<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107141112/636904979c7e80680e037d2fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="976"/>Lucia de Vries first saw the majesty of the Himalaya in Gilgit of Pakistan 25 years ago, and fantasised about becoming a Himalayan explorer. The Karakoram was mesmerising and mysterious to this young Dutch woman, and she dreamed of expeditions to unknown peaks. She wanted to follow the footsteps of the early Dutch missionaries Samuel van der Putte who <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1979#.W4fL9s4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">travelled to Lhasa</a> via Nepal in 1720, and Petrus Rijnhart who was killed in <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1979#.W4fu6SQzaM9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tibet</a>.De Vries herself was at the Jokhang temple in Lhasa when Chinese troops fired at demonstrators, and soon after nearly died when she got lost during a blizzard in Tibet. She was rescued by nomads, but her frostbite was so severe she had to be hospitalised in Austria.“I gave up my dream of exploring the Himalaya and decided to be an arm-chair Himalayan traveller,” recalls de Vries, who first came to Nepal in 1988, and then decided to move here in 1992. “My main motivation was to do something more useful in life using my journalism skills, and to learn more about Buddhism and Hinduism.”Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18580#.W4fMS84zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tashi Delek</a>, Dhanvantari by Buddha Basnyat, MDShe worked with the environmental group NEFEJ on its publication Haka Haki, set up a publishing house for children’s books and wrote from Nepal for the Dutch and Belgian media. With friends, she established Animal Nepal in 2003 to take care of abandoned dogs and pets.De Vries decided to commemorate her 25 years in Nepal with an anthology of writings from the Himalaya that had inspired her. The volume Mountain Bound contains material by everyone, from the 19th century British surgeon <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Review/://nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/pencilling-in-kathmandu-rajman-singh-chitrakar,3379" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Henry Ambrose Oldfield</a> to the Japanese explorer monk <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10927#.W4fNr84zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ekai Kawaguchi</a>, and right down to the American climber Arelene Blum – all people whom de Vries admires for their courage and pioneering journeys of discovery.‘For someone who grew up in a country whose horizons are unmarked by any kind of elevation, located partly below sea level, living in the Himalaya was not an obvious choice,’ de Vries writes in her Foreword to Mountain Bound.De Vries has grown to love Kathmandu Valley, and the familiar silhouette of ‘<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=6434#.W4fN9c4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Champadevi</a> and her sisters’ as well as the snowy ramparts to the north that are almost home. However, she laments: ‘Kathmandu today is a far cry from the place I fell in love with three decades ago.’<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107141112/6369049a9c7e80680e037d30jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="677"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Her beloved Himalayan mountains are being ravaged by bad roads and unregulated urbanisation, and with <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/guest-editorial/mountainous-change,887" target="_blank" rel="noopener">climate change the mountains are more vulnerable</a> than ever before.The book is a tribute to the Himalaya, and the 46 explorers (all European, except one Japanese) who were moved by the mountains to write in awe about them. The excerpts from 19th and 20th century are by ‘missionaries, mountaineers, mystics and mercenaries’. The earliest writing is by the Tuscan Jesuit Ippolito Desideri, whose account of his journey to Lhasa in 1716 is included in the book because it was published in 1904.For those overwhelmed by the available literature on the mountaineering, culture and history of the Himalaya (or don’t have the budget to buy all the books) Mountain Bound is a useful primer. You get a glimpse of the adventures of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=656#.W4fOl84zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">people like William Kirkpatrick</a>, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/spreading-benefits-of-mountaineering-to-other-areas-in-nepal,2190" target="_blank" rel="noopener">George Mallory</a>, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9990#.W4fO2s4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Peter Matthiessen</a>, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2018/01/13/commemorating-edmund-hillary/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Edmund Hillary</a>, George Schaller, or Christopoh von Fürer-Haimendorf, so that you can always go and buy their books if you liked what you read. There is a useful glossary of the source books at the end.Lucia de Vries has slipped in one of her own writings (The Winds of Chait) to the anthology, which is a haunting profile of a Dalit Maoist guerrilla, Chandra, who was killed by the Army in an unnamed village in Central Nepal. It is one of the most nuanced reportage of the Maoist conflict by a western journalist, and peels off the layers of caste, class, social injustice, state neglect and violence that lay at the root of the conflict.This last paragraph from the chapter is a lyrical portrait of the Nepali landscape during the war years: ‘Walking the trail towards the village, Chandra must have looked up at the mud houses, huddled together like sleeping dogs. His eyes must have trailed along the ridge … to the flowering fruit trees of his ancestral home. He must have noticed the freshly ploughed fields, rich golden brown, waiting for a new life.’<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/161/Travel/4062#.W4fMSs4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepalis on the plateau</a>, Mark Turin and Sara Shneiderman

