<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205089c7e80680e0b2894jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1430" height="712"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>This the Foreword and concluding chapter of Empowered and Imperiled: Nepal's Peace Puzzle in Bits and Pieces in which US-based Nepali writer Sanjay Upadhya confesses that he is the Maila Baje who wrote the <a href="http://nepalinetbook.blogspot.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepali Netbook blog</a>. The new book is a collection of his entries over the years.Sanjay Upadhya also wrote a column on current affairs for Nepali Times (screengrab, below) between 2001-2003 under the pen name Puskar Bhusal, which are in this paper's online archives. It includes this piece on Sher Bahadur Deuba's second tenure as prime minister which is as relevant today is it was in 2002: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10664#.YerFES8RqLc">Consensus Charade</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/6372050a9c7e80680e0b2895jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1804" height="1290"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Out of the Shadows, FinallyIt feels good to finally come out. I’ve been tempted to do so several times over the last decade and a half. The shades just seemed too soothing. I chose this nom de guerre before I’d decided what I’d call my blog. Relatively new, the blogosphere beckoned with all its breeziness. A notebook on Nepal on the net. Bingo.King Gyanendra’s royal rule was at its toughest. The Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists had signed the 12-Point Understanding but so much was unclear. Geopolitics, public opinion, hope, despair—the imponderables were too many. Powerful as the royal regression narrative was, I never bought it—and still don’t.Our triangular fight had become too drawn out for anyone’s good. I don’t think King Gyanendra had any specific plan when he took over on February 1, 2005. He wanted a realignment of forces into a bipolar one, and thought he could pull it off. If not, well, others were free to try. They did and here we are.I’d been defending the royal takeover in that spirit, drawing all the venom I expected to. There seemed so much going on that seemed so unreal. Yet, a lot of what seemed to be going on seemed too real to discount.I had used this genre as Puskar Bhusal in the Nepali Times. Yes, Kunda Dixit soon found out I was somewhere in Nepal. And Kanak Dixit, although still burdened by my indolence to his years of prompting, asked me to contribute an essay to his superb volume <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=kanak+state+of+nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">‘State of Nepal’</a>—in my real name.Over the years, People’s Review weekly carried my pieces under the bylines of Krishna Singh Bam, Madan Prasad Khanal and Rabindra Adhikari. (Frankly, I can’t recall the other names.) My inspiration was my father, Devendra Raj Upadhya, who would write as ‘Jatayu’, ‘Sampati’ and a bevy of other beings in an assortment of Nepali weeklies.I recognised the disadvantages going in. I’d be called a coward for shooting from the shadows. A propagandist who could sell his soul but not show his face. An agent for this, an agent provocateur for that. I’m still called all that, although I was careful to disable the comments function on Nepali Netbook. What surprised me was the positive interest my posts also began generating early on. The guessing game began.Top on the list was King Gyanendra. My mentor—and cousin—<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19722#.YeuVNC8RqLc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dipak Gyawali</a>, having worked with the monarch both in the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation and as his minister, detected similarities in style and some of the expressions used. During a one-to-one talk of over an hour in Narayanhity palace in August 2007, I only recently learned, Dipak daju asked the monarch directly: he just waved his hand dismissively!<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/6372050e9c7e80680e0b2896jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1380" height="1176"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Bhola Bikram Rana, another mentor, had also asked the monarch in a formal interview. Again, his denial didn’t seem to matter. Others said it had to be a former biggie out to cash in on the regime change. Still, others said it couldn’t be a Nepali because a royalist couldn’t write in English.Gen. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2014/07/30/a-generals-labyrinth/">Rookmangad Katawal</a>, given his public past with pseudonyms, was another candidate. My first boss and great teacher, Mana Ranjan Josse, conceding his status as a middle son and a Bahun, came out with a full denial more than once.Was Maila Baje young or old? In Nepal or abroad? A Nepali or a foreigner? Male or female posing as one? Heck, was I even one person or a composite? When, to my surprise, Janabhawana weekly started translating my posts and publishing it as a weekly column, everything took a whole new form.Dipak daju later told me that while he did suspect me, he was also skeptical. Maila Baje was writing about events, the news of which had not even crossed the Ring Road in Kathmandu. Anyone not living in Kathmandu and in the thick of it all could not even be aware of these events let alone comment on them. On Twitter, he recently offered anyone who correctly identified me a nice recommendation for the world’s top investigative journalism award. (Thank you, Dipak daju, for the deflection).My good friend <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9857#.YeuVvi8RqLc">Rabindra Mishra</a> once asked me point blank. I gave him a flat denial. He couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t see his facial expression because he was on the phone line from BBC Nepali Service in London explaining my assignment for the morning. My lie must have infuriated him. I’m sorry, Rabindra ji. But I believed I had a good reason.The blogosphere had already given me enough space to wander at will. Pseudonymity added to its appeal. As time flew, Maila Baje acquired a personality of its own. Coming out of the shadows would stifle him. Any time I had any inhibition, I would shut my eyes and imagine Nepal’s map and its position on a slowly revolving globe. It always felt like I was doing something good.Nepal has never ceased to amaze me. Being squeezed between giant opposites India and China provided the element of space. Time, too, was of essence. I grew up as Indian parliamentarism and Chinese communism contended with American capitalism and Soviet collectivism. Born into a family that allowed me varying levels of proximity with royals, the Nepali Congress and communists of all hues, curiosity abounded as the same story differed with the teller.My profession afforded me contact with foreigners who had something to do with Nepal or knew a lot about the country in ways a Nepali did not. The more I looked around Nepal, the more I saw so much to uncover. That’s when I began understanding something I was once told by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/america-nepal-and-the-royal-coup/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">King Mahendra</a>. A nine-year-old standing on the line waiting to welcome the monarch during his visit to Thailand—where my father was posted—I bowed a respectful namaste when my turn came.As my father introduced me, the king glared at me for a few seconds before saying: ‘Consider yourself very fortunate here. Study well and use your education in the service of Nepal, no matter where you may be.’Condescending and even royally conceited? Not at all. Years later, when I happened to meet <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/last-days-with-bp-koirala/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">B.P. Koirala</a> in New Delhi, I began introducing myself. He remembered meeting me a few years back and wondered where I was in my engineering studies. Stunned, I told him I had changed disciplines. ‘Whatever you study, study it well and be of use to Nepal, wherever you may be.’