<img width="1556" height="1092" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191124/636bf1114b0ad905ca02f04ejpeg.jpg" alt=""/>For over two centuries now, Nepal’s real 'frontline workers’ have been its soldiers who fought and sacrificed their lives in foreign soil for countries other than their own. The tradition continues, and is upheld by the Gurkha reputation for courage and ability to survive any hardship that is promoted in literature and art. Till the Malla period, it was unheard of for Nepalis to fight in foreign armies. In fact, it was the other way around: Kathmandu’s kings 300 years ago used to recruit soldiers from Telangana in South India and Afghanistan.It was only during the Anglo-Nepal war (1814-1816) that Nepalis started fighting beyond the country’s borders. Balbhadra Kunwar, who famously thwarted the siege of Nalapani Fort, joined the army of the Sikh maharaja Ranjit Singh. Even before the Sugauli Treaty ended the war, the British were already recruiting Nepali soldiers for the ‘Nasiri Paltan’ to fight against defending fellow-Nepalis. This went on to become the first-ever Gurkha brigade. Then on, ‘Gurkha’ soldiers have been fighting in many wars in different parts of the world to this day.Gurkha valour has always been interwoven with pain and death. But we do not hear much of that because most Nepali soldiers in those days could not write, and there are few testimonies of what they went through. It is only recently that censored letters by Nepali soldiers archived in Europe have thrown light on the pain and suffering in the trench warfare of France and Belgium, and prisoner of war camps in Germany, during World War I.A diary written by a Gurkha sergeant during the battle of La Bassée in northern France in 1914, and retrieved from his body by a German officer, Lt Alexander Pfeifer, has recently come to light.Just within the first five days of the start of World War I in July 1914, more than 15,000 British soldiers had been killed. Reinforcements arrived from British India, and among them were about 20,000 Gurkhas. Six hundred Nepali men were killed on a single day on 30 October 1914 in La Bassée. <img width="1182" height="388" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191124/636bf1144b0ad905ca02f04fjpeg.jpg" alt="">Many of the censored letters and diaries of Gurkha soldiers at the British Library and Museum give us an indication of their suffering in the battlefield. Because they did not fit the narrative of Gurkha ‘bravery’ and would have affected morale, the letters were censored and never received by their families in Nepal.These testimonies were a part of the dissertation of Nepali historian Pratyoush Onta, who painstakingly transcribed the letters in the 1990s. They describe the incredible courage, but also the pain, homesickness, and the insufferable wet cold of the trenches during the European winter.Selected excerpts:Worry about me.This war is fierce. Five of my friends from the Fourth Double Company have been killed. From the Second Company, one-third of the soldiers have lost their lives. The Gurkha Regiment has suffered a huge loss. And for those of us who are still alive, the chances of survival look slim. • • • On 19 May 1914 at five in the morning, our Fourth Double Company was attacked. We were 400 feet away from the German trench. We loaded our rifles with bullets, and stuck khukris in our mouths and went over the top.  