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From Nalapani to Kalapani

Where Nepal’s banner once waved

<figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d174b9c7e80680e0ac75bjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>The ramparts of Kangra Fort were so formidable it was impossible for enemy troops to scale. A siege was the only way to try to defeat the forces inside. Photos: ALISHA SIJAPATI</figcaption></figure>Nepali Times reporter Alisha Sijapati spent a month retracing the Gorkha expansion beyond the Mahakali River more than 200 years ago. The Gorkha Empire was on a warpath, and the British East India Company saw it as a threat to its own expansionist ambitions. This five-part series looks at the bravery of the Gorkhali troops under its legendary generals to defend the newly-conquered territory, but also the historical memory of an oppressive rule. The <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/beginning-of-the-end-of-the-gorkha-empire/">first part appeared on 25 September</a>, and the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-start-of-the-anglo-gorkha-war/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">third</a> instalment will be published in this space on 8 October. The fortress at Kangra looks majestic in the rain, as monsoon clouds drift across its stone ramparts like lace curtains. The lush green mountains appear fresh after a night of rain, as though newly painted. Spread across 190 hectares on a ridge overlooking the Kangra Valley and a sweeping view of the Beas-Sutlej Rivers, there has been a fort here for more than 1,000 years because of its strategic location. The fort had been invaded and defended many times before the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/Nepalis-waited-200-years-for-country-to-be-proud-of,2939" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gorkhali army</a> arrived in the early 19th century. The sprawling fortress is still impressive because of its sheer scale, and must have felt impregnable to those who occupied it at various times, and impossible to take over for those attacking it from below.  “Kangra Fort was built in such a way that any enemy force would have been easily spotted, and its approaches were so steep and the walls so formidable that it was almost impossible to scale,” explains Sandeep Badoni, a historian based in Dehradun. <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d174d9c7e80680e0ac75cjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Walking towards the huge main gate, visitors are still awestruck not just by the walls towering above them but also by what warriors must have felt more than 200 years ago as they went into the many battles that were fought here. Over various periods in history, Kangra had been occupied by the Katoch kingdom, housed a Mughal garrison, was held briefly by the Gorkhalis and then the Sikhs, followed by the British. This was also the place where the Gorkhali general Kaji Nain Singh Thapa was shot by the defenders in 1809, eventually bringing to a halt Gorkha expansion westwards, and changing the course of Nepal’s history. The Gorkhalis retreated to its territories to the east, only to be attacked by the East India Company five years later. <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d17509c7e80680e0ac75djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Built by the Katoch, one of the 14 medieval ruling clans of present day Himachal Pradesh and Jammu regions of India, the fort was damaged in the 1905 earthquake. Even though what remains standing now is only one-third of the original complex, it is still one of best preserved archaeological sites in the region. The descendants of the Katoch rulers today maintain a small museum at the fort dedicated to their king, Sansar Chand II of Kangra, who in 1786 fought a war with the Mughal emperors to reclaim his family's heritage. For 115 years the Kangra Fort had been occupied by the Moghuls before Sansar Chand finally retrieved the historic fort in exchange for two other sites nearby. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget/">Lest we forget</a>, David Seddon <figure><img width="1000" height="667" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d17549c7e80680e0ac75ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Katoch king restored the glory of his ancestors after much bloodshed, but peace was still elusive because he was also looking to expand his territory. There was friction between rival clans in these rugged mountains and that spilled over into open hostilities -- even as word came of the rapid advance of the Gorkhalis from the east. A series of attacks and annexations followed, and a ruthless Sansar Chand took over the states of Chamba, Mandi, Kutlehar, and others surrendered. The remaining smaller principalities formed a federation to have a common defence, and invited the Gorkhalis, who by then had already occupied Garhwal and Kumaon, to subdue what they considered Sansar Chand’s “terror”.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/tales-of-courage-and-suffering/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tales of Gorkhali valour</a> and martial prowess had preceded them, and the smaller kingdoms found it expedient to lean on what they thought was a stronger invading force from Kathmandu as a bulwark against a ruthless and ambitious neighbouring king. Nepali historian Dinesh Raj Panta says that the Gurkha Empire's Kangra war against Sansar Chand and Punjab’s Ranjit Singh marked the bitter end of its expansion and conquest because in those two kings the Gorkhalis finally met their match in terms of fighting spirit and cunning. “The Gorkhalis were already well known for their bravery and shrewdness, but Sansar Chand’s trickery and Ranjit Singh’s military strategy proved superior to the capacity of the fractious courtiers in faraway Kathmandu to plan an effective the military campaign to retain the territory they conquered,” Panta says. The first battle in 1808 between the forces of Sansar Chand and the Gorkha army en route to the Kangra fort was fought 50km away at Mahal Morian, which the Gorkhalis won. Sansar Chand fled to his palace at nearby Tira Sujanpur. Led by Bhakti Thapa, the Gorkhalis were in hot pursuit, and Sansar Chand fled again: this time to Nadaun, his pleasure resort 28km away. Nadaun did not have the fortifications to withstand a Gorkhali assault, so Sansar Chand fled further west to Kangra to make a last stand against the invaders. Kangra was so unassailable, and a frontal attack would be so costly, that the Gorkhalis had to lay a siege that lasted four years. <figure><img width="2011" height="1323" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d17569c7e80680e0ac75fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Sansar Chand used that time to try everything in his power to ease the Gorkhali stranglehold. He tried to entice General Amar Singh Thapa with a bribe, and even offered his daughter’s hand in marriage to the young king Girvan Yuddha Shah in Kathmandu.Amar Singh Thapa and Kathmandu shunned these offers, making it plain to Sansar Chand that they were not there to negotiate. But even as the Gorkha siege of Kangra dragged on, General Amar Singh Thapa still refused to order a fussilade of cannon fire at the ramparts in preparation for an assault -- even though he had a good vantage point from an adjoining hill. The reason was that, being a devout Hindu, the Gorkhali general did not want to provoke the ire of Goddess Ambika, whose shrine was located inside the fort. Instead, he built another temple at his own base to the Goddess Jayanti, and waited for Sansar Chand to surrender. This temple stands to this day on a bluff two hours uphill from the fortress at Kangra, and has become a pilgrimage site for Indian tourists. The siege dragged on for four years, and impatience was boiling over among the small hill kingdoms who started to think the Gorkhalis were not as strong as they thought they were. The Gorkhali rank and file was also getting weary, and back in Kathmandu 1,500km away, Bhimsen Thapa, the Mukhtiyar General (Prime Minister) of Nepal, was also getting increasingly irritated by the delay in taking over Kangra Fort. He desperately needed a victory to strengthen his own position in the intrigue and conspiracy-ridden Kathmandu court against rival clans, and he decided to send his brother Nain Singh Thapa to Kangra to oversee a swift victory.  <figure><img width="675" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d17599c7e80680e0ac760jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>When Nain Singh Thapa arrived on the Gorkha frontlines in Kangra, he wanted to attack the fort right away, but Amar Singh Thapa cautioned him to wait and strategise first. Nain Singh was a man in a hurry and led his troops to the gate of the fort, where he was shot. Historian Dinesh Raj Panta says, “Bhimsen Thapa had two sides to himself, an arrogant man before the Anglo-Nepal war and a deflated person after the Kangra defeat. Grief and anger over his brother's death consumed him."“Bhimsen Thapa blamed Amar Singh Thapa for his brother being killed in action in Kangra, but also blamed himself,” Panta explains. As it turned out, the Gorkha defeat in the 1816 war also led to the downfall and death of Bhimsen Thapa.Amar Singh Thapa was eventually able to gain control of the main gate at the fort. The Gorkhali troops stormed inside, and started climbing up the steep slope to the upper levels and their khukri drawn. The Katoch king put up a fierce resistance. When asked to surrender, he made a request to let the women, children, and the elderly safely evacuate Kangra, after which he promised to surrender the fort to the Gorkhalis.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/diary-of-a-nepali-soldier-in-france/">Diary of a Nepali soldier in France</a>, Shree Bhakta Khanal  <img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d175c9c7e80680e0ac761jpeg.jpg" alt="">He convinced Amar Singh Thapa to give him a week to complete the evacuation of civilians. However, this turned out to be just a ploy to buy time to negotiate with his long-time rival, Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab even though the two did not see eye to eye with each other. Disguised as a woman, Sansar Chand fled the fort to rendezvous with Ranjit Singh, and offered him the fort in return for repelling the Gorkhalis. This was a shocking turnaround for the Gorkhalis. Not to be outdone, Amar Singh Thapa also offered Ranjit Singh riches in return for spurning an alliance with Sansar Chand, but the king of Punjab already had his eyes on a bigger prize: the territory east of the Sutlej. Having heard of the capabilities of the Gorkhali war machine, Ranjit Singh knew he would one day have to fight them himself. And that day soon came in September 1809. Ranjit Singh’s Sikh troops that had come to the aid of Sansar Chand confronted the Gorkha army at Ganesh Ghati, a few kilometres south of Kangra Fort. This is still remembered more than 200 years later as one of the fiercest battles ever fought in the entire campaign. <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d175f9c7e80680e0ac762jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“The Kangra war was so ruthless that even today, there is competition between Indians of Khalsa and Gorkha origin regarding who between them are better warriors,” explains Major Vijay Singh Mankotia, a former Indian Army officer commanding <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget/">a Gorkha regiment</a>. “The answer is that they are both the best warriors in the world."Ranjit Singh had brought a 12,000 horse-borne cavalry to the battle of Ganesh Ghati and had amassed 72,000 soldiers against a much smaller Gorkhali force. The Gorkhalis were sick, hungry, war weary and far from home but they still put up a stiff resistance. But, vastly outnumbered, it was a swift, but bloody battle, and 200 among the Gorkhali forces who had retreated to the Ganesh Temple at the battlefield were attacked and burnt alive. Ranjit Singh then allowed Amar Singh Thapa to surrender with arms, regarded as the highest honour from the Sikh king. Even today, Amar Singh Thapa and his bravery in this battle is mentioned on plaques at Kangra.‘The Sikhs were going for the kill, but the Grokhas put up such a brave fight that Ranjit Singh was thoroughly impressed,’ writes Jyoti Thapa Mani in her book <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2016/03/22/the-sharp-edge-of-history/">The Khukri Braves</a> that recounts the battles. Thapa Mani is herself a descendant of a warrior in the original Gorkha army in 1790. She adds, ‘In the Gorkhalis he saw great fighters -- brave and sincere. He wanted them and ended the battle diplomatically.’ Ranjit Singh took over Kangra Fort after ousting the Gorkhalis, but did not really defend it against the next invading force, which was the British East India Company. <figure><img width="1087" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d17629c7e80680e0ac763jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1515" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161120/636d17659c7e80680e0ac764jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Kangra represented the westernmost reach of the Gorkha empire, and the Gorkhalis retreated from this point back across the Sutlej River to Arki in Garhwal. Five years later, the Anglo-Nepal War started in 1814 and Amar Singh Thapa lived to fight another day against the East Indian Company.The next chapters in the history of this region was the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/collateral-benefits/">valiant</a>, but ultimately futile, Gorkhali defence of their forts in Malaun, Nalapani and Jaithuk, which will be the subject of the next three episodes in this series.      _________________ <h2>Back in Kathmandu</h2> As war raged on 1,500km away to the west, the infant king Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah in Kathmandu presided over rival Thapa, Basnyat, and Pande clans who were constantly vying for power.  The war on the western front was to figure prominently in this competition between the families, with one blaming the other for defeat, some taking all the credit for conquests, and all of them waiting to exact revenge on the others.  In 1799, when he was only one-and-half years old, Girvan Yuddha's father, Rana Bahadur Shah, had been forced to abdicate the throne in his favour to become an ascetic.  But in 1804, egged on by the British, he returned to the court and became regent for Girvan Yuddha. After his reinstatement, Rana Bahadur began to exact revenge on those who had tried to keep him in exile.  On 25 April 1806, he was beheaded by his half-brother Sher Bahadur Thapa. Dowager Queen Lalit Tripura Sundari took over the regency, while her uncle Bhimsen Thapa became the Muykhtiyar General (Prime Minister). He remained the de facto ruler of Nepal till 1837.  Lalit Tripura Sundari was the daughter of Nain Singh Thapa, hailed a martyr after his death at the Kangra Fort. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/turning-a-shrine-into-a-temple-of-learning/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">temple she built in Kathmandu</a> was damaged in the 2015 earthquake and has been renovated. Girvan Yuddha was a teenage king when the Anglo-Nepal War took place in 1814-16, and he died soon after, aged 19. Bhimsen Thapa himself started falling from grace after the Sugauli Treaty, was imprisoned, and died by suicide in his jail cell in 1839.

