<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218519c7e80680e0baa36jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1342" height="671"/>To make a country great again, one prerequisite is that citizens must respect their leader.The Chinese people hold President Xi Jinping in high regard, and his country is now a super-duper power. Or take Prime Minister Shree Modiji, it is because of the veneration of his citizens that he has been able to completely modify India.And then, the esteem which the DPRK people have for their Dear Leader Marshall Kim Jong-un is what has allowed North Korea to attain the pinnacle of progress and test its own hypersonic intercontinental missile.And here in Nepal, how do we treat our leader? We show disrespect for our prime minister, and run him down every chance we get. Like it or not, he is our Shree 5-time prime minister, so show uncle some respect even if he is not a rapper.Take <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/deuba-and-modi-meet-in-lumbini/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Modi-Deuba get-together</a> on the occasion of Buddha Jayanti on Monday. But on social media, Nepalis poured scorn at their own prime minister, poking fun at the way he sat, his enunciation, his gait, how he watered plastic flowers, and the way he yawned.What most people do not know (and the following is a closely guarded military secret because of its vital importance to Nepal’s national security so don’t go blurting it to everyone in public) is that this was all an elaborate ruse. Prime Minister Deuba deserves the highest medal of valour in the land, if not the Oscars in the Best Supporting Actor Category.It was pre-planned that Arzoo was the decoy and Nepal’s Prime Minister would look bored with the entire proceeding so as to upstage Modiji with a better photo-op. It was a masterstroke in planning and execution on Deuba’s part, and we have to thank the PMO for briefing him so carefully to just be himself.Modi had also planned his optics meticulously so that he sat cross legged at Maya Devi Temple with hands folded in a reverent namaskar, eyes closed, and deep in meditation. But that was no match for Deuba’s posture, which was a hybrid between the sukhasana cross-legged yoga sitting position and a latrine squat. This was a well-calculated move on Deuba’s part to steal the spotlight from Modiji, and make him look like a grumpy old man.In other photographs of the event, Deuba is on the verge of dozing off, eyes glazed over and his mind elsewhere — probably on how to make Renu win again, if she loses once more. This is a deliberate defence tactic that a much smaller country uses to throw off the leader of a larger neighbour by not giving it the attention he thinks he deserves.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/quid-pro-quo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Body language</a> is important in international relations, and passive-aggressive Deuba’s message was: “Who cares?”But the coup de grâce (not to be mistaken for coup d’état) was The Great Yawn. With that one gesture, Deuba achieved the equivalent of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/beginning-of-the-end-of-the-gorkha-empire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Gorkha conquest of Kumaon and Garhwal</a> and allowed Nepalis to hold their head high once more, and show the world that we will not be pushed around.

Ass s

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

The Great Yawn

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d63f9c7e80680e031472jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1020"/><figcaption>Minister of Foreign Affairs Pradeep Kumar Gyawali and Indian Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri sends off India PM Narendra Modi, who was in a two-day state visit to Nepal, at Kathmandu Airport on Saturday. Pic: RSS</figcaption></figure>Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrapped up his two-day whirlwind visit to Nepal on Saturday, flying from the plains to the mountains, worshipping at famous shrines, meeting politicians, and giving four rousing speeches. But observers said the visit was high on symbolism, but not much on substance.By offering prayers at the Janaki temple, Muktinath and Pashupati, Modi has been able to woo Hindu voters ahead of India’s general elections next year. He has also sent across a message to critics at home that his ‘neighbourhood first’ policy is not failing.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/campaigning-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Campaigning in Nepal</a>, Editorial<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-political-pilgrim/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A political pilgrim</a>, Om Astha RaiModi was campaigning in Nepal — to woo voters at home, and also to restore Nepal-India relations badly bruised by the Blockade.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6429c7e80680e031473jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3600" height="2400"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>But what did Oli gain? He perhaps got Modi’s promise that New Delhi will not create trouble for his government, and will support him even if Maoist Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal parts ways. He has also established himself as a national leader in Province 2 where he was widely despised.However, observers note, Oli has lost much of the political capital he had made out of standing up to India. He has lost the nationalist credentials he garnered during the Blockade and elections. Oli is a Modi-fied man.