Of all the wars that I have ever fought in, this is the most ferocious. Many from my company were killed, but we were able to capture the German trench. Because I was shot in my right elbow, I couldn’t move ahead with my company. By god’s grace the bullet didn’t pierce my bones. I am now in London and recovering. I will soon return to France and fight a good war with those Germans and kill them, because they aren’t human. They use poison gas to win a war. • • • You have been asking me about this place. This is like the fire and the frying pan. When I return home, we can talk about this. I will give you all the details, but I cannot promise you if that day will ever come. I could have written about the conditions here, but we are not allowed to share details. Many of our letters are opened and are censored. If we write anything against the orders given, the one who has written the letter will be punished severely. Dear brother, you must be going through a difficult time in your battlefield, but I understand. We are also suffering the same anguish. Brother, it rains a lot here and it is muddy. It is extremely cold, too. • • •I took part in an attack on a German trench in August. I was injured and had little sense of what was happening. I was taken prisoner by the Germans and sent off to their country. They cut my leg in the prisoners’ camp. I was then hospitalised for two months in Germany and later sent to Britain. They have now received orders to send me to India.• • •This is your brother Bahadur Pun, sending you my greetings. If you have three or four rupees, please send it to me. Along with that, if possible, please send some food, something to drink and some clothes. Dhaniram Pun and I are now prisoners of war in Germany.• • •My mother often said, ‘Leave your job, son, and come back home. Work in your own country, or you will suffer’. I wish I had listened to her. Now when I think of it, my heart fills with regret. <figure><img width="1500" height="1001" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191124/636bf1164b0ad905ca02f050jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>सिपाहीको दु:ख, episode 1 of the tv magazine program Saglo Samaj</figcaption></figure>When the Germans realised that the British POWs spoke so many languages, they took this as an opportunity for linguistic research. They recorded the experiences of the Gurkha prisoners through their songs and folklore. Nepali researcher Alka Atreya Chudal at Vienna University has been given access to some of this material that includes early sound recordings of the Gurkha prisoners in Germany. Going through the archives at Berlin’s Humboldt Museum, Chudal found songs by Gurkha POW Jas Bahadur Rai that were recorded in 1915. Rai died seven months later, and his gravestone in a cemetery outside Berlin preserves the date: 3 January 1917. Although this was a model prison that the Germans used to show international inspectors, many Nepali prisoners succumbed to tuberculosis in winter.  “Jas Bahadur missed home, his songs and writings are a testimony to that, and more than 100 years later they have inspired me to do further research on the Gurkhas and their never-told tales of suffering,” Chudal says. <img width="1209" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191124/636bf1194b0ad905ca02f051jpeg.jpg" alt="">There is a possibility that the writings and items belonging to Nepal’s soldiers recovered from Europe’s battlefields will finally be returned to their homeland. With them, we will learn about the other side of the Gurkha saga — the stories of yearning, pain beyond measure, of loves and lives lost.  Based on the first episode of Saglo Samaj, a tv magazine program produced by Himalmedia which is broadcast every Monday, at 8:30 pm on Dish Home Channel 130.

