<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111414114/63723cdc9c7e80680e0c963ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/>Dasain this year was a washout, but with the rains gone it is looking brighter for the approaching festivals of Tihar, Mha Puja and Chhath.Besides its cultural and religious significance, Tihar is also a time when gambling with cards has official sanction. And, since this year the festival coincides with preparations for elections exactly a month away, there will no doubt be a lot of candidates gambling everything on their political futures.Impunity and the rule of the lawless is rife in this country. When murderers do not have to answer for crimes, it is a small matter that bribe-takers, swindlers, extortionists can stay in office and ply their trade.So far, we have seen malafide nominations of relatives, cronies and influential party donors on the Proportional Representation list. The leadership of all main parties have purged popular and competent candidates, treating them as more of an enemy than opposition figures. There has been shameless gerrymandering by coalition leaders to divide up constituencies so they have a 100% chance of being elected.We in the media are preoccupied with election arithmetic and not questioning enough how the entire system has been manipulated in violation of the Constitution. We accept it as a given.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/house-of-cards-2/">House of cards</a>, Sonia AwaleWhat could be more absurd than the sight of Nepali Congress leaders in Gorkha on a stage where the photos of the warriors who sacrificed to restore democracy in Nepal were overshadowed by hammer and sickle posters? Or a Hindu-royalist candidate campaigning under the symbol of the Unified Marxist-Leninists. If there is no ideological difference between parties, why do we need parties at all?In any other democracy worth its salt, this would be called rigging the vote. In fact, it is like cheating at cards on Laxmi Puja.The only flickering lights we see this Tihar will be the fresh young faces who have managed to get tickets from the parties, or are standing as rebel candidates and independents. It is likely that despite a public yearning for change and an overwhelming disillusionment with established parties and their leaders, many of them may lose because Nepal’s elections are still largely determined by vote banks, tribal loyalty to parties, and the ability of candidates to spend lavishly on feasts and booze. They are not determined by the performance track record of candidates when they had a chance.The top leaders of all main parties have been prime ministers cumulatively 14 times since 1996. Prime Minister Deuba wants to do a double hat-trick.Nearly 4 million young Nepalis abroad, who would mostly be anti-incumbent, cannot cast absentee ballots because the established parties have not allowed voting by mail.  Electronic voting machines are not used either because they just don’t trust each other.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-parties-forge-new-pre-poll-alliances/">Nepal’s parties forge new pre-poll alliances</a>, Shristi KarkiIt is no wonder that Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, in another candid off-the-cuff remark, boasted how his party had stuffed ballot boxes in the Constituent Assembly elections in 2008, and maybe they should try that again since his party has been too ‘decent’.The reverence for hard cash is engrained even in this festival of lights. The first day of Yampanchak on Saturday, 22 October, is devoted to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god who removes all obstacles. Sunday is the day of the crow, the scavenger who is doing more to consume and recycle Kathmandu Valley’s garbage than the municipalities are. Dogs are gods on 24 October, and it is the turn of cows and bulls the next two days. The last day, 27 October, is sibling day when sisters and brothers venerate each other.Tihar ends, but the festivities do not. In the Tarai, Chhath takes off with the worship of the sun asit sets and is reflected on water bodies.Besides gambling there is one element that is common to Diwali, Tihar and Chhath: the leitmotif of light. The light that illuminates the darkness and allows us to remove injustice, greed, envy, inequality and discrimination.The symbolism of Tihar is great, and gives us a glimmer of hope that on 20 November the country will have the good fortune of dealing from a brand new deck of cards.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/3-party-dictatorship/">3-party dictatorship</a>, Editorial

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Gambling with our future

Local government by the people, for the people, of the people

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720df99c7e80680e0b78efjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"/><figcaption>Illustration: RABINDRA</figcaption></figure>Over the past 30 years since the first People’s Movement, we have seen that things start moving in Nepal when local governments are empowered. Devolution to village and district development councils in the 1990s forced local leaders to be accountable, especially in service delivery.In fact, everything that has worked well in Nepal till now has the word ‘community’ in it: community radio, community forests, community women’s groups, community-managed schools and hospitals, community irrigation systems.Unfortunately, political intrigue, the Maoist conflict and a return to an authoritarian monarchy meant that there were no local government elections for 20 years till 2017. Their five year tenure is now coming to an end, and the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/polls-in-the-time-of-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">second