<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/putsch-ek/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Only if these two great men had been able to work together</a>. I refuse to believe that politicians really resemble their caricature. They are not in the game to intentionally harm the country and people. There is something up there that’s just different. Compulsions, compromises, enticements, intimidations all end up taking their toll. Sure, some individuals are more vulnerable and vicious than others. By and large, though, it’s the nature of the beast.Nepal, somehow fertile ground for initiatives and experiments fair and foul, is perhaps more susceptible to superfluous influences, alien and local. Things just don’t just happen here in a vacuum. Trying to make sense of it all is strenuous but still fun. Conspiracy theories instantly run wild. But that doesn’t necessarily make them irrelevant. Pulling these seemingly disparate strands together into a coherent 600 words every week or so has value. ‘If you can’t solve things, at least expose the problems you see’ seems to be a good motto.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205119c7e80680e0b2897jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="772">One afternoon an uncle visiting from New York asked whether I read Maila Baje’s blog. When I said I did, he asked whether I knew who he or she was, and began naming names others had suggested to him. Maili Bajai sitting next to me told him the truth. She turned to me to say the time had long come.Actually, it hadn’t. It took two more years, when my good friend <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/eminently-beneficial-for-india-and-nepal/">Ajit Baral</a> of FinePrint shot me an email asking me what I thought about a compilation. When I ‘outed’ myself to Dipak daju and sheepishly sought his suggestions on bringing out book, he promptly gave the structure a new vibrancy and direction, for which I am indebted.With this selection before you, all I can say now is, gee, it’s so bright out here.Sanjay Upadhya(aka Maila Baje)--Coming Full CircleIf there hadn’t been so many stakeholders with reputations to lose, Nepal’s political exercise in platitudes would have been pronounced a failure with the first constituent assembly's dissolution in 2012. In the spring of 2006, Nepalis did yearn for change. The royal regime had failed to inspire an initially expectant population, whereas the opposition parties and the Maoists had brought some hope.The alliance struck in New Delhi was aimed more at punishing the palace than empowering the people. The text of the understanding had to be watered down to accommodate all parties' basic positions. Even so, the Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists could not issue a signed joint text. Apart from viability, the venue would hobble the accord in a country ever so wary of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/new-delhis-new-dealings-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Delhi</a> Compromise of 1951.For the moment, however, it was enough to energize the masses, no doubt abetted by a sustained international campaign of vilification of the palace. By the time the pressures of the streets had receded, Nepal was on its way to becoming a federal and secular republic—agendas that People’s Movement II had not raised. If the task was arduous enough for Nepal’s new rulers, the process would prove excruciating.Of the three pillars of ‘new Nepal’, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/volatile-mix-of-politics-and-religion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hindu statehood</a> was controversial from the start. How it found a place in the House Proclamation of May 18, 2006—hailed as the equivalent of the Magna Carta—remains a mystery. Two years later, the elected constituent assembly voted on what had been already presented to members as a fait accompli: the abolition of the monarchy. With no trace of regret or recrimination, Gyanendra Shah held a news conference before leaving the palace to blend into a life of a commoner.He would be no ordinary citizen. As a former head of state, Shah continued to exhort his successors to recommit themselves to the pledges they made to the people. In the early years, the political class largely sneered at him. Then they began warning him against attempts to subvert the new order. Over time, the ex-king began drawing larger crowds than politicians in his visits across the country. India and China, among other countries, stepped up consultations with him as a national force. Politicians recognized they had run out of powder. When <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/pushpa-kamal-dahal-is-still-prachanda/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’</a> and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai persisted in their tirades, the people began ridiculing them.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Analysis/how-decentralised-is-federalism,776" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Federalism</a> became such a central agenda after the Madhes movement that everyone started proposing models. No structure could satisfy everyone, while Nepal’s northern neighbor would have none of it. While championing inclusiveness and broadest-based representation in general terms, the southern neighbor couldn’t find a model it liked, either. By the time provinces and local bodies got elected leaders, new taxes and conspicuous patronage appeared to validate the few early skeptics.A decade and a half later, it has become impossible to identify what went wrong and when. In reality, it is beside the point. If King Gyanendra had bet his throne on the mainstream parties’ and the Maoists’ inability to unite against him, a section of the Indian establishment— the one closest to a budding alliance with the West—called his bluff without anything specific in mind.Every subsequent compromise turned out to be a renegotiation of the previous one. Nepal’s two neighbors became particularly assertive, and were sometimes capable of joint action. The Indians and Chinese, who brought the United Nations in to anchor the Maoists into a nebulous ‘peace process’, were also the ones that ensured it left.Why consensus could be miraculously reached during some phases while it was stubbornly elusive during others was also a largely irrelevant question. The peace process had to proceed at any cost and thus acquired a logic of its own until the promulgation of the new Constitution and the election of representative bodies.By the time the transition ended, local, regional and international dynamics had shifted remarkably from those in 2005-2006. India’s new governing elite had not directly participated in shaping New Delhi’s Nepal agenda and made a big thing about it. Having transcended the Tibet issue to envisioning Nepal as a land bridge to South Asia, the Chinese used security and development as prods, depending on the state of their relations with India.More distant stakeholders like the United States, Britain and European Union member states shared a clear set of concerns but found it harder to draw coherence in terms of priority. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, the battle lines between the US-led <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/china-lobbying-against-mcc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Millennium Challenge Corporation compact</a> and the China-led <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bri-and-trans-himalayan-connectivity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Belt and Road Initiative</a> had been drawn. Sadly, the security and strategic dimensions superseded the economic and development ones in the Nepali psyche and polity.The Nepali political class sought collective action while driving the peace process. When things started falling apart, they seemed ready to shoulder collective blame. When the finger-pointing started becoming too personal for the public’s consumption, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/battle-lines-drawn-for-nepal-elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the politicians</a> coarsened the discourse. The people may have found nostalgia more appealing than any notion of the future. Nepal’s fate now indeed rests in their hands.Empowered and Imperiled: Nepal's Peace Puzzle in Bits and PiecesFinePrint, 2022Rs 698360 pagesISBN: 978-9937-746-35-9(Available in book shops from February)<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205149c7e80680e0b2898jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1524" height="2339">

