Frustrated with revolving door <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-geopolitics-of-nepal-s-politics">politics</a> with the same <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/tried-tested-and-failed">tired, tested and failed </a>leaders, Nepal’s cybersphere is harking back to the good old days when we had strongmen rulers like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/jung-bahadur-s-destitute-descendants">Jang Bahadur Rana </a>or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/king-mahendra-didn-t-pay-hunting-bill-in-us">King Mahendra</a>. The<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/inside-story-of-nepal-s-rana-dynasty"> century-long Rana oligarchy</a> ended 74 years ago this week, and the Shah kings airbrushed <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-insect-that-changed-nepal-s-history">Nepal’s history</a> to downplay their achievements and glorify their own dynasty. After <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">the monarchy</a> was abolished in 2008, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-role-of-rituals-in-royalty">the Shah kings</a> were similarly vilified. But Nepali society is mature enough to realise that the truth is not all black and white. Jang Bahadur may have usurped power in a ruthless coup, but he was a geopolitical strategist way ahead of his time. Whatever you may say about King Mahendra’s efforts in quashing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/is-democracy-too-expensive-for-nepal">democracy</a> and pushing a unitary state, he defended <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/guest-editorial/nepal-should-recognise-palestinian-sovereignty">Nepal’s sovereignty</a> and projected its international image right through the sensitive Cold War period. Jang Bahadur in England is a new Nepali language book by journalist Gajendra Budhathoki about the visit in 1850 by Nepal’s prime minister to England and France, the first by a South Asian potentate. He met Queen Victoria and by all accounts was able to establish Nepal’s presence on the world stage. Historians have long mulled why a devout Hindu like Jang Bahadur would want to break the taboo and cross the Black Waters. Budhathoki recounts the incident upon his arrival at Southampton on 2 May 1850, when British customs officials tried to check the belongings of the Nepali entourage. Furious, Jang Bahadur threatened to sail right back to France if they opened any of the bags. Jang had three main reasons for his trip. Essentially he was on a spy mission to assess <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-forgotten-gurkha-rebellion-e8z403ab">British military</a> might to decide if it was worthwhile for Nepal to try to militarily take back territory ceded to British India in the Sugauli Treaty of 1816. So, Jang asked his perplexed hosts to show him cannon factories, artillery and naval yards. He even visited Woolwich Arsenal (now the Royal Arsenal) not once, but three times.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/looking-back-at-the-1923-nepal-britain-treaty">Looking back at the 1923 Nepal-Britain Treaty</a>, Santa Gaha Magar Suitably impressed, Jang decided to be Britain’s BFF, and even rode down to Lucknow with 3,200 Nepali troops to rescue the British from the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. As a reward, the British gave back the Tarai districts of Banke, Bardia, Kailali, and Kanchanpur (Naya Muluk). This close relationship continued with Jang’s descendants right till the time the British left India in 1947. Jang Bahadur was also fed up with the Governor General Lord Dalhousie in Calcutta who tended to bully Nepal, and wanted to build direct contacts with his bosses in London. The British told him Dalhousie was their man in India, and Jang should deal with him. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-way-we-were">Jang’s visit to France</a> does not get as much attention in the book, but he was also trying to gauge France’s strength and to see if its military was more powerful than Britain’s. At that time, France was Britain’s main rival and was trying to make inroads in India. At the Louvre, Jang Bahadur was drawn to exhibits reflecting French military prowess. Later, when he met Louis Napoleon III, he asked if he could see a parade of 900,000 troops to assess France’s military might.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/nepal-france-ties-in-photos">Nepal-France ties in photos</a>, Reeti KC Freshly returned from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-long-way-to-europe">Europe</a>, an emboldened Jang Bahadur Rana led Nepal in a war against Tibet in 1855 which ended with the Treaty of Thapathali a year later. This was the third time Nepal and Tibet had fought, the first time being soon after <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/guest-editorial/Prithvi-Narayan-Shah-a-visionary-leader,1102">Prithvi Narayan Shah</a> in 1788.&nbsp; The Qing Dynasty came to the rescue of Tibet, and while both sides claimed victory, the Sino-Nepalese War ended essentially as a stalemate with the Treaty of Betrawati.&nbsp; All of this is detailed in Axel Michaels’ book, Nepal: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present which is a recent English translation of his German Kultur und Geschichte Nepals published in 2018.&nbsp; Michaels is a Professor of Classical Indology and Religious Studies at Heidelberg University, and writes that Nepal mattered little to China. Proof of this is that while both Nepal and Tibet agreed to accept the suzerainty of the Qing emperor following the war, Nepal managed to retain its autonomy but Beijing asserted its control over <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/himalaya-to-lhasa">Lhasa</a>. And despite a clause in the treaty which stated, ‘if a foreign power attacks Nepal, China shall support Nepal’, China never did so during the1814–16 war with the East India Company.&nbsp; This practice has continued to this day. Aside from token petroleum shipments, Beijing did not help out Nepal during the Indian Blockade of 2015. Even though Nepali leaders have tried to play India off against China, the two do not find Nepal important enough to fight over and prefer to leave it as a buffer state between them.&nbsp; In that sense, Britain also did not press home its victory after 1816 and left Nepal alone. The malarial jungles to the south, rugged Himalayan terrain and the lack of marketable products (except soldiers) may have persuaded the traders at the East Indian Company that it was not worth the effort. There is a lesson from history here for Nepal: the country must look out for itself, and this requires deft diplomacy to understand what our giant neighbours really want and leverage it for our gain. This may require strategies like the ones made by Jang Bahadur and King Mahendra after all. Michaels is not a fan of either the Rana or the Shah dynasties. He says that although the Rana era is characterised as ‘a century of tyranny’, the description holds true for the Shah period as well.&nbsp; Michaels does not mince his words about Gurkha recruitment into the British and Indian Armies (another legacy of the Sugauli Treaty). He calls the mercenaries ‘cheap labour’ and Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘represents a continuation of the King-Brahmin alliance’. In fact, he goes at length to discuss how the Khas-Arya used ‘Hindu state’ to homogenise a country that couldn’t have been more diverse. But democracy has not served Nepal well either. Corruption, impunity and lack of transparency are rife. And so, Michaels asks if Nepal is a failed state. No it is not, but it is a fragile state. He leaves us with these parting words: ‘If Nepal succeeds in continuing down this road, preserving its ethnic and cultural diversity, leaving the ethnic populations with a certain degree of autonomy, while at the same time integrating them into political decision-making processes, and if it manages the reforms needed for land-ownership, labour, education, infrastructure, then the country can become a model for unity in diversity, even in the age of leveling globalisation.’&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222070248_a32db0a1e39c4a3a5158af81bbcf927aeb96524bcbc6b41086a223685642b367.jpg" data-media-id="editor_17" data-image-id="20250222070248_a32db0a1e39c4a3a5158af81bbcf927aeb96524bcbc6b41086a223685642b367" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Jang Bahadur in England "> </figure>  &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222070252_e2fa5309f10d36f963243c24ea06d7d354d3dfaf24c7ef283d70369fbeabd02e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="20250222070252_e2fa5309f10d36f963243c24ea06d7d354d3dfaf24c7ef283d70369fbeabd02e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal Book"> </figure>  &nbsp;

