<figure><img width="1200" height="700" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216e59c7e80680e0ba9bcjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Mina Biswakarma is going door to door campaigning for chair of Raghuganga Rural Municipality with her 3-year-old son strapped to her back. When Gau Bahadur touched Mina’s feet with his head to bless her campaign, she was overcome with tears. This photo was widely shared in Nepal’s social media this week. Photos: RIM KATUWAL</figcaption></figure>With just a week to go for <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/coalition-collision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal’s local elections</a>, 28-year-old Mina Biswakarama is on the campaign trail with a three-year-old son strapped to her back.She is a candidate from the Maoist-Centre party for chair of Raghuganga Rural Municipality of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-clouds-are-lifting-below-dhaulagiri/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Myagdi district</a>, and is going door to door asking for votes not just from her own Dalit community but from others as well.“I have suffered the same problems you have, I am going to try to solve them if you vote for me,” she says simply as she reaches the remote village of Phuldanda. <figure><img width="1280" height="798" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216e89c7e80680e0ba9bdjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Biswakarma knows the problems of her community well. Aside from poverty, she has experienced <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/caste-aside-dalits-battle-sitgma/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">discrimination because of her caste</a>, as well as for being a woman. Her party wanted to change that with the bullet, but she now seeks to uplift her people through the ballot.  Mina was just six years old when the Maoist launched their armed struggle. Myagdi was the scene of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/remembering-battle-of-Beni,3213" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">one of the fiercest battles in 2004</a> when about 200 people were killed in the attack on the nearby district capital of Beni.“There are layers and layers of problems we face in the village. There is discrimination against Dalits for being untouchable, there is domestic violence, us women have to wait for hours at the village tap for a bucket of water,” she says.“I saw no progress after the last local election five years ago, so I decided to stand for municipal chair myself,” she adds.Mina lost her mother as a child, and was in Grade 10 when the family married her off. She then left her studies and volunteered in the local Mother’s Group where she earned the respect of peers for her commitment to social reform.Despite being involved in community projects, she found that society’s problems are structural and decided that she had to get into politics to bring about real change for the poor, the downtrodden and women in her constituency.Mina’s chances for winning are good. Most of the nearly 14,000 voters in Raghuganga are Dalit, and because of the outmigration of men, more than 55% of the voter’s list is made up of women. Candidates from the other parties are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/purchasing-power/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">supported by local traders and businesses</a>, and spend lavishly on elaborate public meetings with free lunches for attendees.  <figure><img width="640" height="853" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216eb9c7e80680e0ba9bejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Mina Biswakarma’s funding is completely crowdsourced with small donations from her community.“I don’t even have money to hire a jeep and loudspeakers or to print posters, so I just walk door to door as much as I can,” says Mina who is not deterred by villagers who make fun of her simple campaign style.She has a list of priorities if she gets elected. Top on it is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/this-is-how-to-upgrade-nepals-rural-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">affordable healthcare</a>, especially for women, and to help raise living standards of the poorest and most under-served families. <figure><img width="1080" height="751" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216ee9c7e80680e0ba9bfjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As she walks past elegant stone houses of Phuldanda, Mina is greeted by an elderly relative, Gau Bahadur Biswakarma, who kneels on the ground and respectfully touches her feet with his head. Mina is overwhelmed by this gesture, and starts weeping uncontrollably, wiping tears with her red shawl. Being a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/black-lives-matter-but-dalit-lives-dont/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dalit</a> activist, Gau Bahadur had never got the chance to stand for election, and wanted to bless Mina and her campaign. The photo of Gau Bahadur touching Mina’s feet has been widely shared on Nepal’s social media, accompanied by many messages of support and best wishes for her candidacy. Says Mina: “I think he was happy that even though he never got the chance to stand for elections, that I did even though I am a woman from a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dalits-disasters-and-discrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">poor Dalit family</a>. He touched my feet because it was these legs that have brought me so far.” Adapted from the <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/129614?fbclid=IwAR13phNZMwT_F5439D2FslLHIAuQKyPPOKUcvf5YmMNhEHB24B3npN0YxOk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepali original</a> in <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com" target="_blank" style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" rel="noopener noreferrer">himalkahbar.com</a>

Anita Bhetwal

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Baby on her back, Dalit mother on campaign trail

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101116/637208209c7e80680e0b54cejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1119"/><figcaption>Takam village (above) in Dhaulagiri Municipality is a model for how federalism should function. Photos: JOY STEPHENS</figcaption></figure>Bal Bir Biswakarma from the village of Lulang at the lap of Mt Dhaulagiri in Central Nepal is a 68-year-old subsistence farmer, descendants of metal smiths who settled here centuries ago to smelt copper ore.When the copper ran out, he became a high altitude porter, summiting Mt Lhotse and even rock climbing in Wyoming in the United States. But, as Joy Stephens <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-clouds-are-lifting-below-dhaulagiri/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">writes in her travelogue</a> most of his life Bal Bir Biswakarma has been living hand-to-mouth in this Dalit village high up in the mountains.Since 2017, Lulang is a part of Dhaulagiri Municipality and elected Thamsara Pun as mayor who took the revolutionary step of moving the headquarter from the traditional power centre of Takam to Muna village to make it better accessible to the region’s indigenous and Dalit populations.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101116/637208239c7e80680e0b54cfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="792"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In the past five years, villagers have begun to see improvements in healthcare, education and jobs, thanks to political devolution gained through Nepal’s new federal structure. Pun is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/all-politics-is-local/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">looking forward to fast-tracked local elections</a> on 18 May, and the chance to serve five more years.This is what federalism means in practice: giving voice to the voiceless, letting under-served communities take charge so they can better take care of themselves. Dhaulagiri Municipality is also a reminder to the squabbling political class in faraway Kathmandu, some of whom have prematurely declared federalism dead without even letting it prove its worth.Excitement about <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/think-nationally-vote-locally/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">local elections</a> is already palpable across rural Nepal, but a cynical and pessimistic political class in the national capital does not want to let go of power and resources. In fact, despite a federal Constitution, political decision-making is more centralised than ever before.While the rights of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/polls-in-the-time-of-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">local governments</a> are enshrined in the Constitution, it is not followed in the spirit with access to resources for them to actually perform.“Federalism is the sum total of everything we Nepalis have gone through, from various governing structures to the Maoist conflict, the Madhes Movement and everything in between,” explains Khimlal Devkota, recently elected to the National Assembly.“Federalism stands for stability, development and devolution and we had high expectations, expecting quick results,” he adds. “In some ways we have succeeded, people don’t have to rely on Kathmandu for everything. But the centre is still involved in everything from hydropower plants to erecting view towers.”The 2015 Constitution <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/trial-error-democracy,3713" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">devolved rights to local and sub-national governments</a>, but the necessary laws were not in place until after elections. This meant a confusing transition regarding jurisdiction which threatened to undermine past gains in areas like community forestry, public health and education.“Coordination between the governments, vertical and horizontal, is a pillar of federalism and so is functional demarcation,” says Balananda Paudel who headed the Local Bodies Restructuring Commission. “Our laws are riddled with lack of clarity in some places and elsewhere there is a problem of overlapping functions for different levels of government.”This results in a perpetual blame-game between different levels of government, and a lack of accountability. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-f-word/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Federalism</a>, therefore, is still work in progress and this year’s series of elections will hopefully result in greater devolution.One of the reasons federalism got a bad name is that in the past years, it also decentralised corruption. Of the 753 local governments, one-third have elected chairs and mayors who are contractors and have awarded themselves <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/hiding-their-head-in-the-sand/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sand-mining</a>, road-building and quarrying  contracts.Which is why upcoming local elections are even more important -- to reward elected municipal governments who have worked for the people with another five-year term and reject those who did not.This might also be a time to question the purpose of retaining a parallel power structure composed of the District Administrations and the Chief District Officers. Its job of issuing citizenship papers and passports allows this unelected office of centralised bureaucrats to wield extraordinary power over ordinary people.Federalism has also multiplied central-level politics by seven. Bagmati Province recently set a new record with 70 mini-ministries in Hetauda to allow the coalition to keep power. Much of the last five years were wasted in <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/The-f-word-again,1426" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">endless debates about demarcation</a> of provincial boundaries and designating capitals. It took four years for Madhes Province to get its name, and Province 1 is still just a number.“We have made some headway in formulating laws and regulations, now we must bring it into practice, improving staffing for service delivery at local levels and promoting better coordination between and within levels by activating intergovernmental relations,” says Balananda Paudel.Just as democracy is only as effective as politicians, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/federalism-rule-of-law-and-the-judiciary/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">federalism</a> too will only function if it follows the true spirit of devolution of power and resources to the periphery. It needs political will at the centre to provide technical and financial support – something we have not seen in the last five years.Says Khimlal Devkota: “Citizens should be placed at the centre of all decision making. This can be done only by nurturing and strengthening federal practice.”

