https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWeYy8HD4_AExactly six months from today on 21 November, 2022 the world will be glued to the media watching the kick-off game of the World Cup live from Qatar. Nepalis will be among the estimated 3 billion people across the globe tuning in.During previous games, neighbourhoods in every corner of Nepal were gripped with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-in-the-grip-of-world-cup-fever/">World Cup fever</a>. With a segregated fan base, neighbourhoods would be festooned with flags of their favourite teams with some ardent fans supporting Latin American teams while others supporting European giants.From special ‘World Cup’ haircuts mimicking their favourite football players to ardent fans turning to the divine power for their favourite team to win, the games continue to consume the country every four years.This year’s World Cup in Qatar, however, is different. For Nepalis, it is not just love for the beautiful game. It is much more personal.Nepalis have played an important role in transforming Qatar ever since it was awarded the World Cup hosting rights in 2010. The eight stadiums in Qatar where the games will be held are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/human-rights-referees-blow-whistle-on-world-cup-fouls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">built on the blood, sweat and tears of tens of thousands of migrant workers</a> from Asia and Africa, including from Nepal.They also helped build the surrounding infrastructure including hotels, roads, and the metro which were necessary for holding the games. Ram is a Nepali engaged in the construction of the Lusail stadium, where the final World Cup match will be played this year. He told us: “It seems these structures have come up virtually overnight, it is unbelievable. But I have come to realize it is all about money.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/human-rights-referees-blow-whistle-on-world-cup-fouls/">Rights referees blow whistle on World Cup fouls</a>, Kunda Dixit<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/6372188c9c7e80680e0baa4bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1273" height="581"/><figcaption>Photo: DOFE</figcaption></figure>Between 2012/13 and 2017/18, the number of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-welcomes-qatar-labour-reform/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">labour approvals issued to Nepalis seeking jobs in Qatar</a> exceeded 100,000 annually, peaking at 128,550 in 2013/14. Remittances the workers send help support their families back home.But it also comes at a cost. Most workers who went to Qatar paid high recruitment costs borrowed informally at exorbitant interest rates. Others returned home empty handed as wage theft victims. And many lost their lives, mostly to unexplained causes.In the six months lead-up to the tournament in Qatar, human rights groups are blowing the whistle on World Cup fouls, and say it is time to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/18/fifa-pay-harm-qatars-migrant-workers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/18/fifa-pay-harm-qatars-migrant-workers&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1653197319218000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2dPDlMmfw-E9XxmSxctIu6">pay up</a> for the abuses.Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI) along with other human rights groups, labour unions and international football fan groups have launched a global coalition demanding that FIFA and the Qatar government provide remedy for the abuses suffered by migrant workers.A global campaign called <a href="https://www.hrw.org/PayUpFIFA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">#PayUpFIFA</a> has also been launched by HRW, calling on the international football governing body FIFA to provide adequate remedy and to avoid the legacy of what they call a ‘World Cup of Shame’.They say that besides the Qatari authorities, FIFA also shares responsibility for the price migrant workers had to pay to make the World Cup 2022 possible. Rights groups accuse FIFA of being a ‘<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/12/18/qa-migrant-worker-abuses-qatar-and-fifa-world-cup-2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/12/18/qa-migrant-worker-abuses-qatar-and-fifa-world-cup-2022&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1653197319218000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2trr6lauKDRVwXb1B7AMX7">dismal steward</a> of protecting and promoting <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/home-workers-dead,3229" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">human rights in Qatar</a>’.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-workers-football/">The workers’ football</a>, Upasana Khadka<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/6372188e9c7e80680e0baa4cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="707" height="698">A <a href="https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2022/05/2022.05.17.Joint%20letter%20to%20Gianni%20Infantino%20re.%20remedy%20for%20labour%20abuses.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">joint letter</a> sent to Gianni Infantino (above), President of FIFA when the governing body awarded the tournament to Qatar, says it knew or should have known the risks this would pose to migrant workers welfare given the country’s poor human rights record and the ban on trade unions. And yet it did so without placing on Qatar any conditions for the protection of labour rights, they say.In awarding the 2022 World Cup without imposing any conditions to avoid foreseeable labour rights abuses and subsequently failing to take timely and effective preventive measures, FIFA is accused of contributing to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/world-cup-stadium-workers-in-qatar-unpaid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the widespread abuse of migrant workers</a> on World Cup-related projects that followed.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/diaspora-diaries-1/">Diaspora Diaries 1</a>, Nepali Times<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218909c7e80680e0baa4djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1201" height="629">To be sure, after international media spotlight, Qatar has introduced labor reforms including removing requirements for exit permits to leave the country, allowing workers to legally change jobs and introducing minimum wages.But the rights groups say that these reforms were introduced too late, and were too little to address abuses, and too lax in their enforcement. They are said to look good on paper but have translated poorly to practice.Consequently, there are still reports of unpaid wages, high recruitment costs, deplorable living conditions, and death including from heat stress. It was only a decade after being awarded the hosting rights for the World Cup, that Qatar last year introduced strong heat stress regulations that prohibit outdoor work when the wet-bulb globe temperature exceeds 32.1 degrees. The previous legislation that prohibited work during certain hours of the day even when temperature could be dangerously high beyond those hours.However, this much needed reform came only in 2021, when much of the construction work including building stadiums and surrounding infrastructure were already completed and when many had suffered adverse health consequences doing outside work in the dangerous heat.There have been at least 37 deaths of migrant workers at World Cup construction sites. But many more thousands have also lost their lives during construction of other infrastructure for the World Cup. Visuals of bodies coming home have been a common sight, leading to social media outrage and a recurring theme in news reports. In Kathmandu, the coffins arrive on flights from Doha, and the same planes take off with more migrant workers to Qatar.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-qatar-job-mirage/">The Qatar job mirage</a>, Nepali Times<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218939c7e80680e0baa4ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="937" height="421">Families were left in the dark about what killed their loved one because the deaths were not investigated. 'Died in his sleep’ (सुत्दा सुत्दै मर्यो) has become a colloquial Nepali term and the fatalities were attributed to ‘natural causes’.Mostly, there was nothing natural about them – they were a result of overwork, heat stroke and official apathy. The Nepal government’s compensation scheme from the Worker’s Welfare Fund has been a lifeline for many families of the dead, although those without valid labour permits were ineligible for support. The government also provided free transportation of the coffins back to their villages, which soon became a thriving industry for private companies.At a press conference on 18 May at the launch of its campaign on remedy for migrants, Human Rights Watch screened a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWeYy8HD4_A" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DVWeYy8HD4_A&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1653197319218000&amp;usg=AOvVaw32jaO1wCBkt2fDWeWF243e">video </a>capturing the stories of Nepalis who could be potential beneficiaries of such a remedy fund.This includes Mairul Khaitun and Manju Devi, widows of migrant workers struggling to make ends meet and continuing to repay loans that their husbands took for the jobs in Qatar that killed them. According to Khaitun, they gave only his remaining wages to the family after her husband's death."If someone helps me, I will be able to eat properly, live decently. Without help, how can I educate my children?" she asks.