This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.thenation.com/issue/may-2024-issue/">the May 2024 issue of The Nation</a> magazine. My first glimpse of Kagbeni in Mustang came with a mix of relief, elation, and a cold foreboding. I had been walking north with my Nepali guide, sturdy 50-year-old Manoj Tamang out of Pokhara, for four days. Dhaulagiri at 8,167m looming to the west and the Annapurna massif to the east, until we had put them behind us.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/soon-monsoon">Soon, monsoon</a>, Anita Bhetwal Now in their rain shadow on the north side of the Himalaya, the landscape quickly turned from alpine to arid high-mountain grassland and desert. We would spend two nights and a full day in Kagbeni at 2,804m before continuing up to Jharkot and Muktinath (3,800m), still the ‘foothills’ by Himalayan standards. Hence the relief, especially for my 56-year-old back and legs which were no match for Manoj’s. As for the elation, it came not only from the vista of Kagbeni’s terraced fields and orchards appearing, like some miraculous oasis, at the foot of barren cliffs and snowless mountainsides.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518030540_48e8edcc734cc1dd82514c3d142ad8027b57fe9fd6af2186be6623b39bc90ca6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240518030540_48e8edcc734cc1dd82514c3d142ad8027b57fe9fd6af2186be6623b39bc90ca6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Kagbeni"> <figcaption>A view of Kagbeni, looking north up the Kali Gandaki valley.</figcaption> </figure>  Since the 12th century, Kagbeni has been the “gateway” to the ancient Kingdom of Lo, known today as Upper Mustang, a restricted area on Nepal’s border with China. Yet today’s Mustang, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2023.2174891">recent scholarship</a> by the anthropologist Emily Amburgey and others has shown, is no idyllic Shangri-la, thanks to its mix of poverty, uneven development, government neglect, out-migration of the young, and, increasingly, symptoms of climate change (like those snowless mountains during my January visit). Indeed, the foreboding came when I remembered why I was there. Last August, Kagbeni suffered a devastating flood—brought on by extreme rainfall—the likes of which no one living there had ever experienced. I wanted to see the damage and the recovery effort for myself—and I wanted to hear from local people about what climate change means for their lives and communities in the <a href="https://hkh.icimod.org/hi-wise/hi-wise-report/">fast-warming Himalaya</a>. * Kagbeni is built along both banks of the Kag Khola river where it flows into the Kali Gandaki from the east. The original 12th century town, with its traditional flat-roofed mud houses and its medieval monastery and fort, lies on the north side, and the newer part of town to the south.&nbsp; The confluence of the two rivers, sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists, has made Kagbeni an important stop on the age-old pilgrimage route to the ancient Muktinath temple complex farther up the Kag Khola Gorge. The area is now heavily touristed thanks to a major road completed in 2008. That first afternoon, I made my way along the new town’s main street until it opened suddenly onto what still looked, five months after the flood, like a war zone. The grey rubble of rock, sand, and dried-mud debris, a block wide and a story high, stretched a good 200 yards along both sides of the narrow river.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518030540_a02fc741e3dd0e6c639460c046d8fc29a7fd953be48ab0ff731a7f5cee272621.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20240518030540_a02fc741e3dd0e6c639460c046d8fc29a7fd953be48ab0ff731a7f5cee272621" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1536" loading="lazy" alt="Kagbeni flood"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518030544_60cfb13b9bbcd268a6dfe68cdab45678260fc5156e32c3bf0e74a00043b06791.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20240518030544_60cfb13b9bbcd268a6dfe68cdab45678260fc5156e32c3bf0e74a00043b06791" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1536" loading="lazy" alt="Kagbeni flood"> </figure>  &nbsp;The floods that sweep down these river gorges do not just carry water, they consist of a thick, heavy flow of cement-like silt, mud, and rock that levels everything in its path and raises the riverbed by many feet. Think of it not as sea-level rise but riverbed rise, putting homes, schools, stupas and temples, infrastructure, and fields in greater peril with each new flood, which comes more often as global warming alters the South Asian monsoon. Rinzin Namgyal Gurung, the Kagbeni rural municipality chair, laid out the extent of the flood damage for me in an email: eight buildings completely destroyed, including a hotel, a government ward office, a health centre, and a police station, and 19 that suffered partial damage, including the monastery and the secondary school.&nbsp; In all, 27 buildings designated as residential or hotels were destroyed or damaged, plus nine ‘crucial public structures’ (water supply and treatment, irrigation canals, sewers, electricity stations, bridges, and river retaining walls) ‘were also severely affected’. This is a town of just 600 people. Gurung also listed the full extent of recovery funding and assistance the town received from Nepal’s national government: “Ministry of Home Affairs, 10 heavy tents and 15 blankets.” Assistance received so far from international NGOs: none. In the absence of such aid, the Mustang community in Nepal and abroad, has stepped up with a grassroots fundraising campaign. As Mustang faces another monsoon season, the question of longer-term survival is on some people’s minds. * Laxmi Gurung is 49 years old and was born in Kagbeni, where her ancestors have lived for eons. She was away in Kathmandu when I visited Kagbeni, but I caught up with her the following week in the capital’s Swayambhu neighborhood. Laxmi and her brother, a former local-government chairperson, own and run Kagbeni’s Hotel Mustang Gateway and its iconic <a href="https://www.facebook.com/yacdonald/">YacDonald’s restaurant</a>.&nbsp; Together, they founded the Fama Foundation to help preserve Mustang’s traditional culture as the region rapidly develops. Educated at universities in India and New Zealand, Laxmi attended COP28, the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Dubai last December with Nepal’s delegation to advocate for the establishment of a ‘loss and damage’ fund at the UN. Last year’s August flood had damaged the hotel and restaurant, sending a car through a wall.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518030544_e746e002560e33596c8c9beea4fe1210d0ff8f0aa697fd82e55426b049aecc46.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20240518030544_e746e002560e33596c8c9beea4fe1210d0ff8f0aa697fd82e55426b049aecc46" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Kagbeni flood loss and damage"> <figcaption>Laxmi Gurung's hotel and restaurant was damaged in the Kagbeni flood. She says the 'loss and damage' fund cannot pay for everything that is lost.</figcaption> </figure>  Laxmi described that night in harrowing detail: the intensity of the rain, unlike anything Kagbeni had experienced in the past (the old town’s mud houses, which have survived centuries in the region’s arid climate, are now dissolving under the recent downpours), the warning calls from villages upriver, which saved lives (Kagbeni had no fatalities), the unforgettable sound of heavy debris crashing into buildings in the darkness and of buildings collapsing, the agonising wait to see the damage in first daylight.&nbsp; “It was the longest night,” Laxmi said. But it was the flood’s aftermath that was the most revelatory. “The next day we see everywhere heaps of mud. And we don’t know what to do. Everybody is crying,” Laxmi said.