<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb61c9c7e80680e07bc42jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1228" height="850"/><figcaption>Bagmati River in the 1950s.</figcaption></figure>“As far as I know, there is no one conducting the ritual these days,” began Ganesh Maya Khadgi as she gazed out from her home on the banks of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/encounter-with-bagmati-river" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Bagmati River</a> to the grey, slow-moving water just outside her door.She is referring to Naworatri, a ritual practiced by the Newas of Kathmandu during first nine days of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/dasain-once-more/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Dasain festival</a>, which this year fall in end-October. When she was young, she would join crowds of worshippers at two or three in the morning and they would walk together to the tirtha, holy sites on the banks of the river.On each day of the nine-day festival, they would travel to a different tirtha to cleanse themselves with holy water and offer puja to the river in the form of flowers placed on chaitya, small mounds of riverbank sand.“Why would anyone participate in this ritual anymore?” Ganesh Maya’s friendly, open face clouded over as she further poured out her disappointment.The communal pilgrimage along the rivers facilitated contact with the sacredness of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/the-ecology-of-worship-bagmati,3380" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the holy river</a>, she says, but due to the highly degraded quality of the water, even the most devout worshippers no longer want to make that connection. In some places, worship is not possible due to the accumulation of solid waste on the banks.Even if people are willing to make the holy ablutions with <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/page/15/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the polluted water</a>, Ganesh Maya says that there is not enough sand left in the riverbanks to construct the chaitya. She speaks fondly of her memories of conducting the rituals despite the pain she feels from their loss.Neither her children nor her grandchildren have visited the tirtha for Naworatri, but she understands their reasoning for changing their ritual practice. Due to river pollution, the entire purpose of the ritual has been lost.***<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb61f9c7e80680e07bc43jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1362" height="1322"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Across South Asia, rivers are regarded as sacred and are often worshipped as gods and goddesses, revered for the way they link heaven and earth. Some believe the rivers are homes to the divine, while others pray to the life-giving power inherent in the water. Because of this, rivers have historically played an essential role in the daily functioning of the communities built upon their banks.This is especially true in Kathmandu where the history of life in the valley is intimately connected with the rivers that define the landscape, so much so that its residents have often been referred to as members of the ‘<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/resurrecting-bagmati-the-river" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bagmati Civilisation</a>’.Early settlements within the valley were clustered on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/time-capsule-of-kathmandu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hilltops with farmland below on the river floodplains</a> to utilise the natural flow fluctuations of the monsoon. Despite the way that the rivers served agricultural functions, they were perceived as more than as natural economic assets.Instead, people saw themselves as living a balanced life with the environment, a belief that was reinforced by the traditional rites and rituals that have historically been tied to the rivers. Therefore, a harmony that emphasised co-existence and regeneration existed in the name of culture and religion.Now, however, those ties are being severed due to pollution and ideas about modernisation that relies upon the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/rivers-fighting-back,993" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">exploitation of natural resources and spaces</a>. But what happens to the Bagmati Civilisation when its people can no longer bear to stand on the banks of their sacred river?***<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb6239c7e80680e07bc44jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1365"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Tej Maya Maharjan also grew up going to the rivers for ritual events, watched this change occur throughout her life. She was elderly at the time of this interview, and has since passed away. Tej Maya visited the Kankeshwori Temple almost every morning for 70 years, and said the time she spent there was the highlight of her days.These visits were essential parts of both her religious and social life. She was widowed at a young age without children, and spent most of her life as a single woman. Instead, she found a family and a sense of community at Kankeshwori Temple. Tej Maya and her friends would gather along the river at the temple and whether they were singing songs, performing puja, or gossiping about their daughters-in-law, these morning trips for religious and social connection brought her joy throughout her entire life.Tej Maya emphasised the importance of conducting rituals at the temple for their role in childhood development. From a very young age, she would join her friends at the Bishnumati River every day during the Newa month of Yalaato collect Nil La:, sacred water, and make chaitya.