<figure><img width="705" height="311" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19a49c7e80680e0ac82ejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>From Bigbang to BTS, Train to Busan to Parasite, and Winter Sonata to Crash Landing on You, South Korean movies, tv series, and music have dominated the watching and listening preference of Nepalis for the past two decades. Adding to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/k-pop-in-k-town/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">growing Hallyu wave in Nepal</a>, and globally, is Netflix's runaway hit Squid Game.
The dystopian series, which debuted on Netflix in September, has amassed a huge following with the streaming platform reporting views from 111 million accounts in less than a month since its premiere, making it its ‘biggest-ever series at launch’.
The show follows a group of people from different walks of life, who pushed to the brink of desperation play dangerous versions of children’s games to win money. All of this is orchestrated by wealthy people looking for some entertainment.
The setting is brutal, and the show does not shy away from blood and gore – of which there is plenty throughout the nine episodes.
But what seems to have struck a chord with people globally and in Nepal is the series’ portrayal of the wealth gap prevalent in the real world today, and the values and morals humans are willing to stake for money.
The show’s success can be gauged by the numerous articles in the media, memes and clips circulating online, a spin-off reality show in China, the number of followers the cast has gained following the premiere, and even the viral videos and social posts about Dalgona candy used in the series for a game of ppopgi, where contestants need to carve out the image on the candy with a needle without breaking it. There are also viral challenges inspired by Squid Game doing rounds on TikTok, and media reports of record-breaking searches of Halloween costumes inspired by the show.
Much of the incredible reception can also be attributed to the hype generated by the initial reviews, and word of mouth. Many Nepali viewers watched the show when clips and reviews started flooding the social media because they did not want to be left behind. For others, it was an introduction to the world of K-dramas that are otherwise popular for rom-coms.
For a certain section, the Dalgona candy seems to have struck a sense of nostalgia as they reminisce about the craze of Dalgona coffee during the lockdown.
In Nepal, the character of Ali, a Pakistani migrant worker played by Anupam Tripathi seems to have hit home for many. The desperation to provide his family a good life, the loyalty he exhibits even till the end and the gruesome death he faces seems all too familiar to the tales of many Nepalis who leave the country every day in search of a better future in Korea and overseas.
But the success is not without criticism. The show’s writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk has been accused of borrowing extensively from other survivor genre movies like the Hunger Games, Battle Royale and particularly the Japanese film As the Gods Will. And many have been put off by the bloodshed. There are also those who have watched it for the fear of missing out, but ended up calling it overrated.
As Squid Game has gripped the Nepali viewers we asked our readers: "What do you think about the underlying metaphor of the hit series?"
Here is what they had to say (some comments contain spoilers):
While the world seems to be obsessed with class disparity, I believe Squid Game is a screaming reminder of absurdity - the existential philosophy of people like Camus or Sartre. Combine it with a Kafkaesque sense of an impending sense of eternally being guilty of something - like in 'The Trial'. Replace overpowering sense of doom with 'debt anxiety' and suddenly the massive global debt (which includes South Korea) that the world seems to be drowning in starts making sense. On top of that, throw in the "illusion" of choice and you have a perfect mimicry of absurdity. Whether you play, or you don't, you're deemed to have a life full of inescapable suffering.                       Avinash Mishra
There's a lot about Squid Game that stands out but most particular is how class solidarity is made impossible by the realities of capitalism. The show does such a brilliant job of making "villains" out of Sang-Woo and Deok-su that as the audience, you almost forget that the real villains are the people orchestrating the whole thing. The Front Man and the VIPs (the capitalists who can afford to throw around 45.6billion won for "entertainment" and bet $1million on single players) are the ones we (the audience) should be rooting against and yet we forget that halfway through the series. Another example of how class solidarity is made impossible is illustrated by the marbles game. When the managers ask the remaining players to pick a partner, the instinctual thing for the players to do is to pick someone they trust, someone they know will not betray them at the last moment, and someone who is reliable. And what does the marble game make the players do? It pits teammates against each other in the most brutal and jarring way. When Sang-woo betrays Ali, someone he's not only helped earlier in the show but also allowed to refer to him as "hyung" (older brother), it's horrifying, yes. But it's also a reminder of how the core of capitalism was, is, and always will be individualism. This is only further highlighted at the end of the series when Gi-hu finally meets player 001 and finds out who the "mastermind" behind the games was. There was a relatively recent study that concluded that the more wealth you accumulate, the less empathy you have. The way player 001 talks about how he and his rich friends were bored, and they basically developed their own version of the horse tracks and the callousness with which he wants to wait and watch the drunk man on the street die, show exactly this apathy that the wealthy have towards others. I, for one, kept waiting for Gi-hu to run down and help because the bet never said he couldn't do it. The fact that the old man was proven wrong adds to the central thesis of the show which in my opinion was: capitalism strips you of everything that makes you human and makes you believe that the cruelty and individualism and selfishness you see in the players are inherently human. But they're not. They cannot be. Because we see Gi-hu go out of his way to help and assist player 001 from the beginning. We see Sang-woo give his food to Ali. We see Ji-yeong sacrifice her life for someone she only just met because Sae-byeok had something and someone to live for. We see flashes of these players care for each other despite the circumstances. We see them resist the dehumanisation.
The cruelty, individualism, and selfishness are bred into humans by capitalism to foster itself. We are closer to Rousseau's idea of humanity rather than Hobbes's. There are so, so many more layers to this show, from gender to race to immigration to religious fanaticism to social Darwinism. The exploitation of the working class is at the core though. The fact is that no matter how hard some people work, their circumstances won't change because the odds have been stacked against them from the beginning. Maybe even before they were born.
UNDP's Human Development Report 2019 said that inequality was on the rise and "Far too often a person’s place in society is still determined by ethnicity, gender or his or her parents’ wealth."