&nbsp; Houses and belongings were buried under the debris, while some items were carried down the Kali Gandaki as far as Lete, 25 miles away. “All the people, from Lubrak, from Muktinath, every village from Upper Mustang to Lower Mustang came with something in hand to help Kagbeni, to move the debris. They came personally to help us, and they also contributed financial help. Mustang is an example that community exists.” “From the government, we still have not got any relief funds,” Laxmi said. Nepal’s Home Ministry and a variety of NGOs “came and watched—they see, they study, and [are] gone.” Pointing out that Kagbeni’s carbon emissions, like Nepal’s as a whole, are negligible, Laxmi asked, “Why are we the ones who suffer a lot? Our memories, heritage, structures, landscapes: gone. And who is to blame for this? Should we blame ourselves? We should get compensation. But who will listen to us? We are a small community, a small mountain village, in one corner of—beyond the Himalaya. Even Nepal’s government believes we are beyond the Himalaya, and we have been neglected.” When asked about her advocacy in Dubai for loss-and-damage funding, and if there are losses that cannot be compensated, she said: “The financial help can establish new houses, infrastructures, but our heritage, our ancestors’ properties, we cannot rebuild. The loss of memories, values, culture, customs cannot be repaid.” * Yungdrung Tsewang Gurung, 36, is a freelance researcher, conservationist, and photographer from Lubrak, a tiny village a few miles south of Kagbeni. Dating back to the 12th century, it has 14 households and is the last village in Mustang entirely following the pre-Buddhist Tibetan Bön religion. Working with Amburgey and other scholars, Yungdrung has researched the effects of climate and social change in Mustang. In June 2021, his family’s small ancestral home in Lubrak was destroyed by a major flood. They have since built a new house higher up the steep mountainside, and he has documented and reported <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/mustang-forced-to-adapt-to-climate-crisis">for the Nepali Times</a> on how Lubrak is shifting ground as the floods and rising riverbed overwhelm its ancestral fields and now threaten the heart of the village itself. “Knowingly or not knowingly, local people are already struggling,” Yungdrung said. “In Lubrak, my family was living with the threat of when the flood would happen and we would lose our house. In 2021, it happened overnight. And when we see the snow melting and how the rain pattern is changing, and flood is one of the outcomes, we cannot do much. In our village, most of the old traditional things are already damaged, and we do not have [many options for a] livelihood.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518030548_4296e553e89fe3a46fdf156b47e9c0409d40a78f20eaf30df2d23222b9dcf6d2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20240518030548_4296e553e89fe3a46fdf156b47e9c0409d40a78f20eaf30df2d23222b9dcf6d2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1125" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Kagbeni flood victim"> <figcaption>Yungdrung Tsewang Gurung, of Lubrak village, at Paradise Trekkers Home in Kagbeni in January 2024.</figcaption> </figure>  The people of Lubrak are actively discussing whether, how, and where to relocate as a community—a prospect complicated by the fact that, under recent national policy, the community's ancestral land is now owned by the Nepali government. “We cannot build and claim that it belongs to us, like our parents and older generations,” Yungdrung said.&nbsp; His family was the first in Lubrak to lose its home, and the plot on which they rebuilt was allocated through the village’s traditional community decision-making process. But now their ownership, and the village’s ability to relocate on ancestral land, is uncertain.&nbsp; “We do not fit in the Nepal government’s policy,” Yungdrung said. “How can we survive here?” Kagbeni now faces the same issue. Nepal’s central government recently overruled a local decision to allocate community land to flood victims for building new homes. “As authorised land documents remain unavailable, the affected individuals and local authorities are actively pursuing procedures to acquire land from the government,” explained Rinzin Namgyal Gurung, the chairperson. * Asked what would happen if there were suddenly a significant amount of loss-and-damage funding for Mustang, if it would make a difference or if there was a mechanism through which to use the money, Yungdrung did not sound confident.&nbsp; “I don’t see a way through, directly,” he said. “The political situation is not stable. Many people at different political levels will benefit from it, and many NGOs are influenced by political parties. So for now, even if you say in 2024 there will be lots of grants for loss and damage, I don’t think it will reach the ground level. It won’t reach the people who actually suffer.” There’s a simplistic narrative about loss-and-damage funding, which took a long-overdue stride forward at COP28. It suggests that if wealthy Global North nations create a pot of money to compensate the most vulnerable developing countries, among which Nepal ranks in the global top 10, that it will address the problem.&nbsp; It is as if, where the culpable rich nations once said, “They’ll adapt,” the thinking now goes, “We’ll compensate them.” In other words: We’ll help pay for your losses (“Here, will this pocket change do?”) while we keep burning the world, melting your glaciers, and wrecking your monsoon.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518030544_90c475a58da9022888aa9eb21e8a34f2b0b4fb62dce33d65fb80564b004c288f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20240518030544_90c475a58da9022888aa9eb21e8a34f2b0b4fb62dce33d65fb80564b004c288f" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Kagbeni flood"> <figcaption>Buildings damaged by the August 2023 flood in Kagbeni, as seen in January 2024.</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518030548_0e74d4aa22d583f175cd44f26320733b40c246d5da073941becf1afa140064f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20240518030548_0e74d4aa22d583f175cd44f26320733b40c246d5da073941becf1afa140064f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Kagbeni flood"> <figcaption>Damage and debris from the August 2023 flood in Kagbeni, as seen in January 2024.</figcaption> </figure>  Full loss-and-damage funding for poor countries is a moral and geopolitical imperative. Debt cancellation for developing nations might be a start. But it’s a naïve ‘first world’ fantasy to think that a government like Nepal’s has the capacity to implement climate relief and adaptation measures at scale, however much money is spent, without deep political and structural reforms (as any number of Nepali experts will tell you). What the United States, Europe, and the world’s other advanced economies truly owe the Global South goes well beyond compensation—especially when money itself cannot compensate for what is lost. We owe them nothing less than to break the grip of fossil fuels on our economic and political systems and end the use of coal, oil, and gas <a href="https://www.ecoequity.org/2024/02/after-dubai/">as fast—and as equitably</a>—as possible. That will require a political mobilisation like nothing we’ve yet seen, one that is still, at this late date, nowhere in sight. What, then, do you say to a person like Laxmi Gurung as she looks you in the eye? I had no adequate words. But maybe we should be looking to her for answers. In Kathmandu, I asked Laxmi if she thinks her community will ever abandon Kagbeni or whether her people will stay and fight, come what may. “The day we got the flood,” she told me, emotion in her voice, “we became strong. We said, ‘We should fight.’ We all are traumatised, we feel scared to stay in Kagbeni, but we thought, ‘No, this is our place, this is our home. No matter what, we should fight.’ So we all get together, and then the community all came. Then we began to say, ‘Oh, if we stand, everybody is with us. Why not stand?’” <a href="https://wenstephenson.com/">Wen Stephenson</a> is a veteran journalist, essayist, and climate-justice activist. A frequent contributor to <a href="https://www.thenation.com/authors/wen-stephenson/">The Nation</a> and <a href="https://thebaffler.com/authors/wen-stephenson">The Baffler</a>, he is the author of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/250727/what-were-fighting-for-now-is-each-other-by-wen-stephenson/">What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Climate Justice</a> (2015). His forthcoming book, Learning to Live in the Dark: Essays in a Time of Catastrophe, will be published next year.