local elections under the federal system</a> are being held on 13 May in 460 rural municipalities, 260 municipalities, 11 sub-metropolitan cities and six metropolitan cities. Candidates are already on the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/battle-lines-drawn-for-nepal-elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">campaign trail</a>, and for many this is a chance to prove through performance that they deserve a second term.These new mayors and ward chairs were guinea pigs. They not only had to make up for lost time but also deal with a complex maze of new overlapping regulations and jurisdictions. There was confusion galore on budget, revenue, civil service appointments.Despite having swept the 2017 elections, bitter political strife within the ruling Nepal Communist Party<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-post-breakup-politics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> led to its fragmentation</a> into the UML, Maoist Centre and Unified Socialists last year. The stranglehold of political parties over the federal structure also meant that corruption and infighting got decentralised as well.All this gave the ‘F’ word such a bad name that the alternative Bibeksheel Sajha Party in its manifesto even calls for scrapping federalism altogether. Much of this negative public perception is fed by cynical Kathmandu-centric analysts and commentators.The reality is different. An evaluation by the National Natural Resource and Fiscal Commission (NNRFC) has given nearly all 753 municipalities above pass marks. In fact, the top three that scored more than 75 out of 100 points in the survey are all rural municipalities. Public opinion polls have shown that most respondents are happy with the functioning of local governments, especially in rural areas.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-local-election-gives-power-back-to-people/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal's local election gives power back to people</a>, Rabin GiriTo be sure, many municipalities have been captured by corrupt contractors who got themselves elected in 2017. They rented out their own excavators to their municipalities, and awarded themselves road contracts.This does not mean, however, that we should throw out the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/federalism-rule-of-law-and-the-judiciary/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">federalism </a>baby with the bathwater.Kathmandu’s Ward 14 is a model for how elected officials at the sub-municipal level should perform. Ward chair Sobha Sapkota has transformed her constituency by coordinating between various federal ministries, central-level agencies and Kathmandu Metropolitan City to sort out traffic, upgrade roads, and ensure water distribution.Sapkota had noticed how women had to wait hours for water every morning and made improving supply a priority. She has proven why it is important to have women heading local governments, and brings a whole new perspective to service delivery.In Bhaktapur, Mayor Sunil Prajapati set an example for other municipalities about how to serve a city’s citizens. He set a firm priority on quality education from pre-school to university, made basic health care affordable and door-to-door saving many lives during the pandemic. He rejected a €10 million German grant for post earthquake reconstruction of monuments because of too many strings attached, and restored 118 temples with local resources.“Despite confusion and duplication we have seen that federalism has allowed true devolution of governance and service delivery,” says Balananda Poudel, Chair of the NNRFC. “In 2017, local governments had to start from zero and learnt as they went along.”The past five years have also thrown up design defects in the decentralisation project. Instead of devolution some places have directed democracy with faux-federalism. It is not just Singha Darbar in Kathmandu that sets budgets and earmarked outlays for provincial and municipal governments, but a handful of men in the headquarters of political parties. These vestiges of feudalism <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Analysis/how-decentralised-is-federalism,776" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">co-exist with federalism</a>.Although we say there are three levels of government in the current system, there is actually a fourth: the district administration. Staffed by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/including-the-excluded-in-the-bureaucracy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">centrally-appointed bureaucrats</a>, it is Kathmandu’s ears and eyes on the ground. It controls vital services like citizenship and passport issuance, and other registrations – functions that can easily be done by a department of municipalities or provinces.District demarcations, district administrations and CDOs are obsolete and redundant. They do not align with the values of devolution and could be done away with to free us of the centralised mindset of the past.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/power-to-the-periphery/">Power to the periphery</a>, Sonia Awale

Feudalism to Federalism