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‘Maila Baje’ is Sanjay Upadhya

<img width="675" height="849" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bee754b0ad905ca02ef48jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>It was a hazy winter afternoon  when without warning at exactly 1PM, soldiers appeared on the streets of Kathmandu. Singha Darbar was cordoned off. Politicians, including Prime Minister B P Koirala who had been elected a year-and-half previously, were picked up simultaneously from their homes or offices, and hauled off to prison.   On Tuesday, 15 December it will be exactly 60 years since that fateful day which would determine the course of Nepal’s history for decades. King Mahendra and Prime Minister BP Koirala met at the palace for dinner a few days before the putsch. The King had just returned from a four-month trip to Japan, the United States and UK, and top secret plans were already in place for the coup d'état. Years later, Koirala related how towards the end of that meal, Mahendra (wearing trademark shades even though it was dark inside the room) gestured to Queen Ratna to leave and told him: “There cannot be two lions in a cage.”BP writes in his memoir that he had a ‘love hate’ relationship with Mahendra, who appreciated his work ethic, but was increasingly jealous of his popularity. The King’s aversion to political parties was well known, zamindars hated BP’s new land reform bill, and Mahendra sensed that Nehru’s India and Mao’s China, for different reasons, could live with a coup, as long as it did not make Nepal unstable.So, on पुस १, २०१७ (first day of the month of Pous 2017) the King made his move. In a speech he accused the Nepali Congress government of “failure to maintain law and order, being anti-national, corrupt and unaccountable”. The Swiss Ambassador was visiting Kathmandu from New Delhi on 15 December, and wrote a long cable to Berne about how BP Koirala had earlier talked about the difficulty of maintaining Nepal’s neutrality amidst Cold War tensions.US Ambassador Henry E Stebbins had met King Mahendra on 9 December in which he was given no hints of what he was planning, even though preparations must have been at an advanced stage. After the coup, Stebbins wrote to President Eisenhower: ‘…we feel that the King’s motives in taking the precipitate action he did were guided less by the issues of corruption and Communism than by a growing fear that his own personal position and prestige were dwindling and that if he did not act soon, it might be too late . . . the real motive behind the move was the preservation of the monarchy and the Shah dynasty in its absolute form.’However, just as Mahendra reckoned, Nepal’s two giant neighbours went along. China’s annexation of Tibet had spooked the Indians and Americans, and the British were focused on continued Gurkha recruitment. In fact, Queen Elizabeth was in Kathmandu on a royal visit within two months of the coup, and even went tiger hunting in Chitwan. History repeats itself repeatedly in Nepal. In 2005, King Gyanendra staged a carbon copy royal-military coup. Like his father and Stebbins, Gyanendra hoodwinked British Ambassador Keith Bloomfield into thinking that a coup was the last thing on his mind. Gyanendra’s speech on 1 February 2005 was identical to Mahendra’s in 1960. The son followed his father’s footsteps. On the 60th anniversary of पुस १ Nepal comes another full circle as supporters of a return to a Hindu monarchy exploit the political disarray, infighting, governance failure and corruption, to march on the streets demanding the secular republican constitution be scrapped. Some of the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War in 1960 are also playing out again as Washington and New Delhi align against Beijing. Hindutva politics  in India may also be pushing the pendulum back to the right in Nepal. Tune in to Tom Robertson's article on Nepali Times Weekend Longreads on Saturday 12 December with declassified papers with new revelations about the US response to King Mahendra's coup.

Kunda Dixit

‘Putsch Ek’

<img width="675" height="849" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7739c7e80680e0877ffjpeg.jpg" alt=""/>It was a hazy winter afternoon  when without warning at exactly 1PM, soldiers appeared on the streets of Kathmandu. Singha Darbar was cordoned off. Politicians, including Prime Minister B P Koirala who had been elected a year-and-half previously, were picked up simultaneously from their homes or offices, and hauled off to prison.   On Tuesday, 15 December it will be exactly 60 years since that fateful day which would determine the course of Nepal’s history for decades. King Mahendra and Prime Minister BP Koirala met at the palace for dinner a few days before the putsch. The King had just returned from a four-month trip to Japan, the United States and UK, and top secret plans were already in place for the coup d'état. Years later, Koirala related how towards the end of that meal, Mahendra (wearing trademark shades even though it was dark inside the room) gestured to Queen Ratna to leave and told him: “There cannot be two lions in a cage.”BP writes in his memoir that he had a ‘love hate’ relationship with Mahendra, who appreciated his work ethic, but was increasingly jealous of his popularity. The King’s aversion to political parties was well known, zamindars hated BP’s new land reform bill, and Mahendra sensed that Nehru’s India and Mao’s China, for different reasons, could live with a coup, as long as it did not make Nepal unstable.So, on पुस १, २०१७ (first day of the month of Pous 2017) the King made his move. In a speech he accused the Nepali Congress government of “failure to maintain law and order, being anti-national, corrupt and unaccountable”. The Swiss Ambassador was visiting Kathmandu from New Delhi on 15 December, and wrote a long cable to Berne about how BP Koirala had earlier talked about the difficulty of maintaining Nepal’s neutrality amidst Cold War tensions.US Ambassador Henry E Stebbins had met King Mahendra on 9 December in which he was given no hints of what he was planning, even though preparations must have been at an advanced stage. After the coup, Stebbins wrote to President Eisenhower: ‘…we feel that the King’s motives in taking the precipitate action he did were guided less by the issues of corruption and Communism than by a growing fear that his own personal position and prestige were dwindling and that if he did not act soon, it might be too late . . . the real motive behind the move was the preservation of the monarchy and the Shah dynasty in its absolute form.’However, just as Mahendra reckoned, Nepal’s two giant neighbours went along. China’s annexation of Tibet had spooked the Indians and Americans, and the British were focused on continued Gurkha recruitment. In fact, Queen Elizabeth was in Kathmandu on a royal visit within two months of the coup, and even went tiger hunting in Chitwan. History repeats itself repeatedly in Nepal. In 2005, King Gyanendra staged a carbon copy royal-military coup. Like his father and Stebbins, Gyanendra hoodwinked British Ambassador Keith Bloomfield into thinking that a coup was the last thing on his mind. Gyanendra’s speech on 1 February 2005 was identical to Mahendra’s in 1960. The son followed his father’s footsteps. On the 60th anniversary of पुस १ Nepal comes another full circle as supporters of a return to a Hindu monarchy exploit the political disarray, infighting, governance failure and corruption, to march on the streets demanding the secular republican constitution be scrapped. Some of the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War in 1960 are also playing out again as Washington and New Delhi align against Beijing. Hindutva politics  in India may also be pushing the pendulum back to the right in Nepal. Tune in to Tom Robertson's article on Nepali Times Weekend Longreads on Saturday 12 December with declassified papers with new revelations about the US response to King Mahendra's coup.

When will Nepal’s future ever arrive?