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What is lost cannot be repaid

The hallmark of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/mustang-forced-to-adapt-to-climate-crisis">climate breakdown in the Himalaya</a> is that it does not rain when and where it is supposed to, but pours at the wrong time in areas it ought not to. The trans-Himalayan Mustang region has had successive snowless winters but has experienced heavy monsoon downpours most characteristic of the southern foothills. But local and national governments seem ill-prepared to deal with this anomaly. The lack of readiness was seen in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/smoke-screen">unprecedented wildfires in March-April</a>, which was partly due to a long winter drought. Soon, the monsoon will be upon us and the government appears to be doing little more than quantifying the death and destruction from floods and landslides. On 13 August 2023, Namyak Gurung of Kagbeni in Mustang saw a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-the-seti-disaster">flash flood </a>that he had never seen in his 50-year life. Cloudbursts the day before set off landslides that dammed the Kag Khola, a tributary of the Kali Gandaki. &nbsp; The lake burst, destroying 30 of the 125 houses in the village. A police station, monasteries, bridges, a hospital, and a school were damaged. No one was killed because there were warning calls from people upstream. Nearly a year later, Kagbeni still looks like a war zone and the people dread the coming rainy season.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024052105050_0d7573f0ee787c01a56237486f98b6f2230ca3d3b6a9c778ce16841ba753e94c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2024052105050_0d7573f0ee787c01a56237486f98b6f2230ca3d3b6a9c778ce16841ba753e94c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1536" height="2048" loading="lazy" alt="Kagbeni flood"> </figure>  “I couldn’t leave the place of my ancestors," says Namyak who has relocated to his brother’s place after his two-storied building was destroyed. “I’m now building my new house a long way above the river. But I keep getting nightmares of another flood.”&nbsp; Tenzing Gurung, 36, was rescued from the second floor of her lodge in Kagbeni. Grey sand and boulders still cover the yard and the river now runs through what used to be the gate to her lodge. “I had never thought something like this could happen here,” says Tenzing. “We are scared, but where can we go?” The flood also damaged the local Janashanti Secondary School where two of Tenzing’s sons study. The school needs immediate relocation, but nothing has been done. “I just pray that the next flood doesn’t happen when my sons are in school,” adds Tenzing. Mustang and Manag districts are supposed to be in the Himalayan rainshadow, but <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/himalayan-floods-a-sign-of-worse-to-come">precipitation patterns are changing</a>. Light monsoon rains have turned into destructive torrents followed by long periods of drought. In June 2021, Manang got all of its average annual rainfall of 300mm in just one week. A wall of water, mud, boulders and logs rushed down the Marsyangdi River, washing away the highway, bridges, settlements and other infrastructure in Taal and Chame villages. “We have seen that the trans-Himalayan regions are now getting more rain than before, the whole rainfall pattern has changed,” says meteorologist Rajendra Sharma of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA). He adds: “In the past, when it rained in Mustang, it happened gently over a period of time but now, we get everything in a day or two. Such heavy downpours increase the risk of floods and landslides.”&nbsp; In the last 10 years, a total of 1,500 floods, 2,500 landslides, and 1,549 high rainfall events occurred across the country and killed 2,141 people, second only to the 2015 Nepal earthquake. Yet the state appears ill-prepared to prevent the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/lost-and-damaged">loss of life and damage</a> — even though not all the destruction can be blamed solely on climate breakdown.&nbsp; “From the Manang and Melamchi floods in 2021 to last year’s Mustang, all of these are weather-related disasters, and the rate of these incidents has increased due to climate change,” says climate expert Dharma Upreti. Although climatologists do not directly blame individual disasters on climate change, they say there is a correlation between rising global temperatures, higher sea surface temperatures contributing to more water vapour in the atmosphere.&nbsp; The Himalaya is also heating faster than the global average due to a phenomenon called ‘Elevation Dependent Warming’. Melting mountains also pose the additional risk of glacial lake outbursts and avalanches.&nbsp; The South Asian Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF) has projected above-normal rainfall for Nepal this monsoon. And with less than a month before the onset of the rains, Nepal is not prepared. And here in Kagbeni, people have still not recovered from last year’s disaster. The NDRRMA’s primary focus is post-disaster humanitarian aid and relief such as stockpiling food, medicines, tents, electricity supply and connectivity — <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/disastrous-preparedness">not so much on preparedness</a>. “We do not have sufficient resources to manage damage caused by disasters year after year, the local government should step up,” says NDRRMA chief Anil Pokhrel. The lack of preparedness and coordination between line agencies means slow response to floods. Local governments are first responders, but do not have the financial support or technical know-how to deal with disasters on their own. Says district administrator Hom Bahadur Thapa Magar in Kagbeni: “Another monsoon is coming, and given what happened last year, we urgently need to build embankments but we do not have the resources or manpower to do so.”