The Gorkhali defeat at Kangra

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141152/636d02ea9c7e80680e0a36a7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: SONIA AWALE</figcaption></figure>Nepal is going beyond just counting its population in its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/everybody-counts-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">12th National Population and Household Census</a>, and this is throwing up issues of identity and citizenship. Postponed from June to November because of the second Covid-19 wave, this is the country’s first census under a federal system. But Nepalis without citizenship have launched a campaign refusing to participate, encouraging others like them to deny census officials from entering into their homes.“Those of us raised by single mothers have become stateless,” said Indrajit Safi, a civil engineer and national coordinator of the activist collective Nagariktabihin Nepali (Nepalis Without Citizenship). “If we are denied citizenship despite our parents having been Nepali citizens, what is the point of participating in the census?”Stateless Nepalis have been mobilising across various social media groups to urge others without citizenship to boycott the census, saying that the foundation of the national count was built on ‘a violation of the Constitution that has made Nepali youth stateless’.In 2013, the Forum of Women, Law and Development (FWLD) conducted a study <a href="https://fwld.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Acquisition-of-Citizenship-Certificate-in-Nepal-Estimating-Prevalence.pdf">Acquisition of Citizenship Certificate in Nepal: Estimating Prevalence</a>, to conduct its own ‘census’ of the number of Nepalis who did not have citizenship documents. It used data for the number of Nepalis aged 16 and above from the 2011 census as well as the number of citizenship certificates issued by the Home Ministry from 1952 until 2010 as the main parameters.  The <a href="https://fwld.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Acquisition-of-Citizenship-Certificate-in-Nepal-Estimation-and-Projection.pdf">result of the study</a> estimated the number of Nepalis without citizenship at 4.6million, and projected that at the rate of population growth at the time the number of stateless Nepalis would increase to 6.7 million by 2021."If the Citizenship Act is not amended, we will also obstruct the upcoming elections," Safi added at a meeting on Wednesday. “This discriminatory Constitution must be amended as soon as possible.”Activist Deepti Gurung, who raised her two children as a single mother recalled how a school teacher tore up her daughter’s SLC registration form because it did not mention the name of the father, and another where her younger daughter’s birth certificate included श्रिमान ठेगान नभएको (Husband not known) as the name of her father.“I was introduced as an unwed mother in front of the CDO officials,” Gurung says. “And I would be constantly asked to detail the story of what ‘actually happened’ with regards to the father, as if officials were more concerned with keeping records of such incidents. What I experienced is that women must provide a narrative of being pure of character who have been victimised by bad men who led them to their circumstance— to appeal citizenship for their children.” Gurung eventually filed writ petitions in the Supreme Court to get her daughters birth and citizenship certificates. She was able to win both the cases. And while Gurung hoped that the court ruling in her case would be a precedent she was informed that this was being done in a "case-by-case basis".  “So we have not really won,” she says.Activists point to articles in the Constitution related to citizenship that <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/stateless-daughters-in-nepal,863">treat women differently from men</a>, and are discriminatory. Under Article 11(5), for instance, children born to a Nepali father and a foreign-born mother are eligible for citizenship by descent, while those born to a Nepal-born mother and a foreign-born father will be <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/patriarchy-in-an-oligarchy/">granted naturalised citizenship</a>, with less privileges.Politicians have used nationalism to justify this, saying that allowing offspring of foreign men citizenship would lead to a surge of Indians marrying Nepalis. Activists and politicians, especially in the Tarai, say this is absurd.The other thorny issue in the November census is how to conduct the census in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/politics-and-history-of-nepals-kalapani-claim/">disputed border areas of Kalapani and Limpiyadhura</a>. Rival claims to the territory strained relations between India and Nepal after Prime Minister K P Oli got Nepal’s Parliament to unanimously pass an amendment bill to include the territory in its national emblems and its own political map.Now, the question is how to conduct a census in the remote mountainous region at the northwestern tip of Nepal that is occupied by India. In 1961, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/remembering-the-1961-census/">journalist Bhairab Rijal</a> was one of the enumerators who was assigned to conduct the census in Kalapani, and says it was within Nepal’s boundary then.Risal and his team reached the villages of Gunji, Nabi and Kuti in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/politics-and-history-of-nepals-kalapani-claim/">disputed Kalapani and Limpiyadhura territory</a> which is now claimed by India.“The fact that we actually conducted a census there 60 years ago is irrefutable proof that Nepal extends all the way to the main channel of the Kali River,” Risal says. But given the sensitivity of the issue, Nepal is unlikely to provoke India by forcibly sending census enumerators there this time.For its part, by Nepal’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) maintains that it is ready to conduct the census anywhere in Nepal. “If the administration, our security forces, and concerned authorities determine that the situation is feasible and give the go-ahead, our census officials are trained and ready to conduct the census in Klapani, Limpiyadhura, and Lipulekh,” says Tirtha Raj Chaulagain of the CBS.The census had<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-postpones-census-amid-covid-19-surge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> been planned for June 2021</a>, but now with the daily caseload and fatalities falling, it will be conducted 11-25 November.This marked the second time that Nepal’s census is not being held as scheduled in the 110-year old history of the exercise. During the upheaval after the fall of the Rana regime, the 1951 census had been postponed.The 2021 census will comprise of three separate questionnaires: House and Household Listing, the main questionnaire, and the Community Questionnaire.This first phase before the census, during which officials conduct the House and Household listing, began on 15 September and is set to end on 4 October. At present, 8,500 census supervisors trained by the CBS in April are conducting the House and Household listing before the main census activities begin.In early November, 39,000 enumerators from across the country will be trained to approach, interact with, and interview people and fill out the main questionnaire. After that, enumerators will be deployed across the country to fill up the main census questionnaire while the census supervisors fill the Community Questionnaire during two weeks from 11-25 November.“By now, census supervisors should have conducted the listing for approximately 2 million households across the country,” says Chaulagain of CBS, speaking to Nepali Times from Siraha, where he is overseeing census-related activities.The 2011 census put the number of Nepali households at 5.4 million, but CBS officials say the number is expected to go up to 7 million in 2021. The three questionnaires, which are comprehensive and will include new questions, combined with the changed modality of data collection that allows officials in the Kathmandu Valley to conduct a ‘paperless’ census are expected to provide more detailed <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">data</a> and to reflect the country’s changing socio-political and demographic landscape more accurately.Nepal’s distinct ethnic compositions, cultures and religious communities are also expected to be reflected in the data as the country goes through a socio-cultural shift. In fact, data from the previous census shows that rising ethnic awareness and openness have resulted in a sharp population increase of some ethnic communities like the Kami and Badi that previously went underreported. Meanwhile, census data shows that the percentage of Nepalis who identify as Hindu has declined over the years after the country became secular. However  royal-Hindu-right parties at present have attempted to cash in on increasing public disillusionment by flagging secularism as being unsuitable for Nepal, and even leaders like Rabindra Mishra of the alternative Bibeksheel-Sajha party called for a referendum.Initial reaction shows that many people are reluctant to disclose their true household income, and share other personal details related to property and assets. Census supervisors and enumerators, unlike government school teachers in the past, will be educated young Nepalis who will have better knowledge and context about their local communities.The CBS has adopted the motto, ‘My Census, My Participation’ for this iteration of the census, and publicising the census through mobile ringtones for citizens to get up and be counted.

