<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111412118/637222569c7e80680e0c02eejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1001"/><figcaption>Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya. Photos: ABARI</figcaption></figure>It was 2AM on 11 June when a 4.7 magnitude earthquake shook Kathmandu residents from their sleep, but it is doubtful if it will jolt many out of the complacency about seismic risk.The tremor did not cause any damage, but it brought back memories of the 2015 earthquake, and forced some to reflect on the safety of Kathmandu’s buildings. The 2015 quake that saw the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/A-concrete-future,2251">collapse of predominantly brick, mud, and mortar buildings</a>, feeding public perception that concrete structures are more durable.However civil engineers and architects say technologies like rammed earth would be environmentally more sustainable and earthquake-resilient. But reinforced concrete is preferred, with Nepal’s domestic cement production more than tripling from 3 million tonnes to 10 million tonnes in the six years since the earthquake.By coincidence on the day of the 11 June quake, rammed earth architects gathered for a workshop in Patan to take stock of progress so far.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111412118/637222599c7e80680e0c02efjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="1124">Rammed earth construction uses locally-sourced soil often combined with gravel and reinforced with steel bars and limited concrete. It involves no machinery and therefore less emission, a contrast to brick kilns that contribute heavily to Kathmandu’s pollution. Materials are also largely sourced locally, which reduces both cost of transportation and fossil fuels.Narayan Acharya, the director of Sustainable Future Nepal, built his own house in Kathmandu with locally-sourced materials and rammed earth techniques. He has now built 10 more structures in Kathmandu Valley.“It is warm in the winter and cool for the monsoon, we should promote that all over Nepal,” says Acharya, adding that rammed earth structures are both sustainable, comfortable and retain the traditional Newa style. While the walls are made of soil and other material, the structures are resistant to monsoon weather. He also has a built-in water recycling system and a biogas tank.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111412118/6372225c9c7e80680e0c02f0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Rammed earth projects have been particularly successful in Nepal’s rural environments. In 2020, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/bayalpata-hospital-in-nepal-wins-global-design-award/">Bayalpata Hospital</a> in Accham was built with rammed earth technology and won international design awards. Despite these successes, rammed earth structures have yet to establish a hold in Kathmandu.“There are not as many rammed earth structures in Kathmandu proper,” explains Tyler Survant, an architect and founder of Better Building Bureau, alongside Anna Leshnick.One reason for the lack of rammed earth structures in Kathmandu is the misconception that mud mortar buildings are weaker. In 2015, the majority of fallen buildings in the earthquake were brick and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10518-020-00834-y">mud mortar</a>. But those fallen buildings were not built with rammed earth techniques, and many violated building codes.“They do not believe mud is strong enough,” says Acharya about rammed earth structures. “It is important to overcome that misconception.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111412118/6372225f9c7e80680e0c02f1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="855"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Experts warn that public <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/A-concrete-future,2251">confidence in concrete</a> construction is misleading. “Do not believe for a second that concrete won’t be impacted in an earthquake,” says Jharna Joshi, an architect and professor at Kathmandu University. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/concrete-lessons-of-2015/">Even a slightly longer or more intense earthquake </a>could have also brought down concrete structures in 2015.According to Survant, current building codes limit rammed earth structures to two and a half stories, making them less popular in a dense, city environment that builds upwards even though rammed earth buildings can go up to three stories.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/quake-was-a-learning-experience-for-nepals-schools/">Quake was a learning experience for Nepal’s schools</a>, Prakriti Kandel<a href="https://kathmandupost.com/valley/2015/10/28/govt-brings-new-building-bylaws">Building codes require adjacent residential buildings, even in concrete, to not exceed three stories</a>, but contractors often add additional floors on top of existing structures. “There is a building code, but people do not follow the rules. And since land is very expensive, some build six stories to not lose any value.”Acharya says his rammed earth structures did not crack in the last earthquake. Earth buildings are used internationally and historically, with structures found in Chile, India, Nepal, and Iran. “Earth structures have been part of vernacular for millenia, and they have tested it,” says Survant, explaining that rammed earth structures use reinforced ring beams, steel bars, and up to 10% concrete that interlock the earth walls.“The concrete and rebar is providing the same support, but with far far less concrete and using local materials,” he adds.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111412118/637222629c7e80680e0c02f2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="844"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Rammed earth’s costs come from its added insulation, and the experienced builders required, including a structural engineer. It also reduces other financial and environmental costs. There is far less transport of concrete to a building site, and no brick production in polluting kilns.“If you calculate all the costs, it is competitive, this can be cheaper,” says Acharya. “And rammed earth is not just for the short term, it is built to last.”Rammed earth’s materials are unlikely to contribute to future waste and environmental impact because when demolished, the material can be reused.Joshi explains that after the 1934 earthquake, Kathmandu was rebuilt with traditional timber salvaged from previous structures. After 2015, most buildings are now concrete. “We need to upcycle existing materials. If you build in concrete, there is no way you can reuse those materials,” she adds.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-traditional-seismic-resistant-designs/">Nepal’s traditional seismic resistant designs</a>, Sheilin Teo