I think this show does a wonderful job of illustrating this.                                          ]Andrea Upadhyay
The Squid game was a breath of fresh air especially because Asian tv shows <a style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19842#.YXlXTC2B3-Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">apart from rom com cliché</a> catching up to Hollywood is good. It also perfectly portrayed how the wealthy exploit the weaker member of the society, demonstrating the gap between the rich and the poor. And of course, the private debt trap, its impact on Korean society, Korean point of view of North Koreans. It might feel overrated for we are used to watching survival dramas on a big budget. But keeping that specific part aside, we can see many nuances of the society in the drama.                                                    Manisha Gadtaula
I just finished watching Squid Game. It depicts an underlying disparity between the ultra-rich and those struggling for survival daily. The rich treat the poor as "horses" and enjoy watching their death-surviving races akin to horses running on the track.      Shailesh Sharma
The underlying metaphor of the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10919420/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">K-drama ‘Squid Game’</a> is economic inequality. The ones affected by its impact in real life were participants who came to play games to win the prize but were later eliminated and killed for the sake of providing entertainment to the creator of the games, the old man himself, as well as to other VIP guest spectators. Just like that, people, especially from poor countries, are exploited and killed daily by rich nations for the sake of enjoyment from their hard work. There are several examples of how this drama is representative of many real life events, but one that instantly came to my mind was the death of hundreds of young and healthy <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-workers-football/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepali migrant workers constructing stadiums</a> for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar for spectators. The entire survival game of the drama is organised by player 001 (wealthy old man) who thinks the one thing that is common between rich, and poor is that everything gets boring in the end and hence is ready to do anything to relive the joyful moments. Likewise, the FIFA World Cup is something that is watched by half of the world, as proven by the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia; so in essence, many migrant workers sacrificed their lives for the sake of providing enjoyment to half the world the next year. In the end, only one player was alive, who was also the winner of the game. Many migrants survived the construction of the stadiums, but it doesn’t justify <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/world-cup-stadium-workers-in-qatar-unpaid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the injustice</a>.                                                                                                                                 Subidha Parajuli
Once you have everything that you desire, you get bored and then your longing to feel such excitement again in life grows so much that it forces you to look for extreme ways of achieving that, most of which are ethically wrong because doing good things hardly give you the same rush as the bad stuff.                                                                     Avi Stha
The show seems to have been inspired by some of the Hollywood flicks, such as Saw and Hostel. Nevertheless, its metaphor is subtle and to the point and to some extent it is successful in showcasing the divide between the rich and the poor. What I liked about the series is that despite the impoverished and the poor being in the majority and sharing the same affliction, they still want to get to the top at the cost of others. This is a subtle jab at how our society works today.                                                        Sushil Rana

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Squid Game: latest addition to the global Hallyu wave

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19959c7e80680e0ac828jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>This short book, Political Economy of Social Change and Development in Nepal, by Jeevan Sharma, a senior lecturer on South Asia and international development at the University of Edinburgh, packs a punch. Drawing on his own original field research and the ideas of Karl Polanyi on The Great Transformation (1944) as well as secondary literature, Sharma has produced a holistic overview and analysis of the economic, social and political transformation that Nepal has experienced over recent decades. `His work challenges many of the prevailing characterisations and explanations of that process, and identify some of the contradictions that underlie the more visible fault lines that others like Ram Sharan Mahat and Baburam Bhattarai also have identified. In his Introduction Sharma writes that ‘change, transformation and development have been recurrent themes, not only in everyday conversations, political rhetoric and social movements, but also in Nepali public culture and literary writings since the 1950s’. He then reviews both the main features of the changes that have taken place since the 1950s and also some of the different theoretical and empirical studies that have addressed those changes. Sharma warns against the uncritical adoption of Polanyi’s framework for ‘the Global South’, but argues that a more complex model, involving ‘a three-sided constellation of conflict among proponents of marketisation, adherents of social protection and partisans of emancipation’, would make it possible to connect ‘politics, society and economy’. He does not consider in any detail alternative approaches to the ‘political economy’ of social change and development in Nepal (eg the ‘neo-liberal’ and the Marxist) although he sees the ten-year <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/02/16/making-war-on-the-day-of-love/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Maoist insurgency</a> (1996-2006) as part of a broader movement for social justice, rights and citizenship that he argues has been developing ‘since the 1950s’. The book has four main chapters, each considering an axis of change. Chapter 2 ‘From Subjects to Citizens’ considers Nepal’s political ‘transition’ focuses particularly on the period since the 1950s. The first half of the chapter charts the uneven process the transition from subjects to citizens at the national level, the second half examines local perceptions of the dynamics of social change with particular reference to changes in caste, gender and local power relations and to the role of the Maoist insurgency in bringing about these changes. This section draws on Sharma’s own fieldwork in western Nepal. Chapter 3 ‘Peasantry, Mobility and the Changing Face of Rural Nepal’ looks briefly at the economic and social history of the peasantry in Nepal and ‘changing rural society’, exploring the diversification of rural livelihoods, the weakening of ‘caste-based feudal relations’ and the commodification of labour. This leads on to a consideration of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepali-migration-in-the-2020s/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">migration</a>, which he rightly sees as having a long history from the mid-18th century onwards. Somewhat controversially, Sharma identifies three to five ‘waves’ of migration, the last of which became more widespread after the 1990s and ‘has come to shape the nature of the remittance-based national economy of Nepal’ – leaving many Nepalis in low-paid, highly exploitative and precarious employment. I would have preferred to see migration as characterised by different ‘forms’ or ‘regimes’, often contemporaneous rather than sequential. And despite the undoubted importance of remittances in contemporary Nepal would contest the notion that Nepal’s economy is ‘remittance-based’. There are many different strands in Nepal’s complex integration in the wider regional and global economy, including not only the export of labour, but also of other resources as commodities, and the importation of commodities from other countries, foreign direct investment, loans and ‘<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19592#.YXet2E1BzOQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">foreign aid</a>’. It is also debatable, as the climate crisis deepens in this most vulnerable of countries, whether paid employment away from home is necessarily more precarious than livelihoods based on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/aid-rarely-aids-agriculture-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">agriculture</a> and embedded in a local economy and society often characterised by hierarchy and inequality.   Chapter 4 ‘Mobility and Educational and Occupational Futures’ focuses on the experiences of young men from rural Nepal as they struggle to overcome the challenges of mobility and find secure, and salaried employment. It draws heavily on Sharma’s fieldwork in Palpa and explores ‘social meanings and patterns of mobility’, looking at the links between education and employment in particular, but also considering the significance of caste and ethnic identities in determining outcomes. This chapter is particularly rich in ethnographic terms, and complements Sharma’s earlier work on ‘youth, migration and masculinities in Nepal’. It would be good if some anthropologist were to undertake a similar investigation into the education and subsequent livelihoods of girls and women. Chapter 5 ‘Development and Patronage Politics’, while referring to programs undertaken during the early 20th century ‘that would fall under what is broadly regarded as development’, Sharma sees 1950 as ‘a critical moment in Nepal’s development history’. He examines briefly what he calls the ‘initial rush for development’ in the 1950s and then the program of ‘nation-building through Bikas’ under the Panchayat System dominated by King Mahendra. This is followed by a review of the period after the first Jana Andolan from 1990 to 1996 (‘democratisation for development’) and of the Maoist insurgency (‘conflict and development’) from 1996-2006. Sharma considers the Maoists’ theory, strategy and practical contribution to economic, social and political change. While recognising that ‘development was at the core of Maoist ideology and strategy’ and acknowledging their positive influence in certain areas – notably addressing inequality and social discrimination – he seems largely unimpressed by their actual achievements and has a number of negative things to say about their practice. Somewhat surprisingly, he does not refer in any detail to their theoretical and political analysis of development and underdevelopment, despite several of the Maoist leadership publishing them widely. He notes, however, that the Maoist insurgency prompted various development agencies to reconsider their own strategy for addressing ‘<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/end-of-war-is-not-peace/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">structural violence</a> and discrimination’ – resulting in the establishment of a new consensus on the priority on gender, caste and ethnicity through the lens of  inclusion and empowerment. This effectively downgraded the concerns of economic (class) inequality, and poverty, which had hitherto been a main concern of both the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development (DfID). He also remarks that the conflict itself had the effect of accelerating the process of migration, both temporary and permanent, from the rural areas to the towns and abroad, thereby contributing to the transformation of both rural and urban economy and society. ‘The Maoist insurgency coincided