At 6 feet and one inch, Hira Bahadur Ghalan was exceptionally tall for a Nepali. In 1936, when people came to his Tamang village near Tistung looking for porters, they recruited him on the spot. This was no ordinary job, Hira Bahadur would lead gangs of 30 or more porters to carry cars bought by Rana rulers from Bhimphedi to Kathmandu.&nbsp; Those were the days when the only motorable roads in Nepal were in Kathmandu, but the capital was not connected to anywhere else by road. So, before cars could carry people, people had to carry cars. More Nepalis had carried cars than ridden in one. The porters were paid Rs5 for the job, and sometimes the Rana owners gave Hira Bahadur a Rs25 baksheesh. One of the cars his community helped carry was a 1939 Daimler Benz gifted by Adolf Hitler to King Tribhuvan to woo Nepal away from the British. The rusted dusty vehicle is now in the Narayanhiti Palace Museum.&nbsp; Hira Bahadur hauled cars for 25 years until his knees gave way, he died at age 90 eight years ago — the last surviving car porters of Nepal from Chitlang Valley.&nbsp; Hira Bahadur Ghalan had three sons and three daughters, one of them is Maila Kaji Lama, who at age 68, is a chauffeur in Kathmandu. His son, Manjil Lama is a pilot with Summit Air, flying to remote Himalayan airstrips. Three generations of one family worked in professions that followed a century of transportation history in Nepal. &nbsp; After the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-long-and-winding-road-to-india">Tribhuvan Rajpath was finished in 1957</a> and the ropeway upgraded, Hira Bahadur was out of a job. He tilled the family farm, watching trucks and buses headed to and from Kathmandu on the hairpins.&nbsp; As a child, Maila Kaji was fascinated by cars and wished one day to be able to drive one. After he failed Grade 8, he came to Kathmandu in 1975 and got a Rs20/month job at a petrol station in Maiti Devi. “I watched King Birendra’s coronation and was impressed by the glamour of Kathmandu, and decided to stay here,” Maila Kaji says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041816040_a1a41e47dec8500727702f700e43af625f059043cbcd283f13b247344b3a20aa.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2026041816040_a1a41e47dec8500727702f700e43af625f059043cbcd283f13b247344b3a20aa" data-rendition-name="original" width="1974" height="1608" loading="lazy" alt="car carriers"> <figcaption>Maila Kaji</figcaption> </figure>  Former minister Ramesh Nath Pandey used to bring his Volkswagen Beetle to the station, and Maila Kaji started taking care of his car. Later, he drove a Russian Jeep for former minister and geographer Harka Gurung. Along the way, he fell in love with the daughter of a Brahmin colleague, and married her. “My father back in Tistung did not approve of our inter-ethnic marriage, and not speak to me for five years,” Maila Kaji recalls. Manjil Lama grew up in Kathmandu, and did well in science in school. He had wanted to go the US to become a pilot like his friends, but was denied a visa.&nbsp; “The visa officer told him I did not earn enough,” says Maila Kaji, “so I sold some property and sent Manjil to flying school in the Philippines.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041816040_e9091162840baa6d182de2d7cc6f09e43ec9cfd9a9b6e71e7e7b14bc72da3537.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026041816040_e9091162840baa6d182de2d7cc6f09e43ec9cfd9a9b6e71e7e7b14bc72da3537" data-rendition-name="original" width="1434" height="1754" loading="lazy" alt="car carriers"> <figcaption>Manjil Lama</figcaption> </figure>  After returning to Nepal, Manjil Lama now flies Let 410s of Summit Air to difficult air strips like Lukla and Simkot, and has logged over 2,000 hours. He has to go to the Czech Republic regularly for simulator training. Says Maila Kaji Lama: “My father worked hard carrying cars to raise us, I started from scratch to become a driver to support my family, and my son is now a pilot with experience in flying in the world’s toughest terrain.” &nbsp; Watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvT3iTi8yw4" target="_blank">video clip from S Dillon Ripley here</a>.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260419020448_40f8b1bdaace08106ca5c24819b6e7a34fb2109a9a3ec5c6ac179b3309e686ed.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260419020448_40f8b1bdaace08106ca5c24819b6e7a34fb2109a9a3ec5c6ac179b3309e686ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="900" height="1582" loading="lazy" alt="car carriers"> </figure>

Grandfather carried cars, son drives cars, grandson flies planes

Only 70 years ago, Kathmandu was the isolated capital of a country that had no modern surface transport link with the rest of the world.&nbsp; The idea of building a road to connect Nepal with India actually first came up during the last years of the Rana regime, after the British had left India. Construction actually began in 1952, and the serpentine route took five years to complete.&nbsp; Named Tribhuvan Rajpath, after the reigning king who initiated it, the alignment was from Thankot (1,301 m) at the western edge of the Kathmandu Valley to Nagdunga, Naubise, Tistung, Palung, Daman, Sim Bhanjyang (2,504m), Lamidanda, and Bhainse.&nbsp; At Bhainse, the highway joined the existing road to Bhimphedi and it was another 31km to Hetauda and Amlekhganj. There was a railway line between Amlekhganj and Birganj.&nbsp; After regular bus and truck service from Raxaul to Kathmandu began in 1961, the entire road popularly became known as the Tribhuvan Rajpath.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_a11b48a75c7877a0f68634f8be07d26a3f354e78ebd9adddc7d17252fddf1d1b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026041610044_a11b48a75c7877a0f68634f8be07d26a3f354e78ebd9adddc7d17252fddf1d1b" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>The village of Chitlang on the main route to Kathmandu before the Rajpath was built. In the distance is the Chandragiri ridge above Thankot. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  <h2>Chronology&nbsp;</h2> (Based on US State Department cables and media reports) November 1945: Gen Bahadur SJB Rana asked an American official if a road could be constructed from the Indian border to Kathmandu. Nepal wanted such a road built across the mountains after first constructing an East-West artery road in the Tarai, and the government was interested in purchasing US surplus war equipment. Gen Rana inquired if there were US firms who could conduct a survey. April 1947: The Nepal government told a US official it was important to upgrade the 20-mile trail from Bhimphedi over the mountains to the Kathmandu Valley into an all-weather road and sought an estimate from the US for doing so. May 1948: Bijaya SJB Rana informed a US official that a survey for a one-lane motor road between Kathmandu and the Tarai had been completed. The road was to follow the Bagmati River to Makwanpur, then connect at Bhimphedi with the road to Amlekhgunj. The road from Tripureswor to Bhainse along the Bagmati River and via Bhimphedi would have been about 60km. (The distance from Kathmandu on the Tribhuvan Rajpath is 122 km.)  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_bb531baf5d73e00d2032814ac8abb86979a87d781abc066fcb984997aad930e6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2026041610044_bb531baf5d73e00d2032814ac8abb86979a87d781abc066fcb984997aad930e6" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>The road climbing the hills toward its destination of Kathmandu. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  July 1948: The government decided to go ahead and build a motorable road from Amlekhganj to Thankot and complete it in two years. December 1948: Construction of the motor road from Kathmandu to Amlekhgunj via the Bagmati River corridor was started. April 1949: Gen Singha SJB Rana told a US official that the motor road from Kathmandu to the Tarai and the Indo-Nepal border would be completed by the spring of 1950. February 1950: Nepal sanctioned Rs300,000 to make the 6-foot-wide road from Kathmandu along the Bagmati River to Hetauda. Of this, Rs100,000 was allocated for road-building material and machinery. Subsequently, the road would be developed into a broader motorable road at a cost of Rs7.5 million. February 1952: Nepal’s budget speech noted that a plan was underway for a road between Bhainse and Kathmandu. PM Matrika Prasad Koirala laid a foundation stone near Teku for construction of the ‘Kathmandu Hetauda Roadway’.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_e66d3b81848ec19da48be8b41cacfa8b8e2bad093719b39eda27755c9616ea9a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026041610044_e66d3b81848ec19da48be8b41cacfa8b8e2bad093719b39eda27755c9616ea9a" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Rajpath winding its way north of Bhainse. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  February 1952: A party of Indian engineers came to Nepal to determine the best route for a road from Raxaul to Kathmandu. March 1952: Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru told Parliament: “So far as India’s security is concerned, we consider the Himalayan mountains as our border.” Ministry of External Affairs official (S.N. Hakar) told a US official that the Indian government was willing to proceed with constructing the Raxaul-Kathmandu road and had sent a survey party to determine the most suitable mountain route. May 1952: Swiss experts had made surveys for a proposed new road between Bhimphedi and Thankot. Nepal government requested financial help to build the road, and India was considering the project.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_35e390c1a4812f45af7892d681230e04c63727d9006b6614ed79aaa7c22c1ece.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026041610044_35e390c1a4812f45af7892d681230e04c63727d9006b6614ed79aaa7c22c1ece" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>With a constant stream of trucks, buses and jeeps, the narrow Rajpath once was Nepal's busiest highway. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  Summer 1952: Work on a new road was at a standstill, so Nepal asked India for assistance. Indian engineers surveyed two routes: one following the Bagmati River, the other road through Daman that was later adopted. July 1952: Nepal’s Ministry of Planning decided to construct a road between Kathmandu and Raxaul, awaiting Cabinet approval soon. Prime Minister Matrika Koirala said the proposed road was longer than necessary, but it was a better route ‘for strategic reasons’, because it did not require many bridges. August 1952: King Tribhuvan said road construction from Kathmandu to Bhimphedi would “begin soon”. September 1952: An Indian Military Team began construction of the Kathmandu-Bhainse road without a formal agreement being signed with the Nepal government.&nbsp; February 1953: The Indian Ambassador said the road would be hard surfaced within a year. September 1953: Prime Minister Matrika Koirala inspected the completion of a ‘jeepable track’. December 1953: The road was named ‘Tribhuvan Rajpath’. April 1954: Reports circulated that Swiss engineers criticised the alignment, arguing it would have been easier, faster, and cheaper to build over the existing foot trail between Bhimphedi and Thankot through Kulekhani. July 1954: Heavy monsoon rain damaged much of the roadway that had been built.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_b5b2a1833f1366e532f1629f47c124d877df7b6f8a34b6c83f6c21ec3e4415dd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2026041610044_b5b2a1833f1366e532f1629f47c124d877df7b6f8a34b6c83f6c21ec3e4415dd" data-rendition-name="original" width="855" height="1123" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Crown Prince Mahendra inspecting construction progress on the Tribhuvan Rajpath in October 1954. Photo: ROYAL PALACE</figcaption> </figure>  November 1954: The Indian ambassador said flood damage was so great that the road would be delayed by two years. May 1955: Twenty military trucks brought rice from Amlekhganj to Kathmandu on the Tribhuvan Rajpath. King Tribhuvan died in Zurich. December 1956: A gravel road was completed, with trucks and buses plying between Amlekhganj and Kathmandu. December 1956: Nepal government abolished regulations that required Nepali nationals to carry permits for travel within Nepal, except for women below the age of 45. 