text: In July 2000, the Government of Nepal abolished the practice of bonded labour prevalent under the Kamaiya system and declared loan papers illegal. Kamaiya families were thus enfranchised from debts supposedly incurred, but were also rendered homeless and jobless. Bonded labour shifted to children who work in other households for food for themselves and their families, but rarely with access to school education.
  During the Nepalese Civil War, Tharu people experienced an intense period of violence, were recruited by and coerced to help the Maoists, especially in western Nepal; several Tharu leaders were assassinated and infrastructure of the Tharu organisation Backward Society Education destroyed.
  After the Comprehensive Peace Accord was signed in 2006, Tharu organisations postulated an autonomous Tharu state within a federal Nepal, emphasising equality of opportunity and equal distribution of land and resources.
  In 2009, Tharu people across the Nepal Terai protested against the government's attempt to categorise them as Madheshi people.
  Culture
  The Tharu people comprise several groups who speak different dialects and differ in traditional dress, customs, rituals and social organization.
  They consider themselves as a people of the forest. In Chitwan, they have lived in the forests for hundreds of years practising a short fallow shifting cultivation. They plant rice, wheat, mustard, maize and lentils, but also collect forest products such as wild fruits, vegetables, medicinal plants and materials to build their houses; hunt deer, rabbit and wild boar, and go fishing in the rivers and oxbow lakes.