During President Trump’s tour of Gulf monarchies last month, he mentioned Gaza only two times. The first time was in Doha, when he expressed his desire to make Gaza a “freedom zone.” Gaza’s 2.1 million residents, nearly half of whom are children, would like that, too. Just as the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in violation of the Geneva Convention have the right to immediate and unconditional freedom, Gazans also have the right to live free of the inhumane and illegal collective punishment they’ve been forced to endure for more than 600 days.&nbsp; They would like freedom from the brutal bombardment, starvation, forced displacement, siege, and blockade of Gaza. They would also like the freedom to safely collect food and basic humanitarian supplies from the UN and other legitimate and experienced aid providers, the freedom to return to their communities to search for and bury their dead with dignity, and the freedom to rebuild Gaza even if it takes a generation. The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dresden, Stalingrad, and Le Havre, were free to rebuild their cities. Why should this freedom be denied to Gazans? When President Trump mentioned Gaza for the second time during his Gulf tour, he was in Abu Dhabi, where he briefly acknowledged the humanitarian crisis. He said, “We’re looking at Gaza. A lot of people are starving.”&nbsp; The world now knows that President Trump’s words were nothing more than a virtue-signaling smoke screen. He wasn’t actually seeing the scale of the human suffering in Gaza, which the United States helped create.&nbsp; Instead, he was talking about the so-called Gaza ‘Humanitarian Foundation’, a cynical and deadly tool designed by Israeli and U.S. officials to replace an established, functioning, independent, and credible international aid system in order to accelerate the ethnic cleansing and annexation of Gaza.&nbsp; Since its launch ten days after Trump made his comments in Abu Dhabi, the G.H.F. has delivered more death than food and proven itself to be anything but humanitarian.&nbsp; It’s just another lethal weapon in Israel’s vast Western-subsidized war arsenal and a way to appease Israel’s patrons in the U.S. Congress. How, after all, can “Hamas tunnels” and fighters hide beneath the emaciated, dying, and dead bodies of Gaza’s starved children?&nbsp; President Trump had a real chance to prove that his concerns for Gaza and his persistent claims of being a peacemaker were genuine during the 4 June U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire and full, unhindered humanitarian access.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250629130620_9c616feb2c9ed3e7a33a0eadb639dd82058bbf39325ad9319a40c3ccb4b976c4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250629130620_9c616feb2c9ed3e7a33a0eadb639dd82058bbf39325ad9319a40c3ccb4b976c4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="530" loading="lazy" alt="Gaza school"> <figcaption>Aftermath of a 6 May Israeli airstrike on an UNRWA school turned-shelter in Gaza where dozens of people were reportedly killed, including women and children. Photo: UNRWA</figcaption> </figure>  Like President Biden before him, President Trump instructed his Acting U.N. Ambassador to cast the lone, shameful vote against a resolution meant to prevent the further loss of life in Gaza, including for the remaining Israeli hostages whose families have been pleading for a lasting ceasefire every day since November 2023.&nbsp; This U.N. resolution wasn’t a political call for sanctions or an arms embargo against Israel. Nor was it a call to recognise the State of Palestine. It was simply a call for humanitarian action in order to get life-saving aid into Gaza at scale and to get the hostages out of captivity.&nbsp; The political wisdom and courage to vote in favor of this ceasefire was the bare minimum President Trump and his administration could have offered. More importantly, it’s what a majority of American citizens have wanted for some time now, including those who voted for President Trump. According to a March 2025 AP-NORC poll, 60% of Republicans now believe that ‘it’s essential’ for the U.S. to ‘facilitate a permanent ceasefire in Gaza’, and in May, a Data for Progress poll showed that 76% of Americans across political lines are in favour of an immediate ceasefire and would like to see the U.S. do its part to de-escalate the crisis in Gaza.&nbsp; By voting against the ceasefire and providing numerous misleading reasons for doing so afterward, President Trump ignored the views of a majority of Americans towards the increasingly desperate situation faced by Gaza’s besieged and starving population. The urgent question now is whether the 14 sovereign states that voted in favour of the resolution will quickly honour their votes with meaningful action. There’s so much that can be done, from pausing trade talks and relations to arms embargoes and sanctions, but the following three measures will send a strong, immediate message that there’s serious determination behind the condemnation. European, U.K., Turkish, and regional Arab States should join forces to provide a no-fly zone over Gaza. This action is the fastest way to stop Israel from prosecuting its deadly daily air strikes. I witnessed how it saved lives and paved the way to peace when NATO enforced a No Fly Zone over Bosnia for a thousand days between 1993 and 1995.&nbsp; A no-fly zone over Gaza will help calm tensions in the region and build a political and humanitarian space for more seasoned mediators to ensure the safe release of the Israeli hostages and for legitimate humanitarian aid actors to resume operations through the Karem Shalom, Erez, and other crossings into Gaza.&nbsp; Simultaneously, the deployment of French, Turkish, British, and Russian naval hospital ships already in or near the Mediterranean should sail to Gaza immediately, especially towards the North of the strip where no fully functioning hospitals remain and where people are dying for lack of basic medical supplies and infrastructure.&nbsp; This action will help save lives and lift the burden from Gaza’s devastated healthcare system until it’s given a chance to recover. Furthermore, the governments that voted in favor of the resolution must pressure Israel to facilitate immediate access for international journalists into Gaza.&nbsp; If a small sailboat in the Mediterranean and the thousands of ordinary citizens from 32 countries presently marching towards Gaza through Egypt can try to break Israel’s unlawful siege and blockade, surely the most powerful governments and navies from the Eurasian continent can do their part. (IPS) Melek Zahine is an international humanitarian and disaster response expert.