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Foundations for sustainable buildings in Nepal

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a36199c7e80680e0482eajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1300" height="950"/>One of the lessons not learnt from the earthquake four years ago is the possibility to re-use and up-cycle bricks, metal and timber for reconstruction instead of buying expensive imported material. But it is still not too late.Traditionally, Nepalis have <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/learning-from-nepals-past-to-rebuild-its-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reused building material for temples</a>, or homes, salvaging and recycling them after every earthquake in the past. Nearly 700,000 houses went down in the 2015 quakes, leaving a huge amount of stone, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Building,370" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bricks, useful mud mortar, timber and roof tiles.</a><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a361c9c7e80680e0482ebjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="454">In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake on 25 April 2015, survivors quickly built temporary shelters made of bamboo, tarpaulins, planks, corrugated steel sheets and anything else available. Relief agencies supplied corrugated steel sheets, some of which were barely 0.2mm thick and could be bent into semi-circles to make shelters.Read also:<a style="letter-spacing: 0.15px; font-weight: bold; background-color: #ffffff;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=25092&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lessons Unlearnt</a>, Editorial<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=25101&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal's traditional seismic resistant designs</a>, Sheilin Teo<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/tall-order/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tall order</a>, Sewa Bhattarai and Prakriti Kandel<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a361d9c7e80680e0482ecjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="823" height="772"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a361f9c7e80680e0482edjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="807" height="915"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a36229c7e80680e0482eejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="481"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Soon, the temperature in the low valleys rose to 36oC, and the space under the metal became ovens. Temporary schools also overheated, and there were reports of children dehydrating and fainting. Once the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/monsoon-challenging-for-a-post-earthquake-Nepal,2280" target="_blank" rel="noopener">monsoon</a> came, the sound of rain on the tin roofs made teaching impossible. Strong winds tore the paper-thin steel sheets loose, turning them into flying guillotines.Poor families had no other option than to stay in their <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/05/12/moving-to-safer-shelters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">temporary makeshift houses</a>, turning a large part of Central Nepal into slums. These were not homes.Our Sustainable Mountain Architecture (SMA) team came up with an alternative design for transitional homes, made from salvaged material and locally grown bamboo or thatch. The base of the single-storey house is a thick, heavy stone wall; the main structure re-uses <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/community-forest-comes-in-handy-earthquake-reconstruction,2927" target="_blank" rel="noopener">timber</a> columns, beams and rafters of the family house that came down.The top part of the walls and the roof are made of lighter material, the horizontal timber tie beams had new metal wires to act as stabilising cross-bracing so they were stronger. Salvaged planks or bamboo, and the compulsory involvement of family members in the building process guaranteed ownership of the transitional homes built for only Rs40,000 each.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=25110&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shaking up the health sector</a>, Sewa Bhattarai<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=25119&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Quake was a learning experience for Nepal’s schools</a>, Prakriti Kandel<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a36259c7e80680e0482efjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1170" height="886"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a36279c7e80680e0482f0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1297" height="918">However, after relief money was allocated for the removal of material from ruined houses excellent raw material that could have been used for construction were taken away. Once the government got its act together, it dictated the usage of concrete.Heaps of local building material was wasted, while salvaged timber started to rot in the rain. Families who could afford it started building reinforced concrete houses. This has been a boom time for the cement and rebar industry. Brick infill walls were made in concrete structures, providing business to polluting brick kilns baking Kathmandu’s fertile topsoil. All this new building material had to be transported by trucks spewing black soot.A more permanent design by the SMA team used salvaged material from a collapsed building to make a two-storey model house at the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/community-forest-comes-in-handy-earthquake-reconstruction,2927" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ICIMOD</a> Knowledge Park in Godavari, to demonstrate quake-resistance design for rural Nepal.