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/modis-himalayan-marathon/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Modi's Himalayan marathon</a>, Om Astha RaiModi’s visit to a shrine near the China border was a message to Beijing: Kathmandu is still within New Delhi’s sphere of influence. Modi also persuaded Oli to felicitate him on behalf of Nepalis in Janakpur and Kathmandu despite widespread resentment among most Nepalis for the blockade.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6459c7e80680e031474jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Early this week, a group of civil society members met with Foreign Affairs Minister Pradeep Gyawali, urging the government to felicitate Modi only on the government’s behalf. Bibeksheel Sajha party put up black banners at its headquarters, saying Nepalis have not forgotten the blockade yet. On social media, Nepalis asked Modi to apologise for what they say was a crime against humanity.But neither Modi nor Oli paid any attention to what Nepalis were saying and went ahead with the program. Instead, police tore down banners at Bibeksheel Sajha and arrested students staging a hunger strike to put pressure on Modi to say sorry to Nepal.After two days of political meetings and pilgrimages, Modi has been able to send across multiple messages: he cares for Hindus, is loved by not just Indians but also Nepalis, Kathmandu is closer to New Delhi than to China and Nepal-India ties have been reset.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6489c7e80680e031475jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="814" height="528"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>However, except a reiteration of commitment to push forward Kathmandu-Birganj railway, inland waterway and agriculture and a few token grants, Modi’s Nepal visit has yielded no substantial results.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dam-it-its-all-about-the-water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dam it, it's all about the water</a>, Om Astha Rai<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/oli-modi-launch-arun-iii/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Oli-Modi launch Arun III</a>When Foreign Affairs Minister Gyawali was in Janakpur early this week to take stock of preparations for Modi’s visit, he told journalists that railway, waterway and agriculture agreements will be signed in Kathmandu. But there was just another understanding on these issues, but not a single agreement. The two PMs did lay the foundation stone of Arun III by switching on a remote in Kathmandu, but that project has been struggling to get going for ten years.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d64b9c7e80680e031476jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="900"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Modi began his second day by flying to Muktinath, a sacred Hindu-Buddhist shrine at an altitude 3,710m. Clad in a red downjacket, he performed a special puja at the holy site,  where he is believed to have meditated as a young pilgrim in 1979.Trekkers were barred from going up to and descending from Thorung La, a popular pass for hikers, for security reasons. Modi wanted to visit this temple near the China border and  Janakpur where he arrived on a direct flight from New Delhi on Friday.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d64e9c7e80680e031477jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="682"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>This was his third visit to Nepal in four years, and he had wanted to do this pilgrimage during the 2014 SAARC Summit. But the Nepali Congress government at the time had refused to allow Modi to make the side trip, fearing that it would polarise Nepalis at a time when the country was gearing up to promulgate the new Constitution.Analysts say Modi took that rejection as a personal affront, and tried to prevent Nepali leaders from pushing through the Constitution in September 2015 citing Madhesi resentment. He also imposed a five-month blockade on Nepal, which was devastated by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake.In the wake of the Indian blockade, Prime Minister K P Oli had played the nationalism card to the hilt, signing a trade and transit treaty with China reducing Nepal’s dependence on India. An alliance between his UML party and the Maoists won a near two-third majority, riding the nationalism wave.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6509c7e80680e031478jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="682"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>But Modi seems to have been able to charm Oli out of China’s embrace, inviting him to New Delhi last month, and visited Nepal at Oli’s invitation just five weeks later.Modi was not expected to apologise directly for the hardships created by the blockade. But in every speech he made in the past two days he praised the Nepali people for their resilience after the earthquake, and for conducting three elections last year to set a new federal democratic structure in place. Modi left with many soundbites: “I am not a Prime Minister, I am a Pilgrim Minister.” Or “Nepal and India are not just two countries, they are two democracies.”Only time will tell if his charm offensive this time has worked, like it did in his 2014 address to Parliament.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6539c7e80680e031479jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1080" height="743"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>

A Modi-fied Oli