Sonia Awale

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Nepal is not a failed state, but it is a fragile one

Nepal’s National Statistics Office finally published details about Nepal’s languages, religion and ethnicity last week. It had previously released the national report of the 12th National Population and Housing Census in March without including data on these three social demographic parameters. The new data increases the total number of ethnic communities to 142, the total mother tongues spoken to 124, and major religions number 10, similar to the 2011 census. There are now 17 more ethnic groups compared to data from the 2011 census. Twelve foreign languages from the previous census were removed, and 13 new languages added to the list of mother tongues spoken in Nepal. Only the number of major religions remains unchanged.&nbsp; The first modern census in 1952 recorded languages and religions for the first time in Nepal. A breakdown of the country’s ethnic communities was first recorded only in the 1991 census. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/whose-country-is-it-anyway">Whose country is it anyway?</a>, Editorial Interestingly, the total number of ethnic communities in Nepal has increased in each consecutive census since 1991 because of better record-keeping and greater awareness. Every census since has been doing a better job showing Nepal’s ethnic heterogeneity. But while the latest national census represents the ethnic and linguistic diversity of Nepalis, this diversity is reflected nowhere in the corridors of power. <div class="embed-block"><iframe src='https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/14059550/embed' title='Interactive or visual content' class='flourish-embed-iframe' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='width:100%;height:600px;' sandbox='allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation'></iframe></div> Nepal’s founding king, Prithvi Narayan Shah, described the country he had unified as “a garden of many ethnicities and castes” and leaders since then have extolled Nepal’s “unity in diversity”. But political and socio-cultural representation and wealth is heavily skewed in favour of men from dominant caste groups.&nbsp; The representation of minority communities in Nepal’s legislature, government and civil service is only determined by a constitutionally mandated reservation system that has a quota system for women, indigenous people and Dalits. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/counting-on-nepal">Counting on Nepal</a>, Editorial While affirmative action has meant better representation than before of marginalised groups, men in the highest rungs of power seem to believe that women and minorities are not qualified for direct elections or senior civil service positions. Indeed, indigenous and Dalit representation in politics, society and in the workforce (including the media) is tokenism at best. This was reflected in local and federal elections last year when major parties snubbed women and minorities in direct elections, and most were elected to fill quotas under the proportional representation system.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230608110656_35bdb721198f40eb2a56149282cb5459cf69e22199551aa70d010e4a684bd863.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20230608110656_35bdb721198f40eb2a56149282cb5459cf69e22199551aa70d010e4a684bd863" data-rendition-name="original" width="1051" height="814" loading="lazy" alt="Ethnicity bar"> </figure>  Marginalised communities continue to be excluded and persecuted, are victims of political and social violence while the men in power scramble to sweep such injustices under the rug. An emblematic case is the killing of Nabaraj BK and five of his friends in Rukum West three years ago because villagers discovered that he was going to elope with a ‘higher’ caste girl. Three years later, the perpetrators are still at large because of political protection. Meanwhile, even as new languages are identified, Nepali consistently has the largest number of speakers by virtue of being the official language. There has been a small growth in the percentage speaking Nepal Bhasa, but it is a small increase. In fact, Nepal is at risk of completely losing some of its indigenous languages, with as many as 23 of them having less than 1,000 speakers in 2021.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023061012064_94b76860124c005c8ba010b034f3a54332357faa90c9017d0e2df5e740dda3b8.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2023061012064_94b76860124c005c8ba010b034f3a54332357faa90c9017d0e2df5e740dda3b8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1378" height="1256" loading="lazy" alt="Languages in Nepal"> <figcaption>Languages in Nepal</figcaption> </figure>  Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/institutionalised-inequality">Institutionalised inequality</a>, Editorial More than 81% of respondents in the census said they were Hindu, followed by Buddhists, Muslims, Kirat and Christians. Despite deep anxiety among Hindu-right groups in Nepal and India about proselytisation, the proportion of Christians has increased only slightly to 1.76% and Muslims to 3.1%.&nbsp; Parties lobbying against secularism have long speculated that there is a conspiracy to undercount the proportion of Christians in Nepal to lessen the chances of a national backlash. There is also a possibility that Christians tell enumerators they are Hindu just to be safe.&nbsp; Whatever the case, there are other hints of data discrepancy. In 2011, more than 61,000 people did not state their religion, but the 2021 census shows that not a single person refused to divulge their religion. And there were zero cases of respondents choosing ‘Other’ as an option for religion. This is highly improbable. The census office had earlier said it was not possible to have a breakdown of religion and ethnicity because of ‘confusion’ among respondents who said they were from unlisted ethnicities or faiths. There was also speculation that the bureau was not issuing data deemed to be sensitive. So, the question arises: why was it suddenly possible to make the data public? Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/political-patriarchy">Political patriarchy</a>, Editorial Shristi Karki

Census or consensus?