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepal-is-being-loved-to-death/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal is being loved to death</a>, Anil Chitrakar<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nirmala-pariyars-2nd-life/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nirmala Pariyar's 2nd life</a>, Ramu Sapkota<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a362a9c7e80680e0482f1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="879">For retaining warmth in winter, the house — at 1,500m — uses a south-facing asymmetrical saddle roof for passive solar energy gain. While most buildings in Nepal are now using thin, 0.25mm corrugated steel sheet for the roof, we looked for a more robust solution, re-using bottoms of scrap tar drums 60cm in diameter and 1.2mm thick. The completed house rests on a concrete ring beam, the only place where cement is used.The upper floor is lightweight with timber structure and double wattle and daub walls. These jut out slightly from the lower stone wall with timber tie reinforcements. The largest upper floor span of 6m is made by one steel I-beam, to conserve trees.Sapana Shakya and Aman Raj Khatakho are architects with Sustainable Mountain Architecture, a Nepali non-profit founded by Anne Feenstra, a Laureate of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2012 (Paris) to promote innovative pro-people, pro-ecology, pro-local building techniques.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a362d9c7e80680e0482f2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1154" height="666"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a362f9c7e80680e0482f3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1153" height="896">BEST USE IS REUSEPost-earthquake most buildings tend to use reinforced concrete because of the misconception that houses built with traditional techniques and materials will not be strong.However, with innovation and the right design, the non-profit Sustainable Mountain Architecture has built this model house that uses local material and style to build durable and eco-friendly homes.This model house is easily replicable, uses local labour and technology, and salvaged material.The windows and doors of the model house face south. The southern wall is taller, which means the house gets plenty of sun in winter. The passive solar energy that enters the house is trapped in the walls. Double glazing on windows prevents heat from escaping.

Building back cheaper and stronger

<figure><img width="800" height="1067" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a360a9c7e80680e0482e4jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>ANASTYLOSIS: Decorated resting platform (pati) in Kathmandu being rebuilt using traditional materials and methods. Photos: SHEILIN TEO</figcaption></figure>After the April 2015 earthquake, the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) released two manuals to address the repair and retrofit of masonry and reinforced concrete structures. Later, it added an updated guideline for masonry structures. The NRA advisory is consistent with international approaches for earthquake-resistant houses, with a focus on using new, commercial products available in the construction market. But we can also learn a lot from Kathmandu Valley’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/learning-from-nepals-past-to-rebuild-its-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">historical building traditions</a> about alternative designs.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a360d9c7e80680e0482e5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="454">There are many ways of building resilience into structures, but the most historically prevalent and still important today is flexibility. Strong but flexible jointing of ductile and appropriately-sized structural members that hold a building together allow it to sway with movement loads during an earthquake, making it less likely to collapse. Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.15px; font-weight: bold;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=25092&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lessons Unlearnt</a>, Editorial<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=25102&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Building back cheaper and stronger</a>, Sapana Shakya and Aman Raj Khatakho<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/tall-order/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tall order</a>, Sewa Bhattarai and Prakriti Kandel <figure><img width="800" height="800" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a360e9c7e80680e0482e6jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Such design is seen in old timber-framed  and intricately jointed buildings in Japan and China, and also in structures across Nepal. For example, roof rafters are jointed to ridge poles and wall plates to allow a pivoting motion that helps isolate the roof structure from the rest of the building in case of ground movement. Traditionally, buildings in Nepal were constructed with timber and brick walls. Timber is now a scarce resource, and masonry has fallen out of favour in the face of the militant march of concrete. From the plains to the mountains, buildings were made of stone, timber, mud, bricks, thatch and tiles.