Sonia Awale

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Power to the periphery

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d122b9c7e80680e0a98c2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Young mothers with their children in Muktikot where child marriage has become more prevalent as subsistence farmers cope with a succession of droughts and floods that have destroyed harvests. All photos: SONAM LAMA</figcaption></figure>“Mulai kyai thaa bhayaanai,” murmurs Birjaman, pain and fatigue etched on his wizened face. He has just made a steep 3-hour climb from his village of Muktikot to a pharmacy carrying his semi-conscious daughter-in-law, Reti.She has post-partum haemorrhage, and has not stopped bleeding. The clinic managed to save her life, but the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">young mother</a> lost her three-month foetus. Reti was married off at 16, and at 22 already has two children.The midwife says the miscarriage was due to weakness and heavy workload during pregnancy. Reti’s husband is working in India, and she has to do all the household work, raise the children, take care of the livestock, and fetch water herself.At the pharmacy, Gopal Singh says he sees cases like this often. This is the nearest medical stop for the predominantly Dalit village of Muktikot. He says, "This is nothing new around here, we get miscarriages like this daily. Many do not make it. Young mothers are not physically mature for childbearing and couples do not use contraceptives."Marriage before age 20 is punishable by law in Nepal but it is still common. Low female literacy, poverty, discrimination and cultural norms play a role, but <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/child-marriage-in-Nepal,3863" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child marriage</a> has become more prevalent as of late, as subsistence farmers cope with a succession of droughts and floods that have destroyed harvests.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d122f9c7e80680e0a98c3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Last winter, western Nepal suffered a 6-month drought that was followed by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildfires-ravage-nepal-mountains/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildfires that raged for months</a>. Then, two weeks ago the region was hit by a freak post-monsoon storm that destroyed standing crops. Farmers had been hopeful for a good harvest because of plentiful rain this monsoon, but <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/post-monsoon-rain-ruins-nepals-crops/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the unseasonal downpour</a> on 18-19 October unleashed landslides and floods and dashed their hopes.Scientists say global warming has added to the moisture content in the atmosphere, triggering <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/himalayan-floods-a-sign-of-worse-to-come/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">extreme weather</a> with erratic monsoons, frequent droughts and cloudbursts. Families in food-deficit western Nepal, already in a precarious situation, have been pushed over the edge.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12329c7e80680e0a98c4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="600"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Already stricken by poverty and caste discrimination, the impact of climate crisis means that more parents now marry off their young daughters, who in turn end up risking their lives due to early pregnancy and poor diet."My father remarried after my mother died, and he married me off at 16 saying I would have a good life after marriage," recalls Reti.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-change-is-a-disaster-in-the-nepal-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Climate crisis is a disaster in the Nepal Himalaya</a>, Sonam Choekyi LamaSubi, 16, is also from the same village. She lost her new born baby two days after home delivery three months ago. She had not had a single pre-natal check-up, was too <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">undernourished</a> to breast feed properly, and her baby eventually died of hunger.Subi herself bled for more than two weeks after the birth, and even though there were no men to carry her to the health post, she survived. She is still weak and anemic. Subi’s friend Suna is also 16 and expecting her first baby. Afraid that she may have the same complication, she walked five hours to a pharmacy to get iron tablets.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12349c7e80680e0a98c5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="994"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12389c7e80680e0a98c6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="994">Locals gathered in Muktikot. At least one member from each family is currently working in India.Suna’s mother Rauthi married her to a neighbour’s son because the family’s harvest failed after a long drought. She has seven children, all of whom have dropped out of school either to work in India, or to get married and raise their own children. The husbands of both Suna and Subi are also away in India, working to augment family income.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/women-and-water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Women and water</a>, EditorialMost families here have at least one member working in India, and the income they send home was what helped them survive when crops failed. But many Nepalis lost their jobs during the pandemic, so even this fallback option was not there for the past two years.“Life here is tough, and getting tougher. Early marriage is the norm, since it is easier to get our daughters married, so we do not have to feed them,” says Rauthi, two of whose seven children are handicapped and cannot go to school, or work.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d123b9c7e80680e0a98c7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d123f9c7e80680e0a98c8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125">Children in Muktikot have to walk across steep terrain for three hours roundtrip everyday to go to school.Nearly 40% of girls in Nepal marry before they are 18, while some 14% give birth to their first child before their 19th birthday. Moreover, children of Dalit communities are at higher risk of being <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/too-young-to-marry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">married young</a> because of poverty, discrimination and limited access to resources.Although child marriage is less common than it used to be, it is still prevalent despite laws banning it. Now, the economic crisis due to the pandemic and the climate emergency has exacerbated the situation.This is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-curse-of-being-new-mothers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">evident in Bajura</a>, a district in Nepal with one of the worst development indicators with more than 70% of people living below the poverty line, while Nepal’s national average is 26%.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12429c7e80680e0a98c9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Frequent droughts and crop failures in recent years have further impoverished Bajura’s subsistence farmers. As it is, only 9% of the land in the mountainous district is arable, with a mere 1.42% with irrigation facility. Crop yields of barley, wheat, maize and millet harvests have dropped sharply in the past 10 years.Every year the district faces a shortage of 11,000 tonnes food grain, and a World Food Programme (WFP) bulletin classified 85% of the population being <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-pandemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food insecure</a>. Muktikot is one of the villages classified as very vulnerable to deficient nutrition.Even in years with normal harvest, food grown here is enough only to feed families for three months in year. The result is out-migration for work, malnutrition, forced child marriage, high maternal and infant mortality.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6ptI6TJqUgWith farmers so dependent on rain-fed agriculture, their fragile existence is even more precarious because of climate-related extreme weather. A 30-year precipitation data at the nearby Martadimet station shows that total annual rainfall has fallen, there is little winter snow, and even that tends to come with destructive storms.“Rainfall has always been unpredictable in these parts, but these days there is very little winter snow that we need for the spring marsi paddy and buckwheat,” says 65-year-old farmer Brija Bahadur Bam. “And when it does rain, it is so heavy that it washes away the crops.”This all adds up to <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/water-table-of-kathmandu-valley-falling-fast-recharge-to-replenish,4100" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lower groundwater tables</a>, which means even perennial springs have gone dry. Indira Kandel of the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology says that the rain and snow is then not enough to replenish the aquifers.The link between drought and child marriage has been proven by research in India. Reetika Revathy Subramanian, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, has studied how drought-induced migration in the caste-ridden Marathwada region of India has increased underage marriage.“The decision for a girl to marry gets shaped by a web of intersecting factors, including poverty, access to education, social pressure and norms, harassment and intimidation, which is further exacerbated by disaster,” she explains.In Nepal’s Bajura district, too, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dalits-disasters-and-discrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dalit community is more vulnerable</a> to the impact of the climate crisis on agriculture than more privileged groups. “Child marriage is rampant here but it is more likely in families hit hard by food crises and with many children,” says Birban BK of the Nepal Climate Change Support Program (NCCSP).The answer lies in making irrigation available to farmers so they are not affected by erratic rainfall, which is why the NCCSP prioritised building irrigation canals and flood-prevention gabion walls in Bajura.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12469c7e80680e0a98cajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1510" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Muktikot got its name from Maoists guerrillas during the insurgency who wanted to show that the Dalit village had been liberated from caste discrimination. The war has been over for 16 years, but life is, if anything, worse for the Dalits here.Village officials and locals believe that the relocation of the entire community is the only way out. Plans are afoot for the rehabilitation of villagers to settlements up the mountains to an altitude of 2,500-3,000m where rainfall is more regular. They can grow cash crops like walnut and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-parliamentarians-apple-grove/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">apple</a>, but will be needing help accessing the market.“These practices could be diversification of livelihoods and income sources through adopting climate-resilient cash crops, connecting farmers to the markets, promoting agro-forestry and use of bioengineering for infrastructure development,” says Monika Upadhyay of WFP Nepal.Even among Dalits, it is the women from the community who are even more affected by the climate crisis. The shortage of water <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Recharging-the-mountains,3465" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">adds to their daily drudgery</a>, because they have to walk longer to reach springs that are still functioning.Says Radha Wagle of the Climate Change Management Division at the Ministry of Environment: “In Bajura and other districts, we need climate-resilient and gender-responsive plans because women are more adversely affected by socio-economic, geographical and climatic vulnerability.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12499c7e80680e0a98cbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="994"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Nepal aims to implement these measures at local levels by 2030, the same year the government has set to end <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-child-marriages-spike-during-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child marriage</a>. But given that the practice is still rampant, it is an ambitious target.Says Subramanian: “It is important to strengthen child marriage prevention groups, village-level committees to work closely with vulnerable families including women and girls in particular.”At nearby Radhamata Secondary School, only 13 of the 113 students in Grade 10 are unmarried. Manshova Buddha, 17, is one of them. She says: “With so many of my friends already married off by their parents, I also feel the pressure. But I am not going to give up on my dreams.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/educating-girls-for-climate-action/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Educating girls for climate action</a>, Helen GrantSome names have been changed.This report was supported by the Road to COP26 campaign implemented by the British Council and funded by UKAID.