1957: Reduction in price of goods carried to Kathmandu by truck: Sugar, Rs0.13 per kg. Wheat flour Rs0.13 per kg. Kerosene Rs0.25 per litre. February 1957: An article in The Motherland newspaper in Kathmandu noted urgent action was needed to avoid Kathmandu being cut off from the Tarai during the monsoon. The correspondent wrote, ‘In a recent journey from Amlekhganj I found that almost all the bridges are in a very bad state…Now, because of the dry rivers the scores of vehicles that ply the road cross the rivers on the water level. But during monsoons… these rivers will be impossible to cross without bridges. On the road itself, landslides and big holes have made the journey a great undertaking.” April 1957: The first regular passenger bus left Amlekhganj at 12:30PM and arrived in Kathmandu completing a journey of 14 hours.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_60807e067f2d0b80bdc5e59860e9bc240b495ef606efc9301ef54ea5731d42df.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2026041610044_60807e067f2d0b80bdc5e59860e9bc240b495ef606efc9301ef54ea5731d42df" data-rendition-name="original" width="5211" height="4000" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Daman, one of the highest points on the Rajpath, often saw snow in winter. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_baac4747267c751ab7b0e5ef24697fb5001c4c55e04a82d92c89282bd01a325c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2026041610044_baac4747267c751ab7b0e5ef24697fb5001c4c55e04a82d92c89282bd01a325c" data-rendition-name="original" width="648" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Travelers could view the Himalayas from a view tower at Daman. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  June 1957: Eight thousand Nepali workers and about 500 Indian Army personnel were at work on the road.&nbsp; 30 June 1957: India officially handed the road over to Nepal. India had spent INR32.5 million on the project.&nbsp; January 1958: The road from Amlekhganj to Bhainse was upgraded. July 1961: The gravel road from Raxaul to Birganj was blacktopped. Trucks began transporting goods from Raxaul directly to Kathmandu, avoiding the need for transshipment from train to truck in Amlekhganj, or use the ropeway from Bhimphedi. 1961: Passengers could travel from Raxaul to Kathmandu in a day, whereas it took a week by train to Amlekhganj, bus to Bhimphedi and then on foot. September 1962: Nepal’s 3-Year Plan aimed at broadening and black-topping the road between Bhainse and Raxaul, bypassing the Chure tunnel, and constructing several bridges along the route. 1963: Travelers going to Kathmandu by land: Road, 158,000, Nepal Government Railway, 66,500. Railway passenger service ended in June 1965.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_2a95eb144dad74271a0fa3a27fab6b45bbab0a1c4be59d21120ad14c08e258fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2026041610044_2a95eb144dad74271a0fa3a27fab6b45bbab0a1c4be59d21120ad14c08e258fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1344" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>A bus providing ‘deluxe service’ in 1963 is ready to leave Amlekhganj for Kathmandu. Note the railway tracks of the Nepal Government Railway. Photo: RON ELLIOTT</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_d02013692e84d6add7a6e0ce66c2b552cd53bb084db2aa8df0593bbcf84c2c04.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2026041610044_d02013692e84d6add7a6e0ce66c2b552cd53bb084db2aa8df0593bbcf84c2c04" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1352" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Vehicles found it difficult to pass on many parts of the Rajpath in 1963. Photo: RON ELLIOTT</figcaption> </figure>  1965: Tribhuvan Highway was considered a useful addition to Nepal’s economic infrastructure, but it could not act as a prime mover in the nation’s economic development. It did play a major role in the 1960s in transporting material and equipment needed to implement development projects in the Kathmandu Valley. September 1966: Nepal took over maintenance of the Tribhuvan Rajpath from the Indian Aid Mission.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_5488ba1e92f6395ff882392ccbaef2270622632682eccb412d8de7b128f6f397.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="2026041610044_5488ba1e92f6395ff882392ccbaef2270622632682eccb412d8de7b128f6f397" data-rendition-name="original" width="1764" height="1184" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Trees still lined the Rajpath near Thankot in 1967. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  1971: A UN-Nepal study said the best alignment for an alternative road was from Kathmandu, Pharping, Kulekhani, Bhimphedi to Bhainse. 1975: Nepal's Department of Roads’ engineer concluded: ‘The Tribhuvan Rajpath has been built without design speed consideration… The pavement was not constructed to any designed standard… irrespective of quality of material, and later the road was black topped without consideration of traffic intensity and load-bearing capacity of sub-base… utilisation of low-quality material in the Bhainse-Thankot section… Quality control was neither maintained in Bhainse-Thankot nor the Bhainse-Raxaul section. Local materials were used irrespective of their quality to complete the work in the earliest possible time and in the cheapest possible manner. Brick work was done in negligible quantity. Cement used was ordinary portland cement…’ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_26c74f45991efb3dc29d616e8acafb3163661ae6573c5314538e59c54d5ca0a5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2026041610044_26c74f45991efb3dc29d616e8acafb3163661ae6573c5314538e59c54d5ca0a5" data-rendition-name="original" width="2368" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Bhainse in 2017. The road divided here, one going to Bhimphedi on the right, the main road proceeding to Kathmandu on the left. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260416100416_4d9321abf4d912796842fe963a493501e1aceff462300ecdd9bd5e0b8ba7f294.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20260416100416_4d9321abf4d912796842fe963a493501e1aceff462300ecdd9bd5e0b8ba7f294" data-rendition-name="original" width="649" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="Highway info NT"> </figure>  Even 70 years after it was built, there is still speculation about India's security concerns vis-a-vis China, and how Indian Army engineers purposely made the road longer than it needed to be over the 2,500 Sim Bhanjyang pass instead of following the river route.&nbsp; There is also some evidence that although the Rana regime had first requested the US for help with the highway, Nehru did not want the Americans involved in Nepal. Which is why the Tribhuvan Highway became an Indian military project.&nbsp; There was similar concern from India about the Kodari Highway linking Kathmandu to China, and King Mahednra is famously supposed to have said: "Communism will not come here in a taxi."&nbsp; Geopolitics still affects Nepal's strategic highways. After decades, links to China are still rough and often blocked. Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track is delayed by years, and not expected to be completed during this decade. Trucks and buses still bypass the Tribuvan Highway with a 200km detour via Mugling because the other alternative routes like the Tika Bhairav or Chhaimale routes are not suitable for heavy vehicles.&nbsp; The shortcut through Chitlang that the Swiss proposed in the 1950s is still too difficult. And a 25km section of the Japanese-built BP Highway to the eastern Tarai has been knocked out by the 202 flood. Dan Edwards was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1966 and is the author of several books on Nepal. This is the fourth instalment in a new limited series in Nepali Times on the historic transportation infrastructures of Nepal.

The long and winding road to India

Nepalis are insured but not covered

Sudan Gurung is dancing. It is 2009. He has an emo fringe falling over one eye and is spinning on a polished floor. His dance shows dedication — moves that take years of bruised elbows to land. The clip is 16 years old, and had been sitting in the dead archives of YouTube and old Facebook pages, watched by almost nobody. This month <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@4gr4j/video/7621892206902725909">it has 1.9 million views</a>. Because Gurung is now Home Minister, and is embroiled in a scandal barely two months into office. Within days of becoming an RSP candidate, his pre-political life became public and was put back into circulation. The b-boying, the DJ sets, and the YouTube video of him dancing in a music clip. The youth of Nepal, well-versed in snappy TikTok edits and aura compilations, immediately turned to making <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@aayvik/video/7626069452177542408">videos of Sudan Gurung's swag</a>.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026042202040_71df4d531423e7c941abde95fb8106346c70ab0afb71bbeb520cc570f14ba178.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026042202040_71df4d531423e7c941abde95fb8106346c70ab0afb71bbeb520cc570f14ba178" data-rendition-name="original" width="2300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit"></figure>  TikTok remixed the footage to trap beats. The comments settled on a nickname that has now crossed into everyday speech: ‘Homie Minister’. <div class="embed-block"><blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@yalexthwreal/video/7622325255792512276" data-video-id="7622325255792512276" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section><a target="_blank" title="@yalexthwreal" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@yalexthwreal?refer=embed">@yalexthwreal</a> <a title="sudangurung" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/sudangurung?refer=embed">#sudangurung</a> new home minister of Nepal😎 <a title="fyppppppppppppppppppppppp" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyppppppppppppppppppppppp?refer=embed">#fyppppppppppppppppppppppp</a> <a title="sudangrg" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/sudangrg?refer=embed">#sudangrg</a> <a title="home" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/home?refer=embed">#home</a> <a title="minister" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/minister?refer=embed">#minister</a> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - •⪨н є α я т ❤н α ¢ к є я ⪩• - Music Universe 🎧" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-%E2%80%A2%E2%AA%A8%D0%BD-%D1%94-%CE%B1-%D1%8F-%D1%82-%E2%9D%A4%D0%BD-%CE%B1-%C2%A2-%D0%BA-%D1%94-%D1%8F-%E2%AA%A9%E2%80%A2-7308733170064231170?refer=embed">♬ original sound - •⪨н є α я т ❤н α ¢ к є я ⪩• - Music Universe 🎧</a> </section></blockquote> <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script></div> Home Minister Gurung is in charge of the Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, Department of Immigration, and the country's internal security apparatus. Calling him ‘homie’ collapses the distance between that office and the Discord server where the movement that brought him into power organised itself. What is harder to explain is why these nostalgic clips are doing the narrative work for Gurung's political standing. A teenager on a dance