Nepal’s former king Gyanendra was greeted by flag-waving supporters as he arrived at Kathmandu Airport on Sunday afternoon from Pokhara after attending pro-monarchy rallies in various parts of the country. Gyanendra and his family were escorted from the airport by supporters to his residence at Nirmal Niwas, where his family has been living since 2008 when the Constituent Assembly abolished the monarchy. The 2015 Constitution then turned Nepal into a federal democratic republic. The deposed monarch had been on a two-month long tour of religious sites and local communities across western Nepal, ending in a two-week stay in Pokhara. After staying out of controversy, Gyanendra made a statement on Nepal’s Democracy Day last month in which he said he was willing to play a role in “saving the country”. There has been a surge of pro-monarchy posts and videos on social media, where the country’s previous kings have been glorified as being nationalists who were respected by the international community.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_07b324fee8d082ed3f8566544e24d45fcd600bbb122374fc39c7a94ce3d044f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250309120340_07b324fee8d082ed3f8566544e24d45fcd600bbb122374fc39c7a94ce3d044f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1914" height="1276" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_769f688f3a5eb3602f4c24c350ba1caa6965a171c079d783e28db0f746b810d0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250309120340_769f688f3a5eb3602f4c24c350ba1caa6965a171c079d783e28db0f746b810d0" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  Nepal’s monarchists, which include Gyanendra’s backers, several pro-monarchist parties and other anti-government figures, think <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/new-year-same-difference">public disillusionment </a>with the country’s ageing and ineffective leaders and institutions is at breaking point.&nbsp; There is also disappointment with elected leaders and technocrats from new parties like the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), with its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rabi-s-detention-churns-nepali-politics">leader Rabi Lamichhane under investigation</a> for his alleged involvement in a scandal involving diverting funds from cooperatives. One of the staunchest backers of Gyanendra’s comeback as king is former BBC journalist Rabindra Mishra, who has been active on social media platforms posting videos and text extolling the monarchy. He has referenced recent street uprisings in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Syria, cautioning Nepal’s mainstream leaders not to dismiss support for the monarchy. ‘Support for a return to monarchy is increasing even though the mainstream parties may dismiss it,’ wrote Mishra. ‘Like the leaders of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, they should not try to suppress the voices on the streets.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_d8758f6b7474c9f3aea3661ccd60955d8553971cb0d799039bbfd232aa1a0691.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250309120340_d8758f6b7474c9f3aea3661ccd60955d8553971cb0d799039bbfd232aa1a0691" data-rendition-name="original" width="1890" height="1260" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_63613759744c0fac33ff3eabc298079c3e525063882f4b3760954bbc0833b5cd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250309120340_63613759744c0fac33ff3eabc298079c3e525063882f4b3760954bbc0833b5cd" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  But for all their bluster, Nepal’s mainstream politicians who have rotated leadership of the country between themselves, seem worried about the crowds on the streets in support of the monarchy. The TikTok ban last year, which the government said was to ‘maintain social harmony’ was put into effect to prevent pro-monarchy groups from organising on the platform. The ban on TikTok has now been lifted, and supporters of the monarchy have mobilised platforms to fan nostalgia of the golden age of royalty, and to brand former kings Mahendra and Birendra as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/a-past-foretold">nationalists who upheld Nepal’s sovereignty during the Cold War</a> and commanded respect worldwide. Archival video clips of Mahendra being received by President Eisenhower in 1960 and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">Birendra </a>by President Reagan in 1983 have been liked by thousands. Comments contrast this to the incompetence and poor standing of Nepal’s current prime ministers.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_7dab05f5703e17a82da73277f0b39bf178c1005e0758aa50077ffe1a037f4af6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250309120340_7dab05f5703e17a82da73277f0b39bf178c1005e0758aa50077ffe1a037f4af6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1810" height="1206" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_1ab38cdccfd076babd78579fa345520a7b2fa9c838322226a259540c8c290437.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250309120340_1ab38cdccfd076babd78579fa345520a7b2fa9c838322226a259540c8c290437" data-rendition-name="original" width="1812" height="1206" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  While most of the people present at the demonstration included the older demographic, younger people have especially used social media to express their support for the monarchy. Young Nepalis, disillusioned with leaders who have been prime minister multiple times since the mid-1990s, are attracted to the idea of reinstating the monarchy as a form of anti-incumbent protest, but also because they have little to no memory of living under an authoritarian absolute monarchy. ‘Those who say the monarchy is paramount today are the ones who did not live through it in the past, and are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs,’ wrote Guna Raj Luitel, Chief Editor of Nagarik Daily, in an op-ed in the newspaper on Sunday.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_720d0059207b9918def39e983d9b5c114b6afb4e7ac0ed1dadd2cba2f20f9aa6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250309120340_720d0059207b9918def39e983d9b5c114b6afb4e7ac0ed1dadd2cba2f20f9aa6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_bfe50ebd413d1b177ebd02df5f837038d8a04c9d343afe39be1ebcde36db893a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250309120340_bfe50ebd413d1b177ebd02df5f837038d8a04c9d343afe39be1ebcde36db893a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  He added: ‘For those of us who have spent parts of our lives under the rule of the king… we have not yet forgotten those days, when the institution was unable to do any useful work, a disheartening period characterised by Nepalis being unable to speak freely.’ Commentators have especially been pointing to Gyanendra’s military coup in 2005 when he dissolved parliament, and tried to take the country back to the time of absolute monarchy, just like his father Mahendra did in 1960. Gyanendra became king after his brother and most of his family were killed in the royal palace massacre in 2001. Many Nepalis still seem to believe that Gyanendra was responsible, and some of this is reflected in comments on monarchist social media posts. As the monarchist rallies spread, Prime Minister K P Oli said last week that if Gyanendra really wanted power, he should form a political party and run in the next elections in 2027. Other leaders have urged the former king to honour the 2008 Constitutional Assembly decision to abolish the monarchy, as well as Nepal’s 2015 Constitution.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_978ef979c7774312ac00d3192803d974ea57ec45d704f89663b301f4f0cc9704.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250309120340_978ef979c7774312ac00d3192803d974ea57ec45d704f89663b301f4f0cc9704" data-rendition-name="original" width="1832" height="1221" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_d11276de0161d258f135e8fba4d3eb37d0a9e579b06a4819c6609b4ecdbbe51e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20250309120340_d11276de0161d258f135e8fba4d3eb37d0a9e579b06a4819c6609b4ecdbbe51e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  &nbsp;In response, royalist leaders including Kamal Thapa, Rajendra Lingden, and Rabindra Mishra have responded that the monarchy is above the electoral system, calling for the reinstatement of a constitutional monarchy in which Gyanendra would be a figurehead. “There is no question of the king contesting an election, that is our job,” said RPP-Nepal chair Kamal Thapa in a tv interview. “The monarchy is a custodian of the nation, it is an institution above electoral politics.” However, there does seem to be a disagreement between hardline royalists who want a return to absolute monarchy in which Gyanendra would actually hold executive powers, and those who favour a ceremonial one. Gyanendra recently visited Bhutan, where he was given a royal welcome, and has made several trips to India where there is some support for reinstating Nepal as the world’s only Hindu kingdom.