Kunda Dixit

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Moving mountains

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107121144/6368f0099c7e80680e0359b1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1143"/><figcaption>Judith and John Blashford-Snell in their Dorset home last month.</figcaption></figure>“With this amazing sunny weather, the garden would have been much better if the deer hadn’t eaten everything.” Judith smiled, unconcerned in a bright orange top, as I looked out at the scorched grass and flowerless beds, the trees shady with the green freshness of the early English summer.We were sitting on a chintz window seat after lunch in the Dorset home of Judith and <a href="https://vimeo.com/8518620" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Colonel John Blashford-Snell, the army explorer and Nepal aficionado</a>. I rested my coffee cup on a glass-topped cabinet that contained a bewildering jumble of JBS’s many expedition treasures – a tiger’s claw, a shark’s tooth, an old compass, glass beads, a mysterious paw.“I once did a whole television program talking about bits in there,” remarked John, arms folded across a solid barrel chest. “Mementoes from our Operation Drake and Raleigh voyages as well as scientific excursions to various corners of the world.”Last month to celebrate the 40th anniversary of these youth adventure training journeys, the brigantine-rigged tall ship, the Eye of the Wind, processed under full sail up the Thames with past trainees, staff and patron Prince Charles on board. I was not amongst them, but was keen to catch up with the aging JBS and had driven several hours to see them.Other than a slight loss of hearing and a few more grey hairs, I need not have worried--Blashers was undiminished in energy and intent, his upright stance only slightly stooped. “I leave with a group next week for a scientific survey of northern Mongolia, and next spring we’ll see you back in <a href="https://www.johnblashfordsnell.org.uk/future-expeditions/bardia-nepal-2019/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bardia</a>.” JBS’s trips have investigated <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-wellbeing-of-the-wilderness/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Karnali river dolphins</a>, Tarai snakes and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Hunt-Search-Giant-Elephants/dp/0002556723" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a suspected mammoth that was in fact a jungly elephant</a>.But next year will be without Judith. “These days I prefer to travel on my own,” she confides. “No one ever notices, but it’s no fun being on John’s jaunts unless one has a proper job to do. I’m not good at just being the wife.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107121144/6368f00d9c7e80680e0359b2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="492" height="382"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107121144/6368f00e9c7e80680e0359b3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="224" height="345">They have been <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/8059707/In-search-of-the-Beast-of-Bardia.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coming to Nepal since the 1970s</a> – back when the country’s unparalleled mountain, river and wildlife resources made it one of Asia’s first pioneer adventure tourism centres, an essential choice for those interested in active holidays. Today we take climbing, trekking, river running, paragliding, bird watching and wildlife safaris for granted as core Nepal attractions, but in those days tourists tended to be more sedate sightseers. Nepal was at the forefront of creating adventure travel and ecotourism, now an established global market.JBS helped put us on the world map, and some of my more radical opportunities came courtesy of him. Taking a holiday break from Tiger Mountain, I was asked to recce remote northern Papua New Guinea for an Operation Drake voyage, assessing its potential with the Naval Defence Force and Robbie, the enthusiastic 21-year-old son of a major American sponsor.Robbie didn’t last longer than the tree-lined harbour of Rabaul, East New Britain’s provincial capital,where one sultry afternoon agonising pain from kidney stones had him bouncing off the walls of our borrowed apartment. Robin Cooke,the government volcanologist helped me get him to hospital. Eruptions and earthquakes were so frequent and severe in Rabaul that his official observatory seismograph had fallen off its stand during the last big one. Decades later in 1994 the whole town, precariously sited within a caldera flanked by active volcanoes, would be engulfed in heavy ash fall and destroyed, Robin being amongst the fatalities in this cataclysmic event.That evening over a drink in the Aussie tavern I naively asked:“What do you guys do in a quake?”Propping up the bar, the locals looked at me, baffled: “Pick up yer beer, mate!”Without Robbie I had no choice but to proceed alone on the Navy’s patrol boat early next morning. The very large and very Papuan Captain graciously moved out of his tiny cabin for me, and the all-male crew could not have been more polite. We put to sea but it wasn’t long before the engines failed and I was handed over to another similar vessel. That got us a couple more days through the flying fish and past the distant coconut clad volcanic islands of New Ireland, when the same thing happened again.Near Kavieng we visited an old Planter’s Club that literally rocked on its wooden pillars and crumpled to the ground before my eyes – or am I imagining this episode? Eventually we reached the remote Feni Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago that was our destination, but, having anchored offshore within tantalizing sight of its sandy beaches and gently swaying palms,I was unable to land because the outboard on the dinghy failed to start.“Don’t worry, it always happens at this time of year!” declared the unlikely-named Colonel Manyana, cheerfully leaning on his desk in a starched white uniform when, back in Port Moresby headquarters and reunited with JBS, we admitted to my having single-handedly disabled the best part of his entire PNG naval defence force. Colonel Manyana grinned shaking his head in sympathy, “It's the end of our annual budget cycle and without any funds for maintenance the boats are always breaking down.”I left John and Judith waving farewell from their back door in the English summer sunshine, and drove back through the lengthening shadows past the Stonehenge monoliths – it was nearly the longest day with its midsummer rituals, the ancient power of these places still potent.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r53dViTYjg0