<img width="1360" height="680" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114091156/6372037e9c7e80680e0b2811jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Ours is the Age of Angst. It is an era of anger, apprehension, fear, confusion, division, polarization, and an increasing distrust in and disdain for institutions. Thanks to the proliferation of digital technologies, we are both spectators and gladiators. We can switch roles in the blink of an eye, whizzing back and forth between the audience seats and the dry, dusty arena. Social media platforms have become the Colosseum of the twenty-first century. In these digital arenas – small and large, local and international – <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-social-media-contagion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a new fight is staged almost every day</a>, and though the contenders tend to change often, the language of loathing and mistrust remains constant. But whereas the ancient Romans were entertained by their brutal and bloody spectacles, we moderns are only made angrier by ours.The etymology of the word is important. Anger comes from the Old Norse angr, which connotes distress, affliction, sorrow, agony, hurt. Anger is directly related to pain of a kind that so many of us, East and West, now feel, though we might not express it in those terms. Underlying the shouting matches and pervasive silences, driving them, is the simple truth that we are hurting.Not that long ago, the world felt like a different place. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, optimism abounded. But it was an optimism that verged dangerously on complacency. History, many commentators maintained, could move in only one direction: linear, forward. Its arc would inevitably bend toward justice. Back then, we easily used expressions such as ‘being on the right side of history’. The underlying assumption was that tomorrow would be more democratic, inclusive, egalitarian, and interconnected than yesterday.The biggest optimists of those days were the techno-visionaries. Their buoyancy knew no bounds. Whenever they left Silicon Valley and took part in international conferences or cultural and literary festivals, they confidently assured us that information had become pure gold. It was all we needed to build a better future. With more information, and then even more, people would surely make the right political choices. The speedy spread of information would topple dictatorships and bring about much-needed social change.Sound and furyThe <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepals-e-conomy-rapidly-goes-digital/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">growth of digital platforms</a> would carry democratic ideals to the farthest corners of the world. Even those countries that were lagging behind in democratisation would sooner or later have to join ‘the civilised world’. At the beginning of the Arab Spring, this mood was so prevalent that many took it for granted that Facebook was having a positive impact on the world. Pundits and experts <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/evaluating-irans-twitter-revolution/58337/">hailed</a> the post-election uprising in Iran in 2009 as the ‘Twitter Revolution’.Around the same time, a young Egyptian couple <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Egypt_Christiane_Amanpour/egyptian-names-baby-facebook-sites-role-revolution/story?id=12964978">named</a> their newborn daughter ‘Facebook’. A few months later, a family in Israel <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-13417930">named</a> their third child ‘Like’. I often think about those kids, Facebook in Egypt and Like in Israel. What kind of a world have we given them?The spread of information of course neither guaranteed nor generated democracy. Today, there is far too much information (let alone random misinformation and malicious, systemic disinformation), but very little knowledge and even less wisdom. They are completely different things, and in focusing solely on information, we have neglected knowledge and abandoned wisdom.Information is about speed, discrete snippets of data, numbers. Between ‘numbers’ and ‘numbness’ there is more than rhythm and rhyme. When we are bombarded with so much information, we do not process what we read or what we hear. A constant overload of information gives us the illusion that we have knowledge about anything and almost everything.Little by little, we have forgotten how to say, ‘I don’t know.’ If we are unfamiliar with an issue, we can easily Google it, and in the next five to ten minutes we will be able to come up with something to say about it. And if we take a few more minutes, we can even convince ourselves that we are experts – even though those snippets of information do not amount to knowledge.How can we decrease the amount of information we deal with on a daily basis, but increase our knowledge and ultimately our wisdom? For knowledge, we need to slow down and beware of dogmas, not least our own. We need to get up and leave the audience seats and the dry, dusty arenas. Knowledge requires books, reading across disciplines, slow journalism, in-depth analyses, nuanced conversations, avoiding hasty judgment. And wisdom requires us to unite the mind and the heart. For wisdom, we need not only purely rational analysis but also emotional intelligence, empathy, a sense of humility, and compassion.We need to hear each other’s stories and pay attention to the silences.The Roots of WisdomAt the beginning of the pandemic, when Londoners were allowed to go out for walks in public parks, I started noticing signs placed here and there. ‘When all this is over, how do you want the world to be different?’ they asked. Beneath the question, passersby had scribbled their own answers, using their own pens. Someone had written, ‘When all this is over, I want to live in a world where I can be heard.’It is a sad irony that in an age when we were all supposed to have a voice thanks to digital platforms and the inevitable, unstoppable spread of liberal democracy, almost the opposite has happened. Millions of people around the world feel voiceless. Amid the deafening cacophony, they know that they are not being heard.Our daily lives are replete with negative emotions that we do not know how to process or where to channel. But we do not like to talk about it, certainly not in the United Kingdom, my adopted land, where expressing emotion is considered a sign of weakness. And certainly not in my homeland, Turkey, where many absurdly presuppose that women are emotional beings whereas men are more rational.Human beings of all ages and genders are emotional creatures. When we connect with each other, we do so through stories and emotions. What we believe in or fight for depends on stories and emotions. And what we remember and take with us even when we are uprooted and deracinated, we remember through stories and emotions.I have always regarded every emotion as a source of raw energy, like a mineral that can be processed into various forms, a metal that can be sculpted into different shapes. Rather than trying to suppress our emotions, it seems healthier, and perhaps a little wiser, to recognize their existence, talk about them openly, and create inclusive spaces where we can understand and explore how our mental health is strained.It is okay not to be okay in an age such as ours. It is okay to feel worried or displeased in the face of all that is happening. The crucial question is not whether we are angry or distressed, fearful or frustrated, but what we will do with these feelings. Can we turn raw emotions into something positive and constructive, both for ourselves as individuals and for our communities and societies?Liquid TimesAt the end of the day, if there is one thing that is far more destructive than any emotion, it is the lack of all emotion: Numbness. Indifference. Lethargy of the spirit. The moment we become so desensitized to the deluge of information that we barely register what is happening in another part of the world, or just next door, is the moment we are completely severed and disconnected from each other. And that is a far more dangerous threshold. We are at a crossroads. The decisions that we make today will have long-lasting consequences for the planet, for our societies, and for our individual and collective mental health. This might be the Age of Angst, but from here to the Age of Apathy is but a short and fateful step. We need to make sure we do not take it.Many years ago, when I lived and wrote my novels in Istanbul, I was interviewed by an American scholar who was in the city researching ‘Women Writers in the Middle East’. We had a nice conversation, and in passing, with a soft, amiable smile, she told me that it was understandable for me to be a feminist: I was Turkish, and I was in Turkey. The way she spoke made it clear that she saw no reason why she should be a feminist: she was from America, a country where women’s rights had already been achieved, and where democracy was solid, stable, and safe.Yet ever since 2016, this dualistic view of the world has become incoherent. After Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, the rise of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-message-is-the-medium/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">populist nationalism </a> across Europe and beyond, the erosion of liberal democracy, and the emergence of ‘illiberal democracies’ flirting with authoritarianism, this deep-rooted duality has lost its purchase in the minds of even its staunchest advocates.Now we know that there is no such thing as ‘solid’ countries. We are all living through liquid times, to use a term <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Liquid+Modernity-p-9780745624099">coined</a> by the late sociologist and political thinker Zygmunt Bauman. History does not necessarily advance in a linear way. If these are liquid times, it feels like the current has accelerated with the pandemic, the climate crisis, and the widening and deepening of inequalities – social, digital, racial, gender, class-based.This is a moment when we need global sisterhood, global solidarity. We need feminism everywhere, just as we need to care about human rights and freedom of speech and minority rights everywhere. Whether we are dentists, students, engineers, or poets, whatever we do and wherever we live, we do not have the luxury of apathy. From the possibility of another pandemic to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-change-is-a-disaster-in-the-nepal-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">environmental catastrophe</a>,  from cyber-terrorism to refugee crises, we have massive global challenges ahead, none of which can be solved with the rhetoric of nationalism, isolationism, tribalism, or group narcissism.We must connect with nature and understand our responsibility to our planet. We must connect with each other and strive to become engaged, involved, knowledgeable, and wise citizens. Connecting is our only way forward.While stories bring us together, untold stories and entrenched silences keep us apart. Our voices might not be heard by those in power. But we are not powerless, and we are not voiceless. We are capable of changing the world. © Project SyndicateElif Shafak is one of Turkey’s bestselling writers. Her books include <a href="http://www.elifsafak.com.tr/books/23">The Bastard of Istanbul</a> (Viking, 2006), <a href="http://www.elifsafak.com.tr/books/31">Three Daughters of Eve</a> (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019), and, most recently, <a href="https://www.elifsafak.com.tr/book/the-island-of-missing-trees">The Island of Missing Trees</a> (Viking, 2021).