The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal

Kathmandu was once a lake inhabited by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/snakes-on-plains">serpents</a>, until Manjushree visiting from present-day China saw a fluorescent lotus in the water. To reach it, the sage used his flaming sword to cut a gorge <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/dry-port-at-chobhar-faces-resistance">at Chobhar</a>, draining the lake and turning it into a fertile valley. The Manjushree Trail Race (MTR) is inspired by this legend. There are five categories along a near-circular route around the rim of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/bringing-silicon-valley-to-kathmandu-valley">Kathmandu Valley</a>: 10k, 30k, 50k, 100k, and one that is 100 miles that is 157.7km (map, right). The 100 miles category starts at 8AM on 14 March, and runners have 52 hours until noon on 16 March to complete it. Arjun Kulung Rai’s 26:52:56 is the current record, set in 2024. “<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17327">The Manjushree legend</a> and the perfect loop make the race very meaningful, and I wanted to do it,” says participant Dong Sheng from the northern Chinese city of Harbin who started running in 2016 with 5k until he accomplished a 100 miler in 2022. “<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/first-edition-ultra-trail-kathmandu,1050">Running </a>is spiritual, as you are always trying to overcome what you could previously do.” Sheng is one of 131 international runners who have signed up for the Manjushree race, where there are a total of 502 participants this year, 94 of them women. The first edition of the race only had 7 runners total. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepali-trail-running-champions">Nepali trail running champions</a>, Preeti Khattri “A reason this race is popular is because it is a good mix of rural and accessible,” says Jimmy Oostrom, a Dutch runner. “Often, 100-milers are way out of the way. Here, the start is only a short drive after landing in Kathmandu.”&nbsp; The 100 mile and 50km are now qualifier races for the Asia Trail Masters, an international series of trail races based in Hong Kong. Last year, a Nepali team competed and won in the Asia Trail Master Championship series in Borneo. The 100-mile category starts and finishes at Single Tree on Nagarjun, other distances have different start and end points. On the winning team was Rashila Tamang, who is part of Trailmandu that implements logistics for the race, such as recruiting and training volunteers, and marking the route. “Nepal has great <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9938">geography</a> for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/mira-rai-racing-to-help-other-runners">trail running</a>, but it is still very hard to make it your career,” says Tamang.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025031219034_98b83aa3d42c7d5e8a2ef2f80dc03512374413e31eb55441234cd075bea7e113.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2025031219034_98b83aa3d42c7d5e8a2ef2f80dc03512374413e31eb55441234cd075bea7e113" data-rendition-name="original" width="1244" height="598" loading="lazy" alt="Manjushree Trail map "> </figure>  The MTR has a guidebook detailing the categories, route, checkpoints, rules and what is available at each stop.&nbsp; “If we say we’re going to start at 8, we’re going to start at 8,” says Narayan Acharya, the man behind naming the race ‘Manjushree’. “People tried to sign up after the deadline, we had to tell them no.” Acharya who builds <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/foundations-for-sustainable-buildings-in-nepal">traditional rammed earth houses</a> through his company Sustainable Future Nepal, has been long involved with promoting trail running in Nepal, and hailing from Jumla himself, mentored <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/run-sunmaya-run">Sunmaya Budha</a> also from Jumla, now a trail running star in and outside Nepal. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/sunmaya-budha-stays-in-the-running">Sunmaya Budha stays in the running</a>, Vishad Raj Onta&nbsp; The organisers are sponsoring up to 50 runners from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/portrait-of-a-photographer-in-rural-nepal">rural Nepal</a> who may not afford the Rs6,000 entry fee to participate. “It is hard to get sponsors to give us money because Nepal is still a pretty small market,” says Oostrom, currently on crutches due to an ACL injury. “We also have to take the necessary precautions to make sure we can quickly help a runner in trouble.” The logistics of an ultra trail race are more complicated than a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1223">marathon</a>. Marking and maintaining the trail requires careful work, especially as signs often get lost. The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-steadfastness-of-a-long-distance-runner">long distances </a>also require runners to run through the night.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025031219030_19111e03939541b8980007437c89966dc7a8fd6246b8407440694503bf7890a3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2025031219030_19111e03939541b8980007437c89966dc7a8fd6246b8407440694503bf7890a3" data-rendition-name="original" width="2250" height="1501" loading="lazy" alt="Manjushree Trail "> </figure>  A <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/buddha-air-gets-state-of-the-art-flight-tracking-system">live tracking system </a>would ensure a runner’s safety as well as prevent cheating, but for now organisers are relying on vigilant volunteers and fellow runners to find runners needing help. There are strict rules for the race, and breaking them can result in significant time penalties or even disqualification. Get food or drink assistance outside of the checkpoints and you get a penalty of 15 minutes. Miss any pieces of mandatory gear and an hour is added to your time. Take some sort of shortcut or cheat using a vehicle, and you are disqualified. There are dangers like cliffs <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/cantilever-trail-nepal">along the trail</a>, lightning on exposed ridges, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/disasters-in-nepal-come-in-waves">landslides caused by earthquakes</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/trekking-to-save-nepals-snow-leopards">leopards</a>, and hornet swarms. Ultra running takes a massive toll on the body. The brain may shut off certain areas to be able to keep going, so volunteers watch runners carefully.&nbsp; “After mile 50, your body starts digesting itself,” says Oostrom.&nbsp; Alongside Acharya and Oostrom, the organising crew is made up of race director Ashish Mishra, and Jeevan Lama and Rashila Tamang from Trailmandu. “We can execute this race well because we are all passionate runners ourselves,” says Acharya. The team has taken measures to make the race safe and comfortable for female participants. ‘Run freely, speak openly, and wear what makes you feel comfortable in our races,’ says the guidebook. Prize money is the same for male and female winners, across categories.&nbsp; Lately, Nepal has been steadily building itself as a destination for<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/taking-the-high-line"> adventure sports </a>such as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-pushes-mountain-bike-tourism">mountain biking</a> and trail running. And with the Manjushree race, enthusiasts have hopes to set the standard for other trail races in the country. Sheng has been part of big races in China. “The better the economy, and more money people have, the more they can get involved in such pursuits,” he says. “But I have to say, for the scale of this race, everything has been done very professionally.”&nbsp;

Around Kathmandu in 100 miles

Generative <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/artificial-censorship">AI models</a> such as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/chatgpt-news-about-nepal">ChatGPT</a> and Sonnet are trained on massive amounts of data that have over time enabled them to answer general questions. But they do not perform as well on narrower domains, even hallucinating or making things up.