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=25110&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shaking up the health sector</a>, Sewa Bhattarai<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=25119&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Quake was a learning experience for Nepal’s schools</a>, Prakriti Kandel <figure><img width="800" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a36109c7e80680e0482e7jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Just as the frames and jointing were made to be flexible, the walls were thick, rigid and robust, which is another stabilisation technique. These days, because building with <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/A-concrete-future,2251" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concrete</a> and bricks means walls are thinner and weaker, corner ties and banding can help keep flimsier walls intact. Other earthquake-resilient building techniques include lightweight roofing, which in the past was done with wood and bamboo sub-structures to thatched roofs — especially in the Tarai — and triangulation, seen today in trusses and pitched forms, traditional Newari scroll capitals and decorated tundaal (struts).At a seminar this month on seismic risk organised by the National Society for Earthquake Technology and the United States Geological Survey, experts said Nepal had a strong tradition of resilient construction.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em; font-size: 15px;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nirmala-pariyars-2nd-life/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nirmala Pariyar's 2nd life</a>, Ramu Sapkota <figure><img width="1200" height="1500" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a36139c7e80680e0482e8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Modern skyscrapers in earthquake-prone places like Tokyo use base isolation to counter seismic movement. The Nyatapola Temple in Bhaktapur, Nepal’s tallest, has similarly stood the test of time and two massive earthquakes by combining base isolation with triangulation. The ziggurat form that supports the five-storey <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/community-forest-comes-in-handy-earthquake-reconstruction,2927" target="_blank" rel="noopener">timber</a> and brick tower is essentially a robust plinth, separating the sacred relic and its towering housing from the shaking, while providing ample seating for the beautiful carved guardians of the venerated god.Read also: <a style="font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.01em; background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepal-is-being-loved-to-death/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal is being loved to death</a>, Anil ChitrakarBut just as important as <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/reconstruction-and-resilience-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">building resilience</a> into a structure is caring for it. In the past, buildings lived and breathed within settlements, cared for on a daily basis, and would fall apart if neglected. Ritual care, for example yearly renovations for Dasain, ensure that homes and community buildings are regularly maintained and kept intact, and thus less prone to falling apart in the event of a natural disaster.In the old towns of the Kathmandu Valley, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Monumental-loss,2215" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Newari dwellings and temples</a> were built with both tensile and rigid elements — timber, bricks and clay clustered together in courtyard configuration, each courtyard effectively creating braced squares that are more capable of withstanding shakes.  <figure><img width="1500" height="1500" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111156/636a36169c7e80680e0482e9jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Similarly, communities in the high <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-terrifying-assessment-of-himalayan-melting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Himalaya</a> build settlements one atop another into a hillside, or side by side on contours in maze-like configuration. These buildings, rising from the ground as an agglomerated system of dwellings, are a breathtaking symbol of communities leaning on one another, in a telling, enduring tradition of deep-rooted resilience. Building ResilienceFlexibility/shock absorbency (timber, steel, pinned joints, hydraulicised mud mortars)Rigidity/integrity/banding/corner reinforcements/buttresses (thick masonry walls, rammed earth, interlocking blocks, corner reinforcements, symmetry, opening sizes + locations)Base isolation (dampers, deep foundations, robust plinths)Bracing/triangulation/shear walls/lateral loading/banding (struts, capitals, corbels, lintels, top plates, reinforced concrete or timber banding, metal ties, plywood bracing wall panels)Lightweight Roofs (metal sheet, thatch, shingles, bituminous tiles)

Nepal’s traditional seismic resistant designs