How the climate crisis adds to child marriage in Nepal

Race against time

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141144/636baec19c7e80680e078013jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1598" height="1066"/><figcaption>Photo: Bignewskhabar</figcaption></figure>On 23 May, Angira Pasi, a 12-year-old Dalit girl, was found hanging after being forcibly married to a 25-year-old ‘upper-caste’ man who had raped her. On 24 May, Nabaraj BK, and his five friends were <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/they-killed-our-son-and-now-they-are-killing-justice/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/they-killed-our-son-and-now-they-are-killing-justice/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595740698198000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGV8LnJ9KL669O-ysSlJa5RS8RLWw">beaten to death</a> and thrown into a river because Nabaraj dared to marry an ‘upper-caste’ Thakuri girl. On 25 May, a white policeman in Minneapolis in the United States kneeled on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/we-all-yearn-to-breathe-free/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/we-all-yearn-to-breathe-free/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595740698198000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG9CqanylI4D8SxH_uxFnbi9IE-7Q">George Floyd's</a> neck for 8 minutes 46 seconds, and killed him.Three crimes in three consecutive days. One of them set off a worldwide movement that is fundamentally changing race dynamics not just in the US but around the world. The two other crimes in Nepal were the latest in a long list of casteist atrocities across the subcontinent perpetrated against a traditionally excluded community.Millions continue to protest police brutality and deeply rooted systemic biases that unfairly and disproportionality affect black Americans. These protests have gathered up to 26 million participants, one of the highest turnout in any protest in US history. It has also generated more media coverage than any other protest in the last 50 years.However, in an unsurprising turn of events, the crimes against Dalit people, just as heinous, just as frequent, have received disproportionately less attention, and have not led to any real reform.The Rupandehi police refused to file Angira's case until it got national attention. They then detained her rapist Birendra, his mother, and aunt, but remain convinced Angira died by suicide.Rukum police have detained 34 suspects in Nabaraj BK's case. The Home Ministry's five-member probe team from Kathmandu investigating it has deemed it pre-meditated caste-based violence. Serious repercussions are yet to follow.A <a href="https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CEDAW/Shared%20Documents/NPL/INT_CEDAW_CSS_NPL_32516_E.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CEDAW/Shared%2520Documents/NPL/INT_CEDAW_CSS_NPL_32516_E.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595740698199000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHsgicz5UlUdsg6lK2azGeGlDwDMg">comprehensive report</a> by the Feminist Dalit Organisation (FEDO) and the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) shows the extent to which Dalits are marginalised in Nepali society.A staggering 42% of Dalits live below the poverty line, in comparison to the national average of 25%. The Dalit literacy rate of 52.4% falls short of the national literacy rate of 65.97%, with Dalits comprising only 1.6% of Nepalis with SLC and above, and 0.8% of Nepalis with a Bachelor’s degree.The picture is worse for Dalit women, who are discriminated against because of their caste and gender. Dalit women and girls comprise 21% of trafficking victims of Nepal. Dalit girls make up 62% of Nepali <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3798#.XwyQcJMzY6A" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D3798%23.XwyQcJMzY6A&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595740698199000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHzsQA69rbsgXvvQE9icVEDpGVoVg">child marriages</a> under 15-years of age."While there are similarities between caste issues in Nepal and race in the US, it is important to recognise that there are distinct differences in terms of its origins and how it manifests in everyday life,” says Dalit rights activist Sarita Pariyar. “It is good to see some Nepali are taking interest in race questions, however, they need to ask themselves about their own role in the caste questions as well."Pariyar underlines the need to rethink relative privileges of other Nepalis and role in the persistence of caste-based injustices and inequities in Nepal. “This is important for reclaiming our humanity as well as just futures for all," she adds.Pradip Pariyar, social activist and chairperson of the SAMATA Foundation, adds: "Nepalis in the US are speaking up for black lives but are silent about Dalit lives because we have never had conversations about caste in our family, in our society."Although Dalits bear the brunt of casteism, ethnic discrimination also affects other marginalised communities in Nepal. Asked about this, all educated upper- and middle-class Nepalis interviewed for this article preferred to remain anonymous."My grandmother only wants a Bahun or Chhetri maid,” said one ‘upper-caste’ person in Kathmandu. Even though she is old and struggling with severe back pain, she would rather do all the work in her big house than hire a maid of another caste."Another adds, "My grandparents refused to put Dasain tike on my father's office staff because he is Teli Madhesi." A Sherpa student complained to her school about Losar not being a holiday, but was ignored.Pradip Pariyar argues that to tackle casteism, there must be representation. "Issues that affect Dalits are not even in the radar of non-Dalits,” he says. “I have talked to people who can stand up and bring change. Because they aren't Dalit, they aren't as concerned about these issues as they should be. This will continue if there is no representation."However, the picture is grim. Dalits, despite making up 13% of Nepal's population, have merely 8% representation in the Nepal’s Parliament and comprise a meagre 0.8% of Nepal's civil service. As long as Dalits are underrepresented, activists say, they will remain silenced and powerless, and continue to be discriminated against, oppressed, murdered, lynched, raped, and forgotten.Sarita Pariyar adds, "It is important to re-examine the idea and role of resources from within and outside of Nepal for inclusive development. In this, we need to have a genuine role of Dalits for ensuring effective distribution and use of resources."

Black lives matter but Dalit lives don't?

Caste aside

<figure><img width="1500" height="998" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141132/636bac639c7e80680e077f2cjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Sunita Sunar is a widow at 20 after her husband, Tikaram was killed in the murders of six young men in Rukum on 24 May. </figcaption></figure>Much of the attention after the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-caste-attack-turns-deadly/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-caste-attack-turns-deadly/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1594038858969000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFwO6-tK61fVzHKtMb6tZixmolFHQ">murder</a> of six young men in Jajarkot on 24 May centred on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/they-killed-our-son-and-now-they-are-killing-justice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/they-killed-our-son-and-now-they-are-killing-justice/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1594038858969000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFuVIALVGPnKs6ZS0QA9TiVy-bQiA">Nabaraj BK</a> and his relationship with a teenage girl from a ‘higher’ caste. Nearly forgotten in the aftermath of this tragic crime are Tikaram Sunar, 20, and Sanju Bika, 21, two of Nabaraj’s friends who accompanied him to help him elope with the girl, and who were among the six lynched and thrown into the Bheri River that evening in Rukum.  What is even less well known is that Tikaram and Sanju were married and left behind widows and young children. The bodies of both young men were found a few days later downstream from the crime scene.  Sunita Sunar is Tikaram’s wife, and wears a shite shawl on top of a white mourning dhoti. Her face is swollen with constant weeping. The 18-year-old holds her two-year-old daughter in her lap and she says she has no more tears left to shed. Her daughter keeps asking, “Where is baba?” Sunita has no answer, and sobs quietly. She eloped with Tikaram when she was 14, and says her life has now fallen apart. When they brought her husband’s body home two days after the murders, Sunita fainted. His body was pale and wrinkled from being so long in the water, and it had cuts and bruises all over.   Sunita heard that night that there had been a fight in Chaujhari of Rukum involving Nabaraj BK’s group, but at first she did not think it was that serious. Still, she was afraid, and was shocked as news came later that night that Nabaraj had been killed and his body was found in the Bheri.  “I took my daughter and went to ask the police,” Sunita recalls in a soft voice. “They said they had found Nabaraj’s body and one other body that they could not identify. For some reason, I had a premonition that my husband did not survive either.” Sunita remembers the sight of her husband’s body with deep cuts made by sickles. There was blood oozing from his mouth, nose and ears. “That image just keeps coming back to me over and over again,” she says. Sunita Sunar got married as a child, and has always wanted to complete her studies. She and her husband agreed that as soon as her daughter grew up, she would go back to school. She does not know what to do now, whether to return to her parents or stay in her husband’s house. He in-laws are day labourers and earn just enough to feed the family from day to day. Their only hope was Tikaram who wanted to open a mobile repair shop to augment the family income. “My in-laws love me, but the situation here is miserable, everyone had pinned their hopes on my husband to take care of the family, now he is gone,” she says. “I never imagined that I would be alone this early on in life.”  Sanju BK’s wife, Sabina, is just 20 and has a four-year-old son to support. She was married off at 14 by her parents to Sanju even though she had never seen him. At 15 she got pregnant, dropped out of school in Grade 8, and soon gave birth to her son.  <figure><img width="1500" height="964" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141132/636bac669c7e80680e077f2djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Sunita Sunar’s two-year-old daughter and mother Gita BK.</figcaption></figure>Just like his friend Nabaraj BK, Sanju wanted to join the security forces and was already training for it. “I may not get leave after I join the forces, so we should celebrate our son’s birthday before I go, he used to say,” Sabina recalls. “I still cannot believe he is gone. I feel he will just walk in the door at any moment,” she says, breaking into silent sobs. Sanju’s father needed hospital treatment for three years, and while taking care of him he was determined that their son should grow up to be a doctor. He had taken out a loan so their son could go to a good school. Sanju BK was missing, and it was mental torture for Sabina as she heard of one body after another being retrieved from the Bheri. His body was found five days later from 30km downstream.  <figure><img width="1042" height="692" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141132/636bac6a9c7e80680e077f2ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>The banks of Bheri River between Rukum and Jajrkot district where the bodies of the victims were found.</figcaption></figure>Sanju BK’s father is still ill and cannot work. His elder sister takes care of the family business and does household chores. Sabina wanted to get a government job to help support her family, but now there is no certainty. Six weeks after the murders, Sabina is still waiting for justice for the murder of her husband and five of his friends. There is uncertainty about what will happen to the accused. So far, 23 of the 27 charged with the lynchings have been sent into custody pending trial by the Rukum West District Court. The girl Nabaraj BK wanted to elope with and her minor brother have been sent into a correctional facility. One of the accused has been named as a mastermind, while the others have been accused to abetting a caste-based murder.Says Sabina BK: “For now, we need justice. After that, I do not know what will happen.”