The Alchemy of Angst

<img width="1440" height="798" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5269c7e80680e0966edjpeg.jpg" alt=""/>The role of women in Nepal’s socio-political landscape is still on the margins, despite decades of activism. Nepali Times interviewed MP and outspoken gender rights activist Binda Pandey about the perpetual struggle of Nepali women for recognition and equality. Nepali Times: Have the demands of Nepali women from the past century had any results at all? Binda Pandey: From as early as 1916, Yogmaya Neupane had led movements against caste-based discrimination, sati, child marriage and polygamy while pushing for the recognition of remarried widows. Mangaladevi Singh formed the Nepal Women’s Association in 1947 to present a political front for women’s demands. With the backing of the Nepali Congress (NC) and Nepal Communist Party (NCP), the Association called for equal opportunities for women in education and employment and equal inheritance rights. With the end of Rana rule in 1951 came municipal elections in 1953 and Parliamentary elections in 1959. But women’s representation was severely lacking. Only Sadhana Pradhan and Dwarika Devi Thakurani were elected into municipal and parliamentary offices respectively. The NCP didn’t even bother raising a woman candidate in 1959. Despite their role in the political struggle, women were not involved in policy-making by their political parties. Schools for women were opened and the police started receiving female cadets. But with the exception of sati being outlawed in 1920, none of the demands presented since Yogmaya’s era was addressed.Did the Panchayat system fare any better? The partyless Panchayat system banned all political groups, including women’s organizations after the 1960 coup. Other than outlawing child marriage in 1963, the Panchayat system mostly worked against the interest of women. Therefore women emerged at the forefront of the anti-establishment movement with leaders like Shailaja Acharya who led the first anti-Panchayat demonstrations, declaring that King Mahendra had “no right to celebrate democracy while silencing it”. Female candidates contested the Independent Student Union elections and were at the frontlines of the 1969 Jhapa rebellion. Women took part in the 1979 student protests, rallying against gender-based discrimination. With the creation of the All-Nepal Women’s Association (ANWA) in 1980, female leaders called for implementing equal inheritance rights, equal opportunities in education, and obtaining citizenship via one’s mother. The Namita-Sunita rape-murder became another flashpoint as women took to the streets demanding action against gender-based violence. They received underground support from student groups, trade unions and political parties. These uprisings ultimately led to the 1990 People’s Movement. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-cycles-of-revolution/">Nepal’s cycles of revolution</a>, Nepali TimesAnd were those expectations met afterwards?Women had high expectations after contributing to the success of the 1990 People’s Movement. We called for 50% representation of women in the National Assembly, drafted demands including proposals for citizenship through mother’s name, laws for strict punishment of violence against women and establishment of family courts to oversee such cases. However, the leaders ignored our proposals for change. In fact, what little progress had been made was also reversed. A provision to grant citizenship to naturalised Nepali children with foreign fathers and Nepali mothers was repealed in 1991. There was apathy towards addressing gender-based violence. I went with a delegation to the government to demand justice for two minors who had been sexually assaulted in the capital. We were ignored, and told that women had to defend themselves with chilli sprays and long nails. We realised that women needed to be in power to achieve true emancipation. A constitutional amendment increased the number of women in local level offices from 136 in 1991 to 40,000 in 1999, while 5% of all candidates for the House of Representatives and National Assembly elections were required to be women. How were demands for gender equality affected by the insurgency? The Maoists triggered a change in the perception of women. With female combatants active on both sides, the state realised that women could carry guns, too, and do what men did. Women started forging their own identities independent of men. Local Mothers’ Groups and small savings and credit groups empowered women to be financially independent. Political parties started incorporating women’s issues and a National Women Commission was set up. In a landmark decree, the Supreme Court ordered an amendment of the Muluki Ain to guarantee equal rights over inheritance for all children.But while political bigwigs post-insurgency threw their weight behind women, the outcome did not reflect that. Upon the re-establishment of Parliament in 2006, our demands for citizenship through the mother, equal ownership over family wealth, strict punishment for gender-based violence and one-third representation in Parliament were ignored. Only after we pressured then-MP Bidya Devi Bhandari to file a Public Interest Litigation was one-third participation secured on all levels of the state. After another week of agitation, the Constitutional Draft Commission included four women who pushed for equal ownership of inheritance and equal-work-equal-pay schemes. Provisions were created for access to health, employment and social security. Reproduction and priority over childbirth were declared a woman’s right. Also established were the rights of all children, regardless of gender, to ancestral property, the duty of family members towards each other and ethnicity-based citizenship from either parent. What challenges lie ahead?While democracy has increased women’s representation, policy-making is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few men despite the inclusive structure of the state. Overall, our political leaders have shown that they are good at waging revolutions against the existing system, but not changing it.True equality requires political change to go along with an overhaul of patriarchal values that affect politics. Political leaders are still unable to accept women in power, often undermining their achievements and struggles. The political establishment must realise that the support of women is crucial to their staying power, and a loss of that support could spell doom. Only then will they be spurred to act. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/women-leaders-seen-but-not-heard/">Women leaders seen, but not heard</a>, Shristi Karki