with a major economic change in Nepal, that is, the commodification of land and labour as never before, with the deepening of the market in the citizens’ everyday lives,’ he writes. This process continued in the next period, following <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/revisiting-maoist-demands,2860" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jana Andolan II</a> and the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=12806#.YXetRU1BzOR" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Comprehensive Peace Agreement</a> (CPA) of 2006, as the Maoists re-entered the mainstream of Nepali politics and contributed to the peace process and state re-structuring. This led to the establishment of an interim government, the abolition of the monarchy, and the election of a Constituent Assembly charged with the task of drawing up a new constitution, for a secular, federal republic. The excitement of the early years of this period (2006-2008) was followed by seven years of political wrangling and lack of direction until, eventually, shortly after the April-May 2015 earthquake, a new Constitution was finally promulgated in September. This was marked by controversy, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/few-jobs-created-by-nepal-employment-drive/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">failed to advance</a> any of the promising elements of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/justice-in-transition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CPA</a>, including Article 3.13. which envisaged ‘a policy of massive increase in employment and income generation opportunities by increasing investment in industries, trade and export promotion’. Sharma argues that ‘sluggish economic growth and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/missing-the-plot-in-nepals-job-scheme/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lack of jobs</a> have created economic precarity’, and that while demands for greater rights for various social minorities have tended to take centre stage, there has been little or no appetite on the part of government or opposition, development agencies or civil society, for economic justice.  Sharma argues that ‘beyond the immediate impact on the economy and lives and livelihoods, the earthquake had a seismic impact on Nepal’s long political transition’.  I would disagree. Although it resulted in the ‘fast-tracking of the Constitution-writing process’, the earthquake failed to promote a new sense of common endeavour or urgency, even as regards physical reconstruction after the earthquake. The interventions of the foreign agencies in its aftermath were un-coordinated and subject to widespread criticism. Controversies over aspects of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-contentious-constitution-day/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Constitution</a> and the very different responses to it from China and India, provided fuel for a ‘new Nepali nationalism’, as Sharma suggests – even if this nationalism proved divisive rather than integrative. This period was marked on the one hand by a national debate over the precise form the promised new ‘federal’ structure would take, and efforts to delineate the contours of a new, more decentralised polity, while on the other hand, political discourse and practice continued to be characterised by the dominance of elite politics at all levels, national, regional and local, and by the pervasive and malign phenomenon of corruption and patronage. Sharma ends this chapter by remarking that ‘the politics of the distribution of development has been realised in practice by distributional coalitions’. In other words, development in Nepal is not the broad-based, inclusive form of positive economic, social and political transformation that the term often implies, but rather a narrowly conceived and implemented, and fragmented, ‘sharing of the spoils’. The book ends with a consideration of ‘Precarity and Paradox in Once-Remote Locations’, on the contradictions of globalisation for a social formation on the periphery of the global political economy that retains many of the characteristics of pre-capitalism. It also looks into the nature of life on the periphery – which involves integration in the global political economy but creates ‘precarious livelihoods’. Sharma is concerned that Nepal’s integration into the wider world has so far failed to generate the appropriate ‘counter-movement’ to safeguard and protect the lives and livelihoods of the majority of ordinary Nepalis, even if it has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-great-income-divide/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">apparently reduced poverty</a>, allowed the emergence of a middle class, and enabled <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-richest-man-in-the-pandora-papers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a minority to accumulate considerable wealth</a>. Nepal’s continuing and arguably increasing reliance on foreign labour migration is both a cause and a consequence of the failure to generate decent, reasonably secure employment and economic opportunities within the country. It is a failure of both the public and the private sector, but it is also a consequence of the lack of an enduring movement for economic, social and political reform (or revolution) to bring about a ‘great transformation’ in Nepal. David Seddon is a former Professor of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia and now independent researcher and writer.Political Economy of Social Change and Development in NepalJeevan R. SharmaBloomsbury Academic India, 2021215 pp.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19989c7e80680e0ac829jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="180" height="291">

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Nepal’s elusive ‘Great Transformation’

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111015118/636d06a19c7e80680e0a5f74jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>The pandemic has thrown a wrench into the global economic machine, curtailing growth in many parts of the world. Governments and businesses are now directing all of their energy toward restoring the old normal and the pre-pandemic growth rate. And yet, our policy mantra really should be the opposite: ‘No going back’.After all, in the pre-pandemic world, we were hurtling toward the very end of human existence on this planet, owing to climate change, the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, and the development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications that will render more and more of the remaining hands redundant.Scientists have long been warning us that runaway global warming will sharply limit our time on this planet. The countdown has already begun. Humanity has made itself an endangered species. It would be suicidal to return to the pre-pandemic world. Why should we get back on a track that will lead us off a cliff?Now that so much of the economy has stopped, there is no better time to reorient it in a different direction. The pandemic has created an opportunity to chart a new course to a world defined by three zeros: net-zero carbon dioxide emissions, zero poverty, and zero unemployment.Redesigning the system is our only option. We are prolonging a party in a burning house, celebrating economic growth and our technological miracles, and dancing to songs of prosperity. The songs keep us complacent about the fact that our party is what started the fire.Young people around the world realise this and have been trying to shut it down and extinguish the flames. Teenagers have been marching and demanding change. Some openly accuse their parents of stealing their future. Governments at least have shown awareness by announcing net-zero targets, just as businesses have signed on to the Sustainable Development Goals.But how much of this is real, and how much of it is public relations? A true commitment would entail a fundamental change in our economic thinking, and an end to pursuing GDP growth for its own sake. This new thinking would force us to acknowledge the dangerous world we have created and compel us to address the steady accumulation of wealth at the top, which comes at the expense of so many at the bottom.As matters stand, governments continue to follow their usual politically safe path. They are announcing environmental goals, but not acting with any apparent urgency. No country is showing any real concern about wealth concentration or AI. It has thus fallen on ordinary people, particularly the young, to mobilise against a broken status quo.Capitalism is based on the assumption that human beings are driven by self-interest. This nostrum will need to be reformulated to reflect what human beings are actually like. I would say that people are driven partly by self-interest but mostly by collective interest.The assumption that only self-interest matters is what led economists to lay the intellectual foundation for corporate profit-maximisation. But once one acknowledges the role of collective interest, this model no longer holds. We will need a new framework for business.A firm driven by collective interest doesn’t need the individual profit motive; rather, its success hinges on whether it provides financially sustainable solutions to collective problems, and its profits are therefore plowed back into its business. This is not merely theoretical: I have created precisely this kind of “social business” in my own work.Would this approach spell the end of capitalism? No, because profit-maximising businesses would still be able to function side by side with social businesses. It would be up to individual firms to decide which model to embrace. Someone could choose to engage in profit-maximising business, social business, or both – either separately or at the same time. Both types of businesses would participate in the same marketplace under the same regulatory authorities.Obviously, people are not driven solely by personal profit. If they were, there would be no such thing as charity. Likewise, 'investment' is not limited to uses of money that maximise personal profit. Regardless of whether one buys the shares of a profit-driven company or of a social business, one has made an investment.People who invest in social business do not doubt that making money could bring them some happiness; but they recognise that investing to help others (a collective interest) would bring them even more. Those who share this outlook will actually prefer to invest in social businesses.Ultimately, these value judgments are rooted in our minds – that is where one finds happiness and recognises its true source. I, for one, can find many uses for my money. I can donate it, keep it under the bed, buy lottery tickets, invest in social businesses, or invest in profit-maximising businesses. But it is not obvious how I should decide between these options, because maximising happiness is not the same thing as maximising profit.The old assumption behind capitalism has fooled us on many levels. Worst of all, it has made us believe that happiness can be measured by how much money we have. Under the old system, all citizens are supposed to stay busy maximising profits and paying taxes, with those government revenues going toward solving whatever common problems the country faces.But the government’s involvement in solving social problems has itself led to political polarisation. Some argue that governments should minimise taxes and steer clear of addressing problems that should be left to markets to sort out. Others argue that the government should take more responsibility for solving social problems, with taxes rising to whatever level is needed.But either way, there are no circumstances in which individuals should remain mere spectators. We all must bring our own creativity to bear on social problems. Once citizens become active in addressing shared