Lisa Choegyal

Jaunts with JBS

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Nepal election live results

“Let's have another cup of tea,” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/ujwal-thapa-s-light-shines-on-n0tfurod">Ujwal Thapa</a> of the alternative Bibeksheel Nepali party told the young activist Pukar Bam ten years ago. The two had 12 cups of tea that day, discussing ways to get Nepal out of its political deadend. Thapa contested the Constituent Assembly election in 2013 as an independent from Kathmandu, and formed Bibeksheel Nepali to galvanise youth impatient for change, fielding candidates in the first federal election in 2017. Ujwal Thapa was a political guru who was way ahead of his time, and his protégés were among the RSP’s winning candidates in last week’s election. Pukar Bam was a core member of Bibeksheel Nepali until its dissolution, and won the Kathmandu-4 seat this time. Other former Bibeksheel members who won the election from the RSP in Kathmandu include Ranju Neupane from Kathmandu-1, Sasmit Pokharel from Kathmandu-5, and Biraj Bhakta Shrestha in Kathmandu-8. As votes were counted and the results from Kathmandu began to come in, the candidates paid fulsome tribute to Ujwal Thapa’s mentorship and in inspiring idealistic youth to become a part of an alternative political force. Today, as RSP members of Parliament, they are no longer an alternative, but a part of Nepal’s new mainstream politics. Thapa returned to Nepal after finishing his undergraduate computer science degree in the US at the peak of the Maoist insurgency. His foray into politics began when he traveled to Nepal’s western mountains to train communities in mediation. After the war, he started a computer design company for young entrepreneurs entering the workforce. But he became frustrated with the inability of the second Constituent Assembly to promulgate the Constitution, and the power struggle between political parties played out in the streets that led to frequent shutdowns paralysing the country.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260313120348_d18647d53a3b2927328067c35b2e3e6eecf9aefe13f23384e73a2c17211cd9cb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260313120348_d18647d53a3b2927328067c35b2e3e6eecf9aefe13f23384e73a2c17211cd9cb" data-rendition-name="original" width="823" height="682" loading="lazy" alt="The RSP's activist DNA"><figcaption>Thapa with Pukar Bam, who was elected to Parliament last week from Kathmandu-4. Photo: PUKAR BAM / FACEBOOK</figcaption></figure>  PROTEST TO POLITICS Ujwal Thapa had had enough, and rallied people from across walks of life, leading peaceful, silent demonstrations proclaiming 'नेपाल खुल्ला छ' against prolonged, violent strikes. Citizens fed up with the main political parties organised to defy the shutdowns. Thapa’s activism and vision for a new Nepal drew disenchanted and previously apathetic youth into politics and to join the Bibeksheel Sajha Party in 2013. Thapa was the pioneer of alternative politics in Nepal, and was leading a youth force long before the GenZ became synonymous with Nepal’s September Storm. He mentored and guided social activists who are today influential youth leaders engaged in non-traditional politics. “Ujwal Thapa, with his entrepreneurial spirit, wanted to address people’s pain-points, and believed that activism was