“I never thought I would be alone this early in life”

<figure><img width="640" height="429" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112916110/63861eb39c7e80680e0ccddejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Mildred and Richard Loving were sentenced to jail for their inter-ethnic marriage. They took the case to the Supreme Court, and won on 12 June, 1967.</figcaption></figure><figure><img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112916110/63861eb69c7e80680e0ccddfjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Families of Nabaraj BK and his missing friends.</figcaption></figure>On 23 May, Nabaraj BK of Jajarkot and five friends were reportedly killed because he had fallen in love with a young woman from a different caste, and they wanted to marry.He went to her village in West Rukum with a group of friends to bring her back, at her request, to his village to start their lives together.But their dreams met a violent end. A group of 50-60 men from her village attacked Nabaraj and friends. The next day, Nabaraj and his friend Tikaram Sunar, both Dalits, were found dead. The bodies of four others were pulled from the river -- Ganesh Budha, Lokendra Sunar, Ganesh Budha, and Govinda Shahi.It was a heartbreaking event. Caste hatred killing love.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-caste-attack-turns-deadly/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal caste attack turns deadly</a>, Prabir DadelMy own country, the United States, has a terrible, tragic history of discrimination and violence in opposition to inter-ethnic love.For many years, laws prohibited relationships between whites and blacks (or other groups). Today, 12 June is the 53rd anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the landmark 1967 US Supreme Court case decision that eliminated these laws. <img width="640" height="190" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112916110/63861eb99c7e80680e0ccde0jpeg.jpg" alt="">The case gets its name from the marriage of Mildred and Richard Loving. The 12 June anniversary is known as ‘Loving Day’.Mildred and Richard Loving had grown up near each other in a small community in the hills of Virginia, the state just south of Washington DC. One of America's original 13 states, Virginia had a tobacco economy based on slave labor from 1620s to the American Civil War in the 1860s. Mildred's family had lived in the area for generations, as had his. Mildred and Richard fell in love and got married in June 1958. They moved in with her family while Richard, a carpenter, built them a new house. One night five weeks after the wedding, police barged into their bedroom at 2 am to arrest them. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/african-americans-in-cold-war-nepal/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" rel="noopener noreferrer">African-Americans in Cold War Nepal</a>, Tom Robertson They were sentenced to a year in prison, or to leave the state for 25 years. Their supposed crime was violating a Virginia law prohibiting interracial marriages. Richard Loving was white. Mildred Jeter was mixed African American and Native American. To stay together, they decided to move to Washington, DC. Maryland created the first law against interracial marriage three centuries earlier, in 1661, and Virginia followed suit the next year. At the time, European settlement was only a few decades old, and the use of enslaved African people for arduous tobacco work was growing. Slavery lasted another 200 years, until the American Civil War in the 1860s. White slaveowners sometimes had sexual relations with black slaves. Rape was common. By law, children from these relations were considered black, not white or mixed, and became slaves. The American Civil War ended slavery in 1865, but afterwards white supremacists created 'segregation' laws to keep whites and blacks apart that would last for another century. Courtrooms, railroads, buses, and theaters had separate sections for whites and blacks. White and black children studied at different schools. Facilities for black Americans were far inferior to those for whites. Segregation was enforced by police, laws, and courts, but also by violence. Over the years, over 3,000 black Americans were killed in lynchings -- killings outside the legal system -- to enforce this unjust, hierarchical system. Nothing was more carefully policed than marriage separation. The Civil Rights freedom protests of the 1950s and 1960s ended most segregation laws. The last to fall were laws prohibiting mixed race marriage in 15 of the southern states, including Virginia. It was the case started by the Lovings that brought it down. After their arrest, Mildred and Richard Loving moved to Washington DC so they could avoid jail time, and be together. But they missed the place where they grew up, the hills of Virginia, and their families there. They filed a lawsuit. At the time, an elderly Virginia judge used religion to justify the law preventing interracial marriage. "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents," he wrote. "The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." The judge's argument used religion to deny love. It also shows a common strategy of calling one's own inaccurate and flawed ideas 'natural'. But across the world, racial groups had been intermingling and intermarrying for millennia. It was natural. Richard Loving boiled down his case to very straightforward logic. “Tell the court,” he instructed his lawyer, “I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can’t live with her in Virginia.” In 1967, nine years after their wedding, the US Supreme Court decided 9-0 in favor of Mildred and Richard Loving. The Lovings and their three children moved back to their families in their beloved Virginia. In the US today, over 15% of marriages are between people of different racial groups. In 1990, even 25 years after the Loving v. Virginia decision, 63% of white and other non-black adults said they would opposed a close relative marrying a black person. Today only 14% say this. On Loving Day 2007, Mildred Loving shared these touching words: “My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God's plan to keep people apart...But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation's fears and prejudices have given way, and today's young people realise that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry. Not a day goes by that I don't think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the 'wrong kind of person' for me to marry.” Mildred and Richard's granddaughter summarised the lesson that her grandparents taught the world: “If it’s genuine love, colour doesn’t matter.” Let's hope that today, on Loving Day, and every day, that message of love spreads from the beautiful hills of Virginia to the beautiful mountains of Nepal.

Love's victory over racial hatred

The World Economic Forum’s annual list of Young Global Leaders (YGL) has featured very few Nepalis so far. The 2015 batch included <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Policies-for-the-people,3640" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepali Congress MP Gagan Thapa</a>.Others who have made it to the list include Aashmi Rana (2009), Ashutosh Tiwari (2011) and Tshering Lama (2015).Now, Nepali youth and social activist Pradip Pariyar has surprisingly, but deservedly, found a place on the list for his contribution to social inclusion and peace-building involving Nepal’s youth. Pariyar is the executive chair of the Kathmandu-based non-profit <a href="https://www.samatafoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Samata Foundation</a>.		
							<figure><img width="1000" height="667" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101152/636b789d9c7e80680e0646aejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Activist and executive chair of Samata Foundation Pradip Pariyar. Photo: SANTU LAMA</figcaption></figure>His inclusion puts Pariyar in the company of Jacinda Ardern, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Ma, Chelsea Clinton, Farhan Akhtar and Viswanathan Anand. Many previous YGL title-holders are now running governments, heading international organisations and changing the world with innovative business ideas.After making it onto the YGL list, a delighted Pariyar told the Nepali Times: “This is a very big moment not just for me, but also for my country and people.”The road thus far has not been easy for 38-year-old Pariyar. Born to a Dalit family in Sindhuli district, he had to struggle against untouchability and caste discrimination from a very young age.“Untouchability is as inhumane as apartheid, or even more so,” said Pariyar, who first experienced it as an innocent ninth grader. Every evening after school, he used to go for tuition to the house of a math teacher who was a Brahmin. The teacher would allow his non-Dalit pupils to sit inside, but Pariyar was made to sit outside the door.  One evening, it started to rain, and the young Pradip got wet. The teacher saw him drenched and shivering outside, but still did not ask him to come in and sit with the others. Pariyar felt hurt and humiliated, and never went back to the teacher’s house again.“That sowed the first seeds of caste consciousness in my young mind, and defined my later activism,” says Pariyar.Pariyar recalls the importance of his encounter with Dalit activist and politician Golchhe Sarki in the 1990s, who once created a sensation by throwing his shoes at Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudel for the latter’s racist remarks.Sarki had spent a night at Pariyar’s family home in Sindhuli during a political campaign. He had spoken with Pariyar’s father about <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16791#.Xmi1AXIzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">caste, Dalits, untouchability and politics</a>, and the young Pradip had listened attentively. He also understood why Sarki was staying with his family and not at the house of a non-Dalit communist cadre.Pariyar came to Kathmandu for higher studies, and caste discrimination pursued him to the capital. He was hounded out of his rented room many times, and finally found a Muslim landlord who agreed to take him in.   Years of suffering discrimination has forged Pariyar into a fierce social justice activist. He went on to produce radio programs, inspiring Dalits to share their stories of discrimination, exclusion and injustice.He says Dalits and other excluded ethnicities still feel excluded by the Nepali state, and says: “The absence of violence does not mean there is peace.”When the war ended in 2006, Pariyar travelled through the mid-western mountains, where he met many disoriented, disillusioned and hopeless youth. He realised it would not be possible to build peace without engaging the youth and igniting their minds. He founded Nepal Youth Forum, and also served as chair of the Association of Youth Organisations Nepal (AYON).Pariyar was also a member of the taskforces that drafted Nepal’s first National Youth Policy, and the Youth Vision (2015-2025). He says one of the reasons why Nepal is being run the way it is today is because younger Nepalis have not been given the chance to formulate policy and govern.  He says: “Youth in all the parties have not been able to challenge 70-something top leaders, and instead of confronting them the young cadre are just waiting for their turn to get old and claim the posts. This does not bode well for our future”.