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Tales of courage and suffering

<img width="1556" height="1092" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181156/636bea339c7e80680e087905jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>For over two centuries now, Nepal’s real 'frontline workers’ have been its soldiers who fought and sacrificed their lives in foreign soil for countries other than their own. The tradition continues, and is upheld by the Gurkha reputation for courage and ability to survive any hardship that is promoted in literature and art. Till the Malla period, it was unheard of for Nepalis to fight in foreign armies. In fact, it was the other way around: Kathmandu’s kings 300 years ago used to recruit soldiers from Telangana in South India and Afghanistan.It was only during the Anglo-Nepal war (1814-1816) that Nepalis started fighting beyond the country’s borders. Balbhadra Kunwar, who famously thwarted the siege of Nalapani Fort, joined the army of the Sikh maharaja Ranjit Singh. Even before the Sugauli Treaty ended the war, the British were already recruiting Nepali soldiers for the ‘Nasiri Paltan’ to fight against defending fellow-Nepalis. This went on to become the first-ever Gurkha brigade. Then on, ‘Gurkha’ soldiers have been fighting in many wars in different parts of the world to this day.Gurkha valour has always been interwoven with pain and death. But we do not hear much of that because most Nepali soldiers in those days could not write, and there are few testimonies of what they went through. It is only recently that censored letters by Nepali soldiers archived in Europe have thrown light on the pain and suffering in the trench warfare of France and Belgium, and prisoner of war camps in Germany, during World War I.A diary written by a Gurkha sergeant during the battle of La Bassée in northern France in 1914, and retrieved from his body by a German officer, Lt Alexander Pfeifer, has recently come to light.Just within the first five days of the start of World War I in July 1914, more than 15,000 British soldiers had been killed. Reinforcements arrived from British India, and among them were about 20,000 Gurkhas. Six hundred Nepali men were killed on a single day on 30 October 1914 in La Bassée. <img width="1182" height="388" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181156/636bea369c7e80680e087906jpeg.jpg" alt="">Many of the censored letters and diaries of Gurkha soldiers at the British Library and Museum give us an indication of their suffering in the battlefield. Because they did not fit the narrative of Gurkha ‘bravery’ and would have affected morale, the letters were censored and never received by their families in Nepal.These testimonies were a part of the dissertation of Nepali historian Pratyoush Onta, who painstakingly transcribed the letters in the 1990s. They describe the incredible courage, but also the pain, homesickness, and the insufferable wet cold of the trenches during the European winter.Selected excerpts:Worry about me.This war is fierce. Five of my friends from the Fourth Double Company have been killed. From the Second Company, one-third of the soldiers have lost their lives. The Gurkha Regiment has suffered a huge loss. And for those of us who are still alive, the chances of survival look slim. • • • On 19 May 1914 at five in the morning, our Fourth Double Company was attacked. We were 400 feet away from the German trench. We loaded our rifles with bullets, and stuck khukris in our mouths and went over the top.  Of all the wars that I have ever fought in, this is the most ferocious. Many from my company were killed, but we were able to capture the German trench. Because I was shot in my right elbow, I couldn’t move ahead with my company. By god’s grace the bullet didn’t pierce my bones. I am now in London and recovering. I will soon return to France and fight a good war with those Germans and kill them, because they aren’t human. They use poison gas to win a war. • • • You have been asking me about this place. This is like the fire and the frying pan. When I return home, we can talk about this. I will give you all the details, but I cannot promise you if that day will ever come. I could have written about the conditions here, but we are not allowed to share details. Many of our letters are opened and are censored. If we write anything against the orders given, the one who has written the letter will be punished severely. Dear brother, you must be going through a difficult time in your battlefield, but I understand. We are also suffering the same anguish. Brother, it rains a lot here and it is muddy. It is extremely cold, too. • • •I took part in an attack on a German trench in August. I was injured and had little sense of what was happening. I was taken prisoner by the Germans and sent off to their country. They cut my leg in the prisoners’ camp. I was then hospitalised for two months in Germany and later sent to Britain. They have now received orders to send me to India.• • •This is your brother Bahadur Pun, sending you my greetings. If you have three or four rupees, please send it to me. Along with that, if possible, please send some food, something to drink and some clothes. Dhaniram Pun and I are now prisoners of war in Germany.• • •My mother often said, ‘Leave your job, son, and come back home. Work in your own country, or you will suffer’. I wish I had listened to her. Now when I think of it, my heart fills with regret. <figure><img width="1500" height="1001" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181156/636bea389c7e80680e087907jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>सिपाहीको दु:ख, episode 1 of the tv magazine program Saglo Samaj</figcaption></figure>When the Germans realised that the British POWs spoke so many languages, they took this as an opportunity for linguistic research. They recorded the experiences of the Gurkha prisoners through their songs and folklore. Nepali researcher Alka Atreya Chudal at Vienna University has been given access to some of this material that includes early sound recordings of the Gurkha prisoners in Germany. Going through the archives at Berlin’s Humboldt Museum, Chudal found songs by Gurkha POW Jas Bahadur Rai that were recorded in 1915. Rai died seven months later, and his gravestone in a cemetery outside Berlin preserves the date: 3 January 1917. Although this was a model prison that the Germans used to show international inspectors, many Nepali prisoners succumbed to tuberculosis in winter.  “Jas Bahadur missed home, his songs and writings are a testimony to that, and more than 100 years later they have inspired me to do further research on the Gurkhas and their never-told tales of suffering,” Chudal says. <img width="1209" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181156/636bea3b9c7e80680e087908jpeg.jpg" alt="">There is a possibility that the writings and items belonging to Nepal’s soldiers recovered from Europe’s battlefields will finally be returned to their homeland. With them, we will learn about the other side of the Gurkha saga — the stories of yearning, pain beyond measure, of loves and lives lost.  Based on the first episode of Saglo Samaj, a tv magazine program produced by Himalmedia which is broadcast every Monday, at 8:30 pm on Dish Home Channel 130.