“We would collect leaves from the pipal tree which had fallen on the ground. We would put some rice grain, tika power, and flowers on the leaf and twist the top and bottom ends, light a wick on the leaf then put it on the flowing water and watch it flow down the river. Then we would all walk to the temple with Nil La: to offer it to all the shrines present in the temple and offer puja,” Tej Maya said.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb6269c7e80680e07bc45jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="853"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>For Tej Maya, conducting this ritual was the first time she and her friends had done puja or gone to the temple unaccompanied by adults, and therefore, they learned the procedures of the rites and how to take responsibility for the rituals on their own. Because children are no longer spending time at the rivers and riverside temples, with or without family members, Tej Maya and many others say that the youth of Kathmandu does not have the same understanding of the rituals or how to conduct puja.Although religious activity continues, increasingly, people say that the rituals are often conducted simply because they are tradition but there is less consideration for, or knowledge of, the meaning behind the actions being performed. This has a fundamental impact on the practice of religion and some of the most foundational tenets of the Bagmati Civilisation.One example of this is the way that the practice of bara (gufa halne in Nepali) is shifting. In a Newa girl’s life, the bara has traditionally been one of the most important and celebrated milestones. In this marriage to the sun, girls who are approaching puberty are kept in a dark room for eleven days, during which they cannot be exposed to the sun, nor see any men. This is not a period of isolation though, and instead, the days are filled with visits by female friends and relatives.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb62a9c7e80680e07bc46jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1365"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In the past, parents would bring pebbles from the nearby river to the room for the girl to play with. But these days, since there are no pebbles in the river, people use construction gravel instead. After the marriage to the sun was completed on 12th day of the ritual period, the girl would return the pebbles to the river on 13th day and perform puja on the banks, using her newfound knowledge to give thanks to the river for all that it provides.Increasingly though, families are sending their daughters to monasteries for a few days where they are taught the rituals by religious practitioners. In this changing practice, there is no connection with the river, and many say that a key component of bara is lost. Instead of being a coming-of-age period for elders to teach young girls about womanhood and religious practice that culminates with puja on the riverbank, the ritual is now frequently celebrated in banquet halls and party palaces staged for Instagram-worthy spectacles.Just as elements of bara are changing partially out of convenience and partially to distance the ritual from the polluted riverbanks, residents of Kathmandu, both religious practitioners and lay people, have observed a gradual shift in conceptions of the water that can be considered jal, or holy water.Chudamani, a Bajracharya priest, explains that river water is the purest of all forms and sources of water and has therefore traditionally been considered the only source of jal. “But instead of trying to preserve and restore river water, which is so essential for religious purposes, people are making changes in their cultural rituals due to the pollution,” he continued. In practice, this means that the definition of what counts as sacred water has expanded as an adaptation to changing environmental conditions.Macha Bhai Maharjan is a Niti Puja Pujari meaning he performs puja daily to the deity of the Kankeshwori Temple. He has spent innumerable hours at the temple and on the banks of the river, collecting sacred water for cleansing the temple. The river was a source of life for him but after he saw human feces floating in the water when collecting jal for a ritual, he says he has never returned to the banks of the Bishnumati.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb62d9c7e80680e07bc47jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="853"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCnPUqlrZJcMacha Bhai’s experience is not an anomaly. As <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/when-it-comes-to-water-pollution,3196" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rivers became more polluted</a>, people began sourcing jal from wells bored near the river, their proximity affording the water extracted from them the same ritual significance as the river water once held. However, due to the rapidly depleting groundwater table, many of those wells have gone dry, or have become just as contaminated as the rivers that worshippers were trying to avoid. Once again, the devout were forced to search for alternative sources.