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Nepal holding census despite Covid and boycott

<figure><img width="1295" height="728" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7549c7e80680e073777jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>The dispute over the Farakka Barrage that India built near the Bangladesh border on the Ganges in 1975 was finally resolved through bilateral talks. Photo: Daily Star</figcaption></figure>The 4,156km border between India and Bangladesh is the fifth longest land border in the world – even longer than the 3488km India-China border. They inherited the boundary from the British days, and it follows the ‘Radcliffe Line’ as defined by the British architect and chairman of the Border Commissions Sir Cyril Radcliffe during partition in 1947 based on Hindu-Muslim demographics.After the 1971 Liberation War when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, a Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) was signed by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Bangladesh’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman three years later. However, it was ratified only in 2011 by India, and a revised version was signed in Dhaka in 2015. <img width="640" height="802" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7579c7e80680e073778jpeg.jpg" alt="">The India-Bangladesh border disputes involve land, river and maritime boundaries which encompass much more territory than Nepal’s territorial claims with India. But there are similarities -- like the reliance on British maps of Lilu Lekh, and the Susta dispute caused by the change in course of a river in the plains.  Five Indian states border Bangladesh: 262km in Assam, 856km in Tripura, 180km in Mizoram, 443km in Meghalaya and 2,217km in West Bengal. The 2015 LBA included an exchange of enclaves and adverse possessions.There were 111 Indian enclaves (6,900ha) within Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves (2,877ha) within India. The residents in the enclaves were given a choice either to reside in the enclaves, or to move to the country of their preference after the exchanges. India and Bangladesh also swapped territory with Bangladesh gaining more land than India.Legend has it that the enclaves were created as part of a high stakes card game centuries ago between the Raja of <a title="Cooch Behar" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooch_Behar">Cooch Behar</a> and the Maharaja of Rangpur. Others say it was a result of a botched expansion of the Mughal empire. There is even a story about a drunk British colonial officer spilling ink on a map. Whatever the reason, the enclaves were an absurdity even as far as man-made boundaries go.This seemingly intractable issue was resolved when Indian Prime Minister <a title="Narendra Modi" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narendra_Modi">Narendra Modi</a> visited Dhaka in 2015 and Bangladeshi Prime Minister <a title="Sheikh Hasina" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Hasina">Sheikh Hasina</a> (daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) came to New Delhi in 2017. <img width="640" height="366" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7599c7e80680e073779jpeg.jpg" alt="">There have been other territorial adjustments between India and Bangladesh since 1971. One of them is the Tin Bigha Corridor, a 170-km long land bridge that India agreed in 1982 to lease to Bangladesh indefinitely as part of the LBA agreement. It connects the largest Bangladeshi enclave Dahagram-Angarpota in Cooch Behar district of India. Bangladesh ceded Berubai as part of the deal.The Tin Bigha Corridor was partially opened on June 26, 1992 after many years of nationalistic and communal politics both in India and Bangladesh and the removal of General Mohammed Ershad from power in Bangladesh. India and Bangladesh relations have also been strained by bitter river and water disputes. Bangladesh shares 54 trans-boundary rivers with India,including the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Teesta. There have been disputes about too much water in the monsoon causing floods downstream in Bangladesh, and too little in the dry season when it is needed for agriculture. <img width="640" height="491" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba75b9c7e80680e07377ajpeg.jpg" alt="">But in August 2019, India and Bangladesh held a meeting of the Joint River Commission in Dhaka and the two countries agreed to collect data and prepare water-sharing agreements for seven other trans-boundary rivers. Bangladesh borders India’s strategically located northeastern states, where India wants to bring quicker economic development by using road links to the sea through Bangladesh. India is also worried about the growing Chinese influence in Bangladesh., and is bent on resolving outstanding border and water-sharing issues with Dhaka.The most famous water-sharing dispute between India and Bangladesh is over India’s construction in 1975 of the Farakka Barrage on the Ganges near the border. This river straddles the India-Bangladesh border for about 100km before it joins  Jamuna (Brahmaputra) in Bangladesh.  The width of the constantly-shifting river varies from 1.5-14km. India built the Farakka Barrage to stop siltation at its important port on the Hoogly near Kolkata. However this reduced the flow into north-western Bangladesh in the dry season. Despite this history of mistrust, the two countries signed a 30-year treaty on the sharing of the Ganges water.  The other riverine dispute is the Teesta, which flows down from Sikkim and also joins the Jamuna in northern Bangladesh. India constructed a barrage over the Teesta, reducing the flow into Bangladesh in the dry season. After years of dispute, in 2015 things took a positive turn after the Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee agreed to support the Central Government of India on a new water-sharing agreement. A dispute over water sharing of the Feni River after it changed course after floods was also resolved in 2019. Another dispute over whether a British map of 1893 constituted the real border at the Muhari River (as preferred by Bangladesh) or the 1854 map (as India wanted) was also solved using the international 1967 Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers.Besides rivers, India and Bangladesh have also grappled for three decades with their maritime border in the Bay of Bengal. It was finally settled by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2014 in a ruling which favoured Bangladesh, and the country got 19,467 km2out of the 25,602 km2disputed coastal seas.Prabhakar Sharma is a Nepali expert on international boundaries, and worked as a survey engineer for the Cameroon-Nigeria border demarcation by the United Nations.

India-Bangladesh border talks have lessons for Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112911110/6385d84d9c7e80680e0cc75bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480"/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHETTRI</figcaption></figure>Whenever Nepal’s political ‘leaders’ ask us what they should be doing, our response is usually: “When you were in jail, what did you resolve to do when you were released and came to power?”Over the years the reaction from those leaders has always been a sheepish smile. Let us give them the benefit of the doubt: they simply do not remember. In fact oral tradition says that when people get to the corridors of power, they forget how they got there in the first place.The debacle in the health sector in trying to come to grips with a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/has-nepals-lockdown-just-postponed-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">global pandemic</a> is that it needs to ask the country’s military to step in to procure medical supplies. Kathmandu’s lip service to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/lines-on-a-map/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">India’s land grab in Kalapani</a> is another symptom of the deeper moral malaise that plagues Nepal’s accidental political leadership.One popular politician once related how he came to be a ‘leader’. His college was organising a blood donation program which was disrupted by the police. The officer who beat him up said, “You want to spill communist blood in Nepal? Let me help you.” The pain of the beating and having to sleep in a cold cell turned him into a Dear Leader. Even today he reminds others that they went on to become engineers and doctors because they did not have the luck to be beaten up and detained like him.These accidental leaders missed hygiene class, hence do not know about virus. They  missed geography class, and therefore cannot draw a map of Nepal, especially of its northwestern tip. They also know that the Nepal Army cannot be investigated and hence pushed it to build fast tracks and import masks.One accidental leader was recently asked, “Now that the Army is importing medicines, should we not send the Ministry of Health to defend Lipu Lekh?”Many Nepalis believed these accidental political leaders when they were blaming the mysterious Foreign Hand for anything that was wrong with Nepal. But today we have turned into a country that waits for India’s Republic Day to get free ambulances. We need the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/swiss-pcrs-for-nepal-covid-19-testing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Swiss to buy us COVID 19 test kits</a>  and UNDP to connect ministries to Zoom.The building in which the Nepal’s Parliament sits for the budget session is a birthday gift from the Chinese government to King Birendra – and it was supposed to be a convention centre. Our parliamentary democracy couldn’t even build its own Parliament.Nepalis are finally beginning to ask what happens to all the taxes we pay. There never seems to be a shortage of money <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/driving-nepal-deeper-into-debt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">when politicians and bureaucrats need the latest SUVs</a>  but we cannot afford a Zoom account?The people of Kathmandu, many of whom have sold their homesteads in the districts to buy a tiny patch in the Valley, have started roof gardens to grow vegetable and rented remaining floors. The market is full of vegetables grown on roof terraces. In fact, 52 days into the lockdown, there is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-lockdown-chance-for-self-sufficiency-in-veggies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">no visible shortage of vegetables</a> or black marketing in Kathmandu.With the global economic downturn there is a real possibility of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-grapples-with-bringing-workers-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepalis coming home from all over the world</a>  Many countries want to protect jobs for their own citizens, and hence Nepal may experience brain gain sooner than many would have predicted. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/overseas-nepalis-on-the-covid-19-frontlines/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">We may have doctors</a>  nurses, builders and service providers who are now second to none due to the experience they have received in the world’s most advanced economies.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-prepares-for-economic-fallout-of-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">post COVID-19 economy in Nepal</a> could do really well if they are given the incentives to start businesses and create jobs. They always told us they would return one day and rebuild and develop Nepal. We all know that good human resources are the most critical variable to develop a country and not just its natural resources endowment – just like Japan or Korea.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/pandemic-is-a-chance-to-rethink-development/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">COVID-19 crisis could be turned into a chance</a> for a Great Leap Forward. Nepalis returning to Nepal should not be seen as a problem but an opportunity for growth.Our accidental leaders will get due credit because if it was not for their mismanagement, Nepalis would never have left Nepal in the first place. The glass is indeed half full.Anil Chitrakar is President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.siddharthinc.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1589691492058000&amp;usg=AFQjCNESqOnoQwq3KbH89NK9XOAj4v0_cA">Siddharthinc</a>.