the starting point to alternative politics,” explains <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepal-loses-rare-purpose-driven-leader">Ashutosh Tiwari</a>, former member of Bibeksheel Sajha party. “He sought to build confidence, motivate, and build a community for young people, which drew a lot of people into Bibeksheel.” He adds: “ And while people might say that Bibeksheel never got big, that was never its point. Its function was to be an early talent incubator, which is what it did as evident by the result of this election.” Thapa died in 2021 of complications related to Covid-19, and Bibeksheel had two mergers with Rabindra Mishra’s Sajha Party before being permanently dissolved in 2021. But many of its idealistic members joined Rabi Lamichhane’s RSP, formed just four months before the 2022 federal election. Such was the groundswell of support for change that the RSP became the fourth-largest in Parliament. In 2017, Ranju Neupane (then Ranju Darshana) was the youngest mayoral candidate for Kathmandu at age 21, and contested the federal election in 2022. Pukar Bam himself lost the 2022 election in Kathmandu-1 as an independent.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260313120348_6302a9b534f57191d9a2cb2c31b31449873c6cc27d375344a248dd90847921dd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260313120348_6302a9b534f57191d9a2cb2c31b31449873c6cc27d375344a248dd90847921dd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1729" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="The RSP's activist DNA"><figcaption>Photo: SOCIAL MEDIA</figcaption></figure>  Sashmit Pokharel also ran an unsuccessful campaign as an independent candidate in Kathmandu during the 2022 provincial election. Later, he was a member of the City Planning Commission under Balendra Shah when he was elected mayor of Kathmandu in 2022. Last week, the RSP swept the election with a supermajority of 182 seats in Parliament. Voters placed their trust in the party and its leaders to steer Nepal in a new direction after the youth unrest in September. In many ways, Nepal’s youth have decided, just as Ujwal Thapa once did, that enough is enough with corruption, malgovernance, nepotism and dynastic politics. In the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-man-who-shook-our-minds">documentary</a> about his life, Dimag Ghochne Manche, released earlier this year, some RSP nominees who previously worked with and were mentored by Thapa spoke of the impact he had on their lives, career, and activism. Among them is Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, former minister of Youth and Sports who is now a second time RSP parliamentarian. “I tell everybody that if it hadn’t been for Ujwal Dai, I would not have gotten into politics,” he says in the film. It would be unfair to attribute all the success of the hard-fought campaigns entirely to Ujwal Thapa’s protégés and former coworkers. But his ethos and vision for Nepal was what inspired them, and will in the coming years be reflected in national politics through the young idealists he mentored. Says Ashutosh Tiwari: “There are many Bibeksheels outside of RSP in constant and open communication with their old friends who have been elected. They will be keeping the lawmakers in check so that they do no stray too far from the values that they grew up with.”