***In the Hindu belief system, while river water is considered the most sacred, all water that is moving is pure. Under this definition, people could interpret the water coming out of the taps and dhunge dhara also as jal. Initially, water stored in tanks was not considered to be suitable for ritual purpose, but for many, this has changed once again. Now every temple has a tank that is filled by the municipality and there is no longer a need to visit the river.Macha Bhai’s experience with contamination in the Bishnumati was the moment he says he realised the sacred river no longer held its religious significance. He too uses water sourced from a tank at Kankeshwori Temple for his daily puja. While changes like this are upsetting to Chudamani, he says that despite his role as a priest, he and the others in his lineage profession “cannot do anything about it” and that he too limits his exposure to the once sacred water.The dissociation from the rivers, which have historically been considered the lifeblood of the city, happened gradually over a couple of generations. Just 30 years ago, many residents of Kathmandu remember swimming in the rivers and creeks that cross the valley. The rivers were wide and shallow with sandy bottoms that they could wade across. But a population growth rate that places Kathmandu among the fastest-growing cities in South Asia, coupled with the widespread adoption of water-intensive household and commercial amenities including flush toilets, washing machines, and solar water heaters without the construction of adequate wastewater treatment infrastructure has resulted in vast amounts of grey and black water end up in the riverways. Additionally, direct solid waste dumping, encroachment, and illegal and uncontrolled <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/crushing-tale-of-Chure" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sand mining have all contributed to the degradation of the riverscapes</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb6309c7e80680e07bc48jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1365"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>When this period of urban development first began in the 1980s, sewer and stormwater lines were directed to the Bagmati River intentionally with the idea that all pollutants would be washed away. Although the Bagmati naturally experiences wide fluctuations in flow rates because it is a seasonal, monsoon-fed river, now regardless of the season, the dilution capacity of the river is so low, and the level of contamination is so great, that the flow is predominately wastewater. In many places in Kathmandu Valley, the river is considered dead, meaning it can no longer support biodiversity. Many say that with the death of the Bagmati, the Bagmati Civilisation has also been lost.Despite the biological and spiritual death of the Bagmati and its tributaries, the rivers have become points of focus for infrastructure development in the name of modernisation. Currently, the construction of walled river corridors, managed by the Kathmandu Valley Development Authority (KVDA), is used as the primary intervention to address <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/deep-water,3883" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">flooding in the urban core</a>. These corridors are also meant to help improve the flow of traffic and to reduce congestion in other parts of the city.Now almost every stream and river in the valley has been straightened and confined by concrete walls, the widths of which are set as per the 20-year flood provisions. But due to changing monsoon rainfall patterns and the concretisation of the valley, 20-year floods are occurring every five years or less.The riverbeds have also long since been depleted of sand, mined for concrete to fuel the construction boom of the metropolis. Now that the rivers contain few natural resources, some have gone as far as to advocate that they are covered completely in concrete. In some places, they already have been.***<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb6339c7e80680e07bc49jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1365"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Shiv Kumar Basnet, the Executive Director of the Water Resource, Research, and Development Center at the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation says that encroachment on the rivers and settlement in the rivers’ right-of-way has made it so that normal flooding events now cause property damage and seem even more devastating.“Constraining the rivers is like putting a bird in a cage,” Basnet says. He thinks that from an ecological standpoint, as well as when considering what is best for urban development, the rivers ought to flow freely.Many agree with him, including <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Hutaram-Baidya-passes-away-at-93,994">the late Huta Ram Baidya</a>, a prominent social activist who spoke extensively on the need to save the Bagmati to save its civilisation. Baidya used to say: “The river is our nature, we should never destroy with nature, but live side by side with it. Instead of controlling its rivers, Kathmandu must work to conserve them.”When Huta Ram Baidya looked out across the Bagmati from his home near its banks at Thapathali, he wondered about one thing: “Can modernisation exist without culture?” For truly sustainable development of cities such as Kathmandu, the centuries-old cultural rites and rituals associated with the rivers, which incorporate knowledge of both spiritual beliefs and sustainable land-use practices accumulated over thousands of years, must be preserved to help the city grow in harmony with natural ecological systems.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb6369c7e80680e07bc4ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1365"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Rajani Maharjan is an environmental anthropologist affiliated with the Small Earth Nepal (SEN), an environmental research group.Madison Wrobley is a 2019-2020 Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellow who studies water insecurity, primarily in Kathmandu Valley, and is now based in Colorado.