floor in a Thamel club, filmed before smartphones had decent cameras, is now functioning as political currency for a powerful, but embattled, home minister. The footage is not an argument. Gurung is not doing anything in it that relates to home affairs. He is just dancing. The comments compare him to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@4gr4j/video/7621892206902725909">Korean film heroes</a>. A separate <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@tandavyt7/video/7622151050128018708">48,000-like edit</a> is captioned ‘Our New Home Minister Aura’. The replies are full of people saying they get chills listening to him speak. Political legitimacy in Nepal has been built out of many things over the last 70 years, but it has never been built out of this. The question is: what happens when the job starts demanding things his style, boldness, and swag cannot provide. Because political aura in Nepal used to be a slow harvest, now it isn’t. BP Koirala spent eight years in prison under the Panchayat. He wrote fiction at Sundari Jal. The writing survived, the prison sentences survived, and that experience became the template for what a serious Nepali politician looked like: someone the state had tried to break and failed. Legitimacy was accumulated by having their lives taken away, and refusing to bend the knee. The old mechanics of legitimacy produced politicians who could be audited. The record was made of words, dates, votes, and years behind bars. A voter who wanted to know what a leader stood for could read his writings. A journalist digging for inconsistency had somewhere to look. The system was slow, often corrupt, and frequently boring. In fact, boring used to come with the job. A minister was supposed to be slightly dull — evidence that the person was doing the unglamorous work of reading files and sitting through committee meetings. Today, boring is a disqualification. The attention economy rewards velocity and visual charge, a politician who cannot generate either does not exist in the feed, and that means does not exist at all. The legacy parties are still issuing press statements criticising the new guard in the grammar of paper trails and procedural failure. But the audience has stopped reading, they scroll for their next viral bite. Sudan Gurung, unlike the old parties, understands exactly which grammar the feed rewards. Just look at what he has been up to. On his first evening as Home Minister, he posted a photo of himself sleeping on a sofa inside the ministry. Caption: creation cannot be greater than the creator, government is not above the people. The image travelled further in 12 hours than any ministerial press release has ever done. A minister napping on a sofa, phone-shot, zero production, read by the public as evidence of a minister who had skipped the motorcade and got straight to work. Gurung used Facebook to announce, the names of former ministers and businessmen he intended to arrest. Each name was posted before the arrest, not after. The feed became the announcement venue for state security action.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260422010456_2fa1918e1dd031d01f38b4001ee306d9414073cec0b795fa43a75cb5a8deb8c7.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20260422010456_2fa1918e1dd031d01f38b4001ee306d9414073cec0b795fa43a75cb5a8deb8c7" data-rendition-name="original" width="926" height="868" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit"></figure>  This is not how the Ministry of Home Affairs has ever been operated. It is how a YouTuber releases a series. Sudan Gurung is a political content creator. As home minister, he is an influential influencer constantly, kinetically doing something in the visual medium. Much like Prime Minister Balendra Shah's sunglasses, Gurung's aura, authenticity and swag are a brand asset, instantly recognisable at thumbnail size. Balen's rap career supplies a pre-political archive that authenticates him the same way Gurung's DJ sets and b-boying clips authenticate him. The aesthetic is doing the work a manifesto used to do. The work is authenticity, and the strategy is auramaxxing. The emo fringe predates the ministry. The DJ sets predate Hami Nepal. The b-boying predates the earthquake, the NGO, the September uprising, the interim cabinet, all of it. Whatever Gurung is now, he was already that person before the office existed. This is the real spectacle of the Homie Minister: authenticity. Nepal’s youth have grown up watching heavily-polished, talking-point ministers speak in a language aimed at nobody in particular, But this grainy archival clip of the current Home Minister from 2009 is honest.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260422010456_5d6dff3a09e8b7e77dc60c3aa567c9e02b6bd5f90f94e20737ec05cc9a09023b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260422010456_5d6dff3a09e8b7e77dc60c3aa567c9e02b6bd5f90f94e20737ec05cc9a09023b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1800" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit NT"></figure>  The effect has transcended the GenZ. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ektapokharel/video/7623242573481561365">A TikTok trend </a>captioned NOT ONLY OUR HOME MINISTER, WE ARE ALSO FROM THAT ERA now has <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@sonykhadka/video/7624106790266948872">millennials posting their own</a> archive photos from the same period, aligning themselves with Gurung's pre-political aesthetic. The aura is doing <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@_thakuri/video/7623397397556645141">cross-generational work</a>. It is a shared legibility, spanning at least 15 years of Nepali youth culture, and the current Home Minister is standing at its centre. The traditional politician’s entire adult life is a performance of identity. Every photograph is lit for the media, every statement is vetted. The persona is the product, and the product has been in development for 30 years. This makes the old guard legible but, suspect in the attention economy. A generation raised on authenticity-as-currency reads the decades of careful performance as evidence of something to hide. The polish is the problem. The nostalgic Sudan Gurung party clips invert this. The polish is absent. The footage cannot be performance aimed at the viewer, because the viewer did not exist in 2009 and neither did the political stakes. The clip is therefore read as real, in a way a press conference can never be. It is just a kid dancing, and he happened to grow up to be the Home Minister. But Sudan Gurung's job is not to go viral. The Ministry of Home Affairs requires the person running it to file a complete asset declaration and to avoid holding financial interests in entities that might come before the state. None of this work is content. A correctly filed asset declaration does not get remixed into a trap beat. A functioning immigration database is not a TikTok. The paperwork that constitutes actual governance is structurally boring in exactly the way the old parties are structurally boring, and for the same reason. It is the slow, procedural, checkable apparatus that the old system was built to produce and that the new system has not yet learned to replace. And it is ironic that it is painstaking follow-the-money paper trail investigative journalists in the legacy media who have uncovered the evidence. You cannot auramaxx your way out of a share registry. You cannot post your way past a conflict-of-interest statute. No amount of fire outfits and wild DJ transitions does anything for you when a journalist pulls the initial shareholder list of a micro insurance company and finds your name at number 49. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@blox.drop/video/7622173520981658900">Auramaxxing was engineered</a> for the mechanics of reaching office. It is the reason Sudan Gurung is Home Minister and Gagan Thapa is not. The question that has not yet been tested, and is now being put to public test, is whether the same weapon works when the terrain changes. The terrain does change when you assume power. TWO CLOCKS Two clocks are running, and they do not sync. The first clock was built for auramaxxing. A clip posted at eight in the morning peaks by noon. A sofa photo is already remixed before the minister has left the building. The feedback loop is fast and legible, and a politician playing this clock gets real-time data on what to post next. The old guard never learned to read it, which is a large part of why they lost the election. The second clock is the one the ministry actually runs on. It measures in quarters, court calendars, and the slow grind of investigation files moving between offices. A share registry takes weeks to pull. A money-laundering case moves at the speed of the prosecutor's office, which is to say, it often does not appear to move at all, until one morning it does. The second clock does not care whether the minister is currently trending. These two clocks have collided. The first one made Sudan Gurung home minister in weeks. The second is pulling out documents that may take months to fully surface and years to adjudicate. The mechanics that won the office are not the same that determine whether the office holds. This is the asymmetry. A politician whose legitimacy is built on <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@s.u.m.e.e/video/7622165783254158613">high velocity videos</a> is structurally exposed to a process that runs slower than the news cycle, because the archive of aesthetic proof was not engineered to answer documentary evidence. It was engineered to displace the demand for documentary evidence in the first place. When that demand returns, as it always does once a politician takes office, the digital archive keeps performing, but the documents keep getting uncovered. And the two tracks do not communicate. The old guard knew this clock because they had no other clock to know. What they lost in charisma they gained in durability: a politician built over 20 years of parliamentary record is harder to dislodge with a single document because they have already survived thousands of documents. The new guard has not been stress-tested against its own paper trail. Sudan Gurung is now being tested. If he survives this, and he might, a new template will have been proven. A politician can enter office on the strength of a dance clip, face a paper trail that would have ended the career of a politician in a previous era of Nepali politics, and continue to govern because the public has decided that an old dance clip is more persuasive than the hard copy document of the company registrar. The clip is still in circulation, the sofa photo still reads as sincerity. The arrest of a former prime minister that the courts reversed has faded from the feed, which runs faster than judicial reversal, and that is the whole point. If Sudan Gurung does not survive it, a different lesson gets written. Auramaxxing turns out to be a weapon that works in one direction only: it gets you the job, and then it leaves you exposed. The movement that installed Gurung in the name of ending elite capture will have to decide whether its own hero is subject to the same audit it demanded of everyone else. If the answer is yes, the movement retains its moral coherence. If the answer is no, the movement becomes the thing it replaced, only faster. Both outcomes are live. If Gurung walks through this, the technique gets copied. If he does not, the technique gets revised. Whether the gap closes on him, or he rewrites the gap, is the thing to watch.