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171144/636936819c7e80680e03fde4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"/>It is now <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/Double-centennial,1011" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than 200 years</a> that men from Nepal have joined the British Army to fight, if needs be, in support of Britain’s overseas interests. And it is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">100 years since the end of the First World War</a>, in which 200,000 Nepali men went to France, North Africa, Palestine and Mesopotamia to fight against the Germans and their allies. That is a very long historical relationship.So, it is a good time to question the future of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-military-migrant-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">British Gurkhas</a> and of the relationship between Britain and Nepal in this regard. Some may feel that the whole tradition of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Gurkhas-dying-for-others,2938" target="_blank" rel="noopener">providing soldiers for a foreign army</a> is an imperialist phenomenon which should be terminated. Others see it as a matter of pride, to be continued and even reinforced.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Least we forget</a>, David SeddonSuccessive cuts in the budget of the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) over the last few decades have significantly reduced the overall size of the armed forces, and particularly the British Army. The Brigade of Gurkhas now comprises fewer than 4,000 men.One might have thought, in the light of this, that the British government would have felt that time had come to call a halt to further recruitment from Nepal and to phase out this anomalous element of the British Army.But even if the size of the British Army is declining, there is a serious shortage of recruits from Britain itself – the number of new recruits was down last year by 24%. It was therefore decided in November to allow members of the British Commonwealth, even if not resident in the UK, to apply for positions in the British Army.There remains keen competition among young Nepalis to <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5423#.XAZEg9szaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">join the Brigade of Gurkhas</a>, even if the number of recruits each year has been reduced to only a few hundred. What more natural, then, than to increase the quota of recruits from Nepal? This would please those who believe that Nepal would benefit from such an expansion, but would upset those who argue that recruitment to the British Gurkhas is a relic of an imperial past, not to be continued let alone expanded.Furthermore, there might be scope for women as well as men to take advantage of this apparent willingness of the MoD to recruit from abroad, including from Nepal, to the Gurkhas. In what to many was a surprise move, in July this year, it was decided to allow women to apply to join this hitherto all-male outfit.Is this just a nod to ‘equal opportunities’? Or the beginning of the re-definition of the role of ‘<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/the-gurkhas-an-interactive-timeline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Gurkhas</a>’ -- widely caricatured as ‘fearless and ferocious’ -- in favour of a softer image?  In fact, the British Army already includes some 30,000 women in a wide range of roles, but in another surprise move in October women were allowed to apply for and to take up combat roles.All of this assumes a continuation of an essentially military role for ‘New Lahures’. But what if the Britain and Nepal were to agree, under the special conditions of their bilateral relationship, that in future there would be an expanded recruitment of young Nepalis -- not to a military outfit serving mainly overseas, but to a jointly managed ‘Peace Corps’. Organised by the Brigade of Gurkhas, such a force would be committed to peace-keeping and community development in Nepal and elsewhere in the developing world.This would be a gradual transfer of responsibility, and of funding, over a period of years for this new ‘Gurkha Peace Corps’ from the MoD to the Department for International Development (DfID) in collaboration with an appropriate government department in Nepal.Eventually, however, it would become a fully joint British-Nepal responsibility, able to provide young Nepalis with suitable training and experience, and to deploy them in various roles (including peace keeping and security, but also in community development) across the world, including Nepal.The Gurkha Peace Corps would also be open to recruits from Britain, encouraging young people from Nepal and Britain to train and work together in Nepal and elsewhere. This would make it possible to sustain and renew the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=8078#.XAZFw9szaUl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">long historical relationship between Britain and Nepal through the Gurkhas</a>, but recast it as one between equals, involving young men and women from both countries in a common endeavour: for peace and development.Dr David Seddon is Director of Critical Faculty, author/co-author of many publications on Nepal, and currently writing a three-part book on ‘Nepal and the Great War’.  Read also:<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Gurkhas-dying-for-others,2938" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dying for others</a>, Om Astha Rai<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-military-migrant-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A military-migrant economy</a>, Amanda Chisholm<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/Double-centennial,1011" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Double centennial</a>, Editorial

The time has come for a Gurkha Peace Corps

Samsung Nepal has opened pre-orders for the Galaxy A57 5G and A37 5G. Both phones run Samsung’s One UI 8.5, featuring AI capabilities like voice transcription, Circle to Search, and photo editing. They feature a 50MP triple-camera system, a Super AMOLED display, and six years of OS and security updates.