RSP’s activist DNA

It took the September GenZ firestorm and public anger against non-performing actors for a 35-year-old structural engineer and rapper Balendra (Balen) Shah to oust Nepal’s four-time prime minister and former revolutionary.
The UML’s KP Oli has been trounced by 50,000 votes in his home turf, an area where he has won many elections in his 55-year political career. It is the same story across Nepal, where established politicians are being rejected by voters.
A 'Balen Wave' has swept the country, dyeing it in the RSP’s Blue party colour. But the UML and NC particularly did this to themselves.&nbsp;
An apology and a retirement after the September protests would have saved Oli some dignity, and given the rebranded UML a tiny bit of hope and perhaps a few more electoral wins.&nbsp;
Maybe he could have been remembered fondly as the funny old guy who made one last fatal political error, but now he will be defined by this defeat. Maintaining control and legitimacy in his own party will be hard too.&nbsp;
Contrary to his past combativeness and blaming nefarious foreign conspiracies, Oli gracefully conceded on Saturday, congratulating 'Balen Babu' &nbsp;and wishing him 'a successful five years'.
Balendra Shah and his RSP knew what they were doing. As of Sunday, it has won 118 and leads in 7 other constituencies, a lot of them with similarly wide margins of victory. RSP candidates have even beaten well regarded candidates like Gagan Thapa of the NC and Kulman Ghising of Ujyalo Nepal.&nbsp;

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Many including this paper questioned the RSP's strategy of choosing popular candidates over competence. But the point of an election is to win it, and there was a short campaign window to put it all together and the RSP pulled it off most successfully.&nbsp;
To be sure, the party should not get too much credit. Its manifesto was broad and bland, and no different than the other older parties.&nbsp;
A big part of the RSP ballots, maybe even most of it, were people voting against the old parties rather than for it. Many seemed to feel that this was coming, and perhaps even hoped for it.
There is also a sense of lingering cynicism. Nepal has had several revolutions and many new political starts and things always seem to end up in the same corrupt hopelessness. There is every possibility that the new RSP government will also go the same way.&nbsp;
The RSP is much bigger than Balendra Shah, although it was his popularity that made this victory possible. Its victory brings with it a sense of hope as all new things do.&nbsp;
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Not all party members who were elected are going to be as accountable or have integrity. Many of them have a chequered past, saw an opportunity in joining the RSP and took the risk.&nbsp;
What changed things were the events of September. Politicians saw firsthand that 'Power to the People' is not some abstract idea. Get too loose to it, forget that you are ruling and not serving, and you get booted out.&nbsp;
The interim Sushila Karki government deserve credit for delivering on its biggest mandate of holding the election in such a short time frame. The expectation at large was that the polls would be delayed or even scuttled.
In fact, a two-thirds RSP majority is a great opportunity to rethink the country’s political culture and institutionalise change. The point of the government in a democracy is to serve the people. Appointing non-political, competent people worked, at least in the short tenure of the interim government.&nbsp;
Adding layers of bureaucracy and committees and party politics along federal, provincial and local levels heaped resistance to the simple goal of making lives easier for the Nepali.&nbsp;
Nepal is getting a reboot, and the next few months will show whether the country is on the right track with its new generation government.