Soon, monsoon

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a95439c7e80680e05dbf9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3500" height="2625"/><figcaption>Franz Frei at his exhibition in Taragaon Museum. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption></figure>For decades, Franz Frei’s drawings used for adult literacy classes in Dolakha sat in his late mother’s attic in Switzerland. Now 43 years later, the former Swiss Development Cooperation employee has brought the drawings back to Nepal.As students, Ulrich Burtscher, Thomas Türtscher and Raimund Wulz made meticulous colour-coded architectural drawings of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4988#.Xb-8z9Iza70">Ghyaru village in Manang</a>, detailing their elevation, water supply, building use and shop density. After 30 years, the trio has returned to Nepal the sectional drawings of the slope and scale of the buildings and their relationships to each other, along with sketches and photographs.After decades of being scattered across Europe, such archival material that provide valuable insight into Nepal’s culture is being brought back by former researchers and students. This return of knowledge is an initiative of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/review/towers-in-stone-niels-gutschow,1762">Niels Gutschow</a>, an architectural historian and adviser at the Saraf Foundation, who himself worked at the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19496#.Xb-8k9Iza70">Bhaktapur Development Project</a> in the 1980s.It was Gutschow who convinced Frei to dust off the metal canister he had custom-made in Patan to carry his original drawings when he left Nepal in 1977. The zinc cylinder, which resembles a time capsule, is now in the Taragaon Museum with its decades-old baggage tag of Swissair and the drawings still intact. The canister is spot-lit at the centre of Frei’s exhibited works, surrounded by the artefacts it held in safekeeping for over 40 years.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a95479c7e80680e05dbfajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="569" height="657">“How many chickens do you see?” When asked this in 1976, villagers responded, “One”. Frei then realised that the ovoid blob on the far right of the chart was not a chicken but an abstraction of a 3D reality into a perspective -- a concept introduced to Europe in the 15th century. Frei learnt from these mistakes and took pains to avoid repeating such miscommunication. The Saraf Foundation is working to procure, exhibit, archive and digitise such research material of foreign artists, photographers, architects and anthropologists who worked in Nepal in the second half of the 20th century.Frei came to Nepal in 1976 as staff of the Swiss-funded <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=496#.Xb-9ONIza70">Integrated Hill Development Project</a> in Dandapakhar village of Dolakha, to conduct adult literacy classes for Tamangs in the area. He made black ink sketches to illustrate Devnagari words, but soon realised the villagers did not ‘see’ images in a way Western experts took for granted. Lines in the pictures and perspective reduction were not understood, and Frei’s sketches were utterly confusing to his grown-up students, some of whom looked at them upside-down.This reminds Frei of the story of how pygmies from dense Congolese rainforest, when brought to the open savanna in Kenya mistook a distant herd of buffaloes for insects. Having never looked that far  before, the vast depth of field that people in the plains took for granted was magic to the pygmy – as they approached the buffalo, the ‘insects’ grew bigger and bigger.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a95499c7e80680e05dbfbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2232" height="2556"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Similarly, a malaria prevention initiative projected images of mosquitoes on the wall to illustrate to villagers how the disease is transmitted. After the slideshow, the people were glad they would never be afflicted with malaria because “we don’t have such big mosquitoes here”.Frei uses the anecdotes to critique his own work in Nepal, and how he found out how pictorial literacy is learnt. Later, he started using stylised depictions of everyday objects using the drawing techniques of local thangka painters as reference.In Manang, architecture students Burtscher, Türtscher and Wulz had no common language to communicate with the Manang-pa with only a compass and tape measure drew the physical environment. Nearly 30 years later, they are valuable records of the ‘anonymous architecture’ of a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Manang-will-prosper-from-its-new-road,2749">Manang village before tourists and the road arrived. </a>Gutschow had to use all his powers of persuasion to get Burtscher to part with his drawings and bring them back to Nepal. Eventually, recognising how their work has developed a cultural significance, the trio agreed to surrender their drawings for safekeeping – admittedly keeping their favourites.Klaus Kette worked on several survey missions in Mustang as an artist and his work is striking, allowing visitors to grasp the feeling of a place, recognition of a face, even if the lines that make the impressions are imprecise, gnarly whirls of movement. We journey through city streets, stop at landmarks, experience unknown interiors, survey remote landscapes, and come face to face with strangers.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a954c9c7e80680e05dbfcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="843" height="603"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a954f9c7e80680e05dbfdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1031" height="730"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a95529c7e80680e05dbfejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1009" height="725"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In Kette’s swirling hand, in the Austrian trio’s maps, or in Frei’s Dolakha drawings we see what we know. Beyond that, when our eyes open there is magic and wonder. These young scholars depicted a hidden world – and whether we see it as magic depends on the rules and lines of perception behind our own ways of seeing.At the very least, the works have come home.The Taragaon Museum Lecture Series-7 Exhibition Till 14 November at <a href="http://taragaonmuseum.com/">Taragaon Museum</a><a href="http://taragaonmuseum.com/">http://taragaonmuseum.com/  </a><a href="http://thesaraffoundation.org/">The Saraf Foundation</a>

Early Nepal drawings come full circle

Here in Dho Valley, in the arid mountains of northwestern Nepal, the only sounds used to be tinkling yak bells and the flapping of wind on prayer flags. Now, there is another one: the throb of internal combustion engines.
Chinese motorcycles roar down the dusty trails of once quiet Dho, and the growl of an excavator can be heard from across the valley. It will not be long before the Sumo pickups arrive from the district headquarter in Dunai, which itself was recently connected to Nepal’s road network.
During his <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/president-xi-in-kathmandu/" target="_blank">state visit to Nepal last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping</a> said Nepal would go from being landlocked to‘land-linked’, and promised to help build better road access across the Himalaya from Nepal to China. This is what ‘better connectivity’ looks like here at ground zero in Dolpo.
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One of Nepal’s priorities for trans-Himalayan connectivity is the Kali Gandaki Corridor from the Tarai, through Mustang to the Korala checkpoint at the Chinese border. The new road from Marim Pass on the Tibet border to Dunai has now reached Dho and Chharkha.
On parts of the road that are already motorable, motorbikes &nbsp;noisly overtake trekking groups spewing clouds of dust as they climb the trails. Neither the trekkers nor lodge owners are happy.
“They go so fast, they are noisy and irritating. It is dangerous for school children and older people — it will kill someone one day,” grumbles Tenzin Gurung, a monk at the Sitcho gomba.
Across the road however, a younger trader is excited about the road since it will provide easier access to the market and bring down the cost of food.
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Such ambivalence has accompanied Nepal’s rapid road-building spree in other parts of the country like <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nation-road-from-nowhere-to-nowhere,549" target="_blank">Tsum</a>, Manang and Mustang. But perhaps nowhere has the change from no-road to road been as dramatic as here in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dazzling-dolpo/" target="_blank">Dolpo,</a> which was the last district in Nepal &nbsp;not linked by road.
Over on the other side of Mo La pass, at 5,021m, an excavator is clearing a switchback down the rocky slope that follows the trekking trail, which itself followed the ancient trading route from Dolpo to Mustang.
Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/bon-voyage/" target="_blank"> Bon voyage,</a> Sonam Choekyi Lama
“The weather is challenging, it is windy and cold on the pass, and we have to bring the diesel up by mule from Mustang,” says excavator operator Padam Bahadur.
Those who own lodges and depend on trekking groups for income are opposed to the road. Even if it is built, they say it should not destroy the traditional trading routes and trekking trails.
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Says Sonam Lama, an architect who fought a losing battle to prevent the road to his native Tsum Valley: “These hiking trails should not be replaced by roads. We should try to find an alternative motorable road.”
The dozers are also ploughing across holy chorten and mani walls. The excavator driver, who is from Piuthan, says he had to “relocate” a mani wall because it was obstructing the road alignment determined by the surveyor.
Read Also: &nbsp;<a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/stairway-to-heaven" target="_blank">Stairway to Heaven</a>, Kunda Dixit
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Villagers in Chharkha ask why Dolpo should not follow the example of Kagbeni, where the road to Lo Manthang bypassed the old cobble-stone streets of the town to preserve its heritage. Indeed, Dolpo seems to be making the same mistake as other parts of Nepal.
With little oversight by local or national governments, it looks like change is too big and too quick for Dolpo to handle.
“There is no reason why the road had to follow the trekking trails, go through the villages and destroy our holy shrines,” says Ramprasad Sherchan, owner of the Muktinath Hotel in Kagbeni. However, Sherchan now sees potential for more trekkers going to Dolpo via Mustang since the district will be more accessible.