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How the Bagmati Civilisation is becoming uncivilised

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70569c7e80680e060072jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2088" height="1474"/><figcaption>Aerial view of Baudha</figcaption></figure>Swiss geologist <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2692#.VRzIePmUdQ4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Toni Hagen</a> first came to Nepal in 1950, crisscrossed the mountains and plains on foot to find out the kind of rocks the country was made of. His detailed stratigraphic cross sections of Nepal for the first time gave us an idea of what lay beneath our feet.Along the way he also took thousands of photographs and film which have been carefully archived by his family in Switzerland. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2692#.XhlEIy2Q0Wo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Toni Hagen died in 2003</a>, but the images represent a time capsule of the land and people, and show us the way we were.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70599c7e80680e060073jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="1327"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Some of these photographs were included in the multiple editions of <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19173" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal</a>, the classic book about the country first published in 1962 which <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/a-serious-swiss-toni-hagen-nepal,888" target="_blank" rel="noopener">introduced Nepal to the world</a>, and through its Nepali language edition, to Nepalis themselves.Now, the Nepal Heritage Society has published another collection of Toni Hagen’s photographs of Kathmandu Valley, some of which were included in <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/kathmandu-valley-then" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an exhibition at the Nepal Art Council</a> in 2015 on the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/tony-hagen-kathmandu-exhibition,3946" target="_blank" rel="noopener">centennial of Toni Hagen’s birth.</a><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b705c9c7e80680e060074jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="423"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70609c7e80680e060075jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="423">Vishnumati flowing clean and blue with Langtang peering over Shivapuri ridge. The Bagmati at Thapathali with a monsoon cumulus looming above Pulchoki.Toni Hagen: Photos of Kathmandu Valley 1950-1960 is edited by his physician daughter, Katrin, with extended captions by history professor Poonam Rajya Laxmi Rana. The book contains photographs that have not yet been published combined with accompanying historical text. This is an important work that shows us Kathmandu in aerial photography 70 years ago, neighbourhoods and street scenes that have long gone, but there are also plenty of reminders of how the inner city bahals and squares have not changed much in the six decades since the photographs were taken.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70639c7e80680e060076jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2638" height="1778"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>‘The photos and films by my father have immense value not only for the archives but for the studies of glaciers, as many of them have changed due to climate change,’ write Katrin Hagen in her preface. ‘The pictures of the old days are somehow a cultural heritage … there was no water supply, no sanitation facilities. But the water of the Bagmati was clean, there was no plastic waste.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70669c7e80680e060077jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="1267"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Indeed, the book allows us to travel back in time to a Kathmandu where the Bagmati reflects the deep-blue monsoon sky, dark rain-heavy monsoon clouds draping the familiar outline of Pulchoki, the green paddy terraces  encircling towns with earthy brown sloping tile roofs. And, possibly because he was from Switzerland, almost all of Hagen’s photographs have as their backdrop snow mountains in the background.Buffaloes wallowing in Chapagain have Dorje Lakpa in the background. Oxen pull a plough with Ganesh Himal glistening on the horizon. Women in Not Danda carry firewood, with the entire panorama of the Central Himalaya on the horizon. In one photograph from Sanga on a clear day, you can see clear across Nepal to the Annapurnas.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b706a9c7e80680e060078jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="1301"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Hagen chartered a six-seater Haviland biplane in Patna and flew it into Gauchar to take the first ever aerial photographs of Kathmandu Valley in 1950. One black-and-white photograph from above Hanuman Dhoka looking east towards Tundikhel shows just how much the city has changed and how much of it remains the same. There is Tundikhel with the khari tree in the middle, the temples of Kathmandu Darbar Square, Bhugol Park, the open space around Dharara and the two-storey buildings of Khichapokhari.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b706d9c7e80680e060079jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="1347"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Ambica Shrestha, President of the Nepal Heritage Society that published the book, says in an introduction: ‘Sharing these photos reminds those who witnessed Kathmandu’s past, and those who did not have the good fortune to do so, to see and experience the scenes and atmosphere of the time.’Rana’s explanatory text provide the background to the images, giving he historical context. The words accompanying the rare aerial photograph of Singha Darbar, for instance, traces the history of neo-classical Rana architecture. There is one anecdote about Jung Bahadur being asked by a foreign visitor why his palace did not have an indoor toilet. His answer: “We do not go to the toilet, the toilet comes to us.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70709c7e80680e06007ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="1318"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Toni Hagen: Photos of Kathmandu Valley 1950-1960Edited by Katrin Hagen, Text by Poonam Rajya Laxmi RanaNepal Heritage SocietyVajra Books, 2019176 pages     Rs4,000<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70739c7e80680e06007bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="451">For more photographs from the book <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/kathmandu-valley-then" target="_blank" rel="noopener">click this link to the 2015 exhibition</a> of Toni Hagen’s photographs.