Sha Bahadur Gurung was 30 years old when he was arrested for participating in a peaceful protest. He died aged 65 last week in Bhutan’s Chamgang Central Prison. He was among 31 prisoners of conscience in Bhutan, many of whom are serving long sentences for opposing the regime’s forcible expulsion of 100,000 of its Lhotsampa people in the early 1990s. ‘Mr Gurung died on 15 December in his prison cell under circumstances that raise serious concerns about custodial negligence and long-term abuse,” said a statement by the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (GCRPPB) based in The Hague which demanded an external probe, justice and release of remaining political prisoners. Gurung was from Chirang and was arrested in 1990 while serving in the Royal Bhutan Army, and accused of having sympathies for the Lhotsampa people. He was mostly held at the notorious Rabuna Prison in Wangdi Phodrang District.&nbsp; Gurung’s relatives in the United States said he had endured prolonged physical and psychological abuse during his imprisonment, and repeatedly subjected to torture and inhumane treatment. They believe the decades of ill-treatment had damaged his health, ultimately leading to his death. Earlier this month, Gurung was transferred from Rabuna to Chamgang Central Prison. On 14 December. He had gone to bed after dinner without any visible sign of distress. He was found unconscious in his cell the next morning.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251224151248_5fc8305ecd320d89b9e343c04a1a897dc1353353da55b6d277f5398034b265ea.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251224151248_5fc8305ecd320d89b9e343c04a1a897dc1353353da55b6d277f5398034b265ea" data-rendition-name="original" width="902" height="1103" loading="lazy" alt="Sha Bahadur Gurung NT"> <figcaption>Sha Bahadur Gurung, who died at age 65 in prison in Bhutan after serving 30 years for expressing political opinion.</figcaption> </figure>  He was referred to a hospital in Thimphu, suggesting that he was still alive during transfer to a local health post. But it appears that he had already died before being taken from prison. Gurung’s death occurred two days before Bhutan’s National Day on 17 December, when families, supporters, and human rights advocates worldwide had hoped for the release of political prisoners through a royal amnesty. Instead, the death of one of the longest-serving political prisoners has caused grief and anger in the Bhutanese diaspora.&nbsp; “We strongly condemn the treatment and death of Gurung, a peaceful and justice-loving Bhutanese citizen,” the V statement said. ‘This tragedy raises serious questions about the treatment of political prisoners in Bhutan and stands in stark contrast to the country’s international image under the principles of Gross National Happiness, compassion, and mindfulness.’ Earlier this year, The <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/wg-arbitrary-detention/opinions-adopted-working-group-arbitrary-detention/opinions-adopted-working-group-arbitrary-detention-its-101st-session" target="_blank">United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention</a> said the Bhutan government was detaining citizens without parole for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/detainees-in-dire-straits-in-bhutan-s-prisons" target="_blank">expressing political opinion</a>. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in 2023 that there were least 37 <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/13/bhutan-free-long-term-political-prisoners" target="_blank">political prisoners</a> in Bhutan’s jails. Of them, 32 belong to the Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa community, which has faced <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2003/06/18/nepal-bhutanese-refugees-rendered-stateless" target="_blank">decades of discrimination and abuse</a> and eviction. Most of them were convicted because of prohibited political activity between 1990 and 2008. One political prisoner, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/no-country-for-dissent?fbclid=IwAR07lpitMBWAYSkny_3d_smQBlmoxAOQm1OxdNtl-27h8mV0RNO9IxVY2qs" target="_blank">Madhukar Monger</a>, who was released in 2023 after serving 29 years described brutal conditions in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/asia/bhutan" target="_blank">Bhutan</a>'s jails. Political prisoners were not given enough food, and medical care, he said, urging the internaitoonal community to press for the release of prisoners of conscience.&nbsp; In March, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/about/people/meenakshi-ganguly" target="_blank">Meenakshi Ganguly</a>, Deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, urged Bhutan’s international partners to call on the Bhutan government to release all remaining political prisoners immediately.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251224161216_9d11a78ed5490091c595341900e4c26f5c0dd0328718f6930ef19c1e9b7f95a6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20251224161216_9d11a78ed5490091c595341900e4c26f5c0dd0328718f6930ef19c1e9b7f95a6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1422" loading="lazy" alt="Bhutan political prisoners NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251224161216_176855f3d3df42d24ac7e77372bbf49115695b732a6c094a66267e969111dfca.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20251224161216_176855f3d3df42d24ac7e77372bbf49115695b732a6c094a66267e969111dfca" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1420" loading="lazy" alt="Bhutan political prisoners NT"> </figure>  &nbsp;

Bhutan political prisoner dies in detention

‘Get out of my house.’ ‘All my sickness is because of you.’ ‘You’re a millstone around my neck.’ Arundhati Roy heard these admonitions from her mother over and over throughout her life.&nbsp; This must be a singular, yet universal experience. There must be very few daughters who make it through life unscathed by their mothers. And vice-versa.&nbsp; How many of our mothers look at us and see in us the potential of all of the lives they could have lived? How many resent us for it, or want us to live those lives in their stead? And how many of us look back at our mothers and imagine what they would have achieved had they not been expected and assigned to play the role of wife, daughter-in-law, mother — had we never existed in their lives? How many mothers project their experiences onto their own daughters and continue the cycle? No daughter seems to escape it — no matter how well-behaved, docile, unruly, or rebellious. Certainly not the child who would go on to become a Booker prize-winning author. Arundhati Roy’s memoir Mother Mary Comes To Me chronicles her complex relationship with her mother Mary, or Mrs Roy, as her educator mother had her two children refer to her. In December, Arundhati Roy was in Kathmandu to sign books and briefly interact with readers at two bookshops in the city. She describes a childhood overshadowed by her mother’s volatility towards her and her brother. Mary herself was raised by an abusive father to escape whom she married the first man who proposed — Arundhati’s father who in her mother’s words turned out to be an alcoholic ‘Nothing Man’.