challenges, results soon follow.Smart governmentThe smart government is one that creates space and incentives for citizens to get involved. It will inspire people and applaud their achievements, while establishing the necessary legal and administrative structures to support their initiatives. For example, governments can create the conditions for social business funds, social business venture capital, and social business micro-entrepreneur banks.The point, here, is not to diminish the importance of government. Rather, it is to activate the state’s organising function. A government’s capacity should be judged not by its tax revenue, but by the power it gives to the people. Guiding and inspiring grassroots action can achieve much more than any amount of revenue can.Economic and social transformations are easier when governments demonstrate the appropriate leadership. If governments were to become enthusiastic participants in forging a path to a new future, the process would be much smoother and much faster. At the core of this process is the creation of new institutions.For example, we need financial institutions to ensure that every young person can become an entrepreneur if she doesn’t want to wait in line for a job. The state can establish these options by codifying a legal framework for social business venture capital funds, and by creating incentives for firms to create social businesses in parallel to their conventional businesses.In too many countries, however, there is no financing arrangement for a young person who wants to start her own business. Finance is the fuel of entrepreneurship, but as long as loan sharks are the only ones offering it, social businesses will never get off the ground. Micro-entrepreneurs need specialized banks that can cater to their specific needs, including in remote and isolated places.Consider someone who starts selling shirts on the street. He may sell five per day, even though he has the capacity to sell 50. With no money to expand his business, he gives up and gets a job (possibly in the informal economy, where he has no benefits or legal protections). If money had been available, he would have had many other choices. He could give up wage employment and focus on building his business; or, he could take a job while continuing to sell shirts on the side.Technology has a major role to play in all this. It could be a blessing or a curse, depending on which direction we want to take it. It is easy to imagine how AI could bring endless benefits to people, but not when it is being designed and deployed to replace human workers on a massive scale.When we create a new technology, we have an obligation to consider where and how it should and should not be used. Technology is not an autonomous force, but rather a human creation that reflects our own values and intentions. Medicine was invented to cure people, but medical knowledge and technologies obviously can be used to kill people, too. A general-purpose technology like AI is no different.I believe that AI development is currently headed in the wrong direction, because it is being used to maximise profits by reducing profit-driven firms’ labor costs. We must stop this trend before it is too late. Unlike other technologies, AI could theoretically reproduce itself, at which point it would have no limit.The pandemic has given us an opportunity to start working toward a new world of net-zero emissions, zero poverty, and zero unemployment. To that end, we will need to dispense with fossil fuels and deploy renewables on a global scale. We will need to stop eating beef and pumping out single-use plastic products. And we will have to do far more to preserve and replenish forests and other important ecosystems.We also must redesign banking so that financial services are accessible even to homeless people. We must stop allowing wealth to become increasingly concentrated. We must think seriously about the threats posed by AI. And we must take social business mainstream.Humans are an endangered species. If we continue down the same path, we will become an extinct one – and possibly quite soon, depending on the choices we make right now.© Project SyndicateMuhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is the founder of Grameen Bank.

The pandemic opportunity

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101152/636a26e49c7e80680e043a3ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="1178"/><figcaption>Diwakar Chettri</figcaption></figure>Whatever the political ambitions of the Maoist leaders, their justification for taking up arms was the inequality historically embedded in Nepali society. The rebels lit the spark on terrain that was tinder dry with disparities. Nepal would have gone up in flames sooner or later, the Maoists just had their timing right.The tragedy, of course, is that in an allegory of Animal Farm 13 years after the war, the Maoist leaders people elected to government forgot what they fought for, and Nepal’s income and wealth gap have grown even wider. As our review of a recent report shows, Nepal’s poor are <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/Nepal-%20Multidimensional-Poverty-Index,4115" target="_blank" rel="noopener">trapped in poverty</a> while the few rich have prospered.The report by HAMI, South Asian Alliance for Poverty Eradication and Oxfam paints an alarming picture of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17298" target="_blank" rel="noopener">deprivation</a>  and disparity in Nepal: the average income of the richest 10% of Nepalis is more than three times that of the poorest 40%. Worse, the richest 10% own 26 times the wealth of the poorest 10%.Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; outline: 0px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.01em; font-size: 15px;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=21837&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal's great income divide</a>, Ramesh Kumar<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=21822&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Some are more equal than others</a>, Anil Chitrakar<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/gadfly-opinion/removing-poverty-with-jobs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Removing poverty with jobs</a>, David Seddon<a style="background-color: #ffffff; outline: 0px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.01em; font-size: 15px;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-a-rich-mans-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">It's a rich man's world</a>, Ramesh KumarEconomic inequality is most evident in agriculture in which 66% of Nepalis still depend. The wealthiest 7% of households own 31% of the agricultural land, and many landless are tenant farmers at the mercy of landowners. Social discrimination multiplies the misery: 81% women are landless, as are 44% of Dalits in the Tarai.Nepal’s <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15026#.XGzGkOQza70" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wealthiest man</a> has a net worth of $1.6 billion and is the 1,561 richest in the Forbes list. His wealth grew by $200 million last year. A history of feudalism, a rent-seeking state and neoliberal economic policies have concentrated Nepal’s wealth in the hands of a dominant elite which has made policies and laws to perpetuate its hold on it. Rulers and hangers-on have deliberately kept the poor out of reach of new opportunities, depriving them of a chance of a better life.Such disparity also gives the movers and shakers an unfair advantage in a democracy because they can bend the system to keep getting elected, which then deprive the underserved even more. Politicians, bureaucrats and businesses can carry on with <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/red-rice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">business-as-usual</a> with no accountability, full impunity and no fear of retribution from a <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/bulldozing-democracy-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rigged system</a>.The government’s failure to deliver on basic services like health and education have driven the private sector to fill the gap. But consequent over-commericalisation and lack of regulation have put quality schooling and medical care out of reach of the poor. The government’s reaction has been to back a populist call for nationalisation to cover up its own delivery failure.Inequality is taking its toll on the physical and mental development of children. <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/the-face-of-hunger-debt-malnutrition,3604" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Malnutrition</a> begins at a very young age: 36% of Nepali children under five are stunted, 27% are underweight, and 10% suffer from wasting due to lack of adequate food. There is no greater proof of chronic governance dysfunction than this: the apathy and failure of the state to protect its most vulnerable.No society or nation can have totally equal income or wealth distribution. But there must be a certain equilibrium so that all citizens can attain a basic quality of life and earn a standard, minimum income.But inequality is so bad that the 8 million Nepalis who live in poverty have shorter lifespans. A poor Nepali child is three times more likely to die before age 5 than a rich child. The poor and excluded receive unequal care at government hospitals.What is most tragic is that there is minimal recognition or commitment from successive governments to redress this injustice. Nepal ranks 138, which is nearly at the bottom of a list of 157 countries, for its Commitment to Reducing Inequality. Rampant <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/from-nepali-press/poor-of-kathmandu,2153" target="_blank" rel="noopener">poverty and extreme inequality</a> build frustration among suffering citizens, increasing the chances of social instability, and possibly renewed conflict. After a revolution to liberate the poor from poverty ended up killing 17,000 of Nepal’s poorest people, the gap between the rich and poor has actually widened.The way countries try to compensate for the inequality inherent in free market capitalism is through progressive land reform and taxation, by spending on a social safety net, and through  government investment in affordable, quality health care and education. There must be minimum wages for even those working in the informal sector, because that is where majority of Nepalis are engaged. All this would lay the foundation for a more equitable society, where the poor may not be immediately guaranteed greater income but all citizens would have a level playing field.We have seen the current government make tentative moves to address some of these issues, but they are too little and too half-hearted. The chasm between the rich and poor is so wide that it will take more than the hollow populism of the government's ‘Prosperous Nepal and Happy Nepalis’ slogan for prosperity and happiness in our lifetime.10 Years ago this weekThis passage from the Editorial in Nepali Times #439 of 19-26 Feburary, 2009 about how the still Royal Nepal Army was trying to reassert itself warns of danger to the civilian chain of command. Excerpt:The Nepal Army's 'recommendations' to the CA Committee on Protection of the National Interest has raised hackles. While it is the fundamental right of every citizen to respond to the CA's call for suggestions, an instrument of state is expected to abide by operational norms of proper procedure. The NA brass has clearly overstepped its limits by bypassing the executive to present its case directly before the legislature. Under normal circumstances, an organ of state has to access parliament through the concerned ministry. But even more alarming is the tone of the content. A civilian chain of command means the army shouldn't have a political position of its own other than that of the government of the day.