<img width="506" height="318" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6389c7e80680e03146fjpeg.jpg" alt=""/>As the Kathmandu intelligentsia debates whether New Delhi has realised its mistake of blockading Nepal or not, there is a growing call for Nepal to correct its own past mistakes on past hydropower projects.  Indian PM Narendra Modi on Friday remotely la​id the foundation stone of Arun III, a 900MW project being built by ​the Indian public sector firm Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam in eastern Nepal. But experts say Nepal’s first export-oriented electricity scheme could be a losing proposition for ​the country​.      Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/campaigning-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Campaigning in Nepal</a>, EditorialThey say Nepal would benefit much more to meet its own suppressed demand for electricity instead of exporting it. Studies have shown that the consumption of 1 kilowatt of electricity makes the GDP  grow by Rs 91.Water resource analyst Ratna Sansar Shrestha calculates that Nepal could earn more than Rs 9,100 billion in 25 years from the multiplier effect of domestic consumption of Arun III electricity. But Nepal will be exporting 78% of Arun energy production to India, and be deprived of downstream benefits of the energy on ​its own​ economy.   Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/modis-himalayan-marathon/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Modi's Himalayan marathon</a>, Om Astha Rai <figure><img width="819" height="538" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d63a9c7e80680e031470jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As Modi and Oli patch up after last year’s elections in which Oli capitalised on the perception that he had stood up to India during the Blockade, there are also concerns about how Nepal will safeguard its national interest on water resources​ from now on.​Back in 1996, it was Oli himself who persuaded his UML party to support the controversial Mahakali Treaty which was said to have cheated Nepal of water rights.​And in 1993 the UML government at the time vehemently opposed the Arun project which was pushed by the World Bank before it pulled out.​Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-political-pilgrim/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A political pilgrim</a>, Om Astha RaiGiven what a political hot potato talking about building high dams on the Kosi or Karnali can be at a time when there is so much mistrust in Kathmandu, Modi and Oli are cleverly using the term ‘waterway’ as a code word for ‘dam’.Reservoirs in Nepal would be useful for monsoon flood control and lean season augmented flow of Indian rivers for irrigation and inland waterways.This could be why Oli is suddenly obsessed about making rivers navigable, and Modi talks about connecting Sagar (Mt Everest) to Saagar (Ocean) through inland waterways.​The argument is that inland waterways would bring the Bay of Bengal right to the Nepal border and allow Nepal access to the sea. Oli appears to be transfixed with the idea of flying the Nepali flag on its own merchant marine.​"Nepal will not benefit from making Indian rivers navigable," Shrestha explains. "Modi is trying to persuade Nepal by saying it will have access to the sea and will no longer be landlocked so that Nepal will not drive a hard bargain for compensation for inundation.” ​Om Astha Rai​Read also:<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/reservoirs-of-suspicion/hydropower-geopolitics%20,3991" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reservoirs of suspicion</a>, Om Astha Rai<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/storing-water-reservoir-Nepal,1042" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Storing water</a>, Bishal Thapa

Dam it, it's all about the water

New and old, businessmen and former diplomats, engineers and academics — they have all been trooping to the Election Commission to register political parties ahead of the Sunday deadline.
Till press time Thursday, five new parties had been registered and 21 new parties were in the process of applying. Behind the scenes, new parties are head-hunting, well-known figures are shopping for parties to join, while older parties are splitting or uniting to form new united parties.
“It is reason for optimism that people are enthused to form new parties,” notes political analyst Indra Adhikari. But, she adds, this does not mean that despite the celebrity status they will win votes and succeed in politics.
The outlier in all this are the Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, which are still licking the wounds after being swept out of power by the GenZ protests in September. Neither are too keen on elections because of the prospect of losing badly.
Former prime minister K P Oli is the most recalcitrant, and seems to want to scuttle elections so Parliament will be reinstated. After announcing that he was stepping down, the NC’s Sher Bahadur Deuba has had a change of heart in Singapore and is gunning to restore Parliament.
Neither party and their leaders have shown any remorse for the 8 September massacre, or understood the outrage on the streets against their decades-long incompetence and corruption. &nbsp;
Among those registering parties are various GenZ youth groups and family members of those killed during the September protests. Notable among the new parties certified this week was Gatishil Loktantrik Party (गतिलो) backed by Buddha Air founder Birendra Basnet and led by sociologist Dinesh Prasai. Dharan Mayor Harka Sampang’s Shram Sanskriti Party is also registered.
Energy and Infrastructure Minister in the interim government Kulman Ghising has backed the Ujyalo Nepal with former secretary Anup Kumar Upadhyaya as its chair. Ghising has been playing coy about his political ambitions, and is planning to resign from his cabinet post before elections.&nbsp;
Ghising had been talking to Rabi Lamichhane’s RSP about joining, but that negotiation failed. Former RSP lawmaker Sumana Shrestha was supposed to join Ghising, but pulled out following Ghising’s reluctance to resign from government.