“Nepali leaders unable to accept women in power”

On Tuesday, leader of the monarchist RPP once again gathered on Kathmandu’s streets to deliver fiery speeches, but this time there was no arson and looting and no need for riot police to fire live rounds or tear gas.
RPP leaders demanded the release of their members including vice-president Rabindra Mishra and MP Dhawal Shamsher Rana were arrested during the violent <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/republicans-and-royalists-on-nepal-s-streets">28 March protests at Tinkune </a>which left two dead. 
They denounced the current leadership of the main parties, demanding the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/nepal-party-reincarnating-hindu-monarchy">restitution of Nepal as a Hindu kingdom</a>. They also said the government was responsible for the fatalities on 28 March because it provoked its rally with a tear gas attack even before it started.
It has now been revealed that the police fired at least 100 live rounds from high powered assault rifles at the crowd. Twenty-one of the 120 injured received bullet wounds, and most of them were bystanders and people trying to reach home. 
Tuesday protest on the Ring Road in Balkhu was much more subdued, and comparatively fewer RPP supporters showed up. The arson and vandalism in the previous protest appears to have cost some support for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-ghost-of-monarchy-returns-to-haunt-nepal">former king Gyanendra </a>especially for the anointment of medical tycoon and bank defaulter <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/street-politics">Durga Prasai </a>as ‘commander’ of the Tinkune rally.
Some monarchists acknowledge Gyanendra’s mistakes when was king 2001-2008, but say he has had a lot of time to reflect on his shortcomings and seems more disciplined and committed. His supporters have tried to build on nostalgia among some Nepalis for<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/why-invest-in-nepal"> domestic stability </a>and international respect that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">the monarchy</a> commanded. 
“Nepalis were promised better service delivery, opportunities for the underserved, as well as better, more honest use of state resources, but the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16992">people in leadership </a>have not been able to deliver on their commitments,” says RPP leader Prakash Chandra Lohani. “The gap between their rhetoric and reality has widened, the people feel betrayed, and the respect Nepali people had previously had for them has changed to revulsion.” 
Indeed, many commentators have warned the three main parties and their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/politics-as-usual">serial prime ministers</a> who have ruled Nepal for much of the past 30 years should address rising public anger with them, and see the writing on the wall.
‘<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-government-changes-again">The UML, NC and Maoists</a> must introspect about their conduct,” warns Gunaraj Luitel, editor of Nagarik, in an op-ed this week. ‘These leaders for life may save themselves from simmering public anger, but they will not be able to save the system. The monarchist wave can only be dispelled when citizens are assured of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-local-election-gives-power-back-to-people">better governance</a> through <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/real-world-training-for-youth-leaders">younger leaders</a>, and reforms.’ 
Rifts between radical royals who are gunning for a return to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/mob-movement-and-mayhem">Panchayat-style absolutism </a>and moderate monarchists who favour a constitutional king have also weakened the movement somewhat. The split between the RPP and RPP-Nepal cost the royalists numbers in Parliament in 2022, and both parties denounced the violence last month, albeit shifting the blame on the government.
The irony is that the same royalists who want to scrap the republican Constitution had formed electoral alliances with the UML during the 2022 elections. RPP-Nepal chair Kamal Thapa contested the 2022 election with the UML. Thapa has not taken part in the last two rallies, saying he will only be a part of a movement under a national flag, and not a RPP party banner.
For his part, the RPP’s Rajendra Lingden is said to be hesitant to censure some of his party’s more radical royalists for fear of fissure within his ranks, despite his aversion to Durga Prasai’s role. 
Analysts have questioned why <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/old-is-still-gold-in-nepali-politics">supporters of the monarchy </a>have decided to reestablish an institution that would not ultimately have executive decision-making power. There are doubts about whether authoritarian-minded Gyanendra will be satisfied being a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=13957">ceremonial king</a>. 
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-s-deja-vu-on-black-friday">Nepal’s déjà vu on Black Friday</a>, Sonia Awale
"The Nepali people will not accept <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/forgotten-woman-who-sheltered-communist-activists">an absolute monarchy </a>at this point of time, and both the public as well as <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=8371">king Gyanendra</a> are fully aware that there is no other possibility beyond a constitutional monarchy," asserts the RPP’s Lohani. “The traditional monarchy’s institutional capacity might have been enough to meet the needs of feudal Nepal, but an absolute monarchy is impossible both in concept and practice in the context of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Economic-Class/waiting-for-an-industrial-revolution,784">modern day Nepal</a>.”