Mind the Gap

This week at the National Population Policy launch Prime Minister K P Oli exhorted Nepalis to get married by age 20 and have three babies by the time they are 30. This was the first indication that the highest office in the land has understood the need to address Nepal’s dramatically <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepals-demographic-window-is-closing">falling birth rate</a>, but Oli’s statement was greeted with ridicule on<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/avoiding-the-quicksand-of-social-media"> social media</a> — especially by women. Most urban young are already grappling with economic pressures and shifting life priorities. Even with a university degree,<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/workers-return-to-jobless-nepal?%2F"> many cannot find jobs</a>, and are taking the first flight out for overseas employment. Having a child is now a fraught decision shaped by income, individual autonomy, and family pressure. The <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/swp2025">UNFPA’s State of the World Population report </a>released last month, highlighted a significant <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/migrating-males-and-population-decline">decline in fertility rates </a>around the world. The global average fertility rate is 2.25 children per woman, and 18% of the reproductive adults said they will not be able to have the number of children they desire. The total fertility rate in Nepal has plummeted to 2.1 births per woman — down from 5 just 30 years ago. This is considered replacement level, meaning the newborns will replace their parents.&nbsp; However, birth rates are not declining as rapidly everywhere. The Tarai in has a total fertility rate of 2.20, and northwestern mountains is still 2.24.&nbsp; There are multiple factors in play, and the report broadly divides them into four categories: health issues, economic concerns, fears about the future, and lack of a supportive partner or their absence. More than half of the respondents said finance, which includes unemployment and increased cost of housing, as well as parenthood, was a barrier to having children. “More and more people prefer one or two children at maximum. Many women also decide to have children at a much later age,” says Kamala Devi Lamichhane of Tribhuvan University. “The opportunity cost is far higher for women.” But there is also a cost for the country, as the National Population Policy notes. At the rate the total fertility rate is falling it will soon be below replacement level — meaning that in the next three decades Nepal will be confronted with an <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-future-is-older">ageing population</a>.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250714140740_bac3e5a284b69a77d97b3b99daf2e7fd3019bc48f1a399fb2771381c751d8291.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250714140740_bac3e5a284b69a77d97b3b99daf2e7fd3019bc48f1a399fb2771381c751d8291" data-rendition-name="original" width="1302" height="501" loading="lazy" alt="Nepalis having fewer babies. Why?"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250714140740_251115b0a88d4e82be70245c43cb74477f3be18042ef1aa3b904c597d815f13b.png" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20250714140740_251115b0a88d4e82be70245c43cb74477f3be18042ef1aa3b904c597d815f13b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1125" height="500" loading="lazy" alt="Nepalis having fewer babies. Why?"> </figure>  Besides income, there are also cultural factors at play in women having fewer babies — they are expected to do all the childcare duties, even putting their careers on hold. In general, there is little help from spouses, and with more nuclear families there is less support from relatives. “Women today are well educated, career-oriented, and economically independent, allowing them to delay marriage as well as being conscious about their body and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/nepal-far-from-hitting-contraceptive-target?%2F">reproductive rights</a>,” says Laxmi Tamang of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM). Also present at the policy launch was demographer Yagya Bahadur Karki, who said that women are more educated and hence, empowered to take their own informed decisions regarding having children.&nbsp; He adds, “But the fertility rates have reached replacement rate, and that stands as a warning for the future.”&nbsp; Fertility rates have fallen in inverse proportion to the rise in female literacy. The regions of Nepal where couples have more babies is where women are less educated. Couples in Madhes and Sudur Paschim provinces, where child marriage, gender-based discrimination, menstrual huts and dowry are still widespread are where the fertility rate is still high.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250717120740_ababfd31ed5ff79ded427e1f1adfff02e6af2384bd541e51dfe05e52fbbccb39.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250717120740_ababfd31ed5ff79ded427e1f1adfff02e6af2384bd541e51dfe05e52fbbccb39" data-rendition-name="original" width="994" height="682" loading="lazy" alt="TFR Map"> </figure>  And because female literacy also has a direct correlation with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/fatal-discrimination">infant and child mortality</a>, couples in those regions tend to have more babies so some of them survive.&nbsp; But it is Nepal’s urban centres among the educated where the increased choices in reproductive health, including alternative methods of conception like IVF and treatment for infertility, as well as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/implant-service-providers-take-contraception-to-nepals-poor">contraceptives</a> offer more options for family planning. “There are more choices regarding reproductive health, and there is more awareness as well, which is why people decide carefully on whether or not to bear a child,” says population expert Yogendra Gurung. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/migrants-returning-from-the-gulf-with-infertility">Migration is another factor</a> adding to the decline in fertility rates. Many young Nepalis of reproductive age leave every day in pursuit of better jobs overseas. Spousal separation means fewer children.&nbsp; “Once away, even if not educated, they realise that child-rearing costs are high, and try to have fewer and even no children in some cases,” Gurung adds. Recent studies have also shown that men returning after their stint in the Gulf and Malaysia, where they are <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/gulf-workers-need-protection-from-heat">exposed to extreme heat </a>for extended periods as well as various chemicals and toxins in their work environment &nbsp;have a range of health problems, including infertility. To increase the birth rate, Nepal will have to reverse its family planning strategy of the past 40 years. Complicating this is that some regions of Nepal will need measures to control the birth rate, while urban areas will need a strategy to help parents have more babies. One way to help families have more children is to develop more <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/future-proofing-nepal-s-population-strategy?s=04&amp;fbclid=IwY2xjawFQf-NleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRxSwwGPfm7_2cBhDVAowPxEmFXP0Os-KRs1DXqIW_84wDhciExtZuNi1g_aem_jzRqN2cEVAppfwr5qedxRg">family-friendly policies</a> that favour women and youth as the Nordic countries, which also have falling birth rates, have done. They have introduced flexible parental leaves for both parents, including financial and health incentives. China, also concerned about its declining birth rate and an ageing population, now has a three-child policy as well as tax deductions, expanded childcare services, and leave policies to encourage couples to have more children. “We must work towards childbirth and childcare policies and plans that are suitable for Nepal, so that couples planning for children do not have to think twice about it because of finances or other reasons,” adds Gurung. Tamang of the International Confederation of Midwives says a gender transformative approach is needed to address the issues of the gender gap which is adding to the decline in childbirth. Husbands need to play a more important role in child-rearing. Instead of increasing fertility for the sake of it, the objective should be to assist young people to start the families they desire, at a point and time of their choice. Respect for everyone’s rights and dignity lays a foundation for a more balanced demographic trend. Lamichhane sums it up: “If fertility rates are to be sustained, it requires changes in the gender roles and behaviour, keeping the youth’s aspirations in mind.”