Galaxy A series

Know your Ministers

Prime Minister Balendra Shah on Wednesday broke tradition and met with 17 foreign envoys collectively, a move that was a notable departure from how his predecessors operated.&nbsp;
Shah had already set himself apart by talking less, listening more, and delegating to trusted friends. But by meeting all ambassadors at one go in the presence of the Foreign Ministry, he signalled a paradigm shift in how he wants Nepal to be seen: no longer just balancing India and China, but as a country confident about its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/guest-editorial/tripolar-contestation-over-nepal">strategic importance and place in the world</a>.
In just two weeks, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rsp-dos-and-don-ts">RSP has sprung into action </a>on multiple fronts to implement its ambitious 100-point, 100-days action plan. It has taken short-term measures to mitigate the impact of the Gulf war, as well as medium- and long- term measures to streamline the bureaucracy. A few high-profile figures have been made examples of to drive the message home.
Earlier this week, the government recalled six politically appointed ambassadors, the most notable being long-serving Shankar Sharma from New Delhi. The Kathmandu District Court issued arrest warrants against former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his former foreign minister wife Arzu Rana on charges of money laundering and corruption.
Each ministry has been trying to clean up the accumulated rot from the past three decades: regulatory overhaul of microfinance, education, health and service delivery.&nbsp;
These actions widely disseminated campaign-style on YouTube and TikTok have made most Nepalis hopeful that the party they installed in power means business.
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BACKLASH
But such attempts to overhaul a long-entrenched political culture were bound to face backlash. In their impatience and enthusiasm to get things done, some of Prime Minister Shah’s ministers have over-reached.
It was common knowledge that government-paid advertising in the mainstream press was kickback-driven, but the PMO’s directive that official notices be published or broadcast only on state-run media has been denounced — especially as the media industry struggles to stay afloat.
More serious are some recent appointments by ministers of relatives and figures closely associated with the RSP to key positions. This has rankled because this party built its political plank on ending nepotism and graft.&nbsp;
News that Home Minister Sudan Gurung allegedly had not paid rent on leased land, which illegally encroached on the lake in Pokhara did not help. &nbsp;
Prime Minister Shah himself has come under scrutiny for appointing a kitchen cabinet full of male buddies from his time as Kathmandu mayor. To douse criticism he brought in as adviser investigative journalist Deepa Dahal, who has exposed corruption in high places of the previous coalitions.&nbsp;
Shah’s appointment of another political adviser Asim Shah to the head Constitution Amendment Task Force, is also seen as problematic. He is a filmmaker and former lawmaker, but does not have a background in constitutional law.&nbsp;
Even more controversial is the Cabinet’s decision to appoint RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane’s legal counsel, Narayan Kandel, as Attorney General. Kandel used to be a UK permanent resident, and does not have as much experience practicing law in Nepal.&nbsp;
Kandel’s appointment drew flak and raised eyebrows, and with the pending legal cases against Lamichhane this appointment represents a flagrant conflict of interest.
Health Minister Nisha Mehta was also accused of favouritism after reappointing Junu Shrestha, wife of Labour Minister Dipak Kumar Shah, as member of the Health Insurance Board which had earlier suspended her. The Labour Minister’s rambling rant at the Board’s meeting on Tuesday has not helped the RSP’s image.&nbsp;
(UPDATE: On Thursday, Prime Minister Shah sacked the Labour Minister after the RSP found him in breach of the party's code of conduct and discipline. He served 14 days in the Cabinet, one of the shortest tenures for a minister in Nepal )
It is hard to know what <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/ball-in-balen-s-court">Balendra Shah is thinking</a>, and how Rabi Lamichhane is going to justify some of these moves. After all, making politics, governance, and bureaucracy a meritocracy has been the core tenet of the RSP, and it risks alienating its mainly youth base if these missteps persist.
But at least for now, most RSP supporters seem to be giving the party the benefit of doubt.