Nepal’s new Davos man

Muna Gurung

Pancha Kumari Pariyar: Still She Rises

One smoggy winter morning in February 2019, Ekta regretted coming to her sculpture class. It was the first day of her period, and the 19-year-old wished she was home, curled up in bed with a hot water bag to soothe her cramps.
Her class was at Kalapremi Ceramic Studio, a dark room on the ground floor of a house in Maharajganj, and Ekta’s teacher was the artist Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’, a noted sculptor.
Two other students were already there, using all their muscle strength to knead the sculpting clay. Ekta, now 24, recalls how Kalapremi asked her if she was feeling all right. She avoided him, as she did not want everyone to know she was menstruating.
Kalapremi repeatedly asked Ekta what was wrong. She finally muttered that she was having her period, after which he grabbed her hand and led her to a partitioned corner of the studio and sat her on a chair. Before she could stop him, he slid his hand under her dress, and started massaging her abdomen.
“I was horrified,” Ekta recalls. “I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen, asking me not to be shy, saying he knew how to relieve my pain. He stopped only after I protested furiously.”&nbsp;
The art tutor then said, “You’re like my daughter. I’m doing it out of love to make you feel better, but you’re so stubborn.”&nbsp;
“Instead of saying sorry he acted like I was the one having crazy thoughts,” remembers Ekta, adding that from April 2016 to August 2020 beginning the time she was 16, the artist sexually abused and harassed her on several occasions. &nbsp;
Now, Ekta and the artist’s other former students are finally sharing their experiences and some are pressing legal charges against him, hoping that others do not have to endure what they did.&nbsp;
Award-winning artist and teacher Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’ (the name means ‘Art Lover’) is known for his ceramic art, sculpture, and contemporary pottery. He was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-house-of-kalapremi">profiled in Nepali Times after a collaborative exhibition</a>, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ at the Siddhartha Art Gallery three years ago.&nbsp;
His pieces, titled Gaalis, featured sculpted female figures with the heads of dogs, sheep, and donkeys (pictured) to depict derogatory terms for women. Some critics said the collection was a satire on feminists.
Kalapremi started his artistic and teaching career in 1983 and over the years taught at Bhanubhakta School, Kathmandu University School of Arts, Lalitkala Campus and at his private Kalapremi Ceramic Studio. He has also lectured at Jeonju University in South Korea and recently at Tabor Academy in the United States.
Seven of Kalapremi’s former students were interviewed for this story. Five female students said he touched them inappropriately in his studio or at Kathmandu University. Two male students said they witnessed him abuse and harass the women. In all cases, the students struggled to recognise the abuse when it occurred, and the lack of reporting systems left them to cope on their own for years.&nbsp;
Earlier this year, students shared a social media post hinting at Kalapremi’s history of abusive behaviour following which more students of the artist reached out sharing similar experiences. Some students spoke of abuse that happened as long as 20 years ago.
Kalapremi, 60, has denied the allegations. He told Nepali Times: “Some years ago, there was a movement encouraging people to hug and kiss. I used to do it purely out of friendship and love. But after seeing posts on social media last year calling out my behaviour, I realised my actions may have hurt some people. I understand now that I should have been more mindful.”
He added: “I am also an auxiliary health worker, so I know the exact points to massage to relieve menstrual pain. It’s not just menstruation, I take anyone who is ill to the hospital.”
Sexual abuse is much more rampant than reported given how difficult it is to prove it in court. The law defines sexual abuse as occuring when someone touches another’s private parts, coerces them into touching theirs, uses vulgar language, shows degrading images, or behaves indecently towards them without consent.&nbsp;
Ekta and her fellow students are consulting lawyer Suneeta Regmi Pokhrel, who says they know that even if the court decides in their favour, it is difficult to survive after speaking up, and influential men defend themselves saying they are being framed.&nbsp;
“They are in a lot of pain and weep when recalling how he abused them,” Regmi Pokhrel told us. “They are angry and have filed a case against him, but they are also terrified. They know he is a powerful man and they have seen how our society treats women who speak up against abusers. Unless people speak up, perpetrators will be emboldened.”
Art and academia in Nepal simply reflect the power imbalances in society where people with intersecting identities experience worse forms of abuse. Theatre actors Raj Kumar Pudasaini, Rajan Khatiwada, and Sunil Pokhrel were called out during the #MeToo movement in the Nepali theatre scene in 2019. Even after the allegations Pokhrel went on to receive national awards, while others continued to work without repercussions.
“If you speak up against abusers, you gradually get sidelined from projects,” explained a theatre artist who wished anonymity fearing professional setbacks. “The theatre scene in Nepal is quite small, you just have to make peace with the perpetrators and work with them if you want to sustain yourself.”&nbsp;
In academia there is a history of faculty members sexually harassing students and getting away with it. After Tribhuvan University (TU) lecturer Krishna Bhattachan was accused of harassing women students, the university said it would follow Nepal’s sexual harassment law and set up a reporting mechanism. But nothing happened to the professor, who had already retired. Instead, he counter-accused the students of 'attacking the indigenous people’s movement with baseless allegations' as <a href="https://kathmandupost.com/letters/2019/01/29/bhattachan-responds">he told the Kathmandu Post in 2019</a>. He continues to be featured as a prominent speaker including at TU.
Other faculty members previously accused of sexual harassment include Jagadish Murti Koirala from TU, Bishnu Prasad Acharya from Ratna Rajya Campus, and Bodha Raj Tripathee from Lalitpur Madhyamik Vidhyalaya. A woman staff member from TU also filed a sexual abuse complaint against Dambar Chemjong from TU.
Prominent figures like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">mountaineer Nims Purja</a> have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/sports/mountaineering-sexual-harassment-abuse-nims-purja.html">accused of sexual assault</a>, and cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane, actor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/celebrity-rape-case-spotlights-nepal-laws">Paul Shah</a>, and former speaker of Parliament <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mahara-arrested">Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a> have been accused of rape, but society-at-large has let off the alleged perpetrators amdist a larger debate about justice for survivors and punishment of perpetrators.&nbsp;
‘Gaushala-26’ is the court name given to the 18-year-old who accused Sandeep Lamichhane, former captain of Nepal’s national cricket team and skipper of Biratnagar Kings in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/here-comes-the-nepal-premier-league">ongoing Nepal Premier League</a>, of rape. She left the country citing society questioning her character affecting her mental health while Lamichhane got an outpouring of support. In May, the Patan High Court overturned a prior verdict that found Lamichhane guilty of rape and had sentenced him to eight years in prison. During the 23-month legal battle to pursue justice, Gaushala-26 faced threats of gang rape and acid attacks.&nbsp;
Exhausted by the struggle, Gaushala-26 sought to “move to a new world” where she could live free without hiding her identity.
Actress Samragyee Rajya Laxmi Shah in an Instagram video now deleted detailed the harassment she faced from a filmmaker during a movie shoot. She did not name any name but veteran actor Bhuwan KC filed a defamation case against Rana, but the court ruled that the charge lacked sufficient evidence.&nbsp;
Former Kathmandu mayor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/theytoo">Keshav Sthapit also mocked the #MeToo movement</a>, calling accusations against him by journalists Rashmila Prajapati and Ujjwala Maharjan “a rape of men’s rights”.
Serial Abuse
Back at the Kalapremi Ceramics studio, another former student, 24-year-old Rajiv, says he felt the need to speak out after seeing his female classmates being abused.&nbsp;
“He frequently kissed them on their cheeks,” he told Nepali Times. “Whenever they walked into the studio he flailed his arms like a child asking for a hug. They awkwardly hugged him from the side, but he pulled them closer, held their chin, and kissed their cheeks.”&nbsp;
Rajiv says he also saw Kalapremi pull the women’s bra straps, touch their breasts, and slap their buttocks. The young students would freeze, not knowing how to react, and if they protested, he would say it was “normal in art”. Rajiv, 19 at the time like his classmates, remembers thinking perhaps the well-respected artist was right after all.
Another student, Luna, who took lessons at Kalapremi’s studio from 2020 to 2022 did try to confront the tutor after he made an obscene proposal to her. She recalls: “One day when the other students had left the studio and it was just the two of us, he told me that God had given him special artistic talent and he could transfer those powers to me. But to do that both of us will have to be naked, inside a dark room, and have sex.”
Luna, who was 18 then, was livid and told him she did not want any of his powers, but she says he laughed at her as if he was joking. She did not tell her family about the incident because she thought no one would believe her.&nbsp;
“They were all in awe of this famous artist and felt I should be grateful that to be learning sculpting from him,” she says. “I was scared to be alone with him in case he talked about sex again. My coping mechanism was to be rude so he wouldn’t try to come close to me.”
Seeing how some classmates were standing up to Kalapremi, Ekta too tried to push back against his advances, but she said he found ways to coerce her. Since Ekta, Rajiv, and Luna could not afford Kalapremi’s Rs30,000 monthly fee for lessons, he had offered them all a stipend to assist him in the studio.
“He had spondylosis and took me to his therapy sessions to learn massage techniques, then he often made me and other students massage him,” says Ekta. Whenever she refused, he would feign pain to make her feel sorry for him. “He would insist that I put my hands under his shirt so that I could massage him better,” she adds.
The art tutor often tried to “seduce sympathy” from Ekta by sharing how he had never been loved as a child and was “sexually frustrated” as an adult.&nbsp;
“At 7PM, he would pour himself Signature whiskey and immediately go off again about how he was sex-starved. I didn’t know how to respond. It took me time to realise alcohol was just an excuse to talk about sex,” Ekta says.
If convicted, Kalapremi could face financial penalty and/or a prison sentence of up to three years according to Section 224 of National Penal (Code) Act 2017.&nbsp;
Data suggests that victims of child sexual abuse on average take nearly 24 years to tell someone about their trauma, and some may never disclose it at all.&nbsp;
“In our culture, children are rarely taught about boundaries. They often react, show anger when adults pinch their cheeks. But adults insist they did it out of love, and force the children to accept it,” says Sita Lama, a psychotherapist at Manka Kura. “And even when someone touches them inappropriately they struggle to identify and verbalise it.”
When perpetrators claim to be “acting out of love”, Lama says survivors are likely to perceive it as something safe, rather than recognising it as abuse.&nbsp;
“It may take years for them to realise they were abused,” she explains. "And even when they become aware, the power imbalance with the abuser and the associated shame often prevents survivors from speaking up."
Other former students from the School of Art at Kathmandu University have also come forward years later, saying Kalapremi sexually abused them. As young adults, they felt his behaviour was off but were uncertain if it was inappropriate, illegal, or they did not know how to respond. After having understood that it was indeed abuse, they say they are speaking out now to protect others.&nbsp;
Amina Singh, a visiting faculty member at Kathmandu University, says there is no clause against sexual abuse in contracts of teachers, and there is no formal grievance handling mechanism for the students.&nbsp;
“So the only way students can to deal with sexual abuse is approach someone they trust,” she says.
Eight other former art students of Lalit Kala Campus and Srijana College of Fine Arts of Tribhuvan University and other private art studios in Kathmandu say they were also sexually abused by their art teachers. Three faculty members interviewed from these institutions said they saw the abuse, but felt it was futile to report it given how powerful the teachers were.
In the absence of a formal system, some longtime women artists warned each other about “problematic” artists. They shared &nbsp;a “heads-up” to be more cautious when collaborating with them, and avoided responding to their calls and texts after work hours.
To ensure art institutions are safe for all, galleries, museums, artist studios, and smaller art spaces need to develop policies on sexual harassment. This would include a code of conduct or studio policies that hold the leadership accountable and outline the principles of professional ethics.&nbsp;
Students and employees should inquire about accountability mechanisms for raising concerns, both formally and informally, advocates say.
Three years after Ekta left the ceramics studio, she learnt that Kalapremi had harassed many other women. Still trying to get a footing in the art industry, she attended a workshop in Kathmandu where women artists discussed ways to stay safe in the art sector.&nbsp;
Since it was a close-knit group Ekta opened up about how she felt violated and realised she was not alone, he had been abusing underprivileged students for years, and this was common knowledge among artists in Nepal.
Ekta says that even after she quit, Kalapremi continued sending her text messages like ‘I am thinking of you’, ‘Why have you stopped speaking with me’, or ‘I am waiting for your call’.&nbsp;
But what really forced her to act was when Ekta found out that he was sending similar texts to her younger sister.&nbsp;
“I’ve had enough,” she told us. “He abused me all these years but I won’t let him abuse my sister.” &nbsp;
Ekta, Rajiv and Luna are not the real names of the students.&nbsp;