Nepalis are having fewer babies. Why?

Does anyone know that 2023-33 was declared the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/visit-nepal-again">Visit Nepal</a> Decade? Or that Pokhara announced that 2025 is a Special Tourism Year? The fuselage of Nepal Airlines jets still carry the Visit Nepal Year 2020 logos. Such ad hoc and unnoticed promotion is emblematic of the way Nepal has tried to increase visitor arrivals <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-hopes-for-tourism-rebound-in-2021-rk4dlo9t">post-Covid</a> — and of the country’s wider political disarray. Deepak Raj Joshi of the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has his work cut out to coordinate various agencies of the government to boost arrivals.&nbsp; He says, “We have been working on marketing strategies to revive the tourism sector, and are hopeful that this year will mark a 8-10% increase in arrivals compared to the pre-pandemic times.” On paper, tourist numbers have rebounded to pre-Covid numbers with over 1 million last year, but official figures do not give a true picture of duration of stay, average spending, and the fact every visitor is counted as a ‘tourist’, even repeat visitors who come on business. The few bright spots are largely a result of private sector promotion of niche tourism products, individual social media posts of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/top-10-treks">adventurous treks in Nepal</a>, or the fact that Indians are allowed to enter China again to visit Lake Mansarovar and Mt Kailash via Nepal. Indeed, Simkot airport has up to 15 flights a day from Nepalganj bringing in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/nepal-india-trans-boundary-bonds">Indian pilgrims</a> who are then ferried by helicopter to the border in Hilsa, or Lapcha Pass from where the holy sites in Tibet are visible. The rudimentary hotels and rest houses along the route in Humla have been bursting at the seams for the past month, to the point that some establishments are no longer able to provide patrons basic amenities.&nbsp; Last year, 1.14 million tourists visited Nepal, and the government has projected up to 10% increase in tourist arrivals this year. International tourist arrivals to Nepal have been steadily increasing, especially from the US, Europe, and India. Domestic and regional travel has also increased after the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/lockdown-5-utlzqtvs">Covid lockdowns</a>.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250717120756_e1c8f08e7e26496d2b2394e0be776e147fb46c415347b781ed9e5c64d9c9e505.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250717120756_e1c8f08e7e26496d2b2394e0be776e147fb46c415347b781ed9e5c64d9c9e505" data-rendition-name="original" width="1145" height="668" loading="lazy" alt="Tourist numbers"> </figure>  The tourism industry employs at least 1 million people, trekking injects money directly into the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/not-rising-nepal">rural economy </a>and sustains ancillary sectors like handicrafts and domestic aviation. In the last fiscal year, tourism brought in Rs82.33 billion, according to Nepal Rastra Bank. But the industry has been affected by negative publicity about poor infrastructure, air pollution in Kathmandu, travel safety and news of disasters like the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rasuwa-flood-likely-a-glof">China-Nepal flood last week</a> that made international headlines. Growing worries about the climate crisis is also affecting youth travel, especially from Europe. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/missing-out-on-nepal-s-tourism-potential">Missing out on Nepal’s tourism potential</a> “The limitations of airport and road infrastructure has hindered the development of the tourism sector,” admits Joshi. “And many are put off by the appalling state of our road network, especially during <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/managing-the-monsoon">the monsoon season</a>.” Nepal is home to 20 protected areas, 10 heritage sites, and eight out of the world’s 10 highest mountains, and despite all the obstacles it is still the perfect destination for the modern social media savvy traveller, who are experience-driven and inclined to look for itineraries that emphasise wellness and cultural immersion.&nbsp; Some hotels around Kathmandu, Pokhara, Jomsom and the Khumbu have strived to adapt to this new tourism landscape, expanding facilities with significant international investment. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/a-thamel-within-thamel">Luxury hotels like Aloft Kathmandu</a> in Thamel were inaugurated just before the pandemic lockdowns, survived the crisis and thrived as it. Says General Manager Vikram Singh (pictured, below): “Our prime location in Thamel enhances the guest experience, especially for those seeking convenience and immersion in the local scene and travellers who want to be in the centre of it all.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071805070_8d29803e8b52bcd4439422e7b7a0bc25aa68ef3d227b9130bd0e079af626677d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="2025071805070_8d29803e8b52bcd4439422e7b7a0bc25aa68ef3d227b9130bd0e079af626677d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1066" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Aloft GM"> </figure>  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-sustainable-tourism-means-in-practice">Sustainability </a>and environmental consciousness has also become an integral part of the hospitality industry. ISO certifications as well as sustainability initiatives like the Travelife sustainability certification for eco-friendly resorts validate credibility of hotels. Aloft is the first five-star hotel in Nepal to have earned the Waste Smart Certificate, and it has also been awarded the ISO 14001:2015 certification, which is the internationally recognised standard for environmental management systems (EMS). But such investments will not amount to much unless Nepal makes serious efforts to promote itself as a<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/peak-tourism-in-2023-9ukoi8iz?utm="> tourism destination</a>, especially to its two giant neighbours. More importantly, the country needs to increase activities in which tourists can spend the money they want to. “While <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-pushes-mountain-bike-tourism?fbclid=IwAR1MNH0iFGv1vRz5G9uZ4AzUlKxB6nY7JKq0qT6je_FV4_SuxPZqviwKGn0">mountaineering and adventure tourism</a> are extensively promoted, we have fallen short of marketing other elements such as wildlife, pilgrimage and cultural heritage,” says Joshi. “There is a need to diversify promotion to increase income from the tourism sector.” Meanwhile, making Nepal more accessible to international and domestic visitors, must also be a priority. Kathmandu remains the sole aerial gateway despite new airports in Pokhara and Bhairawa. “International airlines have shown interest, and if access and flights are increased these airports can be fully functional,” says Joshi. But Sichuan Airlines has stopped flying to Pokhara, and there does not seem to be much interest from Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodian carriers to fly directly to Lumbini. Says Singh: “There’s tremendous opportunity to strengthen Nepal’s destination marketing by telling richer, more compelling stories that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/culture-cannot-be-an-afterthought">connect travellers with our culture</a>, nature, and people.”