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Fenerbahçe Beko won the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague finals in Abu Dhabi, held 23-25 May, defeating Monaco 81-70 in the final. Olympiacos, who defeated Panathinaikos 97-93, finished the series in third place. The Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the final match, Nigel Hayes-Davis from Fenerbahçe Beko, received a prize of 1,000,000 Miles&amp;Smiles from Turkish Airlines’ Chief Commercial Officer Ahmet Olmuştur. The carrier has been the title sponsor of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, a top tier tournament, since 2010.

Turkish Basketball

In the black and white photograph, General Wangdu smiles broadly in front of the dusty cactus garden in Kathmandu’s Annapurna Hotel. With an ill-fitting jacket and shaggy hair he looks benign enough, but this was the last leader of the Tibetan freedom fighters who led the resistance against the Chinese from their remote mountain hideouts in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/comings-and-goings-in-mustang">Mustang</a>. Five months later, Wangdu was dead. Snapped in March 1974, I had only recently arrived in Nepal. How did I meet this legendary fighter? Possibly with his devoted camp follower, Lynne Klapecki, and probably in the Om Restaurant near Freak Street which was the preferred <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/hippie-trail-nostalgia-in-kathmandu">hippie hang-out</a>. Om Lobsang and his brother Yeshe were <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/earthquake-brings-back-memories-of-camps-for-tibetan-refugees">refugees from East Tibet </a>whose cafe offered a friendly welcome and<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/momo-loco"> the best momos</a> - they became my in-laws after I married their eldest brother Tenzin, but that was a decade later.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1583" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Photo: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption> </figure>  Wangdu’s English was enthusiastically rudimentary, but even riding around town with him on the back of an aging <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandu-s-new-motorbike-museum">motorbike</a>, he was a commanding presence. Always flanked by armed outriders, impressive scars marked his forearms and a pistol hung from the cord around his neck. A charismatic guerrilla leader, Wangdu was celebrated by his followers for his tough commitment and respected for his measured pragmatism. He seemed so young to have shouldered such a responsibility of command, leading hundreds of hardened <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/50-years-after-the%20raid-into-Tibet,1012#google_vignette">Khampa combatants </a>through what had been a particularly <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/heavy-snowfall-over-nepal-himalaya">brutal winter in Mustang</a>, the last bastion to hold out against the Chinese invasion of their Tibetan homeland.&nbsp; The freedom fighters of Tibet, known as the Chushi-Gangdruk, had emerged to resist the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/territorialism">Chinese takeover</a> of Tibet during the 1950s. Estimated to be 80,000-strong at the time of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-or-who-after-the-dalai-lama">the Dalai Lama</a>’s final escape to India in 1959, the sheer number of Chinese deployed into Tibet eventually forced the Chushi-Gangdruk to retreat to Mustang, From this high Himalayan stronghold, they continued cross-border raids on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) throughout the 1960s.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1114" height="676" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Guerrillas known as the Chushi-Gangdruk emerged to resist the Chinese annexation of Tibet during the 1950s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>  Their Kathmandu base was a small discreet lodge in a back lane near Rani Pokhari. Sipping sweet tea from a blue mug with a chipped lid, I sat bemused in a corner of the Mustang Hotel room whilst Wangdu and his cohorts received a battered brown suitcase from their CIA connection, a tousle-haired American in a leather jacket. Heaved onto the dingy bedspread that covered the thin mattress, it was clicked open to reveal piles of neatly stacked dollar bills.&nbsp; I cannot think why Wangdu allowed me to witness this handover but I was clearly no threat, a newly arrived world traveller with no understanding of the stakes nor any Nepali or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/tibetan-music-in-nepals-sacred-valley">Tibetan language</a>. Despite armed guards in the corridor,Wangdu radiated confidence and bravado, and there was a practiced familiarity to the tense transaction. This deadly dance for many years had been funded by the Americans, tolerated by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-kingdom-within-a-republic">Mustang’s residents</a>, and permitted by King Mahendra and the Nepali authorities who it suited to turn a blind eye.