Now here comes <a href="https://www.anthromind.com/">Anthromind</a>, a startup developed by a 28-year-old Nepali engineer Pratik Karki in the tech-womb at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-in-the-decade-of-ai">Silicon Valley</a>, which develops datasets to improve the performance of AI models in specific areas.
Large<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-bhasa-on-google-translate"> language models </a>are ‘distilled’ by running them on smaller, higher-quality data. AI is first used to assist with labelling or generating data. After that, human experts look at the responses and explain how they are wrong, helping tune the model just right.
Karki got the idea while working at Google, where he saw that while companies were trying to create their own models, they failed because the data was of low quality. In 2024, he left his lucrative job and took a risk by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-can-create-a-business-friendly-environment?fb_comment_id=2995148037177314_6370548419637242">setting up a business </a>that could make real impact.
It has not been easy. At Google he was one of over 100,000 employees, but after launching Anthromind, Karki has had to do sales, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4323">marketing</a>, and recruiting, as well as leading a whole new team.
“At some point in your career, everything turns into sales,” Karki told us by phone. “You need to sell <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/why-invest-in-nepal">potential investors</a> on your vision, and you get a million no’s before a yes.” The connections he made at Google helped, and he even managed to poach a few and others became <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-has-to-curb-corruption-before-wooing-investors">investors</a>.
Karki studied in Biratnagar before moving to Kathmandu to do his A-levels where he did business courses. He remembers those formative years and credits his teachers in Nepal for encouraging him to put himself out there and to speak up when needed.
He then went to Grinnell College in Iowa where he studied computer science and statistics, and realised that he liked to code: “I especially got a high debugging a program until it worked.”&nbsp;
He went on to pursue a Master’s in Computer Science and describes the course as a pure program with some very difficult machine learning courses.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/tech-and-transition-in-nepal">Tech and transition in Nepal</a>, Ashutosh Mani Dixit
Karki was recruited to Google from a highly selective early career program and got to work closely with the companies that were then building the generative Large Language Models that have since taken the world by storm. He worked on essential training infrastructure, including data warehousing and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9825">computing </a>needs.
“Internally, we all knew about this<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/makeshift/addressing-nepals-digital-divide"> technology </a>and how disruptive they would be,” says Karki. “But I also saw its limitations.”
Karki took a calculated risk in setting up his own company, knowing fully well that for Anthromind to succeed he would need a very obsessive and disciplined mindset.&nbsp;
“Every Friday evening I look at weekly data, and what worked and what didn’t, especially in terms of getting customers,” he says. “I had to be very deliberate with everything I did.”
Karki attributes this discipline and frugality to growing up in Nepal, which he misses dearly, especially his family and the community. His best friends in California are Nepalis, they meet often and have already made plans to celebrate the approaching <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/new-year-same-difference">Nepali New Year</a> with home-made <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/adventures-of-a-little-dumpling-named-momo-and-other-books">momos</a>.&nbsp;
Karki sees a lot more potential in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/it-is-it">IT industry in Nepal</a>, at the moment saturated with service-based companies when ideally new businesses should focus on products.&nbsp;
He explains how companies that provide offshore <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/tech-away/nepal-s-health-tech-industry-is-here-to-stay">tech services </a>operate in a ‘default:alive’ state, where they can carry on even if they only have one client.
The alternative is a company whose success depends entirely on the quality of the product it puts out, a ‘default:dead’ state. This forces programmers to adopt an urgent, disciplined mindset. While a lot harder and riskier, it also has higher returns.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/people-power/nepal-as-an-ai-power-bank">Nepal as an AI power bank</a>, Bikash Pandey
Karki is in a cohort of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/12-full-opinion/let-s-listen-to-nepal-s-young-changemakers">young Nepalis</a> in the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/it-is-all-about-it-in-nepal,3887">IT industry</a> who have proven that serious tech innovation can come out of Nepal. Pukar Hamal of SecurityPal was recently featured in Forbes, while Sameer Maskey’s FuseMachines has been listed on NASDAQ.
Financially independent since 18, Karki says <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/1-in-5-nepal-families-lack-food">Nepali families</a> should encourage their children to make such moves. Nepal’s education system should reward curiosity, instead of quelling it, to promote <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/business/kesha-kumari-damini-awarded-by-norwegian-business-for-peace-foundation,1356">entrepreneurship</a>.&nbsp;
He says, “Students should be rewarded for thinking individually and speaking out, like I was.”