Ghising has much public support because he is credited with ending power cuts as head of the Nepal Electricity Authority, but is now getting flak for being unwilling to give up his ministerial portfolios while still wanting to contest elections. &nbsp;
Ujyalo has hit other snags. GenZ activist Tashi Lhazom, who was considered for a Cabinet position last month but was dropped by Prime Minister Sushila Karki, has said she is not in Ujyalo despite being listed as a Central Committee member. Another member has said that he will not be a part of Ujyalo due its “a lack of political culture”.
Even though Nepalis from across backgrounds and professions are eager to participate in the country’s new political landscape, there are doubts about the structure of their parties, ideology and electoral platforms.&nbsp;
Hurriedly set up parties without a shared philosophy have less chance of political influence and longevity. For example, the RSP was formed just months before the 2022 polls to become the fourth-largest party in Parliament, has lost its momentum, and its leader is in jail.
“Parties like the RSP, which did some positive work after being elected, have still not been able to establish a clear ideological roadmap or organisational structure,” Adhikari says. &nbsp;“It is easy to form parties, the real work goes into building an institution, which is the hard part”
Meanwhile, despite expectations of increased and inclusive youth participation not just at the polling booths but also on the ballot, only a few GenZ-led parties are applying at the Election Commission. They include the Rastriya Pariwartan Party and the Rastriya GenZ Party Nepal. Most other parties are led by men in their 40s, even in their 70s.&nbsp;
Analysts note that despite hopes of young blood in politics, Nepalis are still inclined to trust those with experience, as evidenced by GenZ’s choice of Sushila Karki to succeed KP Oli as Prime Minister after the September protests.&nbsp;
“So it will be difficult for young Nepalis without prior political experience to lead parties and it will be even more difficult for them to cultivate enough public trust to get votes,” says Adhikari.&nbsp;
Then there are the old political players, who have been breaking up and making up new alliances. Resham Chaudhary quit his Nagarik Unmukti Party and registered a new one.
Last week, Puspha Kamal Dahal’s Maoist Centre, and Madhav Kumar Nepal’s Unified Socialists merged along with smaller leftist parties to form the Nepali Communist Party (NCP). Disgruntled former UML members like Bhim Rawal have also joined the NCP. On the other hand, Janardan Sharma has fallen out with Dahal and is going his own way.&nbsp;
Even though the NC, UML and NCP show little sign that they have learnt their lesson and will be turning a new leaf, they still have the party organisation and vote banks to fall back on at election time in the runup to 5 March. &nbsp;
Says Adhikari: “At the end of the day, Nepali society remains hyper-partisan. And although the newly-formed parties and their popular candidates may give older leaders a run for their money, established parties will still benefit from their solid vote base.”

Party Time

It was pure drama: the political transition in Madhes unfolded by the dawn’s early light. At around 4AM on Monday, Province Head Sumitra Subedi Bhandari quietly departed Janakpur saying she was headed to Kathmandu for health reasons.&nbsp;
Outgoing Chief Minister Jitendra Sonal, whose coalition had begun to unravel, even saw her off, asking supporters to clear the road for her motorcade.
But an hour later, instead of continuing on to the capital, Bhandari stopped in Bardibas on the East-West Highway. There, as the sun started rising over the misty plains, she administered the oath of office to Saroj Kumar Yadav of the CPN-UML, invoking Article 168(3) of the Constitution.&nbsp;
Bhandari is also a member of the CPN-UML. The provision she invoked is typically used only after coalitions fail under Article 168(2), and the timing and location of the swearing-in have since drawn scrutiny.
Bhandari was subsequently relieved of her duties, and former National Planning Commission member Surendra Labh Karna was sworn in as the new Madhes province head on Tuesday.
Sonal had formed his government barely a month ago, with the backing of 56 provincial lawmakers but it became evident he would not secure the 54 votes needed to survive a confidence motion.&nbsp;
Several lawmakers in his coalition publicly signalled they would abstain. Still, the seven-party alliance that opposed Yadav’s appointment argues that the Province Head, who is the highest constitutional rank in the provincial structure, acted prematurely and under pressure from central UML party command.&nbsp;
A coalition of seven parties, including the Nepali Congress (NC), had been urging the Province Head to invite them to form a new government under Article 168(2). At the same time, the UML, which had been holding demonstrations outside the Province Head’s office in Janakpur, was calling for the formation of a minority government under Article 168(3).