Balen takes Jhapa and Nepal

The Bell that rang in the new A daughter stands in her family's living room, frantically ringing an actual घण्टी at her father. He is a lifelong Nepali Congress (NC) voter. She tells him his party loyalty is as humiliating as a daughter eloping.&nbsp; He looks visibly defeated, and because of RSP’s landslide sweep in this election, he has no reply. She is not a party member. Nobody told her to do this.&nbsp; Multiply this actual family scene by hundreds of thousands of households across Nepal and you find the reason for the RSP tsunami. Children ringing bells at parents over dinner. Aunties shaking bells at legacy party candidates on their morning walks. Taxi drivers, lifelong UML supporters, cheerfully announcing they have switched.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031014038_096f980a799b4f80118863174ed629680cc6c21b02e226a899ce1dc5268b4b72.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026031014038_096f980a799b4f80118863174ed629680cc6c21b02e226a899ce1dc5268b4b72" data-rendition-name="original" width="364" height="662" loading="lazy" alt="RSP Flag prank"> </figure>  And overseas, Nepalis in Dubai and Doha, Sydney and Seattle, calling home to deliver just one instruction: “चुपचाप &nbsp;घण्टीमा छाप”।&nbsp; How did an election symbol like the Bell jump off a ballot paper and become weaponised for generational shame?&nbsp; The RSP's 2026 campaign is a case study in how a symbol becomes so participatory and instinctive, that citizens start campaigning on behalf of a party they never formally joined. It may look like a cult, but it is a phenomenon no political party in Nepal has ever pulled off. The ghost in the machine&nbsp; The 3-year-old RSP entered the 2026 race without the campaign infrastructure that legacy parties considered essential. It has no sister organisations, no vanguard student unions, no established cadre networks.&nbsp; In a country where ground reach and organisation wins elections, this looked like a fatal handicap. Established parties had spent decades building a top-down machinery: youth wings that mobilise on orders and unions within government. But it was all hollow and manufactured.&nbsp; That is why when the NC or UML posted a policy manifesto, it got barely 200 shares. When a 19-year-old posts an <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/spot-ai-generated-election-videos">AI video on TikTok </a>of Balendra Shah swinging a bell like a Kung Fu Hustle weapon, it gets 5 million views.&nbsp; The RSP’s very absence became its strategic advantage. Without a chain of command for content, every post felt peer-to-peer. Supporters built communities instead of following orders. Network effects took over: one person posts, three friends remix it, their followers adapt it for their own local context, and the message multiplies without a single directive from party headquarters. A TikTok from Kathmandu featuring Balendra Shah gets remixed by someone in Birganj who <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@bhojpuriyasuppor0/video/7596686360111484178?q=bhojpuri%20dub%20balen&amp;t=1773115199365">dubs it in Bhojpuri</a>. A supporter in Pokhara takes the same “अबकि बार बालेन सरकार” audio and films it over footage of the city’s broken road.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031014038_56090217f5b3482fad934c4f76fc872047571b3c86331a4eda1ac19ae389c2fc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026031014038_56090217f5b3482fad934c4f76fc872047571b3c86331a4eda1ac19ae389c2fc" data-rendition-name="original" width="375" height="646" loading="lazy" alt="Balen Bhojpuri remix"> </figure>  A Nepali worker in Dubai films himself shaking his phone at the camera, captioning it “I can't vote but my family can”. The content stays structurally the same (bell + emotion) but the surface changes every time. The format is the constant. The context is the variable. A single post multiplies into a thousand pieces of local content without anyone coordinating it. Legacy parties spent money on reach. RSP's strategy built reach for free, because participation itself was the product. The Bell, blazer and brand&nbsp; Run the sensory test. The UML's Sun symbol is only visual. You see it on a ballot, on a flag. You cannot hear a sun. You cannot perform a &nbsp;sun. Nobody walks into a room and ‘suns’ at an opponent.&nbsp; The NC’s Tree symbol is also only seen. It communicates nothing as a verb. Nobody ‘trees’ the father across the dinner table. Ujyalo Nepal's lightbulb was the most passive symbol of all, it just sits there being always on. The Bell had rare resonance as an election symbol. It is a verb (to ring), a sound (tintinnabulation), a physical action (shaking), and a metaphor (wake-up call). घण्टी is participatory by design. You do not just see it, you perform it.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260310140312_c5580164e1f11a8466f591c4d514420bb5313a34b559554db05364065486c3b7.