Tourism needs a new push

Many of us former Nepal Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) would agree that our time in Nepal changed in significant but very different ways our perspectives on life if not the future paths we chose to follow. Of no one was this truer than Dorothy Mierow. Dorothy was born in 1920, in Colorado Springs. Her father Charles C Mierow was a classics scholar and Latin professor, who served for ten years as president of Colorado College.&nbsp; Dorothy developed an interest in animals as a child, graduated with a BA degree in natural history from Carlton College in 1942, a Master’s in biology from the University of Pittsburgh, and another Master’s in geography from the University of Minnesota.&nbsp; As a young woman, Dorothy traveled with her father throughout Europe, including a visit to ancient Greek ruins, and took a Magellan Tour by cruise ship around the world in 1958.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_0bad133ab22aada319e74bbad95d563e191371db291c08f373839fbd15440262.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025071901074_0bad133ab22aada319e74bbad95d563e191371db291c08f373839fbd15440262" data-rendition-name="original" width="903" height="1178" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>HOME AWAY FROM HOME: Dorothy Mierow as a college student in her native Colorado.</figcaption> </figure>  She was a college teacher during much of the 1940s, also teaching at a girls’ school in Hawaii. Then back to her native Colorado in 1953, where she became a curator and later director of the Colorado College Natural History Museum. She taught geography classes, and in her free time, Dorothy climbed 22 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks. Traveling in India in 1960, Dorothy decided to spend two weeks in Nepal. In late 1961, she filled out an application to join the Peace Corps and specified that she wanted to go to Nepal, ‘because I admired the people so much when my father and I were there on our trip’.&nbsp; Dorothy reached Kathmandu in September 1962 as the first group of American Peace Corps volunteers in Nepal. She stood out from the others: one of the few women in that group, surely the oldest at age 41, a world traveler, and a woman who already had established a professional career.&nbsp; One doubts if Dorothy had had a husband and children whether she would ever have gone to work and spend much of the rest of her life in Nepal.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901078_68e84ade1ffb0f6c83c7f8fa5c1e7315b5f6c543217f96cde012e4d86f171515.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025071901078_68e84ade1ffb0f6c83c7f8fa5c1e7315b5f6c543217f96cde012e4d86f171515" data-rendition-name="original" width="1259" height="910" loading="lazy" alt="How th Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life NT"> <figcaption>Pokhara Bazar in 1962.</figcaption> </figure>  The Peace Corps assigned Dorothy to teach geography at Tri-Chandra College. After the school closed in the winter due to lack of heating, USAID and the College of Education asked Dorothy to help train general science teachers.&nbsp; She taught for two months and became involved in a textbook-writing project, commenting: ‘I would like the children to know something about public health, conservation (the trees are going fast and so is the soil), and learn the names of some of their common birds, trees, and flowers. They are more impressed with electricity, airplanes, and cell structure.’ When a new college opened in Pokhara in 1963, Dorothy was transferred there and lived with a Nepali family. The college boasted 30 students and no permanent buildings.&nbsp; In October 1963, Dorothy wrote: ‘Pokhara is a town of almost 5,000 people … We are in a fertile valley surrounded by foothills … There is a small Mission Hospital … a Leper Hospital and Tibetan Refugee Camp started by the Red Cross and now run by the Swiss. With winter approaching, more Tibetans are appearing in town, often with pack horses or donkeys. Some have been carrying large boxes of powdered milk,donated (by USAID) to the camp from the airport … There is no electricity, and the transportation problems make many items scarce and expensive. I am really a sort of a museum. The landlord brings all kinds of people in to see how I live and count my shoes and dresses. They express amazement at my books, pictures, tin oven, Nepali dolls from Kathmandu, screened food shelves and curtained closet.’ The standard term for Peace Corps volunteers was two years, but Dorothy extended her term and was still at Prithvi Narayan College at the end of 1965, when she wrote that she had 20 Geography students in the first-year class and 6 in the second year preparing for the IA Examination. The college enrollment was 125 students, and the foundation for a new science building was being excavated.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_c6a80e5e0db0c705b2f8733c6d30dc0386fe3abbd2238ea9d947b7d746f94a29.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025071901074_c6a80e5e0db0c705b2f8733c6d30dc0386fe3abbd2238ea9d947b7d746f94a29" data-rendition-name="original" width="902" height="605" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>Mierow and friends at Phewa Lake.</figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy noted that she ate one meal a day at the (Shining Mission) Hospital but otherwise lived on dal-bhat, momo, and potato curry at local shops. However, she had developed a new passion: to build what she initially called the Pokhara Museum of the Himalaya. In commendable Peace Corps fashion, Dorothy always worked with Nepalis and respected the culture. ‘The greatest joy and satisfaction I have had has been from the building of a Museum-Library in memory of my parents … It has been possible to feel like a wealthy benefactor with the money saved by father for the family’s education and now available for the education of others… (Father) would have loved to be in on the founding of a new college and be able to plan a library. Several hundred of the books to be in the museum-library came from his collection and were carefully selected to be of use for students in Nepal…’&nbsp; ‘The museum part is to satisfy my own inclinations and was thought of when I found how little diversion there was for the people of Pokhara… It is part of the University requirements for the college that it should have a geography and biology museum. The museum building is small but adequate.&nbsp; I have tried to design it in harmony with Nepalese architecture and decorate it with some of the art of the best artists or woodcarvers… Posts holding up the porch roof are carved by Cottage Industries to represent different peoples of Nepal in typical costumes. The door was carved by a local wood carver and has typical birds of Nepal around it. Inside are 10 roof-support carvings designed by the retired Director of the National Museum in Kathmandu, Mr. C.M. Maskey.&nbsp; They were carved by the best wood carvers in Patan very skilfully. The building has three rooms: the library, the exhibition room, and a smaller workroom which can be used by our newly formed Woman’s Club as well as other groups or classes.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_03d3359c65389d30a0134e9a4862778994121e7e833b7d28b18e06e36fc76ff8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025071901074_03d3359c65389d30a0134e9a4862778994121e7e833b7d28b18e06e36fc76ff8" data-rendition-name="original" width="629" height="599" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>Mierow with local women in Pokhara in 1969.</figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy promoted her project to influential Nepalis connected with organisations whose support she solicited: The Department of Archaeology, the Department of Agriculture, the Godavari Botanical Gardens; Tribhuvan University’s Science and Education Department, Nature Conservation Society.&nbsp; The museum was opened officially in early 1967. The Annapurna Natural History Museum, the building Dorothy designed and had constructed, is still open and features some exhibits which she created many years ago.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_54326a8a0685e980e782378076de2f5cd02d2426e9b0d94eed972d3dbe83af26.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025071901074_54326a8a0685e980e782378076de2f5cd02d2426e9b0d94eed972d3dbe83af26" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>The Annapurna Natural History Museum.</figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy returned to America in 1967, but she longed for Nepal. In the spring of 1969, she again tried to enroll as a Peace Corps volunteer but was told that as she had spent more than four years, she would not be eligible for another assignment. Undeterred, she persuaded the college in Pokhara to invite her to return as a teacher.&nbsp; UNICEF and the Forestry Department sponsored Dorothy to prepare charts on trees, birds, animals and flowers in colour for distribution to the schools of Nepal. Dorothy, back in the Peace Corps, returned to Pokhara and the Museum in 1972. She formed a friendship with her former geography student from Sikles, Chandra Prasad Gurung, and in 1974, she brought Chandra to America, where he enrolled in Colorado College and studied cultural anthropology.&nbsp; Chandra subsequently earned his PhD in geography from the University of Hawaii and returned to Pokhara to become director of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project. Gurung actively promoted ecotourism, landscape conservation, and biodiversity conservation in Nepal. His life was cut short along with those of 23 other Nepalis and foreigners who perished in a helicopter crash near Taplejung in September 2006.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_322d3c3ac6f1b08ffa07c44a19998b937a7db9eb43527f7539cf6481e1546314.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025071901074_322d3c3ac6f1b08ffa07c44a19998b937a7db9eb43527f7539cf6481e1546314" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>Mierow's four books on Nepal and its biodiversity. </figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy worked with several well-known Nepalis to publish her paintings and photos in beautifully illustrated books. She and Hemanta Mishra of the National Parks and Wildlife Service wrote Wild Animals of Nepal (Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1976). More than 400 photos Dorothy took on treks to the Everest region, Gosaikunda, Muktinath, Jumla and Rara Lake, as well as travels in the Tarai, appeared in Himalayan Flowers and Trees (Sahayogi Prakashan, 1978).&nbsp; The botanist Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha identified the species. Dorothy and Kesar Lall published This Beautiful Nepal (Sahayogi Press, 1981). Birds of the Central Himalayas (1988) contained Dorothy’s paintings of 250 species of birds found along the areas of the Kali Gandaki River, Pokhara, Chitwan and the central Tarai. Dorothy summed up her life and work in Nepal in Thirty Years in Pokhara (Pilgrims Book House, 1997). Dorothy returned to Pokhara and her adopted Gurung family several times during the 1980s and 1990s to celebrate festivals and meet old friends. Her final years were spent at her mountain cottage in Green Mountain Falls north of Colorado Springs. She died at the age of 79 in August, 2000. Nepal gave new meaning and purpose to Dorothy Mierow’s life. Daniel W Edwards was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1966 and is the author of several books on Nepal. The author thanks Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College.