&nbsp; Mary left her husband in Assam and eventually wound up with her two children in her town of Aymanam in Kerala, encountering other family members along the way who did not treat her, or her children with respect. The trauma and cruelty her mother endured could not be contained in her body, and spilled out onto her two children, towards whom she was physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive.&nbsp; While she treated her children with disregard, she would build a school in the nearby town of Kottayam from the ground up, educate thousands of children, take up a legal fight that led to the Supreme Court granting Syrian Christian women in India equal inheritance rights, and uplift many orphaned children and women in Kerala.&nbsp; Arundhati lived with both her mother’s brutality and brilliance. And like her daughter, readers must reconcile the indefensible parts of Mary Roy’s personality — the cruelty of calling her nine-year-old daughter a bitch, or shooting the family dog that mated with a stray — with her unyielding drive to educate thousands, fight for equal rights, and challenge the way her world viewed women.&nbsp; Mrs Roy had little kindness for her own children, but plenty for the students, children, and women whose lives she shaped, and made better. And her kindness was not rooted in empathy, but in anger at the hand she had been dealt in life. Eventually, Arundhati decided to temporarily cut all contact with Mrs Roy — not because she did not love her, she writes, but so that she could continue to love her. Her desire to get away from her abusive mother, and her fascination with the ideas inspired by the architect who built her mother’s school, would lead her to the Delhi School of Architecture at age 16. In Delhi, Arundhati became roommates with Hisila Yami before she and her Maoist ideologue husband Baburam Bhattarai went underground to lead Nepal’s decade-long armed struggle. &nbsp; But architecture was not her calling. In Delhi, the heart of India’s statecraft, Arundhati came into young adulthood against a backdrop of the country’s changing socio-politics, which began to take a turn for the hyper-nationalist, Hindu supremacist community that it has now largely become. The winds of those changes have now blown into Nepal. In the city, far from her mother, Arundhati met the man who would become her partner of many years, collaborating with him on several films and screenplays before finding the language (‘I needed to hunt [language] down like prey,’ she writes) she needed to become the writer she is now.&nbsp; She went on to write her Booker prize-winning novel The God of Small Things, but the wealth and status the book brought her did not sit comfortably. So she smashed her newly-built gilded cage, as she describes it, and became more political. Contrary to norm, she published several works of non-fiction, and would only publish her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, in 2017, 20 years after The God of Small Things. &nbsp;&nbsp; Her fierce opposition to India’s nuclear policies, to a dam that would displace millions of indigenous people and ecologically damage the Narmada Valley, her championing of Kashmiri self-determination, and her time spent with Maoist rebels in the forests of Chhattisgarh as they took up arms to defend their land and resources against corporate interests made her an enemy of the state.&nbsp; Meanwhile, being raised by a single mother had never sat well within her Syrian Christian community. ‘I wasn't Christian enough. I wasn't Hindu enough. I wasn't communist enough. I wasn't enough,’ Roy writes in her memoir. For all her love for India, the nation did not seem to reciprocate. The circumstances might be different, but it might strike a chord with readers in Nepal, many of whom marched on the streets in September hoping for a better tomorrow, but were gunned down by the very institutions meant to protect them. It might resonate with those who are not seen as citizens of this nation simply because they might not fit into an imagined idea of Nepali nationhood.&nbsp; Arundhati’s relationship with her mother, who was simultaneously proud and disdainful of her daughter’s accomplishments, continued to be tumultuous until the end of Mary Roy’s life.&nbsp; One of Mrs Roy’s last messages to her daughter before she passed was: ‘There is no one in the world whom I have loved more than you.’ Arundhati muses that her lifelong refusal to stop loving her mother must have finally breached her barriers. One wonders if that final declaration of love was solace enough, apology enough, for all the pain caused.&nbsp; But for Arundhati Roy, her love for her mother and her motherland outweighs the cruelty both have shown her. This, too, must be a singular, yet universal experience.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122208128_32b171acb09df2184495367b74efd91fe2896b0f5ba75b276e1533276268761c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025122208128_32b171acb09df2184495367b74efd91fe2896b0f5ba75b276e1533276268761c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Mother Mary Comes to Me review"> </figure>

The sins of our mothers