New High Way to Dolpo

Nepal’s cricket team first beat powerhouse West Indies in two out of three matches in September, the first time it won a match and then a series against a test-playing nation.&nbsp; Then the Rhinos played six qualifiers in Oman for the 2026 T20 World Cup which is being held in India and Sri Lanka from 7 February to 8 March next year. The national team qualified comfortably with two games to spare, and won all six matches anyway. In the three months before the World Cup, cricketers will play the second season of the Nepal Premier League from 17 November to 13 December.&nbsp; After a hugely successful first season, steady upgrades have been made. The flood-lit Tribhuvan University Cricket Ground has been fitted with 15,000 seats, even though this takes away from the festival-like atmosphere of fans on their feet on the grassy slope.&nbsp; Last season, matches began at noon and three in the afternoon. Late-evening matches in winter under flood lights will increase attendance and viewership.&nbsp; There is also now technology that will display how far a six was hit and how fast a ball was bowled. Foreign players who will play in the league include Chris Lynn, D’arcy Short, Ravi Bopara, and Sohail Tanvir, all good ex-international players that people have heard of.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251101031128_9db0830fb65d0743e3d36cc4b4473e61d750789028a130f5dff8a619307b0215.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251101031128_9db0830fb65d0743e3d36cc4b4473e61d750789028a130f5dff8a619307b0215" data-rendition-name="original" width="1365" height="1803" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal cricket"> <figcaption>Aasif Sheikh drives through the covers on his way to 69 off 41 vs Samoa.</figcaption> </figure>  But the most important point of the Nepal Premier League will be to prepare and experiment for the World Cup, which starts less than two months after the NPL ends. Team Nepal will be extra eager to play well, given that the matches are happening in South Asia and Nepali fans can make the trip.&nbsp; Head coach Stuart Law will be watching each NPL match keenly, to gain more insight into how to best use his current starters.&nbsp; As each of the eight teams are only allowed a maximum of four foreign players in their starting eleven, Law and Nepali fans will also be scouting new talent who will be hungry to emerge and prove themselves to earn a place in the World Cup Squad.&nbsp; ALL-ROUNDERS One of the most unusual features of the current Nepali squad is how many all-rounders there are. Kushal Bhurtel, Rohit Paudel, Kushal Malla, Gulshan Jha, and Dipendra Singh Airee are all regular starters, and they all bat and bowl. Opener Aasif Sheikh is also the wicketkeeper.&nbsp; Airee, of course, is also an excellent fielder. In the first five games of the qualifiers, he got a record five runouts with direct hits, and was on a roll with a run in every single game. This depth means that almost always seven players bowl for Nepal, and the wealth of options keeps the opponent batting order guessing, but it may create hesitancy within the team in tough situations against stronger teams.&nbsp; Countries at the top level of the sport tend to have more specialists. Perhaps Stuart Law might want to tell Bhurtel to really focus on his batting, or Airee to hone his bowling, which seems to be their strengths. The team would be better off with them performing one aspect consistently well than being hit or miss with both. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251101031128_c30fdbab65736ea728f2f94fa121d2169e4d3627194ce1fe9de26eebdb3fc5b3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251101031128_c30fdbab65736ea728f2f94fa121d2169e4d3627194ce1fe9de26eebdb3fc5b3" data-rendition-name="original" width="957" height="1269" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal cricket"> <figcaption>Lalit Rajbhansi with tricky left arm spin, 3/13 vs Samoa.</figcaption> </figure>  POWERPLAYS The Nepali team likes batting first. It chased only against Japan, but they struggle to put up really competitive scores of say, above 170 unless two batsmen do really well.&nbsp; In the second match against the West Indies, Aasif Sheikh’s 68 and Sundeep Jora’s 63 set up Nepal at 173/6. Against Samoa, Aasif Sheikh had 69 and Airee had 53, before Lokesh Bam’s fierce 39 off 12 featuring 4 sixes set up 211/4.&nbsp; Besides these games, Nepal tends to score up to 150 batting first. To the experienced teams that Nepal will face at the world cup, this is not at all an intimidating score. One reason is that Nepal just cannot seem to get going in the first six powerplay overs, when there are limited fielders on the boundaries.&nbsp; A solution to this might be to promote Gulshan Jha up the order. Although Jha has also been an excellent batter in the end overs, using him at three or four might help set up a more productive powerplay and bigger scores. He should try it out with the Karnali Yaks.&nbsp; Despite all the controversy that comes with Sandip Lamichhane, and his strange decision to sit out the West Indies series minutes before the first match started, his output with the ball is undeniable.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251101031128_453d54ce627367c537d459c38d260d8aca1d56949c49c8023de582f3e72bb678.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251101031128_453d54ce627367c537d459c38d260d8aca1d56949c49c8023de582f3e72bb678" data-rendition-name="original" width="1499" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal cricket"> <figcaption>Nepalis turn out to support the team vs Samoa at Al Ameret Stadium in Oman.</figcaption> </figure>  He took wickets in each of the six qualifiers, most notably five vital ones in the match against Qatar that Nepal won by five runs. Lamichhane also gives away very few runs, which cuts some of the more part-time bowlers some slack.&nbsp; Airee is also economical, and his 3/22 was vital in the one-run win against the UAE. Together with Lamichhane the duo constricted the opposition in the middle overs. Veteran Sompal Kami has not been as productive with the ball, and gave away a lot of runs in the series against the West Indies.&nbsp; This is a weakness, because Kami does not contribute with the bat much. While his experience is valuable to ground the young Nepali team, Stuart Law should look out for fast bowlers during the NPL to help balance out quality spinners.&nbsp; One of the most impressive and professional parts of Nepal’s winning streak has been the attention to detail. The players have been generally excellent in the field, giving away very few runs due to wides or no balls. They had three run outs against the UAE and two against Qatar and Japan and in the first game against the West Indies.&nbsp; The fielders seem much calmer and focused when executing difficult catches, a welcome change from past complacency. This attention to detail makes the difference in narrow games and keeps morale high.&nbsp; The Nepali team has performed well, but besides the narrowly-beaten UAE, all the matches were against teams ranked lower in the world T20 rankings. And the series against the West Indies was against a weakened team. In the world cup, Nepal will be facing much stronger teams and will lack the element of surprise it had in the 2024 World Cup.&nbsp; If Nepal wants to keep improving, it now has to be able to dominate teams like Kuwait and Oman. It also should set up more series with associate nations like Scotland, Ireland, Namibia and The Netherlands. This will help accurately gauge the team’s progress and expose its weaknesses.