The alliance of the seven parties that included the NC and Maoist Centre took to the streets. By mid-morning, protests had escalated outside Madhes Bhawan with cadre vandalising both the Chief Minister’s office and the Province Head’s office.
This was the third government in Madhes to fall since the 2022 provincial elections, and it follows a similar pattern. The previous Chief Minister Satish Kumar Singh of the Janamat Party, resigned before a scheduled confidence vote after losing the support of his own party and others including NC and LSP.&nbsp;
His resignation unfolded amid nationwide GenZ protests against corruption, demanding accountability and reform. The recurring instability points to a structural tension in Nepal’s federalism.&nbsp;
Provincial politics remain closely tied to alliances shaped in Kathmandu. The withdrawal of support by parties like the NC and Maoist Centre in provinces often reflects national-level calculations rather than provincial priorities.
As a result, the Provincial Assembly is repeatedly consumed by survival of the coalition instead of governance. Development work stalls. Budget execution slows. Public frustration grows. In a province that was at the forefront of the movement for federalism to counter what is seen as neglect, apathy and discrimination by Kathmandu, the sense that the system may not delivering on its promise is becoming increasingly pronounced.
If federalism is to be strengthened, provincial governments must be able to function with a degree of autonomy that currently exists more in principle than in practice. Otherwise, the perception that federalism is costly, unstable, and ineffective will continue to expand, providing fertile ground for anti-federal sentiment that is already gaining traction.
Earlier examples such as the NC General Secretary Bishwo Prakash Sharma in January calling for a new government in Madhes led by his party demonstrates how the central party leadership deliberately intervenes in provincial affairs. His remarks came during campaigns for bi-elections in Madhes when former CM Singh had been in office for six months only.&nbsp;
Likewise, in early June 2024, the federal coalition in Kathmandu shifted from a Maoist Centre and NC to form a new alliance between the NC &nbsp;and the UML. Within a day, coalition negotiations in Madhes changed to mirror this.
UML leaders publicly stated: “The issues at the federal and provincial levels will be resolved together.” This indicated that the realignment in Madhes followed national party decisions rather than provincial deliberation.
The events that unfolded in Madhes are a reminder that federalism in Nepal is still in transition, and that its success depends on political actors honouring the constitutional framework.

Chronic instability in the Madhes

The very first frame in The Lama’s Son starts with a vision of Shangrila and the quest of a mythical utopia in the Himalaya when the rest of the world is crumbling away. It is also the personal search of filmmaker Kesang Tseten, but what he finds there are adherents of the Bon Po faith clinging to the last remnants of a culture as it erodes away like the sandstone cliffs of Mustang. “It was while editing the documentary that the story became distilled: how does what we see in the high Himalaya relate to the notion of the Shangrila idyll that especially the West ascribed to them,” asked Tseten during a recent trip to Kathmandu from Berne where he now lives. He continued: “Often and perhaps rightly criticised as an orientalist construct, I wondered if there was any basis at all to the Shangrila notion, and I hung the film on that idea.”&nbsp; Tseten takes us to the vast vistas of Mustang and Dolpo, a landscape of his Tibetan ancestors. This is as much an intimate documentation of families on Nepal’s Himalayan rimland torn between remoteness and globalness as it is about Tseten’s own quest for rootedness.&nbsp; We start from Lubra, a 3,000m village in Mustang the 15 households of which follow the Bon faith. Lama Tsultrim is from a 900-year-old lineage of the animist faith and an exponent of the tradition that is slowly being subsumed first by Buddhism and now modernism. For Tseten, the material is familiar, and not at all exotic as it is for non-Nepalis and indeed for many urban Nepalis. Bon, founded in Tibet, predates Buddhism, but over time, the two religions have come to resemble each other.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113111156_ecf8148fbaa17b93c81ddfa3ed244bed266e3ef6af0cd5e6ca7b64c181b97d45.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251113111156_ecf8148fbaa17b93c81ddfa3ed244bed266e3ef6af0cd5e6ca7b64c181b97d45" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="The periphery cannot hold NT"> </figure>  ‘Both believe in karma, rebirth, and that humans can become enlightened. Nature and spirits are predominant in Bon, and rituals are what keep them benign and alight,’ says Tseten, who rarely narrates in his documentaries. “This is not really a personal film as such, but it has a point of view,” Tseten said. “I decided to have a voice-over on this one and cast my presence in the film.”