Nepal’s Gurkha soldiers have a well-deserved reputation worldwide for uncommon valour and loyalty. However, what happened in Hawaii in 1986 and the long struggle for fair pay and pension shows that the formidable fighters from Nepal also do not tolerate injustice. The Hong Kong-based 1st Battalion of the 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles was in Hawaii for jungle warfare training exercises at the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center when they beat up their commanding officer, Major Corin Pearce. &nbsp;&nbsp; The Gurkhas said Pearce had insulted them, and 111 soldiers were dismissed. Pearce suffered broken ribs and a head injury, and was himself also discharged. The incident got worldwide publicity and enforced the belief that the Nepalis were not treated fairly in the British Army. It also led some retired soldiers to begin a decades-long struggle for compensation at par with their British peers.&nbsp; Retired British Gurkha soldier Shankar Rai in his book Triumph and Tears revisits the Hawaii incident which he witnessed, and also his experience in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas war in 1982.&nbsp; He has lots of grievances: unequal treatment and injustice from the British Army towards himself and his comrades. This is an indignant and disillusioned account of the good, the bad and the ugly of being a British Gurkha, which he says let him down despite his service and belief in it.&nbsp; The book could also be a cautionary tale of how one person on a power-trip can tarnish two centuries of the shared history of Nepal and the UK, as well as ruin the lives of those involved. It also is proof that loyalty should never be taken for granted. Four years after defeating the Argentinians in the Falklands, several companies and platoons of Gurkha rifles were stationed in Hawaii in 1986 for joint US-UK ‘Exercise Union Pacific’ military exercises. The goal was to ‘perfect the art of marine warfare in collaboration with the US Marine Force’. The rules were that a British Gurkha company commander needed to have the rank of major and pass a Nepali language test. Captain Pearce was the son-in-law of a British Brigadier on extra-regiment employment, and this rule was waived. He was appointed Acting Major. Pearce didn’t bother to learn Nepali language or culture, and from Rai’s account took every chance to belittle and embarrass the Gurkhas as poor, stupid, rude, backward, and lucky to be there. He writes: ‘After Captain Pearce reached Hawaii, he began to project himself as a master and the Gurkhas as servants, to show off to the Americans.’ The author also recounts other slights, such as only receiving a fourth of the rations they were due during hard training, being forced to train even when some of the soldiers had high fever, and claims to have ‘civilised’ the Nepalis.&nbsp; Pearce had been to eastern Nepal before the training and seen the grinding poverty. He kept telling the Gurkhas how lucky they were to be in the job, and that they were making ‘more money than Nepal’s prime minister’. During the final farewell party in Hawaii, Pearce set up tables to form a saluting platform, and asked the Gurkha pipe and drum band to march around him while playing. The enraged soldiers could not take it anymore, and after the party an inebriated group ran Captains Pearce and Chandra Kumar Pradhan out of their tents and beat them up. Both officers broke ribs, and the major needed 15 stitches on his head. ‘This sorry and unseemly episode is considered to have been entirely at odds with the Brigade of Gurkhas’ tradition of loyalty and gallant service in the British Army. It is regarded as an isolated and untypical event, which will not be permitted to detract from the high esteem in which the Brigade is held,’ reads the report of an investigation. Most of the 1/7 company soldiers were dismissed whether they had been involved in the assault or not. The author describes the shame that followed, with dismissed soldiers returning to Nepal with lost face.&nbsp; ‘I burned with humiliation, and life scared me,’ writes the author, whose father told him that he was ashamed to call him his son. ‘Many of my friends’ girlfriends left them and married other people. Rifleman Khem Gurung (21162015) of Itahari committed suicide,’ writes Rai, adding that those dismissed were blacklisted, and could not get other jobs.&nbsp; They tried to pursue legal action against the British Government, but backed down when they could not afford expensive hotshot lawyers, and would not have the money to cover the British government’s legal fees in the likely case of a loss in court. Gurkhas who had served for four years in the UK were allowed to move there, an option that many of those dismissed in the Hawaii incident took, including the author, who now lives in Oxford. Rai pours out his hurt and emotion in the book. Towards the end, he writes: ‘I depend on small jobs for livelihood. In the remaining time, I actively raise the issue of the victims of the Hawaii incident. We are burdened with insults, hatred, and contempt for a lifetime. It was harsher than a court martial, too heavy to bear.’ The is a slim book, and is a quick, engaging read of an incident 30 years ago, and Rai writes with a soldier’s precision. Even though the anger shows even after all these years, there is no over-dramatisation in the narrative.&nbsp; The first part of the book is about sailing across the South Atlantic in the QEII, which had been converted into a troop ship to take the Gurkhas to war. The soldiers from landlocked Nepal were mostly sea-sick, but were happy to get two cans of beer a day. Barclays Bank even had a branch on board. Rai’s descriptions of the friendships he developed in the Company and on the battlefield are poignant. They braved Argentinian bombs, dug trenches and fought through the rain in the Southern Hemisphere winter. There are vignettes of sharing tea with fellow Nepalis, seeing comrades fall, and finding pictures of wives and children in the pockets of dead young Argentine soldiers. Behind the prestige, honour and myths of being a Gurkha soldier, it seems this is just another job with nepotism, horrible bosses and bad pay. But such is the desperation that up to 20,000 young Nepalis still apply for 300 openings in the British Army every year. &nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Triumph and tears book details NT"> </figure>

Not taking loyalty for granted