Nepal’s prospects at World Cup 2026

Imagine a high-end fair trade tea brand from Nepal that has done everything right, with ethical sourcing practices and international certifications. It has built a loyal base of socially conscious, premium customers in an export market and focuses on quality over quantity. Then one day, a government in the export market introduces a new ‘listing criteria’ that requires exporting a certain amount of tea to at least three countries in the past five years. But this was never a numbers game, it was about a niche market of socially responsible tea lovers.&nbsp; Suddenly, fair trade tea companies are restricted from exporting tea to that country.&nbsp; Pretty unfair for the company, for consumers, for the tea sector. More importantly, for tea farmers and families benefiting from fair standards. The overseas labour industry is facing a similar risk as recruiters, including those that have adopted ethical standards, may soon be barred from finding workers for Malaysia.&nbsp; On 27 October, the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent letters to five countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, Pakistan and India to ‘rationalise the number of licensed private recruitment agencies permitted to facilitate recruitment and placement of workers to Malaysia’.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251030141040_050274dddc6cf10224b0ad9283eec7b3bc3c0acd650543a808a8ea473ecf40db.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251030141040_050274dddc6cf10224b0ad9283eec7b3bc3c0acd650543a808a8ea473ecf40db" data-rendition-name="original" width="961" height="1135" loading="lazy" alt="Malaysia recruitment"> </figure>  The letter includes 10 criteria for private recruiting agencies including at least five years of operating experience, deployment of 3,000 workers in the past three years of operation, &nbsp;experience sending workers to at least three countries, a 10,000 sq m office maintained for three years, valid licenses and good conduct certificates, five employer testimonials, and operating their own training and accommodation centres. Two conditions stand out as potentially harmful to Nepal’s ethical recruitment movement. First, although the letter cites a minimum of 3,000 workers, it says three years in the heading and five in the body text. A big enough difference to affect a significant number of recruiters from making the cut, but problematic regardless.&nbsp; Second, the requirement to send workers to at least three countries disproportionately impacts responsible recruiters in Nepal and elsewhere. Turning the selection of workers into a numbers game is dehumanising. Responsible &nbsp;recruiters deprioritise volume, focus on quality of jobs even when business sustainability comes under threat as ethical opportunities that do not require workers to pay any feed and ensure greater transparency are difficult to come by. Sending workers is further impacted by a series of external shocks. For example, in the Malaysian context Nepal banned emigration to Malaysia for two years followed by the Covid pandemic, and then Malaysia’s decision to stop the intake of foreign workers for the last two years.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251030141040_b1b88b3ae2e94c6bc077529ac6f2a4e380a385ee9a22219edfed25067c9d25a1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251030141040_b1b88b3ae2e94c6bc077529ac6f2a4e380a385ee9a22219edfed25067c9d25a1" data-rendition-name="original" width="595" height="841" loading="lazy" alt="Malaysia recruitment"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251030141040_2cf252908d18aaf09c875002eef2d92ab45897a56b560addd2dc02311725c8a7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251030141040_2cf252908d18aaf09c875002eef2d92ab45897a56b560addd2dc02311725c8a7" data-rendition-name="original" width="590" height="238" loading="lazy" alt="Malaysia recruitment"> </figure>  Many ethical recruiters have focused on Malaysia because it is a more common labour market for responsible recruitment than other destinations like the Gulf. There is no credible justification to why responsible recruiters well regarded by scores of Malaysia-based multinational companies and with decades of experience should be ‘disqualified’ for not diversifying. Finding jobs for Nepalis in new markets is difficult given fierce competition, challenges &nbsp;identifying companies which follow the employer-pays principle, lack of networks and shortcomings in marketing strategies. These factors hit responsible recruiters harder because profit-motivated employers are often unwilling to cover the costs and fees associated with workers’ recruitment.&nbsp; “The volume of deployment does not determine a recruiter’s capability or the quality of services provided,” says Sujit Shrestha of the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA). Nepal recently scrapped the licensing renewal requirement that mandated sending at least 100 workers a year as it was impractical. The new Malaysian criteria is similar in nature, he added. The ball is now in Nepal’s court at a time when the interim government does not even have designated heads in the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Labour, Employment Employment and Social Security. When rumours about the Malaysian action started circulating, NAFEA had raised the issue, but was assured that this was not an attempt to set up a syndicate.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251030141044_83c8a174ef116603f747d1cd254c4d353e8b855a41fb99feec54e701f5fc4c3f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251030141044_83c8a174ef116603f747d1cd254c4d353e8b855a41fb99feec54e701f5fc4c3f" data-rendition-name="original" width="3456" height="5184" loading="lazy" alt="Malaysia recruitment"> </figure>  How will governments and recruiters in other origin countries now respond? There is precedence from Bangladesh. Dhaka-based journalist at the Daily Star, Porimol Palma who says, “Earlier, the Malaysian authorities had selected 101 Bangladeshi recruiters unilaterally, despite Bangladesh’s call for a syndicate-free recruitment mechanism.” Between 2022-2024, 450,000 Bangladeshis were recruited under this system with workers paying between $4,500 and $6,000, even though the legal limit was $750. Palma attributes part of the high fees workers had to pay were for commissions or bribes to recruitment syndicates. Adrian Pereira heads the North South Initiative in Malaysia says: “The criteria seems a bit fishy, as they do not appear to address the actual problems in the the recruitment of foreign workers. Some of the criteria seem to encourage a system of monopoly or syndicate rather than a rights-based approach. Every government has the right to set criteria for recruiters, but conventions and ILO (International Labour Organization) standards on recruitment exist. It looks like we’re back to square one.”&nbsp; Whether migrant origin countries including Bangladesh and Nepal accept the terms sent without reservations or push back in good faith remains to be seen. In an ideal world, a collective stance should put workers’ needs and welfare at the centre. How rational is the proposed ‘rationalising strategy’? What aspects of it are promising to curb recruitment abuse and what merits serious reconsideration?&nbsp; Even if the move from the Malaysian side is well-intentioned to address rampant malpractices migrant workers face, Nepal should deliberate on the conditions set, the collateral damage especially on the responsible actors and small but capable recruiters. Alternate options that might serve everyone better before rushing to respond with a chosen list by 15 November. If the proposal is accepted, how would it be done in a transparent and accountable way? It is noteworthy that Indonesia was not listed even though it has the most workers in Malaysia among the 16 countries that send migrants to Malaysia.&nbsp; The Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), the ILO, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and certification programs like On the Level (OTL) also need to use their leverage to ensure that recruiters, including those they have trained or certified on ethical recruitment principles, are not penalised.&nbsp; This is more than just about protecting the ethical recruitment movement, but raising even more basic questions: Who can legally be a recruiter in Nepal? There are already obligations like hefty security deposit and minimum office requirements. But requirements to have building facilities with ‘accommodations’ or ‘testing centres’ are not among them. There are 1,150 plus players in Nepal’s recruitment sector, with a few hundred engaged in the Malaysian market. A unilateral selection criteria could risk foul play, or lead to unintended, unfavourable consequences. To be sure, overseas recruitment in Nepal is known for ‘settings’, corruption, dog-eat-dog competition, and collusion. The profiteering is out of control, often at the expense of workers. But the solution does not lie in stifling the industry with criteria like deployment volume, building worker accommodations or expanding office floors.&nbsp; The focus should instead be on enforcing rules and laws in both countries that govern the industry, and the Malaysian labour agreement that has not been renewed since October 2023.&nbsp; Meddling in the industry in ways that harms fair competition and ethical actors means workers suffer. The only issue that should be taking precedence is: how will Malaysia’s 10-point criteria and planned arrangement affect migrant workers? We have seen how for identical Malaysia-based jobs, one worker might pay zero while another pays up to Rs400,000, depending on the employer and recruiter. It is unclear if the 10-point selection criteria rewards the responsible employers and recruiters.&nbsp; As a longstanding host country for Nepali migrants, Malaysia deserves credit for nurturing the small but growing ethical recruitment industry here. Export-oriented companies in Malaysia need responsible recruitment partners and have mentored recruiters to strengthen their practices and move away from worker-paid models.&nbsp; The business case for ethical recruitment standards has led many recruiters in Nepal to pivot with many now in various stages of transition from traditional to hybrid or purely ethical practices. This progress needs to be acknowledged and built upon.&nbsp; Large, well-networked recruiters with large physical assets and high volume of workers seem to be the winners of Malaysia’s 10-point criteria after two years of waiting for the Malaysian market to reopen. Responsible recruiters endure long periods of minimal or no deployments that threatens their survival. The letter now sitting on the desk of the interim government in Nepal deepens the concern: rather than just failing to recognise or reward responsible recruiters, does the international recruitment market actually punish them? Upasana Khadka heads Migration Lab, a social enterprise aimed at making migration outcomes better for workers and their families. Labour Mobility is a regular column in Nepali Times.