&nbsp; Lubra's Lama Tsultrim is called upon to perform rituals from Kagbeni and other villages, but there is no one to continue the tradition after him, which is passed from father to son. Lama Tsultrim’s son (hence the title of the film) is a sushi chef in New York and has been gone for 20 years. “The Lama is like a setting sun, his son should come back and take over his father’s responsibilities,” says a local youngster chatting with friends. “If he dies tomorrow, where do we go? We can’t just light butter lamps ourselves to the gods.” It is not only the Lama’s son who has left. The village is nearly empty, and more are planning to leave. One of them is Chimi, a teacher who will be joining her fiancé who is an Uber driver in New York. Her brother is already in Hong Kong. In Lo Manthang a local is back home for a three-month vacation after being in New York for 12 years. A shopkeeper was in Japan for several years, and has returned. “Everything has changed, our language, our tsampa, our religion. We used to work and live together, now the children live separately,” says a middle-aged woman. “There are roads now, and vehicles stop right outside our house, but what’s the point? No one stays home.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113111156_47b4c4984fa33e42791b16dba1f078aaa7f9d8bd51ca3bfd5415b436c3a0bf2c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251113111156_47b4c4984fa33e42791b16dba1f078aaa7f9d8bd51ca3bfd5415b436c3a0bf2c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="The periphery cannot hold NT"> </figure>  Like most of Tseten’s films, The Lama’s Son is an honest documentation of a place and people whose lifestyle, culture and heritage cling precariously to the past. In Dri village we come across local women filling their buckets with water. Tseten asks them why the village is so empty: “Where is everyone?” The women reply that they are “here, there and everywhere”. Then it is their turn to ask Tseten about where he lives and what he is doing in their village. Migration is a recurring theme in Tseten’s documentaries from We Corner People, In Search of the Riyal, or Saving Dolma. His previous film Diversity Plaza documented the lives of Nepali and Tibetan emigrants in Jackson Heights in the borough of Queens in New York.&nbsp; Diversity Plaza was shown at DOC NYC in 2023, and The Lama’s Son will be one of only two Asian films shown next week at one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world.&nbsp; “The Lama’s Son is not loud, not attention grabbing but intimate, so I was surprised they chose a quiet film for a big, flashy event,” Tseten told us. In Lama’s Son, we also see how climate breakdown is impacting Nepal’s trans-Himalayan regions. Lama Tsultrim shows us the aftermath of a recent glacial flood that swept away houses and fields. The debris-covered farms are as hard as cement.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113111156_c82126a3c2dc4577b99beb9bef20aafa16f532a3f41e59caea17c93914c59fff.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251113111156_c82126a3c2dc4577b99beb9bef20aafa16f532a3f41e59caea17c93914c59fff" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="The periphery cannot hold NT"> </figure>  The nearby village of Dhey at 3,900m is a high and dry cold desert. Farmers get one crop in a year, but the springs have gone dry and there is no snow in winter. So they are relocating to New Dhey, closer to the road. We follow Kesang Tseten to Samling in Dolpo, which at 4,200m is another Bon village. Locals are preparing for the Walchu festival in which Lama Sherrab carries out elaborate rituals to appease spirits that can turn malevolent. But unlike Lama Tsultrim in Lubra, Lama Sherrab has a community of lamas to help him, including two sons, one of whom will eventually take on his role. We move on to the adjacent village of Bicher and listen in as locals talk about how despite being dirt poor, they thrive in scarcity and are resilient. “We wear sheepskin, eat stew and yak meat, and drink wine. But we are very poor, we have nothing. Look at how dirty our clothes are. We may be dirty, but we have few illnesses,” says one. But even here in Upper Dolpo, a week’s walk from the nearest road, things are changing. There are mobile phones, readymade clothes and instant noodles.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113111156_d1472165cfa9ffa6edbf72de59167e8cbddcc2bf4a7928f7830e099966259a78.