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/world-cup-stadium-workers-in-qatar-unpaid/">World Cup stadium workers in Qatar unpaid</a>, Nepali TimesDevi, another widow, says: "You ask, how is it going? Well, it’s just going. We eat whatever we can find and get."FIFA or Qatar cannot do much to undo the emotional and financial toll of the loss of lives and livelihoods as those faced by Khaitun and Devi, but rights activists say the remedy fund would provide some respite to the struggling families.Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said: “Migrant workers including Nepalis suffered serious harm preparing for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. As part of FIFA’s human rights responsibilities, FIFA should work with Qatar and others to set aside at least $440 million, the same amount as the prize money provided to World Cup teams, that can be used to compensate abused workers.”Remedy is one of the pillars of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights that FIFA adopted in 2016. It has the resources and the responsibility, and should not leave behind victims or their families as the tournament fast approaches.“We know FIFA has the money — they are expected to make $6 billion in revenue for the Qatar World Cup. They can at least dedicate the same amount of money they are paying to football teams with millionaire athletes to address the serial wage theft and unexplained deaths scores of migrant workers faced,” Page added.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/home-workers-dead,3229">Home they bring the workers dead</a>, Upasana Khadka<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218959c7e80680e0baa4fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1366" height="614">A recently launched report <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/MDE2255862022ENGLISH.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/MDE2255862022ENGLISH.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1653197319218000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1GCnIKLUl5wVweRdFW9XG_">Predictable and Preventable</a> by Amnesty International says the remediation program should be governed in a participatory way following consultation with stakeholders including migrant workers, surviving family members, and trade unions.It needs to be easily accessible to workers and families, many of whom will no longer be in Qatar. The report points to examples from other remediation programs such as those designed for victims of Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh.FIFA says that it is currently ‘evaluating the proposal’ for the remedy fund. But rights groups say there is need for those with leverage over FIFA, including football associations, fans and sponsors, to ensure victims of abuse are provided adequate reparations. Football associations have found themselves under increasing pressure to speak up. And a few have set good examples.Most recently at the FIFA congress in Doha, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/01/no-beautiful-game-without-rights-qatar" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/01/no-beautiful-game-without-rights-qatar&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1653197319218000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0iWHweuH0FZZCKYvMgp93e">Lise Klaveness</a>, the Norwegian FA President, called out FIFA’s failure to protect human rights when selecting Qatar to host the World Cup, urging it to ensure that migrant workers injured and families of the deceased are cared for.Tim Sparv, a retired Finnish footballer who showed solidarity with the global campaign for remedy call on social media had previously written a compelling piece calling on players to engage more actively, ‘<a href="https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts/tim-sparv-finland-world-cup-2022-qatar-soccer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts/tim-sparv-finland-world-cup-2022-qatar-soccer&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1653197319218000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2x7HPfH2GBbq5r_s15b04k">We need to talk about Qatar</a>’.“I was unaware of what was really going on in Qatar. I tend to look at big organisations like FIFA and just assume that they know what they’re doing,” Sparv said.Multiple teams including from Norway, Germany and the Netherlands have worn human rights jerseys during matches to protest against migrant rights abuses in Qatar.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/death-of-nepali-migrant-workers-in-qatar,1592">Sudden death</a>, Pete Pattisson<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-must-now-send-skilled-workers-to-qatar/">Nepal must now send skilled workers to Qatar</a>, Nepali Times<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218989c7e80680e0baa50jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="750"><figcaption>A homemade flag of Brazil hanging over a street in Bhaktapur in 2018. Photo: MONIKA DEUPALA.</figcaption></figure>As the tournament draws close and the cheers begin, the next six months will see increased pressure on FIFA and the Qatari authorities from fans, players and sponsors to ensure that workers harmed to make the tournament possible are adequately compensated.By speaking up, fans from countries like Nepal where the workers are from also have an important role to ensure that families like that of Khaitun and Devi get some support.As the country prepares to deliver the World Cup and host over 1.2 million visitors, migrant workers who form over 95 per cent of the Qatari workforce will again be indispensable. But there is <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/29/10-questions-journalists-should-ask-fifa-and-qatari-authorities-about-rights-abuses" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/29/10-questions-journalists-should-ask-fifa-and-qatari-authorities-about-rights-abuses&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1653197319218000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3cUB5molP_y_wNTZmn0rb3">danger</a> that many will again be short-changed.Migrants including Nepalis will be serving as waiters, security guards, housekeepers and drivers, among others during the tournament. Rights group warn that just as in the construction phase of the World Cup when stadium workers who formed less than 1.5 per cent of the total labor force were held at higher standards, only those service sector workers in luxury hotels or football training sites will be held at higher labor standards. The rest, who will also be serving World Cup visitors, might continue to fall between the cracks.With the tournament drawing close, and as construction projects wrap up,  the country is also said to be preparing to send back many workers on long leaves or for good. The worry is that the demobilisation plan may mean workers will be sent back without all their dues being cleared.Citizens of Nepal and other south Asian countries toiled to transform the country from a desert to the gleaming state-of-the-art stadiums, accommodation and other infrastructure as it prepares to host the most popular global sporting event in the world.Rights groups say that had Qatar followed through on its promises for reform and granted workers their basic rights, the World Cup would be viewed much differently -- national pride at having helped enable the tournament that unites the world.Instead, there is a bitter aftertaste about the last decade when scores of workers tied to the World Cup suffered due to the complacency of their own governments, the Qataris and FIFA. Many citizens of Nepal and other countries paid a high price for making the World Cup 2022 possible.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/fifa-a-chance-to-improve-welfare-of-nepali-workers-in-qatar/">FIFA a chance to improve welfare of Nepali workers in Qatar</a>, Upasana Khadka<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-welcomes-qatar-labour-reform/">Nepal welcomes Qatar labour reform</a>, Upasana Khadka<a href="https://www.hrw.org/PayUpFIFA">Human Rights Watch Remedy Fund Campaign</a>

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#PayUpFIFA campaign launched