Anil Chitrakar

Nepal's accidental leaders

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151112/636a63b79c7e80680e059894jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="624" height="718"/>A <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/territorialism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">modified political map of India</a> has created an uproar in Nepal, with street demonstrations and debates in Parliament. Nepalis appear to be genuinely concerned about sovereignty and territorial integrity of their country, and have  accused politicians of not defending the national interest.The politicians themselves have been making statements – some stronger than others – to take up the matter with New Delhi. The Kalapani issue has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/power-plays/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">united Nepal’s political parties</a> to a common cause.Read also: <a style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/territorialism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Territorialism</a>, Editorial<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/power-plays/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Power plays</a>There is also agreement across party lines about the status quo of the boundaries of Nepal as depicted in the 1816 Sugauli Treaty marking the Mahakali River and its source at Limpiyadhura as Nepal’s western border.Nepal’s leaders are well aware that the Indian troops who <a href="https://t.co/XRuz1HmW3Y?amp=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stationed at Kalapani</a> since the 1962 Indo-China war on a temporary basis are still there. The reason this issue has flared up now is because of the new map India released last month after Kashmir was politically reformatted.Nepal shares a 1,808km open border with India, most of it along the southern Tarai plains, and with the eastern and western boundaries stretching northwards across the mountains to tri-junctions with China. Nepal should make a new concerted effort to resolve disputes over Kalapani-Limpiyadhura, as well as along Susta, Narayani and the Mechi riverine borders.Nepal’s politicians should urgently take up these disputes with the Indian government through high-level political and diplomatic channels. There should also be set up a team comprising of technical and legal experts who are well-versed in laws regarding international boundaries. The Nepal government should seriously propose a timeline to conclude these border dispute talks, and it should look for outside help only if bilateral negotiations prove indecisive and unnecessarily protracted.One such is the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is an un-biased organisation that gives judgments based on historical facts which can be derived from maps, treaties, documents and memorandums of understanding between two governments.Boundary maintenance and restoration play an important role in conflict prevention contribute to long-term boundary stability. The Government of Nepal, therefore, should establish well-funded national and international boundary commissions  to solve pending post-federalism issues.It is important to establish map libraries and archives of treaties, historical documents, individual and mutual maps of treaties, aerial photographs, satellite imagery, articles by border experts (geodesists, cartographers, mapping experts and geographers), politicians and lawyers so that they can be studied before we send in delegations at the international and national levels for negotiations of international or state boundaries.A case study of <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cameroon-nigeria-border-dispute" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Nigeria-Cameroon boundary dispute</a> in which this correspondent was involved has some lessons for the Nepal-India border issue as well. Nigeria and Cameroon share a 1,950km border (960 km on land and 990km of river boundary) starting from Lake Chad in the north to the Bight of Biafra in the east of the Gulf of Guinea.The two countries nearly went to war over the dispute, but are now engaged in the peaceful implementation of a 2002 International Court of Justice (ICJ) Judgment regarding the land and maritime boundaries, and established a Mixed Commission which holds regular meetings in each other’s capitals under the auspices of the United Nations to implement the agreement. So far, the Mixed Commission has agreed on a timetable for the withdrawal of forces, the transfer of authority, the cost of demarcation .<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2006/afr1397.doc.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">An agreement signed in 2006</a> in New York by presidents of Cameroon and Nigeria, the UN Secretary General and representatives of five witness countries (France, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States) led to the return of 80% of the peninsula to Cameroon with full withdrawal of Nigerian troops. The remaining 20% was handed over to Cameroon in June 2010. All four sections of the ruling on Lake Chad, the land boundary, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakassi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bakassi peninsula</a> and maritime boundar, have now been implemented peacefully.Alongside these more high profile legal and political issues, the process of demarcating the land boundary has continued with the Mixed Commission establishing a Sub-Commission on Demarcation with experts from the UN, Cameroon and Nigeria. More than 130 preliminary map sheets of 1:50,000 scale were prepared from partially rectified SPOT5 satellite imagery by the United Nations Cartographic section based in New York.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151112/636a63b99c7e80680e059895jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="219" height="267">The <a href="https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJG/article/view/16973" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nigeria-Cameroon border agreement</a> shows that if there is political will, even the most protracted and bitter border disputes can be peacefully resolved.Prabhakar Sharma is a Nepali expert on international boundaries, and worked as a survey engineer for the Cameroon-Nigeria border demarcation by the United Nations.

There is precedent to settling Kalapani

<figure><img width="1445" height="2000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181144/636a95c69c7e80680e05dc29jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHETTRI</figcaption></figure>Nothing unites Nepalis more than a dispute with India. So, when India issued its new official map this month putting the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1680#.Xc0XfNUzbIU">east bank of the Kali River</a> that Nepal claims squarely within its own territory, all hell broke loose in Kathmandu.The brouhaha could not have come at a better time for Prime Minister KP Oli. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/prime-ministers-health-condition-under-wraps/">In failing health</a>, with falling public support and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dangerous-driving/">facing serious challenges from within his own party</a>, the dispute with India united politicians across the political spectrum. It also allowed Oli, who has always used nationalism as a political plank, to send the message that he is standing up to India.Even the opposition Nepali Congress, which had been hesitant to speak against India during the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/09/25/unofficial-blockade/">2015 Blockade</a>, this time mobilised its students to protest outside the Indian Embassy. Student unions in some Tarai towns also staged anti-India protests.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/territorialism/">Territorialism</a>, Editorial<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11208#.Xc0Xg9UzbIU">What India wants from Nepal,</a> Rajendra DahalBut it is from his own NCP that Oli faces the greatest challenge, and he has been scrambling to put a trusted caretaker team in place ahead of a planned trip to the United States. Baluwatar insiders say <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-wait-and-wait-mode/">Oli may be away for at least two months if he needs a new kidney.</a>Last week in a surprise move, Oli got his team of a dozen advisers to resign en masse. Although it looks like some of them (including his foreign policy and political advisers) will be reinstated after pressure from senior party leaders, the move suggests that the Prime Minister is working on a major overhaul in case he needs to be away longer.On Wednesday, Oli met his main critic within the NCP, former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, for the first time since August, when they had an angry exchange in Baluwatar. Relations between the two have not been good since Oli <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/one-body-two-heads/">out-manoeuvred Nepal</a> at the UML party convention four years ago. Nepal is said to have been miffed at Oli’s surprise appointment of new provincial governors.      Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/four-year-itch/">Four-year itch,</a> EditorialSources said the two had a “heart-to-heart talk with self-reflection”, with Oli promising to consult his party colleagues more closely. It is very likely the PM will be looking to induct Nepal loyalists to his reshuffled cabinet, and may have asked Nepal for recommendations. Oli also wants to finalise selection of the 120-member politburo before he goes away, and for this may need Nepal’s help to outflank Pushpa Kamal Dahal.Dahal, for his part, has been biding his time knowing that sooner or later he will be prime minister. His reaction to the border dispute with India has been remarkably lukewarm, calling for a “diplomatic settlement” and the surprising suggestion that Nepal should not internationalise the issue.Prime Minister Oli appears to be preparing for a protracted absence from Kathmandu during which time he does not want Dahal to be calling all the shots.Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/own-worst-enemy/">Nepal PM is his own worst enemy</a>, Editorial