New year revolutions

Besides multiple <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/republicans-and-royalists-on-nepal-s-streets">street demonstrations </a>that gridlocked Kathmandu’s traffic for the past weeks, public discourse in Nepal has also been dominated by dangerously <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/air-pollution-is-more-dangerous-than-smoking">high air pollution levels</a>. Caused mostly by hundreds of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/wildfire-season-starts-early-in-nepal">forest fires </a>raging across the country, the smoke contains suspended soot particles that harms <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/playing-with-poison">human health</a>. Thursday’s rain have cleared the air somewhat, and many people will soon forget how bad the air quality was. But the time to address the roots of next summer’s fire season is now.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250411060440_d1a119716a9031aadfdd611d299348d436842d376a03e664b8d773957a237524.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250411060440_d1a119716a9031aadfdd611d299348d436842d376a03e664b8d773957a237524" data-rendition-name="original" width="502" height="540" loading="lazy" alt="Wildfires"> <figcaption>EXTINGUISHED: Forest fires raging all over Nepal in the week after 3 March (above) reduced air quality, creating a public health hazard in Kathmandu and across the country. Each red dot is a fire detected by infrared sensors on the NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) satellite. But the rain on Thursday doused most of the fires (below) with more rain forecast over the weekend.</figcaption> </figure>  The reason everyone was talking about air pollution was because the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke"> smoke from wildfires</a> was visible. But much more toxic are the invisible and odourless <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-doubles-its-carbon-footprint">gases from vehicular and industrial emissions </a>which have always been there. The theme of World Health Day on 7 April this week was ‘Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures’ dedicated to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/saving-more-mothers-and-babies">preventing maternal and newborn deaths</a>. It is estimated that in Nepal, 30% of neonatal mortality can be blamed on air pollution. But that is only part of the story. Harmful as fine particulate matter is to human health, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ground-level ozone and other gases in vehicular emissions are more hazardous to health. While the concentration of suspended particulate matter tinier than 1.5 microns (PM2.5) is closely monitored, these toxic gases are invisible, not measured much, and the public is not aware about the dangers they pose. Surface ozone is produced by the interaction of various gases found when <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/fossil-fuels-poison-air">burning fossil fuels</a>. Besides being poisonous, ground level ozone contributes up to 0.23°C to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-mountains-are-melting">global warming</a> because it is also a greenhouse gas. A new policy brief by the Clean Air Fund titled The Case for Action on Tropospheric Ozone blames surface ozone for a half a million premature deaths every year, 54.8% of which are in South Asia. Ozone also stunts plant growth and reduces crop yields by 26% globally, and 11% loss in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/economic-benefits-of-saving-the-ecology">forest productivity</a>, the report adds.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250411060456_aa02a923f8b27544ae54d0220162678f5bbb5eeb8fc3c466173c22c49b3e9a85.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250411060456_aa02a923f8b27544ae54d0220162678f5bbb5eeb8fc3c466173c22c49b3e9a85" data-rendition-name="original" width="998" height="724" loading="lazy" alt="Gas Chambers"> </figure>  Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bad-air-and-polluted-politics">Bad air and polluted politics</a>, Sonia Awale Ground-level ozone is not emitted directly into the air like other gases, but is formed when oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from automobile tailpipes or industry smokestacks react chemically with each other in the presence of sunlight. The main source of carbon monoxide in Kathmandu Valley are its 1.2 million two-wheelers. “Usually the concentration of carbon monoxide is 200-500 parts per billion (ppb), this has increased up to 3,000 in Kathmandu. Meanwhile, ground-level ozone has gone from 70-80 ppb to 150 ppb,” says Ravi Sahu, regional air quality specialist with the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).&nbsp; Sahu says <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/no-smoke-without-fire-p7vb9dcj">rampant forest fires of the past weeks</a> have also added to carbon monoxide and ozone in the air, not just the fine particles that make up the visible smoke. He adds, “There isn’t much awareness about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/poisoning-the-air-we-breathe">ground-level ozone and carbon monoxide</a>, we need to urgently look into it.” A distinction must be made between good and bad ozone. Stratospheric ozone protects living beings from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.&nbsp; Tropospheric ozone can again be separated into two types: ozone in the free atmosphere which is a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide, and ground-level ozone which has adverse impacts on health and agriculture. ‘Cutting tropospheric ozone presents a unique challenge as it requires smart and fast action across multiple greenhouse gases and air pollutants, as well as multiple economic sectors,’ notes the Clean Air Fund's policy briefing. ‘It is a growing and neglected problem that needs an integrated approach on both a local and global level to tackle climate change and air pollution together.’ Dying young There was a time when Nepal made it to international news bulletins only if there were fatalities on Mt Everest. Now, Kathmandu’s bad air frequently makes headlines all over the world. This past week, the concentration of PM2.5 that harms human health was up to 40 times the WHO recommended guideline — adding to the poisonous gases already present from vehicle emissions. The Department of Environment says 40% of the pollution in the past weeks was from wildfires sparked by nearly 6 months without substantial rain over central Nepal. Most of the rest is from vehicular and industrial emissions from Kathmandu itself and across the southern border. NASA’s Fire Information and Resource Management System (FIRMS) which issues daily maps of fires, showed hundreds of blazes raging across Nepal on Wednesday, mainly in Chitwan, Parsa and along the East-West Highway.&nbsp; “If we look at the figures for the last few years, it is clear that wildfires have become the biggest source of air pollution, they are seasonal but have overtaken vehicular emissions,” says urban planner and environmentalist Bhushan Tuladhar. “Forest fires, stubble burning, and open burning of garbage are the bigger problems now. Nepal, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are at risk every year, we shouldn’t further delay in finding solutions,” warned air quality expert Bhupendra Das during an event on air pollution organised on 7 March by the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ).&nbsp; Indeed, studies have shown that in winter 60% of the air pollution over Kathmandu is transboundary from the south, and in November it is compounded by smoke from crop residue burning by farmers in India and Pakistan blown in by prevailing winds. Forest fires are a regular pre-monsoon occurrence in Nepal, often intentionally set by farmers and herders to stimulate new grass growth for livestock. Winter rains have failed for eight of the past ten years, and this means the fires often spread out of control. The other reason for the increase in wildfires is the doubling of forest fires to 46% of the country’s area in the past 25 years. But this has happened simultaneously with outmigration, with some mountain districts losing 30% of their population between 2011-2021. With less pressure on forests for fodder and firewood, the undergrowth of community forests is loaded with dry fuel just waiting for a spark. The bowl-shaped topography of Kathmandu, Pokhara and other valleys further concentrates pollutants as they are trapped by surrounding mountains. But a year with a high number of wildfires is usually followed by a year or two with fewer incidents. For example: there were 6,537 fires in 2021 but the following year the number was down to 1,528. There were 5,216 fires last year, this year the number has already reached 1,800, and the trend is likely to be broken. Heavy rains forecast for the coming days are expected to douse some of the fires and clean up the air. But the damage has been done: Kathmandu residents of all age groups this week crowded clinics and hospitals with burning eyes, itchy throats, difficulty breathing, headaches, and dizziness. But in the longer term, soot particles that are tiny enough to jump the blood-air divide in lung capillaries do not just cause Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma, but also cancers, heart attacks, strokes, birth defects and other chronic diseases. The latest Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) report by the University of Chicago shows that the annual concentration of PM2.5 in Kathmandu’s air rose from 17.87µg/m3 in 1998 to 31.33µg/m3 in 2022. Air pollution has got worse by 75% in Kathmandu in 25 years. During this time, air pollution has reduced the average life expectancy of Kathmandu’s residents by 3.5 years. According to the Health Effects Institute in Boston, dirty air is among the biggest public health concerns in Nepal killing over 42,100 a year. The adverse impact of high levels of air pollution is not limited to public health, it is seriously affecting tourism. Operators in Pokhara this week said that there were many negative online posts by visitors unable to see the famous panorama of Machapuchre and the Annapurnas even from Sarangkot. Aviation is also affected, as planes have to circle sometimes for hours burning a lot of fuel because of runway visibility being below minima at Kathmandu airport. The higher fuel cost is just passed down to customers, making air tickets in and out of Kathmandu some of the highest in the world. Kathmandu, with a population of four million, has not implemented a concrete policy to curb toxic air despite having formulated various action plans and repeated commitments by the government to protect the environment and control air pollution. The Department of Environment’s 2017 Air Quality Management Action Plan for Kathmandu put forward a policy to reduce air pollution caused by vehicles which was approved by the Cabinet, but has yet to be put to practice. The action included the immediate implementation of the Euro 5 emission standard to reduce pollution emitted by vehicles. However, Nepal has not even been able to implement Euro 4 standards so far. India, meanwhile, has already moved forward with the implementation of the Euro 6 standards. Says Ravi Sahu: “Air pollution in Nepal is not just about air pollution, it has ties to tourism, aviation, the economy so we must be prepared for annual conditions like forest fires, and this requires urgent interdisciplinary collaboration.” &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250411050452_821d09e283d8a590f1369bfb71b9b7fc6d950726e0651ea86c6488d04deb1742.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20250411050452_821d09e283d8a590f1369bfb71b9b7fc6d950726e0651ea86c6488d04deb1742" data-rendition-name="original" width="839" height="784" loading="lazy" alt="Silent Killers"> </figure>  &nbsp;