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161148/636d1e059c7e80680e0af3e9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1501" height="1000"/>Exactly a year from now on 18 December 2022, the world will be glued to the media watching the final game of the World Cup live from Qatar. December 18 will also be <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/migrants-day" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">International Migrants Day</a> as well as Qatar’s National Day.For Nepalis, the 2022 World Cup is personal. The eight stadiums in Qatar where the games will be held are built on the blood, sweat and tears of tens of thousands of migrant workers, including from Nepal.“There is lots of excitement here in Doha with the FIFA Arab Cup that is going on,” says Ram, a Nepali construction worker from Dang district who worked on the impressive Lusail Stadium where the finals will be played on 18 December next year. “It seems these structures have come up virtually overnight, it is unbelievable. But I have come to realise it is all about money.”Ram himself makes $274 per month. Although it is a raise from the $206 he earned when he first started four years ago, he had to pay $1,000 to a recruiter in Nepal for the job. There are hundreds of thousands of Nepalis like Ram, the unknown builders of the impressive infrastructure. Lusail Stadium does have a wall full of photographs of some of the workers who helped build the stadium.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-days-of-international-migration/">The Days of International Migration</a>, EditorialBut Ram and migrants from other countries may have perhaps felt a deeper sense of pride to be associated with the World Cup had they been treated with more dignity, paid on time and in conditions free of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/home-workers-dead,3229" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/home-workers-dead,3229&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1639713374238000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0UO_qQXo_rc9m3mSCaKu3r">exploitation and abuse</a>.In an online media briefing on Wednesday organised by Human Rights Watch (HRW), researchers said that although labour laws are relatively better in Qatar, things have not improved on the ground, and there is pushback from construction contractors working on World Cup infrastructure.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161148/636d1e079c7e80680e0af3eajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="455" height="286">"Qatar's legal framework is better than other countries' in the region, but the conditions on the ground are still bad. If they want to be a role model as they claim, much more needs to be done to protect workers rights," said May Romanos of Amnesty International.Qatar won the bid to host the World Cup a decade ago and has been on a massive construction spree. After <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-welcomes-qatar-labour-reform/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-welcomes-qatar-labour-reform/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1639713374238000&amp;usg=AOvVaw04tX5ly4i4sB_YfYnlcsz5">international media spotlig</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-welcomes-qatar-labour-reform/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-welcomes-qatar-labour-reform/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1639713374238000&amp;usg=AOvVaw04tX5ly4i4sB_YfYnlcsz5">ht </a>in 2018 it promised to reform labour conditions, but there are still reports of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/world-cup-stadium-workers-in-qatar-unpaid/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/world-cup-stadium-workers-in-qatar-unpaid/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1639713374238000&amp;usg=AOvVaw271Oj55fgeZRSvzESgOBPb">unpaid wages</a>, high recruitment costs, deplorable living conditions, and death from heat stress.There have been at least 30 deaths of migrant workers at World Cup construction sites, rights group say, 18 of them unexplained. In Kathmandu, the coffins arrived on flights from Doha, and the same planes took more migrant workers to Qatar.‘Died in his sleep’ (सुत्दा सुत्दै मर्यो) has become a colloquial Nepali term and the fatalities were attributed to ‘natural causes’. Mostly, there was nothing natural about them – they were a result of overwork, heat stroke and official apathy.Nepali workers were dying in Qatar, but they were also dying to work in Qatar. And therein was the conundrum. The money they earned building stadiums in Qatar, helped them build homes for their families back in Nepal."At least 70% of the deaths are unexplained which is not acceptable, especially in a country with such an advanced health system,” said Nicholas McGeehan of the rights group FairSquare. “Being a migrant worker in Qatar today is really bad for your health, and can kill you."Rameshwar is from Sarlahi district and works as an electrician in Qatar. He supports a Brazilian football team, works at a labour supply company. Like many other Nepali workers, he is worried that he will be sent home in 2022 before the FIFA games begin.“They mostly want to keep the maintenance workers, and might send everyone else back,” he says on the phone from Doha. “I am worried I will lose my job. How will I provide for my family after I return?”To be sure, Qatar cannot be singled out for blame. The exploitation of workers by unscrupulous recruiters and harassment by officials starts back in Nepal, even before workers leave home.At a time when construction for the World Cup was going full swing in Qatar, the ambassadorial post in Doha was vacant from 2013-17 when migrant abuses, including sudden deaths of Nepali workers, was at its peak and getting worldwide attention.Then, Prime Minister Deuba’s government recalled <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-must-now-send-skilled-workers-to-qatar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Narad Nath Bharadwaj </a>without naming his replacement, at a time when the need for labour diplomacy in Doha was most critical.And this year, Nepal and Qatar <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/qatar-police-recruitment-row-hits-nepalis/)" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/qatar-police-recruitment-row-hits-nepalis/)&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1639713374238000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1BlPr22LANN53NlkWnrTNk">bungled a lucrative employment deal</a> to supply the Qatar Police with 200 Nepalis. They would have earned Rs180,000 a month, excluding overtime pay and end-of-service benefits. Unscrupulous authorities and recruiters knew that desperate Nepalis would be willing to pay under the table. But things got so messy that all 200 job orders were cancelled.“Everyone wanted a piece of the pie until there was no pie left at all,” said one activist.Nepal has also failed to fulfil its promise of reintegrating workers who had to return due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Schemes like the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/missing-the-plot-in-nepals-job-scheme/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/missing-the-plot-in-nepals-job-scheme/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1639713374238000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1ZBnwLE_9JIp2B10Q7kd7h">Prime Minister's Employment Program</a> introduced with much fanfare have failed to deliver.There are reports that Qatar could be planning to send back many construction workers on extended leaves, including Nepalis, before the games begin in the stadiums and facilities they helped build.“Even if they let me stay, it is not like I could afford the tickets to go watch the games in the stadium,” says Rameshwor. “I will watch it on the TV screen.”There will be many Nepalis in the hospitality sector who will look after players and visitors in Doha during the World Cup, and workers are hopeful that there will be future projects they can engage in.But international rights watchdogs say the world’s attention is going to wane once the games are over and the media glare shifts. They say not a single worker died during construction of stadiums in London for the 2012 Olympics, and there is no reason why Qatar with its resources could not adhere to similar safety standards.“Despite Qatar’s PR offensive and sportswash, there is an urgent need for real and durable reforms because workers continue to suffer <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/world-cup-stadium-workers-in-qatar-unpaid/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/world-cup-stadium-workers-in-qatar-unpaid/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1639713374238000&amp;usg=AOvVaw271Oj55fgeZRSvzESgOBPb">wage abuse</a>, employers avoid accountability, complaints are ignored,” said Hiba Zayadin of Human Rights Watch.Meanwhile, back in Nepal, politicians are already in election mode, and will be too preoccupied with their campaigns during 2022 to pay attention to migrant welfare. There are already lofty claims about how in the next five years, if they are elected, they will curb migration and create jobs back home.Most Nepalis have heard all that before, and the trust deficit is so high that out-migration to Qatar and elsewhere seems like the more reliable – and for many, the only – alternative.The government should immediately ensure that Nepal’s embassies in destination countries for migrants are adequately staffed and funded. It could diversify out-migration towards better, higher paying jobs, and use bilateral labour agreements like the one with Qatar that is currently being renewed for better worker protection.

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Rights referees blow whistle on World Cup fouls

Home Minister Sudan Gurung resigned on Wednesday following increasing coverage of and criticism over his investment in companies linked to controversial Nepali business figures Sulav Agrawal and Deepak Bhatta, who are currently under investigation for money laundering.