Power plays

The dispute over the tri-junction of India, China and Nepal on the remotest northwestern tip of the country is the latest strain on bilateral relations.The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2014/01/05/double-centennial/">Sugauli Treaty of 1816</a> between the East India Company and the defeated Gorkhalis clearly stated that the main channel of the Mahakali River would form a shrunken Nepal’s western border with British India. But the Survey of India maps of 1850 and 1856 slyly tucked the area back into Garhwal.Successive rulers in faraway Kathmandu were either unaware or did not care that the boundary had been moved. After the Chinese annexation of Tibet in the 1950s, Nepal allowed India to put up 17 military checkpoints along its northern border. China and India fought a fierce Himalayan war in 1962 during which the Indian military set a base on the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2049#.Xcp6ktIza70">strategic Lipu Lekh Valley</a>. That base is still there. In 1969, Prime Minister Kirti Nidhi Bista got Delhi to remove all its checkpoints on the Nepal-China border, except the one in Kalapani. Was Lipu Lekh a quid pro quo for the removal of the other bases? <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/from-nepali-press/from-nepali-press-his-highness-gave-us-Kalapani,2570">Did King Mahendra sacrifice the region</a> in return for Indian support for his takeover? Historians are divided.Whatever the case, the elected rulers of Nepal after 1990 used anti-Indian nationalism for political benefit, but did little to press Nepal’s legitimate claim over the territory. K P Oli, who now heads the united NCP in government, was one of the most vocal in Parliament demanding that India return the area. Current Tourism Minister Yogesh Bhattrarai even led a student group to Kalapani to raise the Nepali flag in the tract occupied by India.  <img width="624" height="718" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181144/636a95af9c7e80680e05dc20jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Many field reports from the area have just gathered dust in Singha Darbar. No action was ever taken, except when it was politically expedient to raise an anti-Indian drum beat. Nepal’s own official map in 1975 showed Lipu Khola as the boundary between Nepal and India, and not the Mahakali River. Ultra-nationalists cry themselves hoarse about ‘big bully’ India, but why would a neighbour respect your boundary if you yourself do not really care where it is? New Delhi has not really been bothered about winning the hearts and minds of Nepalis, either. It believes in carrying the big stick and showing who’s boss. And all this is convenient for Nepal’s India-bashing pseudo-nationalists who have a handy excuse to take to the streets every time the border dispute flares up.For Prime Minister Oli the brouhaha could not have been better timed. It has allowed him to distract public attention away from his administration’s non-performance, and once more drape himself in the flag. But what good is it to work ourselves into a frenzy of territorialism over this tiny strip of land when our rulers do not seem to care what happens to the rest of the country over which they enjoy full sovereignty?This is also not one where Nepal can play India off against China. In fact, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/PM-task-in-China,2929">Beijing seems to be on the same page as New Delhi</a> on the issue. As far back as 1954, India and China agreed to allow Indian pilgrims to use Lipu Lekh Pass on their holy trek to Lake Mansarovar. Lipu Lekh was discussed during visits by Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to Beijing in 1999, by <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=289#.Xcp8z9Iza70">Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobao to Delhi in 2005</a>, and by Chinese President Xi Jinping in India in 2014. A joint communiqué between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi in 2015 in Beijing listed Lipu Lekh as one of the Sino-Indian border passes through which the two countries agreed to conduct trade. <img width="3455" height="1679" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181144/636a95b19c7e80680e05dc21jpeg.jpg" alt="">One of the few instances in Nepali history when anti-Chinese protests broke out in the streets of Kathmandu was four years ago after that India-China joint communiqué on Lipu Lekh. Yet, Nepal’s governments since then did not dare broach the subject with the Chinese, it was not even raised last month during <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/president-xi-in-kathmandu/">President Xi’s state visit to Kathmandu</a>.Nepal cannot go to war with India over this. (For one thing, our men are enlisted in their army.) How about first revising our own official map, and take up the matter at the highest level in every future bilateral? And they may as well also talk about disputes along the Tarai caused by rivers changing course, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/borderline-disorder/">border pillars mysteriously moving under cover of darkness</a>.The time is right for dialogue: there is a government in Kathmandu with a solid two-thirds majority, we have rare all-party unity over the matter, and Nepal’s international stature is higher than it has been in a while.