After a week of to-and-fro that culminated in all-night bargaining, two populist young figures in Nepali politics agreed at 4AM on Sunday to join forces ahead of elections in March. Rabi Lamichhane of the RSP, who came out of jail a week ago, has forged an alliance with Kathmandu mayor Balen Shah. Both are keen to ride on the GenZ wave that radically changed the direction of Nepal’s politics that has been dominated by three mainstream parties for the past three decades. Under the 7-point deal, Lamichhane will still head the RSP, while Shah has been promised prime ministership if the party wins a majority in the federal elections. Shah will also be the parliamentary party leader. The RSP will keep its name and election symbol. “Agreements must be made not on the basis of what leaders want, but on what the country needs,” Lamichhane wrote on social media announcing the alliance. The RSP chair is said to have put his own prime ministerial aspirations on hold to ensure the Kathmandu Mayor's support for the March polls. This is an alliance of convenience. Lamichhane requires the backing from Shah’s youth voters to face the legacy parties, while the mayor needs a political platform. Ultimately the prospect of leading not just Kathmandu but Nepal itself appears to have been the deciding factor for Balen Shah. The Kathmandu mayor is reportedly keen to contest the election from Jhapa against former prime minister K P Oli in his constituency.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a" data-rendition-name="original" width="900" height="900" loading="lazy" alt="Balen-Rabi alliance"> <figcaption>Photo: BALEN SHAH, RABI LAMICHHANE / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  The two have much in common. Lamichhane, a former tv anchor, returned from the United States and launched the RSP as an alternative party four months before elections in 2022. He served as Home Minister twice in Pushpa Kamal Dahal's coalition government before being jailed for defrauding cooperatives depositers. He made a jail break during the September protests, returned to prison voluntarily, and was released on bail last week. Balen Shah stood as an independent candidate for mayor of Kathmandu in local elections in 2022, and was catapulted to victory because of anti-incumbent protest votes among urban youth.&nbsp; Both campaigned on social media, pushing a populist anti-corruption agenda and against the governance failure of the three establishment parties — the same logic that drove the GenZ protests in September that escalated into violence and brought down the UML-NC coalition. Even as government buildings smouldered on 10 September, GenZ members were strongly urging Balen Shah to be the interim prime minister, but when he declined they voted on Discord for former chief justice Sushila Karki.&nbsp; With just over two months to go for elections on 5 March, Prime Minister Karki has been trying desperately to get the mainstream parties on board. She has met twice with the top leaders of the UML, NC and the NCP. All three parties have been dealing with internal power struggles, and the UML appears to be the most reluctant to face elections.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Sushila Karki with political leaders"> <figcaption>Prime Minister Sushila Karki has been meeting with leaders of the mainstream parties to get them on board for the election. Photo: PMO</figcaption> </figure>  The UML’s former prime minister K P Oli has refused summons by the Judicial Inquiry Commission charged with investigating the massacre of protesters on 8 September and the arson and vandalism the next day. Then home minister Ramesh Lekhak is scheduled to give his deposition to the Commission this week. The legacy parties appear to be taking the threat from the Rabi-Balen partnership strongly, and have been trying to forge an electoral alliance so they do not compete against each other.&nbsp; They are relying on traditional vote banks among the rural electorate, and calculate that alternative forces will cancel themselves out. They could also be hoping that Balen Shah’s erratic behaviour and Rabi Lamichhane’s prison conviction will put voters off. A total of 837,094 first-time voters have been registered in Nepal ahead of the elections.&nbsp; The Kathmandu mayor is an engineer and rap artist, and had till now been reclusive, preferring to post on social media rather than face the press. His late-night online posts have been impulsive: like the one urging that Singha Darbar be burnt down, or another one recently in which he used the f-word against the US, China, India and the mainstream parties. He later deleted both posts.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1112" height="1440" loading="lazy" alt="Balen Rabi agreement NT"> <figcaption>The seven-point agreement between Shah and Lamichhane. </figcaption> </figure>  Lamichane and Shah had also been negotiating with Energy Minister Kulman Ghising’s newly-forced Ujyalo Nepal Party, but the bargaining did not go well because Ghising refused to fight elections under the RSP banner. If the three had been successful in coming together, it would have been a formidable alliance. There are misgivings about the RSP-Balen Shah deal, even among some GenZ who see the two prominent men dividing up the power structure as just the kind of political culture they wanted to reform. Many are already predicting exactly the kind of clash of egos between the two alpha males that characterised Nepali politics since the restoration of democracy in 1990. In the coming days, as with most political change in Nepal, there will be much speculation about the geopolitics behind the Rabi-Balen deal. Balen Shah’s angry post against India-US-China as well as his past nationalistic pronouncements on Nepal’s territorial dispute with India over Kalapani will be recalled, while Beijing has misgivings about the antecedents of some GenZ figures. Dharan-mayor Harka Sampang, who has also formed his own political party, has already pronounced the Rabi-Balen deal as being “foreign backed”.