Nepal’s new government springs into action

In a classic arc of political sociology, a revolutionary figure takes several decades to complete their cycle: mobilisation, institutionalisation, and finally governance. 
However, the timeline of this trajectory has been telescoped in the case of Home Minister Sudan Gurung, who in 2025 described himself as a social activist and volunteer, has gone from the barricades of the GenZ protests to the mahogany desk of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Gurung is a personal pick of Prime Minister Balendra Shah, and played a pivotal role in getting him to join the RSP by mediating with Rabi Lamichhane. His journey serves as a real test bed for the ‘Outsider-to-Insider Transition’, raising a fundamental question about someone who now leads the very apparatus that he once fought against: the police, intelligence service, and the bureaucracy.
Social capital can indeed be built during a crisis exacerbated by state failure, and that is where we first see Sudan Gurung — expediting relief delayed by systemic corruption and red tape. Gurung’s delivery aid through a social-media-driven volunteer network bypassed the government. 
Whether or not he really rushed a dying child to hospital after the 2015 earthquake does not matter, it has become an urban legend. 
His work evolved into the non-profit Hami Nepal in 2020, serving as a ‘parallel state’ mechanism that would later become central to his public identity. Later, his group sprang into action during the Covid crisis, organising oxygen cylinders and beds . He was there after flood disasters in Manang and Sidhupalchok, and even organised Rs15m worth of aid to Turkey after the 2023 earthquake. 
Moral Legitimacy became his primary source of power, and he strategically positioned himself as an alternative emergency response system. But the real rupture happened on 8 September 2025 when years of frustration, corruption scandals, lack of transparency and state accountability culminated in a rally that the next day descended into anarchy. 
There was no single leader. The movement was fully decentralised, but as elsewhere such upheavals produces a recognisable face. Among them was Sudan Gurung. Who despite being a millennial himself, became the most visible interlocutor of the GenZ movement. 
He negotiated with the state’s key actors, including the president and the Chief of Army staff, during the period of uncertainty When the country was on the brink. This led to the dissolution of parliament and the formation of the interim government under Sushila Karki, paving the way for the election on 5 March.
Since then, Sudan Gurung’s role has become contradictory. Within days of touching Prime Minister Karki’s feet after her swearing in, he was at the gates of Baluwatar spearheading midnight demonstrations calling for her resignation. He accused her and Home Minister Om Prakash Aryal of not consulting the youth over Cabinet appointments and not arresting the previous government officials.
This oscillation became a hallmark of Gurung’s own version of the ‘Radical Flank Effect’ — erratic behaviour to force the establishment to make concessions. 
On 18 January Gurung formally joined the RSP, and started campaigning from his home constituency of Gorkha-1. He won decisively and was appointed home minister by Balendra Shah. The transition was complete. 
As minister his role spans core security areas: overseeing internal security through the Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and the intelligence bureau. The man who took part in anti-government rallies is now in charge of the riot police that aresupposed control anti-government protests.
His portfolio also handles state administration matters such as citizenship, immigration, and border security, coordinates with the judicial system on prisons, detention, and policies related to punishment and clemency. For example will be overseeing the fraud case against his own party’s chair, Lamichhane.
In his book Power in Movement, political scientist Sidney Tarrow observes that social movement leaders encounter ‘institutional capture’ upon entering government. In a sociological paradox, the man who previously denounced the police for killing youth protesters is now the person who issues directives to those same forces.
Preventive detention, surveillance, and the control of public festivals are the same instruments that the former old guard employed to stifle his movement. The activist who demanded transparency at the B P Koirala Institute now manages the state’s most secretive security apparatus.
In this arc, Gurung is not alone, there are parallels around the world for leaders emerging from the ashes of revolt. It is not so much a prediction, but for Gurung the challenge is even more acute because youth expectations are so high.
The bar for performance has been raised by citizens demanding change and quicker, more efficient service delivery. He is under constant public scrutiny, which is why he has to take YouTubers every time he goes on inspections of the airport, the BP Highway, police stations, picking trash on the sidewalks or meeting the Swiss ambassador to ask about repatriating the ill-gotten wealth of politicians.
Sudan Gurung is facing intense public glare. There have been calls to reveal the truth behind Hami Nepal’s finances, the alleged links to Free Tibet, and lately not paying five years of rent for an illegal lakefront property in Pokhara. 
As minister, he will find that moral legitimacy alone is no longer sufficient, it must be reinforced by transparent and consistent institutional accountability. Sudan Gurung’s ascent is evidence that the public mostly trusts ‘outsiders’ during times of crisis. However, history also cautions us that the state only permits ‘insiders’ to operate. 
Gurung will have to organise systemic reform to inject the transparency of his volunteer days to the Home Ministry’s traditionally secretive disbursements. If he fails, he runs the risk of validating Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy, which would serve as a warning about how revolutionary energy is dissipated by the very structures it was intended to overthrow.
Nepal is watching the man who said he once held a dying child in his arms after an earthquake. The volunteer has become the Warden.
Nischal Raj Gautam is a student of Media Studies and Mass Communication at St. Xavier's College, Maitighar. He is a member of the EU Delegation's Youth Sounding Board (YSB), and a journalist for TheirWorld's The Education Issue 2026.

first-world-war

Tales of courage and suffering

Tales of courage and suffering

The time has come for a Gurkha Peace Corps

Galaxy A series

Know your Ministers

Nepal’s new government springs into action

He said no to politics. Now he runs it.