What is invisible is more dangerous

82 in २०८२

Here in the mountains of far-western Nepal, the biggest threat to life and limb is gravity. Women collecting fodder fall from trees, boys grazing goats fall off cliffs, heavily loaded tractors plunge from dirt roads carved out of steep slopes. There is nothing to be done about those who die on the spot. But for the severely wounded there is only one hospital: Bayalpata. And it is there that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzWlnYd0ZM&amp;t=8s" target="_blank">orthopaedic surgeon Mandeep Pathak</a> is the last hope for many wounded people. Pathak, 42, is too modest to tell us how many lives he has saved over the past 10 years he has worked at Bayalpata. But hospital records show he has performed more than 4,000 operations in the past decade, many of them so patients did not suffer permanent physical disabilities. Pathak also did 800 major life-saving surgeries in that time. “I treat patients with injuries, but I wish I could also treat poverty,” Pathak says, emerging from Bayalpata’s surgical theatre one recent afternoon. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="700" height="415" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CJzWlnYd0ZM?si=s_rkbU4YDaw87gqH" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> Sudurpaschim Province in Nepal’s far-west is far away from everything: from Kathmandu, from adequate medical care, from food security, and far from the reach of government services. It has suffered state neglect for centuries, its men mainly migrating to India for seasonal work to families who depend on subsistence agriculture. Pathak remembers the searing sadness he felt when a patient once told him, “Doctor, I sold the last of my rice to pay to come here, please give me a medicine that I can take on an empty stomach.” Pathak was born in Kathmandu, and after getting his MBBS from Kathmandu University, he got an MD from The Philippines. At a time when many Nepali doctors and staff nurses were emigrating, Pathak did not just return to Kathmandu but decided to go to one of the remotest districts in Nepal to serve those most in need. The hospital was established in 2009 in the village of Bayalpata, and has been managed by the non-profit <a href="https://www.nyayahealthnepal.org/" target="_blank">Nyaya Health Nepal (NHN)</a> as a public-private partnership treating 100,000 patients a year for no fees at all. NHN is now preparing to hand over the running of the hospital to the Sudurpaschim provincial government so its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/this-is-how-to-upgrade-nepals-rural-health" target="_blank">model of hospital management</a> can be replicated.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250414130456_b59dabd4604a24426a55fe91c0e5866b5029858bdb4c4028c331557aeb5408ae.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250414130456_b59dabd4604a24426a55fe91c0e5866b5029858bdb4c4028c331557aeb5408ae" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Bayalpata hospital"> <figcaption>Bayalpata hospital in Achham.</figcaption> </figure>  People from not just Achham but surrounding districts, and from as far away as Humla, bring patients to Bayalpata, sometimes walking for days. Some with complicated pregnancies are brought in stretchers, young children with broken arms walk into the emergency, and sometimes there are mass casualties when a tractor or bus falls off a road. And Pathak is always there with his team performing triage, and doing orthopaedic surgeries that would be difficult even in Kathmandu. Recently, his team did a hip replacement at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/state-of-the-art-rural-hospital" target="_blank">Bayalpata Hospital</a>. Mild mannered, modest, soft-spoken, hard-working, professional are the words families of patients who have been treated at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-rural-lifeline" target="_blank">Bayalpata Hospital </a>use to describe Mandeep Pathak. But the surgeon is too busy to let all this get to this head.&nbsp; Asked why he does not emigrate like his peers or get a lucrative position at a private hospital in Kathmandu, Pathak answers simply, without a trace of self-importance, “I do not think I could get the satisfaction or sense of fulfilment anywhere else.” When travelling to attend medical congresses overseas or visit family in Kathmandu, Bayalpata has other doctors to take care of patients, but many wait patiently till Pathak returns for their consultation or surgery.&nbsp; When he returns from seminars abroad after learning the latest skills, Pathak’s suitcases are not full of clothes or presents, but titanium bone implants, external fixation rods, or intramedullary nails to be used in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/altruistic-healthcare-models-in-nepal" target="_blank">surgeries at Bayalpata</a>.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025041414040_5356278472c1eb2b9e4af1d593d6234cc8dc5e5161a8c614197c01abefadbd80.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2025041414040_5356278472c1eb2b9e4af1d593d6234cc8dc5e5161a8c614197c01abefadbd80" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1368" loading="lazy" alt="surgery"> </figure>  Before Bayalpata Hospital was established, most people suffering broken bones had to travel down to Dhangadi or Nepalganj for treatment. No more. Although Pathak’s specialisation is orthopaedic oncology, he is mostly treating fractures and rejoining broken bones.&nbsp; Now as Bayalpata’s Hospital Director, Pathak also has administrative and fundraising duties. He has to take the 10-hour ride down to Dhangadi often to meet various Sudurpaschim ministries to release the hospital’s budget — that is sometimes more difficult than the most complicated surgery. Recently, he had to cancel an appointment with the Chief Minister to rush back to Bayalpata because there was a patient who needed emergency surgery. “I told myself, let me save this patient first, then I will try to save the hospital,” he recalls.&nbsp; Once, when he had to be away for a month on emergency surgery training in the US, the family of a 90-year-old woman who had dislocated her hip after falling from a staircase was waiting for him to return. Her son told Pathak: “Doctor, either put her out of her suffering, or cure her.” Pathak told him it was too dangerous to operate at her age, but the son said his mother was in so much pain it was worth the risk. The operation was touch-and-go, but it was successful. The woman who had been brought in on a stretcher, walked out of the hospital three days after the operation.&nbsp; A few months later, a 27-year-old woman was brought into the ER bleeding profusely from an arm mangled by a thresher machine. Even in that state, she was breastfeeding her baby. Pathak welled up seeing this display of selfless motherhood, as he wheeled her into surgery. She needed three operations, but now has full use of her hand. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="700" height="415" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xJdxLD0hBqo?si=mOpM2R_DsYL88Lfg" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> It is the sense of achievement from such recovery that keeps Mandeep Pathak here in this isolated village in the middle of nowhere. Bayalpata Hospital has not just saved lives, it also saves families from poverty because they do not have to take sick relatives to expensive city hospitals.&nbsp; In January, a woman was brought to Bayalpata with both hands broken. She said she had taken a fall, but Pathak did not believe her. When alone in the surgery, she finally admitted that her husband had beaten her.&nbsp; It was her husband who had brought her to hospital for treatment, but she refused to file a police report. Pathak quietly put both her arms in casts, thinking about the poverty, patriarchy and injustice in society that he is unable to treat.

socio-politics