TERRITORIALISM

One smoggy winter morning in February 2019, Ekta regretted coming to her sculpture class. It was the first day of her period, and the 19-year-old wished she was home, curled up in bed with a hot water bag to soothe her cramps.
Her class was at Kalapremi Ceramic Studio, a dark room on the ground floor of a house in Maharajganj, and Ekta’s teacher was the artist Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’, a noted sculptor.
Two other students were already there, using all their muscle strength to knead the sculpting clay. Ekta, now 24, recalls how Kalapremi asked her if she was feeling all right. She avoided him, as she did not want everyone to know she was menstruating.
Kalapremi repeatedly asked Ekta what was wrong. She finally muttered that she was having her period, after which he grabbed her hand and led her to a partitioned corner of the studio and sat her on a chair. Before she could stop him, he slid his hand under her dress, and started massaging her abdomen.
“I was horrified,” Ekta recalls. “I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen, asking me not to be shy, saying he knew how to relieve my pain. He stopped only after I protested furiously.”&nbsp;
The art tutor then said, “You’re like my daughter. I’m doing it out of love to make you feel better, but you’re so stubborn.”&nbsp;
“Instead of saying sorry he acted like I was the one having crazy thoughts,” remembers Ekta, adding that from April 2016 to August 2020 beginning the time she was 16, the artist sexually abused and harassed her on several occasions. &nbsp;
Now, Ekta and the artist’s other former students are finally sharing their experiences and some are pressing legal charges against him, hoping that others do not have to endure what they did.&nbsp;
Award-winning artist and teacher Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’ (the name means ‘Art Lover’) is known for his ceramic art, sculpture, and contemporary pottery. He was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-house-of-kalapremi">profiled in Nepali Times after a collaborative exhibition</a>, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ at the Siddhartha Art Gallery three years ago.&nbsp;
His pieces, titled Gaalis, featured sculpted female figures with the heads of dogs, sheep, and donkeys (pictured) to depict derogatory terms for women. Some critics said the collection was a satire on feminists.
Kalapremi started his artistic and teaching career in 1983 and over the years taught at Bhanubhakta School, Kathmandu University School of Arts, Lalitkala Campus and at his private Kalapremi Ceramic Studio. He has also lectured at Jeonju University in South Korea and recently at Tabor Academy in the United States.
Seven of Kalapremi’s former students were interviewed for this story. Five female students said he touched them inappropriately in his studio or at Kathmandu University. Two male students said they witnessed him abuse and harass the women. In all cases, the students struggled to recognise the abuse when it occurred, and the lack of reporting systems left them to cope on their own for years.&nbsp;
Earlier this year, students shared a social media post hinting at Kalapremi’s history of abusive behaviour following which more students of the artist reached out sharing similar experiences. Some students spoke of abuse that happened as long as 20 years ago.
Kalapremi, 60, has denied the allegations. He told Nepali Times: “Some years ago, there was a movement encouraging people to hug and kiss. I used to do it purely out of friendship and love. But after seeing posts on social media last year calling out my behaviour, I realised my actions may have hurt some people. I understand now that I should have been more mindful.”
He added: “I am also an auxiliary health worker, so I know the exact points to massage to relieve menstrual pain. It’s not just menstruation, I take anyone who is ill to the hospital.”
Sexual abuse is much more rampant than reported given how difficult it is to prove it in court. The law defines sexual abuse as occuring when someone touches another’s private parts, coerces them into touching theirs, uses vulgar language, shows degrading images, or behaves indecently towards them without consent.&nbsp;
Ekta and her fellow students are consulting lawyer Suneeta Regmi Pokhrel, who says they know that even if the court decides in their favour, it is difficult to survive after speaking up, and influential men defend themselves saying they are being framed.&nbsp;
“They are in a lot of pain and weep when recalling how he abused them,” Regmi Pokhrel told us. “They are angry and have filed a case against him, but they are also terrified. They know he is a powerful man and they have seen how our society treats women who speak up against abusers. Unless people speak up, perpetrators will be emboldened.”
Art and academia in Nepal simply reflect the power imbalances in society where people with intersecting identities experience worse forms of abuse. Theatre actors Raj Kumar Pudasaini, Rajan Khatiwada, and Sunil Pokhrel were called out during the #MeToo movement in the Nepali theatre scene in 2019. Even after the allegations Pokhrel went on to receive national awards, while others continued to work without repercussions.
“If you speak up against abusers, you gradually get sidelined from projects,” explained a theatre artist who wished anonymity fearing professional setbacks. “The theatre scene in Nepal is quite small, you just have to make peace with the perpetrators and work with them if you want to sustain yourself.”&nbsp;
In academia there is a history of faculty members sexually harassing students and getting away with it. After Tribhuvan University (TU) lecturer Krishna Bhattachan was accused of harassing women students, the university said it would follow Nepal’s sexual harassment law and set up a reporting mechanism. But nothing happened to the professor, who had already retired. Instead, he counter-accused the students of 'attacking the indigenous people’s movement with baseless allegations' as <a href="https://kathmandupost.com/letters/2019/01/29/bhattachan-responds">he told the Kathmandu Post in 2019</a>. He continues to be featured as a prominent speaker including at TU.
Other faculty members previously accused of sexual harassment include Jagadish Murti Koirala from TU, Bishnu Prasad Acharya from Ratna Rajya Campus, and Bodha Raj Tripathee from Lalitpur Madhyamik Vidhyalaya. A woman staff member from TU also filed a sexual abuse complaint against Dambar Chemjong from TU.
Prominent figures like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">mountaineer Nims Purja</a> have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/sports/mountaineering-sexual-harassment-abuse-nims-purja.html">accused of sexual assault</a>, and cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane, actor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/celebrity-rape-case-spotlights-nepal-laws">Paul Shah</a>, and former speaker of Parliament <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mahara-arrested">Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a> have been accused of rape, but society-at-large has let off the alleged perpetrators amdist a larger debate about justice for survivors and punishment of perpetrators.&nbsp;
‘Gaushala-26’ is the court name given to the 18-year-old who accused Sandeep Lamichhane, former captain of Nepal’s national cricket team and skipper of Biratnagar Kings in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/here-comes-the-nepal-premier-league">ongoing Nepal Premier League</a>, of rape. She left the country citing society questioning her character affecting her mental health while Lamichhane got an outpouring of support. In May, the Patan High Court overturned a prior verdict that found Lamichhane guilty of rape and had sentenced him to eight years in prison. During the 23-month legal battle to pursue justice, Gaushala-26 faced threats of gang rape and acid attacks.&nbsp;
Exhausted by the struggle, Gaushala-26 sought to “move to a new world” where she could live free without hiding her identity.
Actress Samragyee Rajya Laxmi Shah in an Instagram video now deleted detailed the harassment she faced from a filmmaker during a movie shoot. She did not name any name but veteran actor Bhuwan KC filed a defamation case against Rana, but the court ruled that the charge lacked sufficient evidence.&nbsp;
Former Kathmandu mayor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/theytoo">Keshav Sthapit also mocked the #MeToo movement</a>, calling accusations against him by journalists Rashmila Prajapati and Ujjwala Maharjan “a rape of men’s rights”.
Serial Abuse
Back at the Kalapremi Ceramics studio, another former student, 24-year-old Rajiv, says he felt the need to speak out after seeing his female classmates being abused.&nbsp;
“He frequently kissed them on their cheeks,” he told Nepali Times. “Whenever they walked into the studio he flailed his arms like a child asking for a hug. They awkwardly hugged him from the side, but he pulled them closer, held their chin, and kissed their cheeks.”&nbsp;
Rajiv says he also saw Kalapremi pull the women’s bra straps, touch their breasts, and slap their buttocks. The young students would freeze, not knowing how to react, and if they protested, he would say it was “normal in art”. Rajiv, 19 at the time like his classmates, remembers thinking perhaps the well-respected artist was right after all.
Another student, Luna, who took lessons at Kalapremi’s studio from 2020 to 2022 did try to confront the tutor after he made an obscene proposal to her. She recalls: “One day when the other students had left the studio and it was just the two of us, he told me that God had given him special artistic talent and he could transfer those powers to me. But to do that both of us will have to be naked, inside a dark room, and have sex.”
Luna, who was 18 then, was livid and told him she did not want any of his powers, but she says he laughed at her as if he was joking. She did not tell her family about the incident because she thought no one would believe her.&nbsp;
“They were all in awe of this famous artist and felt I should be grateful that to be learning sculpting from him,” she says. “I was scared to be alone with him in case he talked about sex again. My coping mechanism was to be rude so he wouldn’t try to come close to me.”
Seeing how some classmates were standing up to Kalapremi, Ekta too tried to push back against his advances, but she said he found ways to coerce her. Since Ekta, Rajiv, and Luna could not afford Kalapremi’s Rs30,000 monthly fee for lessons, he had offered them all a stipend to assist him in the studio.
“He had spondylosis and took me to his therapy sessions to learn massage techniques, then he often made me and other students massage him,” says Ekta. Whenever she refused, he would feign pain to make her feel sorry for him. “He would insist that I put my hands under his shirt so that I could massage him better,” she adds.
The art tutor often tried to “seduce sympathy” from Ekta by sharing how he had never been loved as a child and was “sexually frustrated” as an adult.&nbsp;
“At 7PM, he would pour himself Signature whiskey and immediately go off again about how he was sex-starved. I didn’t know how to respond. It took me time to realise alcohol was just an excuse to talk about sex,” Ekta says.
If convicted, Kalapremi could face financial penalty and/or a prison sentence of up to three years according to Section 224 of National Penal (Code) Act 2017.&nbsp;
Data suggests that victims of child sexual abuse on average take nearly 24 years to tell someone about their trauma, and some may never disclose it at all.&nbsp;
“In our culture, children are rarely taught about boundaries. They often react, show anger when adults pinch their cheeks. But adults insist they did it out of love, and force the children to accept it,” says Sita Lama, a psychotherapist at Manka Kura. “And even when someone touches them inappropriately they struggle to identify and verbalise it.”
When perpetrators claim to be “acting out of love”, Lama says survivors are likely to perceive it as something safe, rather than recognising it as abuse.&nbsp;
“It may take years for them to realise they were abused,” she explains. "And even when they become aware, the power imbalance with the abuser and the associated shame often prevents survivors from speaking up."
Other former students from the School of Art at Kathmandu University have also come forward years later, saying Kalapremi sexually abused them. As young adults, they felt his behaviour was off but were uncertain if it was inappropriate, illegal, or they did not know how to respond. After having understood that it was indeed abuse, they say they are speaking out now to protect others.&nbsp;
Amina Singh, a visiting faculty member at Kathmandu University, says there is no clause against sexual abuse in contracts of teachers, and there is no formal grievance handling mechanism for the students.&nbsp;
“So the only way students can to deal with sexual abuse is approach someone they trust,” she says.
Eight other former art students of Lalit Kala Campus and Srijana College of Fine Arts of Tribhuvan University and other private art studios in Kathmandu say they were also sexually abused by their art teachers. Three faculty members interviewed from these institutions said they saw the abuse, but felt it was futile to report it given how powerful the teachers were.
In the absence of a formal system, some longtime women artists warned each other about “problematic” artists. They shared &nbsp;a “heads-up” to be more cautious when collaborating with them, and avoided responding to their calls and texts after work hours.
To ensure art institutions are safe for all, galleries, museums, artist studios, and smaller art spaces need to develop policies on sexual harassment. This would include a code of conduct or studio policies that hold the leadership accountable and outline the principles of professional ethics.&nbsp;
Students and employees should inquire about accountability mechanisms for raising concerns, both formally and informally, advocates say.
Three years after Ekta left the ceramics studio, she learnt that Kalapremi had harassed many other women. Still trying to get a footing in the art industry, she attended a workshop in Kathmandu where women artists discussed ways to stay safe in the art sector.&nbsp;
Since it was a close-knit group Ekta opened up about how she felt violated and realised she was not alone, he had been abusing underprivileged students for years, and this was common knowledge among artists in Nepal.
Ekta says that even after she quit, Kalapremi continued sending her text messages like ‘I am thinking of you’, ‘Why have you stopped speaking with me’, or ‘I am waiting for your call’.&nbsp;
But what really forced her to act was when Ekta found out that he was sending similar texts to her younger sister.&nbsp;
“I’ve had enough,” she told us. “He abused me all these years but I won’t let him abuse my sister.” &nbsp;
Ekta, Rajiv and Luna are not the real names of the students.&nbsp;