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260310140312_c5580164e1f11a8466f591c4d514420bb5313a34b559554db05364065486c3b7" data-rendition-name="original" width="368" height="654" loading="lazy" alt="Classroom ghanti NT"> </figure>  It works as a metaphor: wake up. It works as a taunt: we are coming (“हामी आयौँ”). It operates across sensory channels a meme can travel through. The other party symbols are logos. The घण्टी is a multimedia verb in active voice. Poets on the frontline Politics has always been about performance. Murray Edelman wrote decades ago that political actions are symbolic acts: what politicians do matters less than what their actions represent.&nbsp; Guy-Ernest Debord argued that spectacle replaces lived experience. But the stage has changed. The social media feed is the new stage, and the algorithm is the casting director. It does not select for policy depth, but for recognisability, emotional charge, and remix potential. Poets have always been at the frontlines of political rupture. The French Revolution had its pamphleteers. The Bolsheviks had Mayakovsky. The Black Panthers had Gil Scott-Heron. Nepal's own political history is full of writers who paid for their words with prison or exile.&nbsp; Rap is rhythm and poetry. Balen Shah did not cross from entertainment into politics, his art was always political. “सडकबालक" in 2012 was already a protest song. The diss tracks against corruption were manifestos set to beat.&nbsp; So, if घण्टी was the sound, Balen was the voice. Supporters rang Bells to perform, projecting their hopes on Balen. One is participatory (anyone can ring it), the other is aspirational (representing what you want the country to become). Together, they form a complete symbolic system: an action and an icon, a thing you do, and a person you believe in. Both are algorithm-native. The sunglasses are instantly recognisable in a thumbnail at any size. The bell sound action is identifiable within half a second of a video starting. The confrontational attitude generates the emotional charge that the algorithm rewards.&nbsp; Balen was already trained in the language of the algorithm: hooks, rhythm, timing, and audience retention. While legacy politicians are just now trying to learn the language of the algorithm, Balen grew up speaking it. The folk song brand kit: The slogans wrote themselves. While legacy politicians are just now trying to learn the language of the algorithm, Balen has grown up speaking it. The folk song brand kit The slogans wrote themselves. “चुपचाप &nbsp;घण्टीमा छाप” spread through tea shops and bus parks like a folk proverb. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-ai-generated-election">AI-generated Mahabharat edits</a> positioned Balendra Shah as a warrior-hero fighting K P Oli in golden armour.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031014038_cd7fbb8b4a97628757977b55d1244b192c233566dad268e894c7132d16cf180c.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2026031014038_cd7fbb8b4a97628757977b55d1244b192c233566dad268e894c7132d16cf180c" data-rendition-name="original" width="369" height="667" loading="lazy" alt="Ghanti Chhap NT"> </figure>  The entire package, partly by accident, partly by instinct, was built to be remixed. Every element is modular: the bell, the sunglasses, the slogan, the attitude. Take any piece and make your own version. Like a ‘Deusi re” song, the melody is fixed, everyone knows it, but anyone can change the words to fit their occasion and mood. It survives across generations precisely because no one controls it.&nbsp; The घण्टी ecosystem works the same way. The melody is fixed: the bell, the sound, the slogan, the sunglasses, the attitude. But the lyrics can be anyone’s. Shoot it in your neighborhood. Dub it in your language. Film your grandmother's reaction. Set it to your local context. That's why it spread faster than any IT cell could manufacture.&nbsp; The generational pincer The standard narrative is that digital movements stay digital, and that memes are a GenZ thing. RSP broke both assumptions. Its content operation executed a pincer movement across generations, capturing not just the youth vote but used youth as a delivery mechanism into households where no party organiser could reach. The Generational Pincer Flowchart Three vectors of pressure, all converging on the same target: the living room and the dinner table, where votes in Nepal are actually decided. Downward: children trolling parents by ringing bells at dinner, turning family meals into campaign arenas. A bell rings as a prank, then as a joke, then as a political statement. By the third night, it's not funny anymore. It's a conversation.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260310140316_446e465f60994532e53b1786368dd025e9ad99a387b4121493f8826c46921cb7.png" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260310140316_446e465f60994532e53b1786368dd025e9ad99a387b4121493f8826c46921cb7" data-rendition-name="original" width="364" height="669" loading="lazy" alt="Ghanti prank"> </figure>  Lateral: the diaspora pipeline. Nepalis in Australia, the Gulf, Japan, could not vote, but they turned every Viber call home into a campaign touchpoint.