Who gets to recruit for Malaysia?

With the holidays over and elections only four months away, Nepal’s interim government led by Prime Minister Sushila Karki is trying to get down to brass tacks. But it is not easy.
On Wednesday, Karki held the first three-way meeting between GenZ representatives, political parties and the government. Despite some acrimony, there was near unanimity about creating the environment for elections on 5 March. 
Only the UML is holding out, still not taking responsibility for the 8 September massacre, and calling for the reinstatement of Parliament. GenZ delegates poured their wrath on the unrepentant UML, but were themselves talking at cross purposes on the demand for a directly-elected executive. 
Karki was on the defensive, her exasperation spilling over: “How do we undo the damage done by corruption, exploitation, and discrimination over the last 35 years in a single month?” 
She is reported to have added, “There is a tendency to not allow this government to work, and then turn around to criticise it for not achieving anything. We are trying our best, and will fulfil our goal of elections no matter what.” 
The Wednesday meeting does seem to have turned the attention of old parties towards elections, and spurred the GenZ and others with political ambition to form parties.
With the deadline for party registration looming, several like-minded individuals and collectives are coalescing, or trying to. The Election Commission is already reviewing applications from more than a dozen new political parties. 
Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah has held talks with RSP members, but his popularity on social media is not matched by public visibility and accessibility. Intriguingly, Shah and his supporters on social media have been publicly asking for the resignation of Home Minister Om Aryal for not arresting members of the UML-NC government for the 8 September killings. Aryal used to be Mayor Shah’s legal adviser.
Sudan Gurung of GenZ, ex-RSP Sumana Shrestha, and Energy Minister Kulman Ghising are all shopping for existing or new political parties to join. 
The RSP with its alternative anti-corruption agenda would be the logical choice, but there is a question mark over the role of its head Rabi Lamichhane, who is back in jail on charges of embezzlement.
LARGER CABINET
This week, Karki expanded her Cabinet for the third time by inducting Sudha Sharma Gautam as Minister for Health and activist Bablu Gupta as the Minister for Youth and Sports. 
Recommended by GenZ members, Gupta, 28, is the youngest Minister in Karki’s team. But, as has become the norm with this electoral government, two other controversial nominations fell through. Khagendra Sunar was dropped as Minister for Labour because of several ongoing criminal charges, including for assault and inflammatory speech. And Ganapati Lal Shrestha for Minister of Land Management declined at the last moment after he was not given the Tourism and Culture portfolio as preferred. 
Critics say there is a lack of due diligence on the part of Karki’s advisers in selecting candidates. Last month, Sangeeta Mishra who was nominated for Health Minister was dropped after it turned out that she was under investigation at the CIAA. However, Kulman Ghising also had complaints filed at the anti-corruption body, but was still given three portfolios. 
Then the nomination of Tashi Lhazom was withdrawn after an online controversy over her citizenship. There was also outrage on social media about Mishra and Lhazom being singled out for their ethnicity and gender.
Internal leaks making her choices prematurely public has made Karki’s team overcautious about Cabinet expansion. It is also distracting her from her main goal — to hold credible elections by striking a balance between the political parties and GenZ groups.
After a preliminary hearing on 16 writ petitions against the House dissolution and appointment of new government, the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to issue an interim order.
“The formation of the government is unconstitutional, and a government formed unconstitutionally is not allowed to make any decisions, until the final hearing,” stated advocate Surendra Bhandari. 
The UML, still smarting from the September protests, is trying to put a spanner in the works of the election government. The GenZ, meanwhile, still do not have a consensus over fundamental demands prior to elections. Combined, these two factors portend a precarious future.

