leadership and governance due to its constitituional mandate to ensure the leadership of young Dalit women and girls with disabiliteis with their majority.
Organizationally, DDAN’s third Annual General Assembly resolved to establish a sub-committee of Dalits with albinism to mainstream their voices within the organizational structure, recognizing them as one of the most underrepresented groups within the disability community. The sub-committee is led by a Convener and a Co-convener, both with lived experience of albinism.
DDAN envisions a just, inclusive, and equitable society where Dalits with disabilities enjoy full dignity, rights, and opportunities, free from caste, disability, and gender-based discrimination. Its mission is to empower Dalits with disabilities by advocating for their rights, dismantling caste- and disability-based discrimination, promoting inclusive development, and strengthening leadership and participation at all levels of society. Anchored in the principles of dignity, equality, and empowerment, DDAN strives to promote systemic change and build an inclusive society for Dalits with disabilities.
DDAN has expanded its geographical presence across all seven provinces through the nomination of provincial focal persons. Of the seven focal persons, four are young Dalit girls with disabilities and three are young boys with disabilities, ensuring youth leadership and gender representation across provinces.
Prevalence of Dalits with Disabilities
There are an estimation that 260 million Dalits worldwide. The vaste majority of Dalits live in South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri-Lanka) and in communities who migrated from South Asia across the globe. Persons with disabilities constitute 16% of the world’s population, with 80% living in the Global South. Though there is no any data on the prevalence of Dalits with Disabilities accurately, it can be estimated that Dalits with Disabilities should be 16% of the 260 million Dalits – 41.6 million Dalits with Disabilities. However, it should be noted that there is an estimation that 80% of them live in the poor countries like South Asia Region. So, there is higher prevalence of Dalits with Disabilities in the South Asia Region.
The Population Census of 2078 reports that there are 13.4% (3,898,990) Dalits in Nepal. The same census reports that 2.2% of Nepal’s population lives with some form of disability, with 54.2% of persons with disabilities being male and 45.8% female. Based on disaggregated date from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the reported total population of Dalits with disabilities is 2.4% out of the total Dalit population. However, Dalit with disabilities rights advocates contest this figure, citing significant undercounting due to methodological gaps and inappropriate approaches to identifying persons with disabilities within Dalit communities. Accurate data collection remains critical to ensuring the visibility, rights protection, and inclusion of Dalits with disabilities.
Vicious Cycle of Poverty, Caste, and Disability: Experience of Dalits with Disabilities
The poverty and disability has a vicious cycle since poverty causes disability, and disability causes deeper poverty — unless systemic barriers are removed. Dalits are the poorest of the poor. In Nepal, Dalits are disproportionately affected by poverty. About 42% Dalit live below the poverty line (43.6 % of Hill Dalit and 38.2% Terai Dalit) which is very far above the national poverty rate of 25.2%. The evidence underscores that Dalits with disabilities are among the most marginalized, facing extreme poverty both within the Dalit community and across the broader disability sector.
Legal Recognition of Dalits with Disabilities
Dalits with disabilities remain legally invisible in Nepal’s current legislative framework. The Act Relating to Persons with Disabilities 2017 (as amended first in 2018), adopts a predominantly medical model of disability, defining and classifying disability based solely on types of impairments and degrees of severity. Critically, the Act does not address the intersectionality of caste and disability, nor does it acknowledge the compounded discrimination faced by marginalized groups such as Dalits with disabilities. This narrow framing perpetuates exclusion and denies Dalits with disabilities the full legal recognition and protection they are entitled to under international human rights standards.
“The term ‘Dalit’ means ‘oppressed’ and originates from the Indo-Aryan root ‘Dal,’ which means ‘to press’ or ‘to crush.’ National Dalits Commission defines “Dalits” as “those communities who, by virtue of atrocities of caste-based discrimination and untouchability, are most backward in social, economic, educational, political, and religious fields, and deprived of human dignity and social justice.” Dalits are communities that have historically faced systemic exclusion, economic marginalization, and social discrimination, including practices of untouchability. Dalits are a large and historically marginalized group of South Asian people.
Dalits with disabilities represent one of the most marginalized, invisibilized and underrepresented groups, facing entrenched and compounded discrimination at the intersection of caste, disability, and often gender. “Dalit” refers to the historic and ongoing exclusion rooted in caste-based oppression and the violence of untouchability, while “disability” signifies the systemic barriers and stigma faced by persons with impairments. Together, “Dalits with Disabilities” underscores the urgent reality of individuals who are subjected to multiple, overlapping layers of exclusion. Their experiences demand an intersectional human rights-based approach that challenges structural inequality, amplifies their voices, and centers their leadership in the movement for social justice and inclusion.
There are an estimation that 260 million Dalits worldwide.[iii] The vast majority of Dalits live in South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri-Lanka) and in communities who migrated from South Asia across the globe.[iv] Persons with disabilities constitute 16% of the world’s population, with 80% living in the Global South.[v] Though there is no any data on the prevalence of Dalits with Disabilities accurately, it can be estimated that Dalits with Disabilities should be 16% of the 260 million Dalits – 41.6 million Dalits with Disabilities. However, it should be noted that there is an estimation that 80% of them live in poor countries like the South Asia Region. So, there is a higher prevalence of Dalits with Disabilities in the South Asia Region.
DDAN believes that lasting change is achieved through strong partnerships and collective action. We value the trust, expertise, and commitment of our government, development, civil society, academic, private sector, and OPD partners, whose collaboration strengthens our mission to advance the rights, leadership, and inclusion of Dalits with disabilities. Together, we are building a more inclusive, equitable, dignified, and accessible society where no one is left behind.
Our Board of Directors represents a diverse group of visionaries and activists dedicated to dismantling systemic barriers. Each member brings a unique perspective and deep lived experience to ensure DDAN remains transparent, accountable, and effective in its mission.
A pioneer in intersectional advocacy with 15 years of experience.
A pioneer in intersectional advocacy with 15 years of experience.
A pioneer in intersectional advocacy with 15 years of experience.
A pioneer in intersectional advocacy with 15 years of experience.
A pioneer in intersectional advocacy with 15 years of experience.
A pioneer in intersectional advocacy with 15 years of experience.
A pioneer in intersectional advocacy with 15 years of experience.
A pioneer in intersectional advocacy with 15 years of experience.
A pioneer in intersectional advocacy with 15 years of experience.