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251113111156_d1472165cfa9ffa6edbf72de59167e8cbddcc2bf4a7928f7830e099966259a78" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="The periphery cannot hold NT"> </figure>  At the Walchu ritual, Tseten watches men and women with hand-woven blankets and down jackets sing and dance after the main ceremony. He narrates: “Bon is sustained by a way of life that fosters a fine but fragile balance between nature and people, where humans come before gods. This is what lies at the heart of Shangrila if there is such a thing.” The film then takes us half-way around the world to a Bon centre in New York, but (spoiler alert) the eponymous Lama’s son never appears. He did not want to be filmed, but it makes for a more powerful portrayal of the life of emigrants forever trapped between two worlds. “Bon villages may be in danger, but the Bon has spread widely across the world,” narrates Tseten, a director who likes to call his storytelling ethnographic, and avoids coming to an apt conclusion. Lama Sherrab’s words after the Walchu ritual is a perfect segue:&nbsp; “Whether you say om mani padme hum (in Buddhism) or matri mi yu (in Bon) they are the same. When you go up, it’s the same heavenly realm. If you go down, it’s still the lord of death who awaits. There isn’t a separate heaven and hell for Buddhists and Bon, it has to be the same for both.” &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025111312110_82817ef48840bb6baa1732d5b0b90c90ead2f9bd9eb0c289940fa61d8058de8d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025111312110_82817ef48840bb6baa1732d5b0b90c90ead2f9bd9eb0c289940fa61d8058de8d" data-rendition-name="original" width="7087" height="10004" loading="lazy" alt="The Lama's Son NT"> </figure>  The Lama’s Son by Kesang Tseten, 2025 Shunyata Films To be screened at DOC NYC 16 November at 2:05PM local time, Online: 17-30 November Details <a href="https://www.docnyc.net/film/the-lamas-son/">here</a>.

The periphery cannot hold

You do not have to be a climate expert or atmospheric pandit to claim that Nepal is not pulling its weight on the grand narratives of the Anthropocene. As a heavily populated ‘country-on-an-incline’ from the Tarai to the Himalaya, Nepal is a thermometer of global warming.&nbsp; Its people are human witnesses to environmental and climate breakdown, but remain mute observers to the unfolding crises. Nepal should be leading the pack at the COP30 climate conference in Belém, backed by science and lived experience. But it is doubtful that two of the most crucial climate-related subjects central to the culture, economies and human wellbeing in the Himalaya and South Asia will be discussed at the summit that started this week in Brazil.&nbsp; The first topic that should be raised at COP is Black Carbon or the South Asian Brown Cloud, made up of tiny suspended particles in the air. This is not just a transboundary health hazard, there is now enough science to make the case that Himalayan snowmelt is accelerated significantly by the albedo effect that makes ice melt faster because of reduced reflectivity. But Kathmandu has not been able to make governments near and far listen. In 2014, I wrote a short piece published in Outlook magazine explaining why India’s Prime Minister Modi looking northward from a SAARC Summit retreat in Dhulikhel was unable to see the Jugal Himal range barely 30km away. His view was obscured by the pollution layer arriving from as far away as Lahore with substantial contribution from the Delhi region. That summit itself was an opportunity for Nepal to inform the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers that much of the haze, smog, dust and soot that settles on our slopes was generated in Sindh, Punjab, Punjab, Haryana, Western UP and Delhi NCR, carried by prevailing westerly winds up to the Himalaya. The forest fires within Nepal as well as Kathmandu Valley’s pollution contribute to the haze, but the shroud that suffocates the region through autumn, winter and spring is mostly transnational. Last year, these anthropogenic fine aerosols actually curled over the Bay of Bengal and invaded the airspace of Sri Lanka and Maldives.&nbsp; Even as the soot particles accelerate glacial melt and impact everything from infrastructure to public health, the most visible effect is on tourism. Nepal’s economic future is based on tourism, and much of this relies on being able to see the snow mountains. Why should travellers go to Pokhara if they cannot see the Annapurnas?&nbsp; Hoteliers in Nagarkot have started a campaign: ‘Visit Nagarkot 2025: More than Sunrise and Sunset’. While clever, the slogan is a response to the acclaimed Himalayan vista from Everest to the Annapurnas from the hill station, now obscured by the brown curtain of haze for most of the year. As the bellwether country of South Asia when it comes to the climate crisis, Nepal must build diplomatic confidence to reach out to the governments of Pakistan and India even in their present state of antagonism. Kathmandu must launch ‘haze diplomacy’ for its own sake and for the region.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113001132_16c9941da7b31c1d4683c06dc0f8a572803240701270606848851f915140329c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251113001132_16c9941da7b31c1d4683c06dc0f8a572803240701270606848851f915140329c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1005" height="695" loading="lazy" alt="permafrost"> </figure>  IMPERMANENT FROST&nbsp; Permafrost is understood mostly as a phenomenon of the Arctic, Antarctica, Siberia and Alaska. Mountains elsewhere did not figure, though it was natural for the ground to freeze all year round at high altitudes.