‘I am resigning from the position of Home Minister effective today to ensure impartial investigation into matters associated with me, and to make sure that there is no conflict of interest,’ Gurung wrote, saying that morality and public trust mattered more to him than office.
Gurung ended his message to the nation in English as he invoked the security forces, writing: &nbsp;‘For my country and For the respect of our security forces and For the youths of Nepal.’
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Gurung has become the second member to depart the Cabinet, serving for less than a month, despite the Nepali electorate’s hopes that Nepal would finally get a stable government after the RSP’s sweeping victory in the March elections.&nbsp;
Prime Minister Balendra Shah had sought clarification from Gurung on Wednesday after new details emerged about his shares in two micro-insurance companies, Star Micro Insurance and Liberty Micro Life, which are said to have been issued their licence by the Nepal Insurance Authority at the behest of Bhatta and Agrawal.
Gurung denied financial misconduct, saying that his investment in the two companies was included in his asset disclosure and insisting the misunderstanding is because of how the shares have been categorised.&nbsp;
Leaders within the RSP had called for an internal investigation into Gurung as they sought to maintain the party’s platform of clean governance and transparency. As such, Gurung’s position had become increasingly untenable, especially since former Labour Minister was sacked without being given an opportunity for clarification over a disciplinary breach involving his wife’s appointment to the Health Insurance Board.&nbsp;
On social media, Sah on Tuesday seemed to express dissatisfaction over the PM’s request for Gurung’s clarification.&nbsp;
Judging by the comments under Gurung’s resignation post, a significant part of the Nepali public seems to be firmly on Gurung’s side, blaming the mass media and what they call mouthpieces of old parties for driving him out of the Cabinet.&nbsp;
This is a reflection of his meteoric rise and the continued support he has maintained since he stepped into the spotlight as the leader of Nepal’s youth movement in the aftermath of the September protest.&nbsp;
Gurung has made headlines constantly ever since he burst onto the national stage, which includes questions over the degree of his and his organisation Hami Nepal’s involvement in the September 9 unrest, calls to divulge details behind Hami Nepal’s finances, and not paying five years of rent for an illegal lakefront property in Pokhara.&nbsp;
There have also been unsubstantiated claims, despite Gurung’s denial, about his ‘ties’ to the Free Tibet movement, which has made the Chinese— as well as Nepalis— wary.&nbsp;
As Home Minister, Gurung cultivated an image of a tough but approachabe leader, overseeing a series of high-profile arrests of previous political leadership and business figures even as he posted photos of sleeping in a sofa in his office, and engaged with the public on the streets and on social media.&nbsp;
As it stands, the Home Ministry was a bone of contention between Shah and RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane before it was awarded to Gurung, who is a close ally of PM Shah. Analysts had noted that with Gurung in charge, the Home Ministry would be a hook for Shah if Lamichhane, with his share of controversies, stepped out of line.&nbsp;
Following Gurung’s resignation, the Prime Minister’s secretariat has said that the PM would take charge of the portfolio for the time being. But it will be interesting to see if and how fresh negotiations for the Ministry unfold within RSP.&nbsp;
And with his supporter base largely intact, it remains to be seen how much of an impact this setback will have on Sudan Gurung’s political aspirations.&nbsp;

Home Minister Sudan Gurung resigns

Sudan Gurung is dancing. It is 2009. He has an emo fringe falling over one eye and is spinning on a polished floor. His dance shows dedication — moves that take years of bruised elbows to land. The clip is 16 years old, and had been sitting in the dead archives of YouTube and old Facebook pages, watched by almost nobody. This month <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@4gr4j/video/7621892206902725909">it has 1.9 million views</a>. Gurung became Home Minister on 27 March and resigned on Wednesday, barely a month into office. His<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@aayvik/video/7626069452177542408"> pre-political life had been put back into circulation</a> at industrial speed -- the b-boying, the DJ sets, and the YouTube video of him dancing in a music clip.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026042202040_71df4d531423e7c941abde95fb8106346c70ab0afb71bbeb520cc570f14ba178.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026042202040_71df4d531423e7c941abde95fb8106346c70ab0afb71bbeb520cc570f14ba178" data-rendition-name="original" width="2300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit"> </figure>  The youth of Nepal, well-versed in snappy TikTok edits and aura compilations, turned the archive into a meme economy almost overnight. TikTok remixed the footage to trap beats. The comments settled on a nickname that crossed into everyday speech within days: 'Homie Minister'. <div class="embed-block"><blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@yalexthwreal/video/7622325255792512276" data-video-id="7622325255792512276" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;" > <section> <a target="_blank" title="@yalexthwreal" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@yalexthwreal?refer=embed">@yalexthwreal</a> <a title="sudangurung" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/sudangurung?refer=embed">#sudangurung</a> new home minister of Nepal😎 <a title="fyppppppppppppppppppppppp" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyppppppppppppppppppppppp?refer=embed">#fyppppppppppppppppppppppp</a> <a title="sudangrg" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/sudangrg?refer=embed">#sudangrg</a> <a title="home" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/home?refer=embed">#home</a> <a title="minister" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/minister?refer=embed">#minister</a> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - •⪨н є α я т ❤н α ¢ к є я ⪩• - Music Universe 🎧" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-•⪨н-є-α-я-т-❤н-α-¢-к-є-я-⪩•-7308733170064231170?refer=embed">♬ original sound - •⪨н є α я т ❤н α ¢ к є я ⪩• - Music Universe 🎧</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script></div> As Home Minister, Gurung was in charge of the Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, Department of Immigration, and the country's internal security apparatus. Calling him 'homie' collapsed the distance between that office and the Discord server where the movement that brought him into power had organised itself. What is harder to explain is why the nostalgic clips did the narrative work for Gurung's political standing right up until the moment the paperwork did not. A teenager on a dance floor in a Thamel club, filmed before smartphones had decent cameras, was functioning as political currency for a powerful home minister, while a share registry was quietly filling the other column. The footage was not an argument. Gurung was not doing anything in it that related to home affairs. He was just dancing. The comments compared him to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@4gr4j/video/7621892206902725909">Korean film heroes</a>. A separate <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@tandavyt7/video/7622151050128018708">48,000-like edit</a> was captioned 'Our New Home Minister Aura'. The replies were full of people saying they got chills listening to him speak. Even after his resignation, most comments on his Facebook page were supportive, saying he had been punished for pursuing truth and justice.