r/NepalLiberal

Why are caste and religion still set as mandatory fields in Nepal government portals and apps? What's more, when they are drop-down menu, there is no option to select "none".

This forces every citizen to self-categorize by idnetity markers the state has no right to demand.

• Nepal's constitution (2015) explicitly prohibits discrimination on grounds of caste, ethnicity, and religion. The forms say otehrwise.
• Making caste a mandatory field is the state perpetuating the very hierarchy Nepal claims to be dismantling.
• If you are an atheist, agnostic, or someone who rejects caste affiliation, the system has no sapce for you. You pick a box or the form doesn't submit.
• This is compelled categorization. Every devleoper, product manager, and bureaucrat who builds these forms without raising the question is complicit.
• The fix requires no new technology. Make both fields optional, add "prefer not to say" and "none" to every dropdown, and stop treating citizen as some type of "collective identity" as a required input for government forms.