Kathmandu Valley to Silicon Valley

Throughout human history, civilisations have been named after the rivers along which they flourished: Indus Valley, Nile, Tigris-Euphrates. Many of these cultures later collapsed, partly because they could not manage their water needs properly. Three recent books about Himalayan rivers look at their history and geography, and how they nourished civilisations downstream. The rivers gave birth to the world’s major religions, their waters and the mountains from which they sprang were revered. Mythology and geology converge in High Asia. Mt Kailash is holy to the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Bon faiths as the centre of the world and the abode of the gods. Indeed, from its vicinity emerge Asia’s great rivers: the Indus and Sutlej, Ganga and the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) and Karnali (Mapcha Tsangpo).&nbsp; Legend has it that Kathmandu Valley was once a primordial lake drained by Manjushree who cut a mountain with his flaming sword. There is scientific evidence that the paleo lake was indeed emptied in stages starting 40,000 years ago after a tsunami unleashed by a major earthquake epicentred in Langtang. The Bon faith describes the Tibetan Plateau being pushed up from a roiling primeval sea, confirming current evidence about the orogenesis of the Himalaya. In local lore, supernatural lha (animal deities) and lu (serpents, naga) moved from sea to land, just as the theory of evolution explains the emergence of early amphibians and land creatures. In <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Rivers-of-the-Asian-Highlands-From-Deep-Time-to-the-Climate-Crisis/Gamble-Tan-Xu-Beavis-Maurer-Pittock-Powers-Wasson/p/book/9781032490595?srsltid=AfmBOopjkpgcN1_7t1jTI_Z1_27yRthBTbdHA15OWcE9Ge3S409jhUX3">Rivers of the Asian Highlands: From Deep Time to the Climate Crisis</a>, Himalayan historian <a href="https://scholars.latrobe.edu.au/rgamble">Ruth Gamble</a> and co-authors begin by tracing the genesis of the Himalaya, citing evidence that the Tibetan Plateau pre-dated the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates 50 million years ago. Asia’s main rivers co-emerged with the mountains, their waters cutting canyons through rocks as they were uplifted. The gigantic pileup acted as a moisture trap for the proto-monsoon, the rain and ice sculpting peaks as they rose. But so strong were tectonic forces that the uplift outpaced erosion on the Tibetan Plateau. These dynamic processes are still at work, but in many places across High Asia there is a new factor at play: modern infrastructure (like haphazard road-building in Nepal) is increasing erosion faster than the uplift rate.&nbsp; ‘This is an example of human action overcoming tectonics,’ write the authors in Rivers of the Asian Highlands, in which the chapters look at Himalayan rivers from a planetary scale, their socio-cultural histories, to present-day engineering to regulate them. An ongoing dam-building spree and anthropogenic climate breakdown combine to bring about the most rapid change the Himalaya and their rivers have seen for millions of years. One example is the Medog Hydropower Station being built on the Yarlung Tsangpo at a bend on the Brahmaputra before it enters India. The river drops 2,000m within a 50km stretch, the gradient allowing it to generate 60,000MW — the biggest single hydroelectric plant in the world. Gamble and the authors of Rivers of the Asian Highlands highlight the Gravitational Potential Energy (GPE) of the Himalaya that allows falling water to be converted into electricity. But GPE also unleashes landslides, rockfalls, avalanches, Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) and Landslide Lake Outburst Floods (LLOFs), the risks posed by them magnified by climate change and seismicity. <blockquote>The Asian Highlands’ abundance of Gravitational Potential Energy (GPE) can support the region’s energy transition, but it needs to be produced in much less hazardous and less environmentally and socially impactful ways. The best means of doing this is through off-river, pumped-storage hydropower stations that back up solar and wind energy generators. Smaller projects such as this would also involve less risky tunneling and displacement.</blockquote> Rivers of the Asian Highlands: From Deep Time to the Climate Crisis by Ruth Gamble, et al. There is geological evidence that megafloods on Himalayan rivers are more responsible than mass wasting in weathering down the mountains. One big LLOF, for example, could ‘move 1,000 times more sediment than would otherwise be transported over millions of years’. Permafrost melting in the Tibetan Plateau and inside moraines caused recent back-to-back GLOFs in Chamoli in the Indian Himalaya, Melamchi in Nepal, and the South Lhonak in Sikkim — all deadly disasters that together destroyed billions of dollars worth of infrastructure downstream. Rivers of the Asian Highlands travels from deep time to the present climate crisis, taking readers through neatly divided chapters titled Mountain Rivers, Climatic Rivers, Frozen Rivers, Living Rivers, Human Rivers, Territorializing Rivers, Agricultural and Pastoral Rivers, even NGOs and Rivers.&nbsp; Although the book’s title is about the ‘Asian highlands’, it <a href="https://www.himalmag.com/comment/eastern-himalaya-cradle-ethnogenesis">focuses mainly on the Dri Chu (Yangtse)</a> and Yarlung Tso (Brahmaputra). Readers looking for references to Nepal’s rivers will be disappointed, although there is quite a bit about Bhutan. This is surprising because 70% of the annual flow in the Ganga is from tributaries in Nepal, some of them rivers like Karnali, Arun or Bhote Kosi that traverse the Tibetan rimlands. As demand for water and energy grows in the large and increasingly affluent population of north India, and climate breakdown melts Himalayan glaciers, storing monsoon runoff on reservoirs in Nepal is going to be the geopolitical issue of the next decades.&nbsp; The chapter on NGOs and Rivers also fails to cite the work of Nepal’s civil society groups like the Alliance for Energy that built international solidarity in 1995 against the Arun III project on a river that starts in Tibet and flows into Nepal. Ultimately, the World Bank pulled out of the project and the Nepal government invested in smaller decentralised plants. Today, a cascade of power plants are being built by Indian companies on the Arun which do not seem to have taken into account the <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads2659">2023 Sikkim GLOF</a> that swept away the $1 billion dollar Teesta III and destroyed other infrastructure. The World Bank itself is back with the Upper Arun project located directly below expanding glacial lakes in Tibet.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222020256_f2b33e60e6b386308bdf59b58b59e116e90e2e4466a06200faf76fd851f53505.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250222020256_f2b33e60e6b386308bdf59b58b59e116e90e2e4466a06200faf76fd851f53505" data-rendition-name="original" width="5712" height="3213" loading="lazy" alt="Teesta"> <figcaption>The Super Trisuli project in Nepal has ruined the most scenic and ecologically sensitive part of the river to generate just 100MW of power. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  Despite geographical gaps, Rivers of the Asian Highlands reads like an encyclopedia of Himalayan rivers. The authors look at them not in isolation but as interconnected systems which need a multidisciplinary approach to study the geological, religio-cultural, infrastructure, climate and ecosystem services aspects of catchments.