&nbsp; Political legitimacy in Nepal has been built out of many things over the last 70 years, but it has never been built out of this. The question was always: what happens when the job starts demanding things his style, boldness, and swag cannot provide. Political aura in Nepal used to be a slow harvest, now it isn't. B P Koirala spent eight years in prison under the Panchayat. He wrote fiction at Sundari Jal. The writing survived, the prison sentences survived, and that experience became the template for what a serious Nepali politician looked like: someone the state had tried to break and failed. Legitimacy was accumulated by having their lives taken away, and refusing to bend the knee. The old mechanics of legitimacy produced politicians who could be audited. The record was made of words, dates, votes, and years behind bars. A voter who wanted to know what a leader stood for read his writings. A journalist digging for inconsistency could find it. The system was slow, often corrupt, and frequently boring. But boring was part of the job description. A minister was supposed to be slightly dull — evidence that the person was doing the unglamorous work of reading files and sitting through committee meetings. Today, boring is a disqualification. The attention economy rewards velocity and visual charge, and a politician who cannot generate either does not exist in the feed, and that means does not exist at all. The legacy parties are still issuing press statements criticising the new guard in the grammar of paper trails and procedural failure. But the audience has stopped reading, users scroll for their next viral bite. Sudan Gurung, unlike the old parties, understood exactly which grammar the feed rewarded. On his first evening as Home Minister, he posted a photo of himself sleeping on a sofa inside the ministry. Caption: creation cannot be greater than the creator, government is not above the people. The image travelled further in 12 hours than any ministerial press release has ever done.&nbsp; A minister napping on a sofa, phone-shot, zero production, read by the public as evidence of a minister who had skipped the motorcade and got straight to work. Gurung used Facebook to announce the names of former ministers and businessmen he intended to arrest. The feed was used to pre-announce state security action.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260422010456_2fa1918e1dd031d01f38b4001ee306d9414073cec0b795fa43a75cb5a8deb8c7.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20260422010456_2fa1918e1dd031d01f38b4001ee306d9414073cec0b795fa43a75cb5a8deb8c7" data-rendition-name="original" width="926" height="868" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit"> </figure>  INFLUENTIAL INFLUENCER This is not how the Ministry of Home Affairs has ever operated. It is how a YouTuber releases a series. Sudan Gurung was a political content creator. As home minister, he was an influential influencer kinetically doing something in the visual medium. Much like Prime Minister Balendra Shah's sunglasses, Gurung's aura, authenticity and swag were a brand asset, instantly recognisable at thumbnail size. Balen's rap career supplies a pre-political archive that authenticates him the same way Gurung's DJ sets and b-boying clips authenticated him. The aesthetic is doing the work a manifesto used to do. The work is authenticity, and the strategy is auramaxxing. The emo fringe predates the ministry. The DJ sets predate Hami Nepal. The b-boying predates the earthquake, the NGO, the September uprising, the interim cabinet, all of it. Whatever Gurung is now, he was already that person before the office existed. This was the real spectacle of the Homie Minister: authenticity. Nepal's youth have grown up watching heavily-polished, talking-point ministers speak in a language aimed at nobody in particular. But that grainy archival clip of the Home Minister from 2009 was honest.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260422010456_5d6dff3a09e8b7e77dc60c3aa567c9e02b6bd5f90f94e20737ec05cc9a09023b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260422010456_5d6dff3a09e8b7e77dc60c3aa567c9e02b6bd5f90f94e20737ec05cc9a09023b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1800" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit NT"> </figure>  The effect transcended GenZ. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ektapokharel/video/7623242573481561365">A TikTok trend</a> captioned NOT ONLY OUR HOME MINISTER, WE ARE ALSO FROM THAT ERA <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@sonykhadka/video/7624106790266948872">has millennials posting their own</a> archive photos from the same period, aligning themselves with Gurung's pre-political aesthetic. The aura did <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@_thakuri/video/7623397397556645141">cross-generational work</a>. It was a shared legibility, spanning at least 15 years of Nepali youth culture, with the Home Minister standing at its centre.&nbsp; The traditional politician's entire adult life is a performance of identity. Every photograph is lit for the media, every statement is vetted. The persona is the product, and the product has been in development for 30 years. This makes the old guard legible but suspect in the attention economy. A generation raised on authenticity-as-currency reads the decades of careful performance as evidence of something to hide. The polish is the problem. The nostalgic Sudan Gurung party clips inverted this. The polish was absent. The footage could not be performance aimed at the viewer, because the viewer did not exist in 2009 and neither did the political stakes. The clip was therefore read as real, in a way a press conference can never be. It was just a kid dancing, and he happened to grow up to be the Home Minister. But Sudan Gurung's job was never to go viral. The Ministry of Home Affairs requires the person running it to file a complete asset declaration and to avoid holding financial interests in crony entities.&nbsp; None of that work is content. A correctly filed asset declaration does not get remixed into a trap beat. A functioning immigration database is not a TikTok. The paperwork that constitutes actual governance is structurally boring in exactly the way the old parties are structurally boring, and for the same reason. It is the slow, procedural, checkable apparatus that the old system was built to produce and that the new system has not yet learned to replace. And it is painstaking follow-the-money paper trail investigative journalists in the legacy media who uncovered the evidence. You cannot auramaxx your way out of a share registry. You cannot post your way past a conflict-of-interest statute. No amount of fire outfits and wild DJ transitions does anything for you when a journalist pulls the initial shareholder list of Star Micro Insurance and finds your name at number 49, with Rs2.5 million in shares alongside investors linked to Deepak Bhatta and Sulav Agrawal — two men currently at the centre of a Rs 3.7 billion money laundering investigation. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@blox.drop/video/7622173520981658900">Auramaxxing was engineered</a> for the mechanics of reaching office. It is the reason Sudan Gurung became Home Minister and Gagan Thapa did not. The question that had not yet been tested, until this week, was whether the same weapon works when the terrain changes. The terrain does change when you assume power. This week, the answer arrived. TWO CLOCKS Two clocks had been running, and they did not sync. The first clock was built for auramaxxing. A clip posted at eight in the morning peaked by noon. A sofa photo was remixed before the minister had left the building. The feedback loop is fast and legible, and a politician playing this clock gets real-time data on what to post next. The old guard never learned to read it, which is a large part of why they lost the election. The second clock was the one the ministry actually runs on. It measures in quarters, court calendars, and the slow grind of investigation files moving between offices. A share registry takes weeks to pull. A money-laundering case moves at the speed of the prosecutor's office, which is to say, it often does not appear to move at all, until one morning it does. The legacy mass media is fed leaks, and the second clock does not care whether the minister is currently trending. The two clocks collided this week, and the second clock got there first. Faster than anyone expected. The first clock put Gurung in the Home Ministry in weeks. The second clock put him out of it in less than a month. On Sunday evening, Diyopost and Janaastha published documents showing Gurung as a founding shareholder in Star Micro Insurance and Liberty Micro Life — companies licensed by the Nepal Insurance Authority in 2022 following what reporting identified as political lobbying by Bhatta and Agrawal. A photograph also surfaced of Hami Nepal, the NGO Gurung chairs, honouring Bhatta as a donor on 21 December 2021. Gurung's first response was auramaxxed. A Monday Facebook post distinguishing ‘rumours’ from ‘facts’, insisting the shares were disclosed within his broader Rs20 million securities portfolio, promising to cooperate with any investigation. "Allegations and truth are not the same thing," he wrote. "Decisions should be based on evidence, not sentiment." It was a coherent clip, but it did not stop the clock. By Wednesday, Prime Minister Balendra Shah had sought written clarification. Leaders within the RSP itself were calling for his resignation. The opposition Nepali Congress had framed the question as one of democratic transparency.