&nbsp; In the Himalaya, besides the snowfields and glaciers, frozen moisture binds rocks and stabilises slopes. But global warming is melting the permafrost that used to cement mountain flanks, including boulders, sand and scree slopes. Some of the debris (गेग्रान) did tumble down, but much of it remained entombed on high, thanks to permafrost. Pokhara Valley and the Seti River reaching all the way up to the base of the Annapurnas, is the best place to observe this dance of geology between gravity and the mountain range. Rubble from the collapse about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-the-seti-disaster">700 years ago of paleo-Annapurna IV </a>created the sediment field on which Pokhara is situated today. However, much of the debris from the crumbled mountain is still lodged up on and around Annapurna IV, but the binding is loosening with the warming earth. A <a href="https://www.icimod.org/event/analysing-permafrost-in-the-hindu-kush-himalaya-using-open-access-tools/">2024 report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)</a> indicates that global warming is thawing the permafrost across High Asia. Among the unintended consequences of climate breakdown is that mountains and moraines are collapsing, with <a href="https://www.icimod.org/press-release/everest-region-a-hotspot-of-cryosphere-linked-hazards-icimods-new-study-on-nepals-2024-thame-flood-confirms/">cascading impact</a> that includes glacial lake outburst floods, reduced groundwater recharge as well as winter flow in the Ganga, Indus and Brahmaputra. No one has calculated the total volume of rubble locked in by permafrost across the Himalaya. Despite the increased risk, there is accelerated construction of highways, hydropower projects, housing and tourism infrastructure across the Himalaya. While the COP conferences discuss rising oceans and receding glaciers (without doing much about it), Himalayan permafrost has been melting unremarked. In their path-breaking September 2024 <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-not-so-permanent-frost">article in Nepali Times</a>, Wilfried Haeberli and Alton C Byers argued that the extreme events of the past few years that led to mountain and moraine collapses, unleashing destructive debris flows downstream, were the result of melting permafrost. Haeberli and Byers suggest that the avalanches and floods including those of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Anatom-of-a-Himalayan-tsunami,1330">Seti (2012)</a>, <a href="https://www.icimod.org/article/understanding-the-chamoli-flood-cause-process-impacts-and-context-of-rapid-infrastructure-development/">Chamoli (2021)</a>, Birendra Tal (2023), <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772883825000251">Sikkim (2023)</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/climate-breakdown-linked-to-thame-flood">Thame (2024)</a>, <a href="https://himat.org/publication/byers-rockfall-induced-2019/">Barun (2017)</a> and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/drones-to-the-rescue-in-melamchi">Melamchi (2021)</a> were the result of the thawing of frozen ground. They say that the collapse of the lateral moraine on the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sikkim-flood-is-warning-to-nepal">South Lhonak glacial lake</a> in Sikkim on 4 October 2023 that swept away more than 100 people, destroyed the $1 billion Chungthang Dam as well as houses, roads and farms far downstream, was also caused by cloudburst on a lateral moraine that had lost its permafrost adhesive. There will be permafrost sceptics, as there have been climate change deniers. But it is time to wake up to the reality that the Himalayan peaks are no longer the immutable sentinels as regarded by humanity since prehistoric times.&nbsp; Modern society has pumped so much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere that now even the mountains are giving up. And we have not even begun to think about the bacteria and viruses locked away in the permafrost up the slope.&nbsp; Loss of permafrost adds to the cumulative impact of climate breakdown, including extreme weather events, drought and cloudbursts, heat waves in the plains affecting lives and livelihoods, creating mass migration, social unrest, and upending politics and geopolitics. The government and polity of Nepal have a duty to themselves and the larger humanity to wake up to the climate breakdown. The Sagarmatha Sambaad conclave organised by the Government in May failed to emerge as a pulpit for global warming and associated ills. Our political class, bureaucracy and academia should make up for lost opportunities to rise to the occasion and take the lead.&nbsp; Kanak Mani Dixit is writer, commentator and founding editor of Himal Southasian.