&nbsp; Mt Kailash (Kang Rinpoche) is a case in point. It is fascinating to think that it was part of a mountain range even before the collision of the continents that formed the Himalaya, and was probably buried in ice 3km thick till 15,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203020_23c02ec4671f5c3c561fa6b450c1f209720a25794e067b9bb5db0f4649b1b6dc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025022203020_23c02ec4671f5c3c561fa6b450c1f209720a25794e067b9bb5db0f4649b1b6dc" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Mt Kailash"> <figcaption>Mt Kailash. Photo: NABIN BARAL</figcaption> </figure>  Lake Mansarovar and Mt Kailash are also the subject of the new Nepali language book छालबाटो (Road by the Waves) by environmental journalist <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-and-china-to-study-trans-himalayan-railway">Ramesh Bhushal</a> in which he walked, rafted and drove from the source of the Karnali in Tibet, right through 500km of western Nepal, and on to India <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/dancing-with-the-river">where the river meets the Ganga</a>. In his entourage is activist, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/rivers-fighting-back,993">Megh Ale</a>, who is on a campaign to stop dams and infrastructure on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/dams-and-dreams-a-journey-down-the-karnali">Nepal’s longest and only free-flowing river</a>. The book profiles his lonely upstream struggle to conserve the country’s rivers. “We worship rivers, but we don’t love them,” laments Ale. Bhushal’s book is as much about the landscape of this transboundary river as it is about the people he meets along the way, and their relationship with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-denial-in-the-himalaya">a river that most regard as a curse </a>keeping them poor because they believe it flows out of Rakshas Tal (Lagngar Tso) in Tibet, regarded as a lake of demons, unlike the sacred Mansarovar nearby. The expedition is out to prove that the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/a-karnali-portrait">Karnali River</a> actually starts in the mountains 50km southwest of the Mansarovar (Mapamyu Tso) at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ9Za5QDkvY">Peacock Falls (Mapchu Khambap)</a>. The Indus is called Sengge (Lion), Sutlej is Langchen (elephant) and the Brahmaputra is Tamchok (horse), all starting within 60km of Mansarovar but flowing out in different directions. <blockquote>“I have visited hundreds of rivers around the world, but for some reason I have never seen a river as beautiful as the Karnali. One day I would like to visit its source.”</blockquote> River conservation activist Megh Ale quoted in छालबाटो by Ramesh Bhusal. But all this reverence for the mountains and rivers may not be enough to save the region from the impact of climate breakdown. Heat stress in the Subcontinent will coincide with a shortage of water in the coming decades.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/himalayas-mountains-dams.html">Sunil Amrith</a> in his 2019 book, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-monsoon-and-nature-s-arithmetic">Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia’s History</a> takes a broader look at how geotectonics, geopolitics, colonialism and nationalism have determined the relations between human beings and rivers. The Himalayan water cycle starts from monsoon moisture that precipitates with orographic uplift along the mountains, atmospheric rivers unleash cloudbursts, ground water emerges from springs that join up to flow down to rivers and the ocean. The Third Pole is the biggest repository of fresh water stored as ice after the polar regions. But it is a hotspot both because of the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions, which impacts on river basin cooperation, early warning data sharing, and ultimately in mitigation of greenhouse gas emission and planning for new risks faced by infrastructure. After independence, India adopted the colonial extraction model for rivers. Inaugurating the Bhakra-Nangal Dam in 1953, Jawaharlal Nehru called it “a temple of &nbsp;modern India … worthy of worship’. Gamble also alludes to this in her book about the European attitude about rivers as a resource to be ‘enclosed, extracted, scrutinised, commodified’. <a href="https://dialogue.earth/en/water/review-unrully-waters/" target="_blank">Amrith</a> profiles the work of Sir Arthur Cotton who was building canals linking rivers in British India at about the same time his contemporaries like botanist <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/republic-of-nepal-s-animal-kingdom" target="_blank">Joseph Dalton-Hooker </a>were exploring the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-kangchenjunga" target="_blank">Teesta and other rivers</a> in the Himalaya to catalogue new plant species. India's current National River Linking Project that would join 37 rivers with 9,000km of canals builds on Cotton’s early work. <blockquote>If there is one consistent lesson in Unruly Waters, it is that water management never has been, and can never be, a purely technical or a scientific question; neither can it be addressed on a purely national scale … the battle continues to understand the monsoons and mountain rivers that shape Asia.</blockquote> Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia’s History by Sunil Amrith And in Nepal, hydropower has become the holy grail as the government unveiled an Energy Development Roadmap to generate 28,500MW by 2035 at a cumulative cost of nearly $50billion. This means no river in Nepal will be left free-flowing. The Trisuli along the Prithvi Highway is being dammed for only 100MW of power, destroying the most scenic part of a river that has rapids famous internationally for white water rafters. Even before it was completed, the dam site suffered Rs200 million in damage in last September’s flood.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203020_d9610a11bccb593d32bf4d214479caa17dfbdd6cdfe5e8c38fdcb8eb752fc0ec.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="2025022203020_d9610a11bccb593d32bf4d214479caa17dfbdd6cdfe5e8c38fdcb8eb752fc0ec" data-rendition-name="original" width="4032" height="2268" loading="lazy" alt="Trisuli"> <figcaption>Boulders and sediment 80m deep were brought down by the Teesta after a GLOF destroyed the $1 billion Teesta III plant in Sikkim in 2023. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  In Sikkim, there is strong <a href="https://india.mongabay.com/2025/02/political-stir-follows-expert-panels-approval-to-rebuild-teesta-dam-in-sikkim/">local opposition to rebuild Teesta III</a> but investors are looking at the huge economic windfall from the river as it drops from 5,000m below Kangchenjunga to 300m within 80km — one of the highest Gravitational Potential Energy of any river in the world. Besides Nepal and Bhutan, the ‘watersheds’ of the Himalaya are turning into ‘powersheds’ as India and China compete for hydro-hegemony. India is said to be planning to dam the Brahmaputra to offset the disruption caused by China’s Medog Dam upstream (see map, below).&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203024_37c60bd2a45a32cd23928c900615b6c7045b2e0265050c4761c3749361181999.png" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="2025022203024_37c60bd2a45a32cd23928c900615b6c7045b2e0265050c4761c3749361181999" data-rendition-name="original" width="1918" height="668" loading="lazy" alt="Himalayan rivers map"> </figure>  The thread running through all three books is the need to recognise the ecosystem services that the inhabitants of High Asia provide by protecting our rivers. Not all rivers need to be monetised, conserving rivers and the cultures they retain protects a nation’s natural wealth into the future as the humans of High Asia try to survive climate breakdown. The highlands will be under even more pressure in the coming decades as people in the plains migrate en masse to higher latitudes or higher altitudes to escape deadly heat and ocean expansion.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203028_524a74bf65111db3826bfd246576329c45cd4bd0a48b15024b6a520582bbf05a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="2025022203028_524a74bf65111db3826bfd246576329c45cd4bd0a48b15024b6a520582bbf05a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="River of Asian Highlands cover"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203028_20c17a9b92b11c8bb33df5f2fc2781498464288533c310ccd61e1245e709d99c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_22" data-image-id="2025022203028_20c17a9b92b11c8bb33df5f2fc2781498464288533c310ccd61e1245e709d99c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Unruly waters cover"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222030212_649cc2ba02e806da2b128fccaf5de2e5c830e10646ba0b43d56da39f65a70f9f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_23" data-image-id="20250222030212_649cc2ba02e806da2b128fccaf5de2e5c830e10646ba0b43d56da39f65a70f9f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Chaalbato cover"> </figure>

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