&nbsp; Gurung resigned, posting his decision to Facebook as he did everything else. Ethics, he wrote, hold more weight than any position. There is no power greater than public trust. He ended in English, invoking ‘my country … the respect of our security forces … the youths of Nepal’. Even the exit was content. And this is the asymmetry the office exposed. A politician whose legitimacy is built on fast 30 second videos is structurally exposed to a process that runs slower than the news cycle, because the archive of aesthetic proof was not engineered to answer documentary evidence.&nbsp; It was engineered to displace the demand for documentary evidence in the first place. When that demand returns, as it always does once a politician takes office, the digital archive keeps performing, but the documents keep getting uncovered. And the two tracks do not communicate. The old guard knew this clock because they had no other clock to know. What they lost in charisma they gained in durability: a politician built over 20 years of parliamentary record is harder to dislodge with a single document because they have already survived thousands of documents. The new guard has not been stress-tested against its own paper trail. Sudan Gurung has now been tested, and the test is over, and the template has been written in his exit rather than his survival.&nbsp; A politician can enter office on the strength of a dance clip, and the same class of evidence — share registries, company filings, founding-shareholder lists at number 49 — that would have ended the career of a politician in a previous era of Nepali politics has ended his. The second clock got there. The feed did not save him. Or not entirely. Because the resignation itself is now in the feed. The Facebook post. The 46 brothers and sisters. The epic sign-off. Within hours of stepping down, Gurung had already re-enrolled his exit into the same register that put him in office. The clip of the Home Minister dancing in 2009 is still in circulation. The sofa photo still reads as sincerity. The investigation into the micro-insurance shares will move at the speed of Nepal's prosecutor's office, which is to say, at a speed the feed has long since outrun. The movement that installed Gurung in the name of ending elite capture has had its answer about whether its own hero is subject to the same audit it demanded of everyone else. He walked — or was walked — before the audit ran its course. The resignation was framed as moral choice rather than forced exit, and the framing is already winning. Whether that framing holds is the next test. Auramaxxing, it turns out, is a weapon that works in one direction only: it got him the job, and when the documents arrived, it did not save him. But it may yet save the person. These are not the same thing. If the technique is wounded, it is not yet dead. The next Nepali politician with a pre-political archive and a phone is watching how Gurung exits, not just how he entered. And the answer is: you exit the same way you entered: on Facebook. In your own voice. Before anyone else writes the caption. Whether he comes back is the thing to watch. Whether the technique does is already decided. &nbsp; &nbsp;

When Aura meets Audit

At 6 feet and one inch, Hira Bahadur Ghalan was exceptionally tall for a Nepali. In 1936, when people came to his Tamang village near Tistung looking for porters, they recruited him on the spot. This was no ordinary job, Hira Bahadur would lead gangs of 30 or more porters to carry cars bought by Rana rulers from Bhimphedi to Kathmandu.&nbsp; Those were the days when the only motorable roads in Nepal were in Kathmandu, but the capital was not connected to anywhere else by road. So, before cars could carry people, people had to carry cars. More Nepalis had carried cars than ridden in one. The porters were paid Rs5 for the job, and sometimes the Rana owners gave Hira Bahadur a Rs25 baksheesh. One of the cars his community helped carry was a 1939 Daimler Benz gifted by Adolf Hitler to King Tribhuvan to woo Nepal away from the British. The rusted dusty vehicle is now in the Narayanhiti Palace Museum.&nbsp; Hira Bahadur hauled cars for 25 years until his knees gave way, he died at age 90 eight years ago — the last surviving car porters of Nepal from Chitlang Valley.&nbsp; Hira Bahadur Ghalan had three sons and three daughters, one of them is Maila Kaji Lama, who at age 68, is a chauffeur in Kathmandu. His son, Manjil Lama is a pilot with Summit Air, flying to remote Himalayan airstrips. Three generations of one family worked in professions that followed a century of transportation history in Nepal. &nbsp; After the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-long-and-winding-road-to-india">Tribhuvan Rajpath was finished in 1957</a> and the ropeway upgraded, Hira Bahadur was out of a job. He tilled the family farm, watching trucks and buses headed to and from Kathmandu on the hairpins.&nbsp; As a child, Maila Kaji was fascinated by cars and wished one day to be able to drive one. After he failed Grade 8, he came to Kathmandu in 1975 and got a Rs20/month job at a petrol station in Maiti Devi. “I watched King Birendra’s coronation and was impressed by the glamour of Kathmandu, and decided to stay here,” Maila Kaji says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041816040_a1a41e47dec8500727702f700e43af625f059043cbcd283f13b247344b3a20aa.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2026041816040_a1a41e47dec8500727702f700e43af625f059043cbcd283f13b247344b3a20aa" data-rendition-name="original" width="1974" height="1608" loading="lazy" alt="car carriers"> <figcaption>Maila Kaji</figcaption> </figure>  Former minister Ramesh Nath Pandey used to bring his Volkswagen Beetle to the station, and Maila Kaji started taking care of his car. Later, he drove a Russian Jeep for former minister and geographer Harka Gurung. Along the way, he fell in love with the daughter of a Brahmin colleague, and married her. “My father back in Tistung did not approve of our inter-ethnic marriage, and not speak to me for five years,” Maila Kaji recalls. Manjil Lama grew up in Kathmandu, and did well in science in school. He had wanted to go the US to become a pilot like his friends, but was denied a visa.&nbsp; “The visa officer told him I did not earn enough,” says Maila Kaji, “so I sold some property and sent Manjil to flying school in the Philippines.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041816040_e9091162840baa6d182de2d7cc6f09e43ec9cfd9a9b6e71e7e7b14bc72da3537.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026041816040_e9091162840baa6d182de2d7cc6f09e43ec9cfd9a9b6e71e7e7b14bc72da3537" data-rendition-name="original" width="1434" height="1754" loading="lazy" alt="car carriers"> <figcaption>Manjil Lama</figcaption> </figure>  After returning to Nepal, Manjil Lama now flies Let 410s of Summit Air to difficult air strips like Lukla and Simkot, and has logged over 2,000 hours. He has to go to the Czech Republic regularly for simulator training. Says Maila Kaji Lama: “My father worked hard carrying cars to raise us, I started from scratch to become a driver to support my family, and my son is now a pilot with experience in flying in the world’s toughest terrain.” &nbsp; Watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvT3iTi8yw4" target="_blank">video clip from S Dillon Ripley here</a>.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260419020448_40f8b1bdaace08106ca5c24819b6e7a34fb2109a9a3ec5c6ac179b3309e686ed.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260419020448_40f8b1bdaace08106ca5c24819b6e7a34fb2109a9a3ec5c6ac179b3309e686ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="900" height="1582" loading="lazy" alt="car carriers"> </figure>