How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer’s life

Local residents of Mustang, including a sitting MP and several politicians, submitted a petition to Prime Minister KP Oli in Kathmandu this week urging the government to lift the region’s ‘restricted’ status. This is not the first time such a demand has been raised, and as infrastructure the region’s accessibility improved over the years, calls to remove the long-standing restriction have grown louder.&nbsp; Upper Mustang is no longer weeks away <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/postcards-from-kathmandu">from Kathmandu.</a> Nearly 85% of the road from Beni to Kagbeni has been blacktopped, and one can drive from Kathmandu to Lo Manthang with an overnight stop in Pokhara. Between April 2024 and April 2025, Lower Mustang received 144,745 international tourists, a near 50% increase compared to the previous year. Most of these were <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/nepal-india-trans-boundary-bonds">Indian pilgrims </a>travelling to Muktinath. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/comings-and-goings-in-mustang">Mustang</a> is also gaining popularity among Nepali visitors, with 700,000 visiting the region in 2024. A hotel operator in Kagbeni estimated that about 20% of Nepali visitors to Muktinath also travel to Korala, the trade and transit checkpoint on the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/north-of-the-border">China border</a>. That would mean that nearly 100,000 domestic tourists visit Upper Mustang annually. In stark contrast, international tourist numbers to Upper Mustang (north of Kagbeni) have remained stagnant, hovering around 4,000 visitors per year. The primary reason is the continued enforcement of the region’s restricted status. Foreign visitors must pay a steep permit fee: a minimum of $500 for 10 days, with an additional $50 per day thereafter. Tourism some entrepreneurs, politicians, and residents want these fees to be abolished so Upper Mustang can attract a broader range of international travellers. The success of Lower Mustang, where relaxed restrictions have led to a<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/boom-time-in-central-tarai"> tourism boom</a>, is often cited as proof of what lifting restrictions could achieve. Upper Mustang is not the only region in Nepal with a restricted status. Several northern areas prefixed with ‘Upper’ (Upper Manaslu, Upper Dolpo, Upper Kanchenjunga, and Upper Arun) also need similar permits and fees. Although no clear official explanation exists, these areas were primarily restricted due to historical inaccessibility, ecological and cultural fragility and security concerns. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/upper-mustang-opposes-prohibited-areas">Call to scrap Upper Mustang tourist fee</a> In the 1960s and 1970s, these remote regions served as shelters for Khampa guerrilla fighters who launched cross border ambushes on the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-last-days-of-the-khampa">Chinese military </a>across the border.&nbsp; Though the Khampa have long gone, security concerns rooted in that era seem to persist. The government in Kathmandu is seemingly unaware of the changed political and security landscape. If concerns do remain, they are not made public. One of the main reasons for maintaining the restricted designation is to limit visitor numbers. But with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-road-out-of-nepal">improved road access and services</a>, as Upper Mustang has seen, this justification no longer holds. When Upper Mustang first opened to international tourists in 1992, it had no formal lodges or hotels, and it took four to five days of trekking from Jomsom to Lo Manthang.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250716120744_4e4405cf10e6f127f90a1cd40feda0b9d8d69efd13093a2563530ca31489ba9f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250716120744_4e4405cf10e6f127f90a1cd40feda0b9d8d69efd13093a2563530ca31489ba9f" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="509" loading="lazy" alt="Lift restrictions on Upper Mustang"> <figcaption>Photo: SHRIJAN PANDEY / NT ARCHIVE</figcaption> </figure>  Without a nechyang (a household with traditional friendship), it was difficult to find a place to stay or get a proper meal. Only a few elite households offered accommodation. Today, there are now more than 80 lodges and hotels above Kagbeni, spread across nearly every village. Several upmarket hotels now struggle to stay afloat during the off-season, relying on low-spending domestic visitors to survive. Lo Manthang, once a remote destination, is now just a few hours’ drive from Jomsom, easily reachable by lunchtime for early starters. Once the remaining road sections are blacktopped, travel time will be further reduced. Yet, the government still charges a flat $500 fee for a 10-day permit based on outdated &nbsp;assumptions from a bygone era. There has been no serious review of the permit structure to align with current realities, nor any response to local aspirations to attract more international tourists and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/peak-tourism-in-2023-9ukoi8iz">harness tourism for economic development</a>. Concerns about over tourism are valid. There is a risk that increasing visitor numbers could erode Upper Mustang’s <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-million-mantras-in-mustang">cultural heritage</a>, social fabric, and fragile natural environment, precisely the features that make it special. However, the region’s 33 years of tourism experience have been largely positive.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250716120744_5c7e5e05097cd0e5a1027b51c7e3db3be0bd67e0f7cbaea6d2c447b1dacafc8a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250716120744_5c7e5e05097cd0e5a1027b51c7e3db3be0bd67e0f7cbaea6d2c447b1dacafc8a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1400" height="1050" loading="lazy" alt="Lift restrictions on Upper Mustang"> <figcaption>Photo: MUKESH POKHREL / NT ARCHIVE</figcaption> </figure>  Tourism has contributed significantly to the restoration and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-history-of-heritage?%2F">preservation of religious and historical sites</a> like the Thubchen and Jampa monasteries in Lo Manthang, the ongoing conversion of the old palace in Ghami into a premium hotel, and the rehabilitation of many monasteries and chortens.&nbsp; These efforts, supported by international donors and heritage experts, demonstrate that tourism—when well managed—can be a powerful driver of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/shrinking-tourism-s-ecological-footprint">conservation</a>. The high permit fees have been somewhat effective in limiting international visitors, but they have no influence on the growing number of domestic tourists, particularly during the Dasain and Tihar holidays. The most pressing need now is for all levels of government—federal, provincial, and local—to<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/why-invest-in-nepal"> invest in </a>managing tourist flows and maintaining tourist sites. These efforts are essential not only to enhance visitor experience but also to build long-term resilience and sustainability for the destination. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/greening-nepal-s-tourism">Greening Nepal’s tourism</a>, Hanna Wells Visitor numbers are central to any tourism development strategy that aims to balance economic, social, and environmental goals. Clinging to obsolete policies and concerns to justify Upper Mustang’s restricted status is not only unfair, it also suggests an undemocratic and discriminatory attitude toward a remote district.&nbsp; Shailendra Thakali, PhD, is from Jomsom and is a freelance consultant on protected areas, tourism, conservation, and sustainable livelihoods.