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

It was 8:15 in the evening of 25 March 1968 when everyone in the village of Batulechaur near Pokhara heard a deafening sound like thunder as a bright flashing object hurtled down to land in a field.&nbsp; That field belonged to Kul Timilsina, and the next morning he retrieved a sheet of metal about 2m by 1m and carried it home with the help of a few others, thinking it would be useful for his buffalo shed.&nbsp; Before he died at age 83 three years ago, Timilsina had told photo archivist Sunil Ulak that the black metal sheet was not rectangular and had rounded corners. There are a few witnesses still alive who have a clear recollection of the object that fell from the sky that night.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="601" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>The field in Batulechaur belonging to Kul Timilsina where fragments of a flying object fell from the sky in 1968.</figcaption> </figure>  One of them is Timilsina’s wife Gyanu, who was 22 at the time. She had been at home, and remembers hearing the big bang and the sky becoming very bright. “We saw the thing in the field in the morning,” she told us. “It looked like a lid, a covering of some sort. The way it was stuck in the ground, it must have fallen from the sky. We thought we could use it to dry clothes on, and took it home.”&nbsp; Another witness is Kul Narayan Paudel. “I was only eight then. We ran to the field to see what had fallen. It was a four-sided metal sheet. The elders took it away, and I don't know what happened to it.” &nbsp; Ram Bahadur Baniya, a teacher at the local school, says he had heard the sheet had been brought to the school, and later handed over to the Zonal Commissioner at the time, Nanda Prasad Malla. “But that is all hearsay,” he says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="610" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Gyanu Timilsina, wife of Kul Timilsina.</figcaption> </figure>  There are two versions of what happened to Kul Timilsina’s metal sheet. One is that an American Peace Corp Volunteer teaching at the nearby Bindyabasini School took it, and another is that it was handed over to the government. Recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US State Department documents from the time say that the US Embassy in Kathmandu tracked down the object two years later and had it shipped back to the US. A telegram from the Department of State and Department of Defense tagged as ‘MOON DUST / Space Fragments’ dated 1 March 1972 stated: ‘1. Restored space fragment will be on board Embassy support flight 115 arriving Kathmandu on or about March 10. Fragment is packed in shipping crate (cargo no. 72-33365) marked in care of DAO.&nbsp; 2. State and Defense representatives examined fragments prior to shipment finding restoration acceptable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df" data-rendition-name="original" width="856" height="568" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Declassified CIA documents about the investigation into the object sighted in Pokhara. </figcaption> </figure>  The documents show that the US government, military and intelligence agencies investigated this incident thoroughly when it occurred, and have continued to revisit it ever since, as recently as five years ago. What is even more intriguing is that the object that fell in Pokhara was not the only unidentified space object that fell to earth that year. There were similar sightings of objects falling from the sky in Ladakh, Sikkim and Bhutan between 19 February and 25 March 1968.&nbsp; These mysteries were the subject of a CIA investigation in 1968 titled ‘<a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81R00560R000100070007-8.pdf">Sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan</a>’, and the report is part of the recent online declassification of 800,000 top-secret documents from the period.&nbsp; &nbsp;Although unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have a connotation now of being alien craft, it could be pieces of satellite, missile, rocket or even aircraft. The CIA report documents six sightings in 1968 and quotes local sources as describing all of them having similar characteristics: bright blue or red streaks in the sky accompanied by loud sounds like lightning and thunder and objects falling to the ground. Aside from the metallic object that was found in Batlechaur, there were other items also found nearby in Tallakot, Tureypasal, Armalakot and Maidan. Whatever the object was, it seems to have disintegrated even before it hit the ground.&nbsp; The CIA report records the first sighting on 19 February 1968 in various parts of Sikkim and Olangchung Gola and Ghunsa in eastern Nepal. The light was said to be ‘long and thin’ and giving out ‘green and red light’. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb" data-rendition-name="original" width="892" height="596" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara "> </figure>  Two days later on 21 February, a soundless blue object was seen traveling fast across the sky above Thimphu in Bhutan. Then on 4 March there were multiple daytime sightings or white streaks in the sky at Chang La Pass, Fukche and Koyul in Ladakh. There were more sightings in Ladakh on the very day fragments fell near Pokhara on 25 March 1968.&nbsp; After the sightings in Pokhara, rumours started flying in Kathmandu that these were aliens trying to land on Earth, it could be Russian or Chinese spy planes or satellites, and some even say it as a sign from heaven that the end of the world was near. This was at the height of the Cold War. The Russians and Americans were testing their thermonuclear devices as well as intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems. The Washington-Beijing rapprochement had not yet happened, and China was making quick progress testing atomic bombs. Within two years after its first atomic test, in 1966 China exploded its first hydrogen bomb at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang, 3,000km to the north from Nepal. After neary six decades, what is still intriguing is that all the sightings within a few months of each other in 1968 were along the Himalayan arc bordering Tibet: from Bhutan, Sikkim Nepal, to Ladakh. The US military intelligence seems to have concluded that this was not a coincidence and there were frequent research trips to the site in Pokhara by American officials in the months after the incident. With the help of the Royal Nepal Army, the region north of Pokhara was thoroughly searched.&nbsp; A confidential memo dated 25 June 1968 by Jerry C Trippy to a ‘Mr Farley’ mentions that the US Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division had decided that the debris could be important because it may be related to a Chinese missile test or a Soviet ‘Vehicle Venik’ rocket.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  On 28 August 1968 the US Embassy in Kathmandu sent a letter to Washington DC saying that the object could be of Soviet origin, possibly from when the rocket carrying the ‘Kosmos 208’ satellite re-entered the atmosphere. But why were the fragments falling to earth several weeks apart, and in the same region? No one knows where the metal sheet that Kul Timilsina recovered is now. It was definitely packed in a crate and taken to the US, and although it is rumoured that it was returned that is not very likely. Archivist Sunil Ulak heard from the Timilsina family that CIA officials had returned to the site five years ago. &nbsp; Interest in UFOs peaked in the US in the 1950s, with the Cold War space race and tests of atomic weapons and delivery rockets. CIA and scientists were being sent to investigate sightings, both publicly and privately. Could the Pokhara fragments as well as the sightings in Ladakh and Bhutan actually be alien craft falling to earth? The renewal in interest in space travel in large part due to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, UFOs and sightings are again subjects of public interest.&nbsp; Even 57 years later, even if there was definitive proof about whether the Batlechaur fragment was from a Chinese missile or a soviet rocket, it has not been made public in documents declassified so far. We may never know.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598" data-rendition-name="original" width="642" height="320" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  Sunil Ulak speculates if the debris actually came from an American aircraft, perhaps on an intel mission upon China. “Which could explain why they were so thorough in collecting the fragments in Pokhara,” he says. But that still does not explain the multiple sightings weeks apart in 1968.&nbsp; Indeed, US military aircraft were at that time flying frequent night-time missions from air force bases in India to supply weapons to Khampa guerrilla camps in Nepal located north of Pokhara in Mustang. It could very well be that the Chinese shot down one such aircraft. The other sightings could have been contrails of US spy planes, or Chinese anti-aircraft missiles.&nbsp; There were quite a few developments regarding UFOs in 2024. In a US congressional hearing in July, former intelligence officer David Grusch claimed that the government had long been involved in a program to investigate and retrieve non-human craft crashes, and then try to reverse engineer them. However Grusch did not show any evidence.&nbsp; The UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 was signed into law by Joe Biden in December 2023. It plans to oversee the public disclosure of UFO information. However, there is a clause in it that prevents disclosure if it would cause threats to military defense, intelligence operations or foreign relations.&nbsp; It is unlikely that the declassified documents about sightings in the Himalayan will cause any real surprise about definite evidence of alien life even if it was found. It seems humanity will continue, at least for now, to wonder about curious lights in the sky and whether there is anybody out there.&nbsp;