Grandfather carried cars, son drives cars, grandson flies planes

Only 70 years ago, Kathmandu was the isolated capital of a country that had no modern surface transport link with the rest of the world.&nbsp; The idea of building a road to connect Nepal with India actually first came up during the last years of the Rana regime, after the British had left India. Construction actually began in 1952, and the serpentine route took five years to complete.&nbsp; Named Tribhuvan Rajpath, after the reigning king who initiated it, the alignment was from Thankot (1,301 m) at the western edge of the Kathmandu Valley to Nagdunga, Naubise, Tistung, Palung, Daman, Sim Bhanjyang (2,504m), Lamidanda, and Bhainse.&nbsp; At Bhainse, the highway joined the existing road to Bhimphedi and it was another 31km to Hetauda and Amlekhganj. There was a railway line between Amlekhganj and Birganj.&nbsp; After regular bus and truck service from Raxaul to Kathmandu began in 1961, the entire road popularly became known as the Tribhuvan Rajpath.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_a11b48a75c7877a0f68634f8be07d26a3f354e78ebd9adddc7d17252fddf1d1b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026041610044_a11b48a75c7877a0f68634f8be07d26a3f354e78ebd9adddc7d17252fddf1d1b" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>The village of Chitlang on the main route to Kathmandu before the Rajpath was built. In the distance is the Chandragiri ridge above Thankot. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  <h2>Chronology&nbsp;</h2> (Based on US State Department cables and media reports) November 1945: Gen Bahadur SJB Rana asked an American official if a road could be constructed from the Indian border to Kathmandu. Nepal wanted such a road built across the mountains after first constructing an East-West artery road in the Tarai, and the government was interested in purchasing US surplus war equipment. Gen Rana inquired if there were US firms who could conduct a survey. April 1947: The Nepal government told a US official it was important to upgrade the 20-mile trail from Bhimphedi over the mountains to the Kathmandu Valley into an all-weather road and sought an estimate from the US for doing so. May 1948: Bijaya SJB Rana informed a US official that a survey for a one-lane motor road between Kathmandu and the Tarai had been completed. The road was to follow the Bagmati River to Makwanpur, then connect at Bhimphedi with the road to Amlekhgunj. The road from Tripureswor to Bhainse along the Bagmati River and via Bhimphedi would have been about 60km. (The distance from Kathmandu on the Tribhuvan Rajpath is 122 km.)  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_bb531baf5d73e00d2032814ac8abb86979a87d781abc066fcb984997aad930e6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2026041610044_bb531baf5d73e00d2032814ac8abb86979a87d781abc066fcb984997aad930e6" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>The road climbing the hills toward its destination of Kathmandu. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  July 1948: The government decided to go ahead and build a motorable road from Amlekhganj to Thankot and complete it in two years. December 1948: Construction of the motor road from Kathmandu to Amlekhgunj via the Bagmati River corridor was started. April 1949: Gen Singha SJB Rana told a US official that the motor road from Kathmandu to the Tarai and the Indo-Nepal border would be completed by the spring of 1950. February 1950: Nepal sanctioned Rs300,000 to make the 6-foot-wide road from Kathmandu along the Bagmati River to Hetauda. Of this, Rs100,000 was allocated for road-building material and machinery. Subsequently, the road would be developed into a broader motorable road at a cost of Rs7.5 million. February 1952: Nepal’s budget speech noted that a plan was underway for a road between Bhainse and Kathmandu. PM Matrika Prasad Koirala laid a foundation stone near Teku for construction of the ‘Kathmandu Hetauda Roadway’.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_e66d3b81848ec19da48be8b41cacfa8b8e2bad093719b39eda27755c9616ea9a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026041610044_e66d3b81848ec19da48be8b41cacfa8b8e2bad093719b39eda27755c9616ea9a" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Rajpath winding its way north of Bhainse. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  February 1952: A party of Indian engineers came to Nepal to determine the best route for a road from Raxaul to Kathmandu. March 1952: Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru told Parliament: “So far as India’s security is concerned, we consider the Himalayan mountains as our border.” Ministry of External Affairs official (S.N. Hakar) told a US official that the Indian government was willing to proceed with constructing the Raxaul-Kathmandu road and had sent a survey party to determine the most suitable mountain route. May 1952: Swiss experts had made surveys for a proposed new road between Bhimphedi and Thankot. Nepal government requested financial help to build the road, and India was considering the project.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_35e390c1a4812f45af7892d681230e04c63727d9006b6614ed79aaa7c22c1ece.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026041610044_35e390c1a4812f45af7892d681230e04c63727d9006b6614ed79aaa7c22c1ece" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>With a constant stream of trucks, buses and jeeps, the narrow Rajpath once was Nepal's busiest highway. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  Summer 1952: Work on a new road was at a standstill, so Nepal asked India for assistance. Indian engineers surveyed two routes: one following the Bagmati River, the other road through Daman that was later adopted. July 1952: Nepal’s Ministry of Planning decided to construct a road between Kathmandu and Raxaul, awaiting Cabinet approval soon. Prime Minister Matrika Koirala said the proposed road was longer than necessary, but it was a better route ‘for strategic reasons’, because it did not require many bridges. August 1952: King Tribhuvan said road construction from Kathmandu to Bhimphedi would “begin soon”. September 1952: An Indian Military Team began construction of the Kathmandu-Bhainse road without a formal agreement being signed with the Nepal government.&nbsp; February 1953: The Indian Ambassador said the road would be hard surfaced within a year. September 1953: Prime Minister Matrika Koirala inspected the completion of a ‘jeepable track’. December 1953: The road was named ‘Tribhuvan Rajpath’. April 1954: Reports circulated that Swiss engineers criticised the alignment, arguing it would have been easier, faster, and cheaper to build over the existing foot trail between Bhimphedi and Thankot through Kulekhani. July 1954: Heavy monsoon rain damaged much of the roadway that had been built.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_b5b2a1833f1366e532f1629f47c124d877df7b6f8a34b6c83f6c21ec3e4415dd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2026041610044_b5b2a1833f1366e532f1629f47c124d877df7b6f8a34b6c83f6c21ec3e4415dd" data-rendition-name="original" width="855" height="1123" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Crown Prince Mahendra inspecting construction progress on the Tribhuvan Rajpath in October 1954. Photo: ROYAL PALACE</figcaption> </figure>  November 1954: The Indian ambassador said flood damage was so great that the road would be delayed by two years. May 1955: Twenty military trucks brought rice from Amlekhganj to Kathmandu on the Tribhuvan Rajpath. King Tribhuvan died in Zurich. December 1956: A gravel road was completed, with trucks and buses plying between Amlekhganj and Kathmandu. December 1956: Nepal government abolished regulations that required Nepali nationals to carry permits for travel within Nepal, except for women below the age of 45. 