&nbsp; Upward: the bell pressured power itself. No RSP organiser gets a meeting with a UML ward chairman or a NC MP. But those people go home. And at home, they have teenagers, nieces, nephews, and staff whose kids are on TikTok.&nbsp; A party boss's son rings a bell at dinner and asks uncomfortable questions. A NC donor's daughter shares RSP content on her Instagram story, visible to her father's entire social circle. No political structure, no matter how hierarchical, is sealed off from its own household. The bell did not need to breach the gates of Singha Durbar, it walked in through the kitchen window. The result crossed every demographic line analysts thought was fixed. Memes didn't just stay in the feed. They colonised the living room, the kitchen, the long-distance phone call, the taxi ride. Content nobody commissioned&nbsp; What the RSP's organic content looked less like a political campaign and more like a football fan club. People were not posting because they were told to. They were posting because they belonged. Trace the trends as they accumulated: <ul> <li>“<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@rameshmahto065/video/7610784878174424338?q=chup%20chap%20ghanti%20chap&amp;t=1773115568686">चुपचाप &nbsp;घण्टीमा छाप</a>” started as a TikTok post, then showed up on motorcycle stickers, WhatsApp statuses, AI-remixed songs, and in tea-shop conversation as a folk proverb.</li> <li><a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@rajjimond_18/video/7612570510508969236?q=ma%20ta%20balen%20ko%20fan&amp;t=1773115129539">Original songs composed by supporters</a>, not the party, gained millions of views. People danced to them at rallies and in the streets. People at polling booths created TikToks to RSP anthems to show their support.</li> <li>AI spectacle videos of Balen as a Mahabharat hero, filmy dialogue, stylised Nepal flag. Slapstick clips hitting 200K+ likes and 5M views. All made by random accounts, none traceable to party infrastructure.</li> <li>Supporters built Bell apps and websites on their own. One site, <a href="https://ghanti.website">ghanti.website</a>, was registered by a random supporter in January. Open it on your phone, shake it side to side, and it rings. Within weeks, crowds of supporters were walking through neighborhoods shaking their phones in unison, producing a wall of digital bell sound.</li> <li>The intimate content. A husband-wife vlog filmed inside a car, casually discussing what a lawmaker should actually do. Just two people talking, and it resonated more than any campaign ad.</li> </ul> None of this was centrally coordinated. Parties across Nepal spent money on polished graphics that looked like professional advertisements. RSP supporters spent nothing and made content that felt like conversation. The algorithm doesn't reward production value, it rewards emotional resonance. And nothing resonated more than the feeling that you, personally, could participate in this movement without anyone's permission. Now what? The RSP has a supermajority. The Bell rang louder than anyone predicted. But a movement built on open-source energy now has to deliver closed-source results: budgets, legislation, diplomacy, institutional reform. Balen built his brand by bypassing institutions, Prime Minister Balendra Shah has to run them. He communicated through Facebook posts and rap lyrics. Now he needs to communicate with India, China, and multilateral lenders.&nbsp; His midnight F-bomb post, deleted within 30 minutes but screenshotted by thousands, showed both his appeal (unfiltered authenticity) and his risk (unfiltered impulsiveness). The question is not whether the bell rang loud enough. It obviously did. The question is what happens when the supporters who posted without being asked start expecting results they did not specify. When the meme energy that won living rooms has to translate into parliamentary committees.&nbsp; For decades, the promise of democracy was that people choose their leaders. What RSP's campaign revealed is something more uncomfortable: in the age of the algorithm and remixable content, people do not just choose their leaders.&nbsp; They build the campaign, write the slogans, produce the content, convert their own families, and then show up to vote for the movement they made with their own hands. The party becomes a container for energy it didn't create and can't fully control.&nbsp; That's either the most democratic thing that's ever happened in Nepal, or the most dangerous. It might be both.

explorer

Moving mountains

Jaunts with JBS

Nepal election live results

RSP’s activist DNA

Balen takes Jhapa and Nepal

Nobody ran the campaign. That is why it worked.