UFO over Pokhara

Four international names in architecture, Shigeru Ban, Rem Koolhaas, Tadao Ando and Louis Isadore Kahn, all left their mark in Nepal. But despite their best intentions, the ambitious designs fizzled out. Ban, Koolhaas and Ando won Pritzkers, the best known international award for architecture, and Kahn could have won it had the prize been given in his lifetime. But their designs fell short of transforming Nepali architecture and did not help inspire local architects.&nbsp; Why were these four ‘starchitects’ unable to pull off their Nepal projects and enrich the country with exemplary contemporary designs? The failure, especially the violation of Kahn’s design, also raises larger questions about how much contemporary architecture is valued in Nepal.&nbsp; Whereas Sri Lanka had Geoffrey Bawa and Bangladesh had Mazharul Islam, the pioneers of contemporary architecture in Nepal have had far less public appreciation. One wonders if Nepali architecture only refers to the monuments and heritage of the past. Nepal does have examples of outstanding modern architecture such as the &nbsp;पाङ्रे घर ‘Wheel House’ and खुट्टे घर &nbsp;‘House on Legs’ by Shankar Nath Rimal in the 1960s. These are the best examples of how some Nepali designers successfully tailored modern architecture to the Nepali context.&nbsp; Ten years ago, Nepal had three architecture magazines, SPACES, praXis and Business Architecture, but none of these survived. This newspaper has prominently covered contemporary architecture, and the built environment, but these are exceptions in Nepal’s media. There have been a few encouraging signs. The 2024 exhibition Modern Encounters in Architecture in Kathmandu Valley (1945-1985) at the Taragaon Museum had many visitors and its accompanying book is a seminal document.&nbsp; In 2023, the Mountain Architecture Dialogue (MAD) that focused on examples of good-practice sustainable contemporary architecture for the mountainous terrains of Nepal was a packed event with over 300 young architects, engineers, environmentalists and architecture students. <h2>Shigeru Ban</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_8bb8dde080c5698c2585966bef27ce4c08e4ee488d3432b2caac98b9de762dfe.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024122003128_8bb8dde080c5698c2585966bef27ce4c08e4ee488d3432b2caac98b9de762dfe" data-rendition-name="original" width="990" height="1074" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  Shigeru Ban had already built a name for himself in post-disaster construction when he came to Nepal following the 2015 earthquakes in which 500,000 people lost their homes. The basic design and its 3D-rendered images were reviewed in upbeat articles on DOMUS, Architectural Review, Dezeen, and Arch Daily.&nbsp; But his signature cardboard tubes could not handle the monsoon and the roof structure had to be re-designed with timber. Only two shelters were completed in Sindupalchok, and only one of them still stands at the Hyatt Regency grounds today, as Ban’s souvenir to Nepal.&nbsp; <h2>Rem Koolhaas</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_58afec9b57accfa38327af0936648c6eb2f2e11ff18f1af8ca27383dc57dc222.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024122003128_58afec9b57accfa38327af0936648c6eb2f2e11ff18f1af8ca27383dc57dc222" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="722" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  The designs of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas have a specific signature: bold shapes and an intriguing architectural typology that challenges standard building blocks. Some designs even seem to defy gravity, like the CCTV headquarters in Beijing: an angular, continuous geometry of glass and steel.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_a18dc8a8d6b97bc6fa9d590036cf374f9dc3709c699fe5c5787304bbd05cb17d.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241220031216_a18dc8a8d6b97bc6fa9d590036cf374f9dc3709c699fe5c5787304bbd05cb17d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1812" height="1168" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Rem Koolhaas' design for Ullen's School in Khumaltar.</figcaption> </figure>  Koolhaas was commissioned by Belgian billionaire Guy Ullens to design a new building for Ullens School in Khumaltar. The most prominent feature is its vertical glass block staircase. Some interior spaces have lowered windowsills, which provide ample views and daylight. But the school building has gone unremarked in Nepal. <h2>Tadao Ando</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031212_cc16bd6feb8be07a7198285b847a45d2126dc3a479e0cc7370331861fc544675.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241220031212_cc16bd6feb8be07a7198285b847a45d2126dc3a479e0cc7370331861fc544675" data-rendition-name="original" width="626" height="628" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> </figure>  Doctors providing aid to victims of the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 in Japan requested Tadao Ando, who had donated his Pritzker money to the victims, to also make a design for a hospital in Butwal.&nbsp; Ando’s contribution would be pro-bono and the construction was funded by the Hanshin Earthquake victims and by the popular Japanese newspaper Mainichi, as a tribute to Nepali doctors. The first block that Ando designed for the Siddhartha Children and Women’s Hospital (SCWH) was the out-patient department. He quickly realised that he would not be able to pull off structures with his typical style of smooth-finished, high-quality concrete.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_73ec0950d52320277ccc81d4a66fa6aa6acb38141e7b7633683e4cf8179dc579.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241220031216_73ec0950d52320277ccc81d4a66fa6aa6acb38141e7b7633683e4cf8179dc579" data-rendition-name="original" width="1594" height="958" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Tadao Ando's Siddhartha Children and Women Hospital in Butwal.</figcaption> </figure>  Ando wrote in the online architectural catalog Architectuul, that the two main problems with the project were costs and the availability of local technology. ‘It became a facility that has a slightly different expression from the buildings I have completed so far,’ he wrote. He designed a colonnade for the west façade that would provide shelter from harsh sunlight, and the exposed brick walls were locally manufactured bricks.&nbsp; The hospital is characterised by modernist cuboidal massing, but the outer brick façades now appear unintentionally badly weathered by monsoons. The interiors lack both sufficient natural light and natural ventilation. <h2>Louis I Kahn</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_612e199d62fb3e72b6b8f6a936b0fa0451d8c0aa3d831c071320bf423ee3d67f.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2024122003128_612e199d62fb3e72b6b8f6a936b0fa0451d8c0aa3d831c071320bf423ee3d67f" data-rendition-name="original" width="694" height="926" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  American architect Louis I Kahn had experience of projects in South Asia, and several were under construction when he died suddenly in 1974. Amongst these were the National Assembly complex in Dhaka, the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and the Family Planning and Maternal Child Welfare Centre in Kathmandu.&nbsp; Kahn had started the USAID funded project in Nepal by developing a master plan for the government institutional zone in Kathmandu, which included a building for the Health Ministry. The building’s façade in exposed brick has deeply recessed vertical windows for shading.&nbsp; The balancing of accentuated horizontal lines in the brickwork with the verticality of the larger composition is the work of a master. The brick walls rise up into punctured parapet walls at the roof level. These square apertures ‘frame the sky’.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_69c2e4972dbe38773e0a3a3f1129485c9c87033ee84cd454e24ae0dc772d05cf.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241220031216_69c2e4972dbe38773e0a3a3f1129485c9c87033ee84cd454e24ae0dc772d05cf" data-rendition-name="original" width="1924" height="1242" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Louis Kahn's plan for the Ministry of Health.</figcaption> </figure>  When Kahn died, only the eastern half of the building was finished. The Western part was never built and Nepal’s bureaucrats decided that without paint, the exposed brick façade was not finished. Then in 1995, citing roof leakage and a space crunch, the Health Ministry added a floor.&nbsp; The frames-to-the-sky in the roof parapet were converted into windows and topped off with a sloping roof of corrugated steel sheets, whose only virtue was that it was cost-effective.&nbsp; Kahn’s orthogonal composition, which clean horizontal and vertical lines, was desecrated despite a public outcry and legal challenges from architects and cultural organisations. A version of this article was first published in HIMAL Southasian. Illustrations by Varun S Bapu.

Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal

If you were raised in Nepal, you must have picked up its unique set of vocabulary: आन्दोलन, चक्का जाम, बन्द, राँके जुलुस, आफ्नो मान्छे, हाम्रो दल, कर्फु and many more words connoting political protest.
We became familiar with the acrid smell of burning tyres, and eyes smarting from tear gas. And yet, everyone speaks of another revolution in the making. Not by desire, but by suffocation.
We heard speeches about नयाँ नेपाल, but the New Nepal never arrived. The governance system changed, but it did not reflect on people’s lives — except for those close to centres of power. The state is still unreachable and is not bothered about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/matter-of-life-and-debt">victims of loan sharks</a>, cooperative scams and other injustices.
Politicians continue to speak in sound bites, but fail to deliver. They have mastered the game of pointing fingers towards an external enemy and convincing people that they are never at fault. The political narrative is so disconnected from the actual analysis of the problem that suffocation doesn’t go away after every revolution.
No genuine effort has been made to deliver at all, which is why there is a palpable sense of disillusionment in the air forcing us to seek another revolution, even if Nepal may not be able to afford it.
How has the current system successfully held power, even if the public is deeply frustrated? How is it that for three decades we continue to be led by the same faces, who have time and again, proved to us that they may be great politicians but not national leaders?
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/improving-internet-governance-in-nepal">My experience at the epicentre of politics</a> has led me to identify three cultures that have enabled political parties to keep a tight hold on power: acceptance, silence and dependency.
We accept things the way they are. We use fatalistic phrases like “नेपालमा यस्तै हो” or “नेपालको कानुन दैब जानुन”. While this resilience enables us to rise back up from devastating calamities, it is also a reason for our compliance with the status quo.
Despite so many ‘revolutions’ that have led to significant reforms, these phrases keep getting reinforced, to the point that the upcoming generations have made it their lingo.&nbsp;
This acceptance is not a symbol of law-abiding citizens, but citizens living in fear of those in power, unable to ask the whys and why-nots.
Innovation suffocates in this culture of acceptance of the status quo. This is manifested in remarks like “but we don’t have any laws for this,” or “we don’t have the capacity to implement this”. An innovator or entrepreneur therefore has to spend that energy to become a political lobbyist, often educating and convincing the bureaucracy.&nbsp;
Remember when locally assembled <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/designed-and-made-in-nepal">Yatri motorbikes</a>, despite having willing customers, had to suffer to secure license numbers because of a lack of regulations? Instead of creating new laws, the government kept chanting the “We will promote Nepal-made goods” mantra, leaving entrepreneurs in a labyrinth of bureaucracy. The weight of acceptance of the law lies heavily on innovators. Fatalism is a tactic used by those in power to generate mass fear in society.
When we accept, we become silent. This is a pervasive phenomenon. We are trained to keep quiet, lest we ruffle feathers, burn bridges, or not get the help we need in future. We know, yet we don’t speak.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bureaucratic-hurdles-in-researching-nepals-bureaucracy">Bureaucratic hurdles in researching Nepal's bureaucracy</a>, Daniel W Edwards
Here is one example: the 2021 census shows that the number of baby boys born for every 100 baby girls is 112. This is a clear indication of female foeticide because of boy preference in society.
Despite such horrifying realities, there is finger-pointing within the government between the Ministry of Health and Population with the Ministry of Home Affairs. At the citizen level, we know those who are involved in killing girls. Yet, we don’t speak up. The Nepal Medical Council reports state that despite this gender imbalance at birth, there is no indication of any action.
But why would anyone speak against one's own fraternity, no matter how vile the act is?
When we accept and keep quiet, we become dependent on those who yield power. From getting our government procedure completed on time to getting transfers, to accessing any of our legally protected rights as well, we are forced to depend on our networks of चिनेको मान्छे people we know by blood, village, relations, political affiliation.
The culture of dependency has been the established way in Nepal. If you drive a two-wheeler or four-wheeler, and you get into a small accident, you will be asked to sort it yourself, dialing up the most powerful person you know. It becomes a competition of who knows who.
Recently I was told that there were calls from the Ministry of Health and Population and another from the Prime Minister's Office for just one medical position in a private hospital. Each was pushing its own candidate. Guess which candidate got the position.&nbsp;
The dependency of people is not on the laws or the state, it is with people in power, a reliance on the network of somebody who knows somebody, including those not officially in power.
These cultures are deeply ingrained in our heads, and in society. Collectively they form a vicious circle that helps those in power to retain power. This is not the society we want to live in.
Then, what do we do as a collective to break away from this? How do we break away from the cultures of acceptance and silence that have created this dependency? What can we do to ensure that our children do not have to learn the jargon of आन्दोलन before they learn about the state?
These are the cultures political parties need to shed rather than use them to perpetuate their power. This is what <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/an-alternative-to-alternative-politics-in-nepal">alternative politics</a> needs to be about.
Sumana Shrestha is a member of Parliament’s Education, Health and Information Technology parliamentary committee and represents the Rastriya Swatantara Party.

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