1957: Reduction in price of goods carried to Kathmandu by truck: Sugar, Rs0.13 per kg. Wheat flour Rs0.13 per kg. Kerosene Rs0.25 per litre. February 1957: An article in The Motherland newspaper in Kathmandu noted urgent action was needed to avoid Kathmandu being cut off from the Tarai during the monsoon. The correspondent wrote, ‘In a recent journey from Amlekhganj I found that almost all the bridges are in a very bad state…Now, because of the dry rivers the scores of vehicles that ply the road cross the rivers on the water level. But during monsoons… these rivers will be impossible to cross without bridges. On the road itself, landslides and big holes have made the journey a great undertaking.” April 1957: The first regular passenger bus left Amlekhganj at 12:30PM and arrived in Kathmandu completing a journey of 14 hours.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_60807e067f2d0b80bdc5e59860e9bc240b495ef606efc9301ef54ea5731d42df.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2026041610044_60807e067f2d0b80bdc5e59860e9bc240b495ef606efc9301ef54ea5731d42df" data-rendition-name="original" width="5211" height="4000" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Daman, one of the highest points on the Rajpath, often saw snow in winter. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_baac4747267c751ab7b0e5ef24697fb5001c4c55e04a82d92c89282bd01a325c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2026041610044_baac4747267c751ab7b0e5ef24697fb5001c4c55e04a82d92c89282bd01a325c" data-rendition-name="original" width="648" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Travelers could view the Himalayas from a view tower at Daman. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  June 1957: Eight thousand Nepali workers and about 500 Indian Army personnel were at work on the road.&nbsp; 30 June 1957: India officially handed the road over to Nepal. India had spent INR32.5 million on the project.&nbsp; January 1958: The road from Amlekhganj to Bhainse was upgraded. July 1961: The gravel road from Raxaul to Birganj was blacktopped. Trucks began transporting goods from Raxaul directly to Kathmandu, avoiding the need for transshipment from train to truck in Amlekhganj, or use the ropeway from Bhimphedi. 1961: Passengers could travel from Raxaul to Kathmandu in a day, whereas it took a week by train to Amlekhganj, bus to Bhimphedi and then on foot. September 1962: Nepal’s 3-Year Plan aimed at broadening and black-topping the road between Bhainse and Raxaul, bypassing the Chure tunnel, and constructing several bridges along the route. 1963: Travelers going to Kathmandu by land: Road, 158,000, Nepal Government Railway, 66,500. Railway passenger service ended in June 1965.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_2a95eb144dad74271a0fa3a27fab6b45bbab0a1c4be59d21120ad14c08e258fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2026041610044_2a95eb144dad74271a0fa3a27fab6b45bbab0a1c4be59d21120ad14c08e258fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1344" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>A bus providing ‘deluxe service’ in 1963 is ready to leave Amlekhganj for Kathmandu. Note the railway tracks of the Nepal Government Railway. Photo: RON ELLIOTT</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_d02013692e84d6add7a6e0ce66c2b552cd53bb084db2aa8df0593bbcf84c2c04.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2026041610044_d02013692e84d6add7a6e0ce66c2b552cd53bb084db2aa8df0593bbcf84c2c04" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1352" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Vehicles found it difficult to pass on many parts of the Rajpath in 1963. Photo: RON ELLIOTT</figcaption> </figure>  1965: Tribhuvan Highway was considered a useful addition to Nepal’s economic infrastructure, but it could not act as a prime mover in the nation’s economic development. It did play a major role in the 1960s in transporting material and equipment needed to implement development projects in the Kathmandu Valley. September 1966: Nepal took over maintenance of the Tribhuvan Rajpath from the Indian Aid Mission.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_5488ba1e92f6395ff882392ccbaef2270622632682eccb412d8de7b128f6f397.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="2026041610044_5488ba1e92f6395ff882392ccbaef2270622632682eccb412d8de7b128f6f397" data-rendition-name="original" width="1764" height="1184" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Trees still lined the Rajpath near Thankot in 1967. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  1971: A UN-Nepal study said the best alignment for an alternative road was from Kathmandu, Pharping, Kulekhani, Bhimphedi to Bhainse. 1975: Nepal's Department of Roads’ engineer concluded: ‘The Tribhuvan Rajpath has been built without design speed consideration… The pavement was not constructed to any designed standard… irrespective of quality of material, and later the road was black topped without consideration of traffic intensity and load-bearing capacity of sub-base… utilisation of low-quality material in the Bhainse-Thankot section… Quality control was neither maintained in Bhainse-Thankot nor the Bhainse-Raxaul section. Local materials were used irrespective of their quality to complete the work in the earliest possible time and in the cheapest possible manner. Brick work was done in negligible quantity. Cement used was ordinary portland cement…’ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_26c74f45991efb3dc29d616e8acafb3163661ae6573c5314538e59c54d5ca0a5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2026041610044_26c74f45991efb3dc29d616e8acafb3163661ae6573c5314538e59c54d5ca0a5" data-rendition-name="original" width="2368" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Bhainse in 2017. The road divided here, one going to Bhimphedi on the right, the main road proceeding to Kathmandu on the left. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260416100416_4d9321abf4d912796842fe963a493501e1aceff462300ecdd9bd5e0b8ba7f294.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20260416100416_4d9321abf4d912796842fe963a493501e1aceff462300ecdd9bd5e0b8ba7f294" data-rendition-name="original" width="649" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="Highway info NT"> </figure>  Even 70 years after it was built, there is still speculation about India's security concerns vis-a-vis China, and how Indian Army engineers purposely made the road longer than it needed to be over the 2,500 Sim Bhanjyang pass instead of following the river route.&nbsp; There is also some evidence that although the Rana regime had first requested the US for help with the highway, Nehru did not want the Americans involved in Nepal. Which is why the Tribhuvan Highway became an Indian military project.&nbsp; There was similar concern from India about the Kodari Highway linking Kathmandu to China, and King Mahednra is famously supposed to have said: "Communism will not come here in a taxi."&nbsp; Geopolitics still affects Nepal's strategic highways. After decades, links to China are still rough and often blocked. Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track is delayed by years, and not expected to be completed during this decade. Trucks and buses still bypass the Tribuvan Highway with a 200km detour via Mugling because the other alternative routes like the Tika Bhairav or Chhaimale routes are not suitable for heavy vehicles.&nbsp; The shortcut through Chitlang that the Swiss proposed in the 1950s is still too difficult. And a 25km section of the Japanese-built BP Highway to the eastern Tarai has been knocked out by the 202 flood. Dan Edwards was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1966 and is the author of several books on Nepal. This is the fourth instalment in a new limited series in Nepali Times on the historic transportation infrastructures of Nepal.

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