&nbsp; But Mahendra died in 1972, and times were changing. Richard Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy thawed the cold war and signalled a fresh entente with China. Nepal’s yet-to-be-crowned <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">King Birendra </a>was under pressure to curb the irritating incursions against the PLA launched from the Nepali territory of Mustang. Keen to appease his northern neighbour, on several occasions the King summoned Wangdu for peace talks but, despite increasingly overwhelming odds, Wangdu refused to surrender.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1055" height="885" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>General Wangdu flanked by two Tibetan resistance fighters in Mustang in the 1970s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31" data-rendition-name="original" width="1044" height="792" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>King Birendra with General Wangdu (right in dark glasses) taken in 1974 possibly in Mustang after one of their few attempts at negotiation. Photo courtesy: RAJRNDRA KUNWAR</figcaption> </figure>  While I naively rode pillion around Kathmandu in the spring sunshine, Wangdu was in the midst of what turned out to be his final round of negotiations with the Nepal government. Refusing to cease hostilities with the Chinese, Wangdu must have suspected the cost of his decision, making his cheerful smile in the photograph all the more poignant and brave. It was only much later that I appreciated the significance of the moment. Wangdu had been sent to replace the first resistance leader in Mustang, Baba Gen Yeshe, a much derided corrupt character who stole money meant for his troops and exploited fleeing refugees by seizing their treasures. Baba Gen Yeshe never forgave Wangdu,and sought revenge in May 1974 by betraying him and his commanders to the Nepal authorities. Renewed Chinese incursions from the north, active PLA collusion with the Nepali forces under the new King, and treachery from within the Chushi-Gangdrukranks combined to seal their fate.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1400" height="769" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>British television journalists George Patterson and Adrian Cowell embedded themselves with Khampa guerrillas and accompanied them from Tsum Valley on a cross border raid on a Chinese Army convoy in 1964. Photo: ESSAYS ON NEPAL / SAM COWAN</figcaption> </figure>  Mikel Dunham, renowned author of Buddha’s Warriors, writes: ‘It is possible that Wangdu was waiting for some cue from the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. It is equally possible – during that last, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-human-cost-of-nepal-s-yarsa-gold-rush?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR31-Cqw8oyIwMPzf_35e4Skr0ululJvLf3_vDkzHn-AYG2h8uPw2rqqErg_aem_tGVn5coY1-jA7fze_xqhew">desolate winter </a>– that he made the decision to go out in glory rather than admit defeat. Over the last fifteen years, Wangdu had experienced Tibet’s organized resistance being squeezed and shoved around by every conceivable outside force.&nbsp; First they had been pushed out of their own country by the PLA; then they had been refused sanction while on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/nepal-india-trans-boundary-bonds?fbclid=IwAR0PpJ5zUEbwdug3g_U3ar6FUugngRY0S8Tl2v_7wqzrsHmXWcXsKjvL4t4">Indian soil</a>; then they were abandoned by the Americans because, apparently, Nixon wanted to make friends with Wangdu’s mortal enemies, the communists; then they had been betrayed by the vampiric Baba Gen Yeshe – a Tibetan and, even worse, a fellow Khampa; and now, finally Wangdu’s army was being evicted by the Nepalis. One thing was certain: Wangdu was a warrior. To imagine Wangdu simply giving up and settling down in the pacific squalor of a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp">refugee camp </a>was unthinkable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49.jpg" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="746" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>The much derided Baba Gen Yeshe, the first Tibetan resistance leader in Mustang, who betrayed Wangdu for personal gain. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="656" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Aditya SJB Rana of the Royal Nepal Army whose team ambushed Wangdu and his cohorts at the top of Tinker Pass in Darchula, West Nepal. Photo courtesy: GAUTAM SJB RANA</figcaption> </figure>  By August 1974 the game was up. Wangdu and six of his exhausted party were killed on their horses by <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7270">the Royal Nepal Army</a> on the brink of escape. The officer in charge, Aditya SJB Rana, cleverly predicted their route into India after they failed to silence a police radio in Yari. A carefully laid ambush trapped them near the summit of the Tinker Pass in Darchula,at 5,000 meters the highest military operation of its time. Wangdu’s body was helicoptered to Kathmandu, and a big show made of the royal Nepal victory.&nbsp; The Tibetan armed insurgency against China had reached its end.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_23" data-image-id="20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> </figure>

The Last Days of the Khampa

Starting 17 September Turkish Airlines will fly daily to Seville, one of Spain’s major tourist draws. This is Turkish’s sixth destination in Spain after Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, and Bilbao. Seville is in the Andalusia region on Spain’s south coast with a rich Moor history. There are approximately 30,000 Nepalis living in Spain.&nbsp;

Turkish to Seville

The newly-formed Himalayan Art Council is set to launch Nepal’s National Art Protection Platform that seeks to preserve <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-history-of-heritage">Nepal’s unique cultural heritage </a>using<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/artificial-censorship"> AI-powered tools</a>. The Council seeks to safeguard <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-art-going-places">Nepali art works</a> from neglect, theft and counterfeiting as well as preserve existing artwork and celebrate living masters by giving them a cultural space to continue the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/sacred-survival">sacred art traditions</a>. "We are introducing a new digital platform designed to preserve, verify and elevate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-new-generation-of-alternative-artists">Nepal’s art for generations to come,</a>” says a statement from the Council, adding that the digital platform will use AI told for authentication and blockchain to keep track of works of art. Artists can now be protected by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/ayo-ai?fbclid=IwAR1uwmTVq4gUB70ljfRezjzukD9ArWXPuMnUikopeQ8PoiZMjicToPSwhKE&amp;=1">AI tools</a> that detect forgeries, identify their work even when unsigned, and ensure they receive proper recognition and credit. The archives will be searchable with translated inscription and interactive guides. Says curator Meena Lama: “AI and blockchains are tools that give us the power to detect fakes and identify unsigned paintings and track every piece. With these tools we can restore trust, secure authorship and give artists the dignity they deserve.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53" data-rendition-name="original" width="1300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum."> <figcaption>Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum.</figcaption> </figure>  The Council is also holding an exhibition of Nepali cultural masterpieces with 50 historical <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Buzz-the-art,671">thangka and paubha </a>by past masters and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/between-the-sacred-and-everyday">contemporary works by current artists</a>. This curated collection is a living tribute to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">Himalayan culture</a> with economic depictions of deities, mandala and sacred narratives. The exhibition at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/a-portal-into-patan-s-past-and-present">Patan Museum</a> also provides an opportunity to meet painters and custodians of art and culture. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/golden-deities">Golden deities</a>, Sewa Bhattarai ‘The exhibition is only the first step in a long journey to ensure that Nepali art is no just seen but fully understood, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Narratives-of-Faith-and-Memory-Remembering-the-Lost-Sculptures-of-Kathmandu-exhibition,987">protected and remembered</a>,’ the Council says. Artist Kailash K Shrestha of Artudio has spent decades promoting thankha and paubha traditions because of their beauty and devotional meaning. But he also says artists are underpaid, exploited and ignored. He adds, “AI and blockchain are not just buzzwords, they are powerful tools that can protect Nepal’s artists from fraud, verify authenticity and build a permanent record of provenance.” Traditional Art Exhibition Till 17 May Patan Museum

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The Last Days of the Khampa

Turkish to Seville

Digital protection for Nepal’s art