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

thumbnail

viewImage

Saving what is left of Gaza

“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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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 Nepali Party in 2013.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;  <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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; It would be unfair to attribute all the success of the hard-fought campaigns entirely to Ujwal Thapa’s protégés and former coworkers.&nbsp; 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;

<figure>
 <video controls src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026030817030_de0fcd0c749f165992c75cbfcb94a19b086018ffcda1d151bd55e71331f4e934.mp4" alt="" width="100%" height="100%"></video>
 <figcaption>Animation: ANUP TAMU</figcaption>
</figure>

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;
<div class="embed-block"><iframe src="https://election-geo-dashboard.pages.dev/" width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0"> </iframe></div>
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.

Nobody ran the campaign. That is why it worked.

I was a new mother trying to protect my young family from Covid in 2020, and that was when I first noticed Jacinda Ardern’s leadership. Our own prime minister was spreading misinformation about the strong immune system of Nepalis and our herbal concoctions being antidotes.&nbsp; Later in 2024, Ardern showed up after the mass shooting at mosques in New Zealand with tears in her eyes, and the strong message: “They are us.” It was refreshing to see such empathetic leadership, especially as political news was dominated by elected authoritarians, while Nepal was held hostage by repeat prime ministers.&nbsp; Ardern’s book A Different Kind of Leadership should be essential reading for all Nepalis with political aspirations, especially the new generation that wants real change. The theme that repeats throughout the book is to be human before becoming a politician.&nbsp; The book is not just about Ardern showing up for her people as one of them, it is also about why she decided to show up the way she did, and what brought her to politics to begin with — resolve, a little bit of luck, and stepping up when she had to.&nbsp; Political ambition is not a bad thing. But stepping up to lead when the situation demands it, and knowing when it is time to leave, is what makes a leader. Ardern was given the opportunity to become her party’s deputy leader at a relatively young age, and her party leader resigned — two events uncommon in Nepali politics. Ardern mentions multiple times not thinking of herself as politician material because she has a thin skin, and she talks equally often of her feelings of being intimidated in political spaces, up until she accepted the position of party leader.&nbsp; But she was accountable at a time when we in Nepal were getting used to non-reactions and non-answers from the loud, confident men who played with power. Somehow, somewhere, not least because of the malestream ideas we have been fed about politics and politicians, we imagine that leadership should look a certain way. Strong, macho, loud, confident or even better, overconfident. We imagine that empathetic leadership is soft, is scared to make people angry, is ineffective.&nbsp; LOOKING AFTER PEOPLE Ardern’s leadership was effective. New Zealand had less Covid fatalities than most developed countries, and it went in and out of lockdown with relative ease. Ardern’s approval ratings were high at a very unstable time in politics globally. A significant portion of the chapters that talk about Ardern’s time in office also delve into her struggles being a working mother. But she does not consider herself a supermom who did it all. She portrays herself as simply a working mom, one with lots of support, and discusses how common it is for parents, especially mothers, to juggle work and family. She comes across as one of us. There is a section in the book where Ardern’s daughter asks her the question she has been dreading, and which many of us working moms also face, “Mummy, why do you have to work so much?” Ardern explains that she has a “very important job” and explains it to her three-and-half-year-old as “looking after people”.&nbsp; I put down the book when I reached that sentence. I want the next prime minister of my country to read this book, and then lead. I want the next prime minister of Nepal to think that he (all the top contenders for the job are men, page 9) is looking after people, making sure no Nepali child is undernourished, that people can make a living without risking their lives, hearing the concerns of citizens and solving them.&nbsp; I want him to lead like a woman, like Sushila Karki has been leading for the last six months, with quiet determination and integrity, and without fanfare. I want him to remember that leadership is just service, and that, like Maya Angelou wrote, ‘Your legacy is what you do every day.’ It is not loud speeches and the making of some imagined, glorified history. Karki was picked to lead us back during the black days of early September when the country was in flames. The very first video of her on 9 September, the day after young people and students had been shot by the government that was meant to protect them shows her angry and emotional, her voice shaking.&nbsp; It was Karki’s actions in those days of fragility that showed us, once again, that the leader we deserve gets emotional on our behalf, but also knows how to do the work. After five years of leading her country through a global pandemic, Ardern realised that she is exhausted, that she does not have enough in her anymore to keep leading New Zealand, and she steps down.&nbsp; Towards the end of the book, Ardern tells readers like herself, sensitive and self-doubting, that if we want to be leaders, we should channel our anxieties and sensitivities to humble ourselves, to read more and seek out advice, and prepare ourselves for the challenges. Nepal’s next prime minister has to have these qualities: humility, teamwork, diligence and accountability. Good intention, ambition, university degrees, professional achievements are not enough to change the country’s trajectory.&nbsp; And when they have completed the task, or when they know they cannot do it they must have the courage to step down like Jacinda Ardern.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260308010340_b1c2a873eb640e3f10ab912c368dc9271f12f60d600bf8d5db5d2c13422a317c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260308010340_b1c2a873eb640e3f10ab912c368dc9271f12f60d600bf8d5db5d2c13422a317c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Jacinda book details"> </figure>  &nbsp;

gaza-humanitarian-foundation

Saving what is left of Gaza

RSP’s activist DNA

Balen takes Jhapa and Nepal

Nobody ran the campaign. That is why it worked.

Ending Nepal’s malestream politics