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

It was 8:15 in the evening of 25 March 1968 when everyone in the village of Batulechaur near Pokhara heard a deafening sound like thunder as a bright flashing object hurtled down to land in a field.&nbsp; That field belonged to Kul Timilsina, and the next morning he retrieved a sheet of metal about 2m by 1m and carried it home with the help of a few others, thinking it would be useful for his buffalo shed.&nbsp; Before he died at age 83 three years ago, Timilsina had told photo archivist Sunil Ulak that the black metal sheet was not rectangular and had rounded corners. There are a few witnesses still alive who have a clear recollection of the object that fell from the sky that night.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="601" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>The field in Batulechaur belonging to Kul Timilsina where fragments of a flying object fell from the sky in 1968.</figcaption> </figure>  One of them is Timilsina’s wife Gyanu, who was 22 at the time. She had been at home, and remembers hearing the big bang and the sky becoming very bright. “We saw the thing in the field in the morning,” she told us. “It looked like a lid, a covering of some sort. The way it was stuck in the ground, it must have fallen from the sky. We thought we could use it to dry clothes on, and took it home.”&nbsp; Another witness is Kul Narayan Paudel. “I was only eight then. We ran to the field to see what had fallen. It was a four-sided metal sheet. The elders took it away, and I don't know what happened to it.” &nbsp; Ram Bahadur Baniya, a teacher at the local school, says he had heard the sheet had been brought to the school, and later handed over to the Zonal Commissioner at the time, Nanda Prasad Malla. “But that is all hearsay,” he says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="610" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Gyanu Timilsina, wife of Kul Timilsina.</figcaption> </figure>  There are two versions of what happened to Kul Timilsina’s metal sheet. One is that an American Peace Corp Volunteer teaching at the nearby Bindyabasini School took it, and another is that it was handed over to the government. Recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US State Department documents from the time say that the US Embassy in Kathmandu tracked down the object two years later and had it shipped back to the US. A telegram from the Department of State and Department of Defense tagged as ‘MOON DUST / Space Fragments’ dated 1 March 1972 stated: ‘1. Restored space fragment will be on board Embassy support flight 115 arriving Kathmandu on or about March 10. Fragment is packed in shipping crate (cargo no. 72-33365) marked in care of DAO.&nbsp; 2. State and Defense representatives examined fragments prior to shipment finding restoration acceptable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df" data-rendition-name="original" width="856" height="568" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Declassified CIA documents about the investigation into the object sighted in Pokhara. </figcaption> </figure>  The documents show that the US government, military and intelligence agencies investigated this incident thoroughly when it occurred, and have continued to revisit it ever since, as recently as five years ago. What is even more intriguing is that the object that fell in Pokhara was not the only unidentified space object that fell to earth that year. There were similar sightings of objects falling from the sky in Ladakh, Sikkim and Bhutan between 19 February and 25 March 1968.&nbsp; These mysteries were the subject of a CIA investigation in 1968 titled ‘<a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81R00560R000100070007-8.pdf">Sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan</a>’, and the report is part of the recent online declassification of 800,000 top-secret documents from the period.&nbsp; &nbsp;Although unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have a connotation now of being alien craft, it could be pieces of satellite, missile, rocket or even aircraft. The CIA report documents six sightings in 1968 and quotes local sources as describing all of them having similar characteristics: bright blue or red streaks in the sky accompanied by loud sounds like lightning and thunder and objects falling to the ground. Aside from the metallic object that was found in Batlechaur, there were other items also found nearby in Tallakot, Tureypasal, Armalakot and Maidan. Whatever the object was, it seems to have disintegrated even before it hit the ground.&nbsp; The CIA report records the first sighting on 19 February 1968 in various parts of Sikkim and Olangchung Gola and Ghunsa in eastern Nepal. The light was said to be ‘long and thin’ and giving out ‘green and red light’. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb" data-rendition-name="original" width="892" height="596" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara "> </figure>  Two days later on 21 February, a soundless blue object was seen traveling fast across the sky above Thimphu in Bhutan. Then on 4 March there were multiple daytime sightings or white streaks in the sky at Chang La Pass, Fukche and Koyul in Ladakh. There were more sightings in Ladakh on the very day fragments fell near Pokhara on 25 March 1968.&nbsp; After the sightings in Pokhara, rumours started flying in Kathmandu that these were aliens trying to land on Earth, it could be Russian or Chinese spy planes or satellites, and some even say it as a sign from heaven that the end of the world was near. This was at the height of the Cold War. The Russians and Americans were testing their thermonuclear devices as well as intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems. The Washington-Beijing rapprochement had not yet happened, and China was making quick progress testing atomic bombs. Within two years after its first atomic test, in 1966 China exploded its first hydrogen bomb at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang, 3,000km to the north from Nepal. After neary six decades, what is still intriguing is that all the sightings within a few months of each other in 1968 were along the Himalayan arc bordering Tibet: from Bhutan, Sikkim Nepal, to Ladakh. The US military intelligence seems to have concluded that this was not a coincidence and there were frequent research trips to the site in Pokhara by American officials in the months after the incident. With the help of the Royal Nepal Army, the region north of Pokhara was thoroughly searched.&nbsp; A confidential memo dated 25 June 1968 by Jerry C Trippy to a ‘Mr Farley’ mentions that the US Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division had decided that the debris could be important because it may be related to a Chinese missile test or a Soviet ‘Vehicle Venik’ rocket.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  On 28 August 1968 the US Embassy in Kathmandu sent a letter to Washington DC saying that the object could be of Soviet origin, possibly from when the rocket carrying the ‘Kosmos 208’ satellite re-entered the atmosphere. But why were the fragments falling to earth several weeks apart, and in the same region? No one knows where the metal sheet that Kul Timilsina recovered is now. It was definitely packed in a crate and taken to the US, and although it is rumoured that it was returned that is not very likely. Archivist Sunil Ulak heard from the Timilsina family that CIA officials had returned to the site five years ago. &nbsp; Interest in UFOs peaked in the US in the 1950s, with the Cold War space race and tests of atomic weapons and delivery rockets. CIA and scientists were being sent to investigate sightings, both publicly and privately. Could the Pokhara fragments as well as the sightings in Ladakh and Bhutan actually be alien craft falling to earth? The renewal in interest in space travel in large part due to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, UFOs and sightings are again subjects of public interest.&nbsp; Even 57 years later, even if there was definitive proof about whether the Batlechaur fragment was from a Chinese missile or a soviet rocket, it has not been made public in documents declassified so far. We may never know.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598" data-rendition-name="original" width="642" height="320" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  Sunil Ulak speculates if the debris actually came from an American aircraft, perhaps on an intel mission upon China. “Which could explain why they were so thorough in collecting the fragments in Pokhara,” he says. But that still does not explain the multiple sightings weeks apart in 1968.&nbsp; Indeed, US military aircraft were at that time flying frequent night-time missions from air force bases in India to supply weapons to Khampa guerrilla camps in Nepal located north of Pokhara in Mustang. It could very well be that the Chinese shot down one such aircraft. The other sightings could have been contrails of US spy planes, or Chinese anti-aircraft missiles.&nbsp; There were quite a few developments regarding UFOs in 2024. In a US congressional hearing in July, former intelligence officer David Grusch claimed that the government had long been involved in a program to investigate and retrieve non-human craft crashes, and then try to reverse engineer them. However Grusch did not show any evidence.&nbsp; The UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 was signed into law by Joe Biden in December 2023. It plans to oversee the public disclosure of UFO information. However, there is a clause in it that prevents disclosure if it would cause threats to military defense, intelligence operations or foreign relations.&nbsp; It is unlikely that the declassified documents about sightings in the Himalayan will cause any real surprise about definite evidence of alien life even if it was found. It seems humanity will continue, at least for now, to wonder about curious lights in the sky and whether there is anybody out there.&nbsp;