Future imperfect

A little more than one month into its six-month term, Nepal's interim government recalled ambassadors from 11 countries: China, Japan, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, Spain, Germany, the UK, the US, and Japan.&nbsp;
Mostly appointed by previous governments, they have to return to Kathmandu by 6 November. The envoys who were retained, even if they were political appointees, tended to be women or from various ethnic minorities.
The recall has met with criticism back home. Prime Minister Sushila Karki is blamed for borrowing a page out of its predecessors’ playbook. Although it was a symbolically inclusive move in a diplomatic corps dominated by established groups, the government may have got its timing wrong.
On Sunday, however, the Supreme Court issued an interim order against government decision to recall the 11 ambassadors. The court questioned the neccesssity and justification of such a move, concerned that it could affect Nepal's relations with the host countries.&nbsp;
Karki has said <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/future-imperfect">her priority is to hold elections in March</a>, and by recalling Nepal’s emissaries from important capitals like Washington, London, Bonn, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi and Kuala Lumpur her government has cut channels of communication and support from development partners and with the international community.&nbsp;
Nepal’s anti-corruption GenZ protest and the devolution of the youth movement into <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/relocate-reallocate-recover">arson, looting, and violence</a> after the targeted killing of protestors in September put the nation in the international spotlight. And the interest was especially keen in neighbouring New Delhi and Beijing.&nbsp;
The Nepal unrest has sparked similar protests across the world from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-genzs-inspired-filipinos">the Philippines</a> to East Timor, Madagascar and Peru. But there is also worry in India where exposure of #nepokids on social media as well as corruption in high places could instigate copycat youth unrest.
And in China, there is still a lingering memory of the deadly protests in 1989 Tiananmen Square. But the Chinese also suspect that some in the GenZ movement have links to free-Tibet. &nbsp;
Foreign policy experts in Nepal reject conspiracy theories about foreign backing for the GenZ, characterising it as mostly triggered by home-grown outrage over chronic corruption of the governing elite.&nbsp;
Throughout its history Nepal has always had to balance the geo-strategic interests of its neighbours: the British in India and the Chinese Empire, and more recently independent India and Communist China.
When former PM K P Oli resigned, he had <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/when-xi-meets-modi-and-oli">just returned from a visit to Beijing</a> and was a week away from making an official visit to India. A new Nepali prime minister typically makes the first visit to India, but Oli broke that tradition last year by going to China to sign the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) framework agreement.
"Oli was China's trusted partner supporting <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/china-syndrome">Nepal’s participation in BRI</a> and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization)," says geopolitical analyst Sanjay Upadhya. "Now, some in Beijing are apprehensive that there is external support for the youth protests that contributed to Oli’s sudden departure. It is perceived as a strategic setback for China."
Despite an ongoing dispute with India over a 364 sq km border territory, Nepal is heavily dependent economically on India with which it has an open border.&nbsp;
Rulers in Kathmandu have usually leaned over backwards to be closer to China to counterbalance India’s gravitational pull following a strategy of ‘equidistance’ between the two giant neighbours.&nbsp;
Growing American and Western disinterest in the region is making India and China more assertive towards smaller nations. Educator Dovan Rai says, “China is also becoming more aggressive and trying to show its presence in and around South Asia.”
She adds, “Nepal is an important neighbour for China, especially considering issues it regards as sensitive, like the Dalai Lama and Tibet.”
Indeed, the Chinese are said to be suspicious about the links that the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-historic-youth-dissensus">GenZ movement</a> was infiltrated by elements linked with Free Tibet or with US-based interests.&nbsp;
What must have especially raised eyebrows at the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu was that the Dalai Lama’s office in exile in India congratulated Sushila Karki — the first time in history it has sent such a greeting to a new prime minister of Nepal.&nbsp;
Although Nepal’s two neighbours do not see eye-to-eye, both agree and are worried about instability in Nepal, and if it might trigger a refugee crisis, empower extremist factions, or attract Western interference.&nbsp;
Nepal’s September protests were preceded and succeeded by similar movements in the region and around the world. In light of this global eruption of youth frustration, and desire to lead from the front, the hardline governments of Nepal’s two neighbours are undoubtedly wary of the possibility of similar unrest within their own borders.&nbsp;
‘India advocates democratic legitimacy, while China prioritises control and predictability. Recent upheavals demonstrate that neither democracy nor stability alone suffices for sustainable nationhood,’ Upadhya wrote in a recent blog.
With early elections scheduled for 5 March, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/one-month-later">the main challenge for Karki’s transition government</a> is to maintain dialogue and establish consensus between youth groups, political parties, and other agitating forces to participate in polls — all while ensuring there is no covert external influence.&nbsp;
Indeed, with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-democracy-keeps-doubting-itself">Nepal’s democracy</a> at stake as well as new political forces with competing interests set to battle it out in a new political landscape, experts warn that there could be powers that will want to fish in troubled waters.&nbsp;
Explains Dovan Rai: “Along with soft power, foreign countries including our neighbours could intervene in the online information space to promote their interests in Nepal. Fake narratives and disinformation could be spread &nbsp;through digital platforms. We must be careful and vigilant about our digital space.”

kagbeni