UFO over Pokhara

Four international names in architecture, Shigeru Ban, Rem Koolhaas, Tadao Ando and Louis Isadore Kahn, all left their mark in Nepal. But despite their best intentions, the ambitious designs fizzled out. Ban, Koolhaas and Ando won Pritzkers, the best known international award for architecture, and Kahn could have won it had the prize been given in his lifetime. But their designs fell short of transforming Nepali architecture and did not help inspire local architects.&nbsp; Why were these four ‘starchitects’ unable to pull off their Nepal projects and enrich the country with exemplary contemporary designs? The failure, especially the violation of Kahn’s design, also raises larger questions about how much contemporary architecture is valued in Nepal.&nbsp; Whereas Sri Lanka had Geoffrey Bawa and Bangladesh had Mazharul Islam, the pioneers of contemporary architecture in Nepal have had far less public appreciation. One wonders if Nepali architecture only refers to the monuments and heritage of the past. Nepal does have examples of outstanding modern architecture such as the &nbsp;पाङ्रे घर ‘Wheel House’ and खुट्टे घर &nbsp;‘House on Legs’ by Shankar Nath Rimal in the 1960s. These are the best examples of how some Nepali designers successfully tailored modern architecture to the Nepali context.&nbsp; Ten years ago, Nepal had three architecture magazines, SPACES, praXis and Business Architecture, but none of these survived. This newspaper has prominently covered contemporary architecture, and the built environment, but these are exceptions in Nepal’s media. There have been a few encouraging signs. The 2024 exhibition Modern Encounters in Architecture in Kathmandu Valley (1945-1985) at the Taragaon Museum had many visitors and its accompanying book is a seminal document.&nbsp; In 2023, the Mountain Architecture Dialogue (MAD) that focused on examples of good-practice sustainable contemporary architecture for the mountainous terrains of Nepal was a packed event with over 300 young architects, engineers, environmentalists and architecture students. <h2>Shigeru Ban</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_8bb8dde080c5698c2585966bef27ce4c08e4ee488d3432b2caac98b9de762dfe.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024122003128_8bb8dde080c5698c2585966bef27ce4c08e4ee488d3432b2caac98b9de762dfe" data-rendition-name="original" width="990" height="1074" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  Shigeru Ban had already built a name for himself in post-disaster construction when he came to Nepal following the 2015 earthquakes in which 500,000 people lost their homes. The basic design and its 3D-rendered images were reviewed in upbeat articles on DOMUS, Architectural Review, Dezeen, and Arch Daily.&nbsp; But his signature cardboard tubes could not handle the monsoon and the roof structure had to be re-designed with timber. Only two shelters were completed in Sindupalchok, and only one of them still stands at the Hyatt Regency grounds today, as Ban’s souvenir to Nepal.&nbsp; <h2>Rem Koolhaas</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_58afec9b57accfa38327af0936648c6eb2f2e11ff18f1af8ca27383dc57dc222.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024122003128_58afec9b57accfa38327af0936648c6eb2f2e11ff18f1af8ca27383dc57dc222" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="722" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  The designs of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas have a specific signature: bold shapes and an intriguing architectural typology that challenges standard building blocks. Some designs even seem to defy gravity, like the CCTV headquarters in Beijing: an angular, continuous geometry of glass and steel.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_a18dc8a8d6b97bc6fa9d590036cf374f9dc3709c699fe5c5787304bbd05cb17d.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241220031216_a18dc8a8d6b97bc6fa9d590036cf374f9dc3709c699fe5c5787304bbd05cb17d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1812" height="1168" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Rem Koolhaas' design for Ullen's School in Khumaltar.</figcaption> </figure>  Koolhaas was commissioned by Belgian billionaire Guy Ullens to design a new building for Ullens School in Khumaltar. The most prominent feature is its vertical glass block staircase. Some interior spaces have lowered windowsills, which provide ample views and daylight. But the school building has gone unremarked in Nepal. <h2>Tadao Ando</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031212_cc16bd6feb8be07a7198285b847a45d2126dc3a479e0cc7370331861fc544675.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241220031212_cc16bd6feb8be07a7198285b847a45d2126dc3a479e0cc7370331861fc544675" data-rendition-name="original" width="626" height="628" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> </figure>  Doctors providing aid to victims of the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 in Japan requested Tadao Ando, who had donated his Pritzker money to the victims, to also make a design for a hospital in Butwal.&nbsp; Ando’s contribution would be pro-bono and the construction was funded by the Hanshin Earthquake victims and by the popular Japanese newspaper Mainichi, as a tribute to Nepali doctors. The first block that Ando designed for the Siddhartha Children and Women’s Hospital (SCWH) was the out-patient department. He quickly realised that he would not be able to pull off structures with his typical style of smooth-finished, high-quality concrete.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_73ec0950d52320277ccc81d4a66fa6aa6acb38141e7b7633683e4cf8179dc579.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241220031216_73ec0950d52320277ccc81d4a66fa6aa6acb38141e7b7633683e4cf8179dc579" data-rendition-name="original" width="1594" height="958" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Tadao Ando's Siddhartha Children and Women Hospital in Butwal.</figcaption> </figure>  Ando wrote in the online architectural catalog Architectuul, that the two main problems with the project were costs and the availability of local technology. ‘It became a facility that has a slightly different expression from the buildings I have completed so far,’ he wrote. He designed a colonnade for the west façade that would provide shelter from harsh sunlight, and the exposed brick walls were locally manufactured bricks.&nbsp; The hospital is characterised by modernist cuboidal massing, but the outer brick façades now appear unintentionally badly weathered by monsoons. The interiors lack both sufficient natural light and natural ventilation. <h2>Louis I Kahn</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_612e199d62fb3e72b6b8f6a936b0fa0451d8c0aa3d831c071320bf423ee3d67f.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2024122003128_612e199d62fb3e72b6b8f6a936b0fa0451d8c0aa3d831c071320bf423ee3d67f" data-rendition-name="original" width="694" height="926" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  American architect Louis I Kahn had experience of projects in South Asia, and several were under construction when he died suddenly in 1974. Amongst these were the National Assembly complex in Dhaka, the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and the Family Planning and Maternal Child Welfare Centre in Kathmandu.&nbsp; Kahn had started the USAID funded project in Nepal by developing a master plan for the government institutional zone in Kathmandu, which included a building for the Health Ministry. The building’s façade in exposed brick has deeply recessed vertical windows for shading.&nbsp; The balancing of accentuated horizontal lines in the brickwork with the verticality of the larger composition is the work of a master. The brick walls rise up into punctured parapet walls at the roof level. These square apertures ‘frame the sky’.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_69c2e4972dbe38773e0a3a3f1129485c9c87033ee84cd454e24ae0dc772d05cf.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241220031216_69c2e4972dbe38773e0a3a3f1129485c9c87033ee84cd454e24ae0dc772d05cf" data-rendition-name="original" width="1924" height="1242" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Louis Kahn's plan for the Ministry of Health.</figcaption> </figure>  When Kahn died, only the eastern half of the building was finished. The Western part was never built and Nepal’s bureaucrats decided that without paint, the exposed brick façade was not finished. Then in 1995, citing roof leakage and a space crunch, the Health Ministry added a floor.&nbsp; The frames-to-the-sky in the roof parapet were converted into windows and topped off with a sloping roof of corrugated steel sheets, whose only virtue was that it was cost-effective.&nbsp; Kahn’s orthogonal composition, which clean horizontal and vertical lines, was desecrated despite a public outcry and legal challenges from architects and cultural organisations. A version of this article was first published in HIMAL Southasian. Illustrations by Varun S Bapu.

Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal

When Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) president Rabi Lamichhane was arrested in October on charges of defrauding depositors of cooperatives, the party’s vice president Swarnim Wagle gifted him Fareed Zakaria’s book, Age of Revolutions.
Since then, Lamichhane has been shunted around from Kathmandu to Pokhara to Chitwan and back to Pokhara to attend police investigations and court proceedings. He was being flown to Birganj via Kathmandu on Buddha Air on Monday. There is another pending case in Janakpur.
Human rights groups and civil society have criticised the government for hounding Lamichhane with inhumane treatment that borders on physical torture. The two parties in the coalition, Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, see Lamichhane’s RSP as a potentially formidable challenge to their power.
Even if the fraud charges against Lamichhane are true, the Nepali public is increasingly looking at the government’s actions through the police and courts as political vendetta.
Despite all the travelling, sometimes by plane and often by road at night, Lamichhane appears to be in high spirits, waving to supporters who often gather if they know he is going to be driven around. A social media video shows him giving high fives to fellow passengers on a recent flight to Pokhara.&nbsp;
In the past weeks, streets in Pokhara have erupted with parallel protests by Lamichhane’s supporters as well as depositors of cooperatives who lost their savings to the scam.&nbsp;
Although family visits are allowed, prison officials in Pokhara told Nepali Times that not many people visit Lamichhane these days. He added, “When he does get visitors, he asks them to bring him books.”
Lamichhane is currently Nepal’s most high-profile public figure in custody, and highlights the stark difference between how influential prisoners are treated compared to ordinary inmates.
There are six prison cells at Kaski District Police Office’s two-story detention centre, three on each floor. And while authorities pack prisoners into already overcrowded cells, Lamichhane has an entire room on the second floor to himself.&nbsp;
He has also been allowed to call his family every few days. Other prisoners are not permitted phone calls except for emergencies.
Meanwhile, Lamichhane’s former business partner Chhabilal Joshi, an ex-Deputy Inspector General of Police with whom he established his Gorkha Media Network, is in custody under the same charges in the prison cell next to him.
Lamichhane is accused of siphoning off depositors' money to the tv network in which he was part-owner and anchor. &nbsp;
Both Lamichhane and Joshi are able to buy food from the police canteen instead of being served the regular meal like other prisoners. Joshi has also given his statement to authorities in Rupandehi and Kathmandu for his alleged role in the scam. Lamichhane is yet to be presented in Kathmandu for questioning.
While he was in custody at the Kathmandu District Police Complex, Joshi expressed his desire to sleep in a police officer’s office, reportedly assuring authorities that he would not run away and he was entitled to certain facilities as a former officer of the law.
“He seemed to be under the impression that he is still a police officer,” says a source at the Kathmandu District Police. “We made it clear to him that as someone accused of a crime, he was not entitled to special treatment.”
Former ministers Balkrishna Khand and Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, and ex-home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, who were arrested in connection with the fake refugee scam last year, were similarly housed in the offices of law enforcement officials instead of prison cells. Khand has since been released after six months in jail.
While there is no legal provision to keep high-ranking officials in separate detention centres when they are arrested, authorities granting them special facilities is not uncommon. Law enforcement officials say VIP detainees expect preferential treatment while in police custody.
Among those is former Kosi Province minister Lila Ballav Adhikari, who was arrested from Biratnagar on 10 November over his alleged involvement in human trafficking and brought to Kathmandu. Adhikari had flown to Japan without government approval with three individuals on 29 October to attend a cultural conference, but had been sent back to Nepal from Narita.&nbsp;
His three companions were arrested at Kathmandu airport upon their arrival, but Adhikari was able to exit unscathed from the VIP lounge. Adhikari had resigned as the Kosi Province Minister for Internal Affairs and Law when it became public that his companions had been taken into custody, and was himself arrested shortly after. He has since been cleared by the courts.
Throughout his detention, Adhikari was kept separately from other inmates. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Basant Rajouri, head of the Bhadrakali complex, says that while there is no separate detention area for VIPs, some detainees are kept separately depending on the nature of their crime.
However, sources say that arrangements were made for retired judges and others to visit Adhikari frequently worked at the office of a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) during his time in custody.&nbsp;
“He used to constantly pester the authorities to let him sit outside in the sun, and to be able to use the police officer’s shower area,” added an officer.
Adhikari was released on 25 November after the government prosecutor’s office decided not to charge him in a move that was seen to expose the government’s double standards.
Over at Kathmandu’s Dilli Bazar Prison, former Kist Bank CEO Kamal Gyawali emerges from his prison cell into the courtyard of the prison’s ‘Ka (क)’ block every morning with a thick book in his hands, ready to give his daily sermon.
With his long beard, Gyawali, who is serving a prison sentence for banking fraud, looks the part of a religious guru as he implores his rapt listeners to “walk the right path, abandon bad thoughts and turn to scripture and spirituality”.&nbsp;
Afterward, the attendees gather to discuss politics and current affairs. Inmates at his daily sermons at the prison include other high-profile detainees, including former MP Ichchha Raj Tamang, who is in jail for money laundering and cooperatives fraud, former joint secretary Chudamani Sharma, who was convicted of corruption, as well as NC leader Chandra Bahadur Lama and Krishna Bahadur Upreti of the UML both of whom are on trial for embezzling billions of rupees.
Victims of the cooperatives scam that former lawmaker Tamang was involved in have made trips to the prison and requested visits, but he has refused to meet with any of them.
“Tamang often complains that the state has prevented him from returning the money to the victims by locking him up,” says a police officer at the Dili Bazar jail.
“All you hear every day from the VIP prisoners is that they have been framed,” adds the officer. “No one admits that they were involved in misdeeds.”
But while most high-profile prisoners complain about prison conditions, one exception is former provincial lawmaker Deepak Manange, who is serving a sentence at Dilli Bazar Jail for attempted murder.
“He is the happiest prisoner here,” says a warden. “Unlike the others, he doesn’t claim to have been framed, in fact he doesn’t seem to care that he is in prison.”
Manange is detained in the ‘Kha (ख)’ block of the prison complex, which he renovated at his own expense. The block previously housed female prisoners, but Manange used his influence to transfer them elsewhere. He faces no shortage of visitors, who range from political leaders to people from the underworld.
Along with Manange, other well-known prisoners in this block include Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sunil Poudel, and former executive director of the Surakshan Printing Centre Bikal Poudel, who are serving time for corruption.
Former prisoners at Dilli Bazar prison include ex-ministers Khum Bahadur Khadka and Shyam Sundar Gupta, NC leader Ganesh Lama, Maoist MP Balkrishna Dhungel, Nagarik Unmukti Party leader Resham Chaudhary, as well as former IGs Ramesh Chand Thakuri, Om Bikram Rana, and Hem Bahadur Gurung.
Section 54 of Nepal’s Prison Act assigns each prison’s internal administration the
responsibility of governing its prisoners, which means the more favourable the jail management is, the more comfortable it is for prisoners.
Dilli Bazar prison has been the prison of choice for many high-ranking prisoners, especially those convicted of white collar crimes, due to its more accommodating administrators. The prison, which has the capacity to house 700 inmates, is also less crowded than other jails.
Anuj Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Department of Prison Management, says that there is no legal classification in Nepal for felons to be assigned prisons based on the nature of their crimes.
“That Dilli Bazar Jail has a higher number of prisoners convicted of crimes like corruption is most likely a coincidence,” says Bhattarai. “There is no provision for influential people to be able to choose where they will be incarcerated.”&nbsp;
Translated by Shristi Karki from the Nepali original published in himalkhabar.com

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