<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141156/636d03449c7e80680e0a36c2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="835" height="330"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>In the days of the absolute monarchy, every government appointment, promotion in the civil service, and ambassadorship had to be approved by the Royal Palace. Powerful secretaries in Narayanhiti decided all important matters, while Singha Darbar was tasked mainly with carrying out orders.Nepal became a constitutional monarchy after the 1990 People’s Movement, but not much changed. Instead of the king making decisions, many mini-kings competed for power and influence – political appointments in the bureaucracy, public sector enterprises, and diplomatic assignments became the norm.The Nepali Congress and the UML were such fierce rivals in the 1990s that it was mandatory for one party to cancel and declare null and void all decisions made by the other. That tradition has not just carried on to this day, but has been honed into a fine art.The most glaring example of this was the axe that fell last week on 12 of Nepal’s ambassadors politically appointed by K P Oli while prime minister. Among them were envoys to India, China, the United States, and Britain – countries most important to Nepal.Among those being recalled are former finance minister Yubaraj Khatiwada in Washington DC last year, Mahendra Bahadur Pandey in Beijing, Lok Darshan Regmi in London, and Nilambar Acharya in New Delhi.Oli rigged the system to reward loyalists, and the coalition government of Sher Bahadur Deuba wants to do the same. This is taking partisanship and vendetta to extreme levels.Deuba also needs these diplomatic postings to appease coalition partners who have not got powerful ministerial portfolios they were angling for. Two months after it took office, Deuba has not even been able to form a full government because of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/government-in-installments/">tussles within the coalition for key ministerships.</a>Deuba appointed Narayan Khadka as foreign minister last week, only because someone had to lead the Nepal delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. It is clear that the recalled ambassadors will not be replaced with career diplomats, which is what should be the practice.Four of the 22 ambassadors are being recalled at a critical foreign policy juncture for Nepal. Nilamber Acharya has been in Delhi through the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/lines-on-a-map/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">turbulent Limpiyadhura dispute</a> and his contacts in the Indian government would have been useful when so many bilateral issues are pending. Recalling our ambassador in China at this time sends the wrong message to Beijing as well.Yubaraj Khatiwada was a staunch supporter of the American <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/sino-nepal-ties-in-the-post-afghan-era/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project</a> when he was the finance minister under K P Oli. Despite regime change in Nepal, Prime Minister Deuba would have needed an MCC-backer in Washington while the clock ticks on the project’s ratification by Parliament. Deuba has also removed Nepal’s ambassador in London just before he goes to Glasgow in November to attend the Climate Summit.Prime Minister Deuba may have thought he could mute criticism of his ambassadors recall because he also called back his mother-in-law Prativa Rana from Tokyo. Her term had run out, and she was returning anyway.Among the 12 ambassadors being recalled are three <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-women-envoys-make-a-mark/">other women ambassadors</a> who have played important roles during the Covid-19 crisis ensuring the welfare of Nepalis abroad, mobilising aid for Nepal during the deadly second wave earlier this year, and projecting the country’s image abroad.Ambassador Sarmila Parajuli Dhakal in Oman has earned effusive praise from Nepali migrant workers in the Gulf not just for organising the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-struggles-to-make-repatriation-easier/">repatriation of stranded Nepalis</a>, but also bargaining with airlines for air fares even cheaper than those negotiated by the government in Kathmandu.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/demand-grows-for-nepali-caregivers-in-israel/">Ambassador Anjan Shakya</a> in Israel negotiated the agreement for 1,000 new caregiver jobs – most of them for Nepali women. She was working on a Nepal-Israel agricultural cooperation agreement.  Last year, Shakya was the first Asian envoy in Tel Aviv to be named ‘Ambassador of the Year’ by the Ambassadors’ Club of Israel.Ambassador Dawa Phuti Sherpa in Spain <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/aid-pours-into-nepal-but-where-be-vaccines/">mobilised one of the first relief flights</a> in May to bring oxygen concentrators and cylinders, ventilators, and medical kits through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. She was preparing for a post-Covid revival of tourism in Nepal.A <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/man-power/">patriarchal state</a> that is so self-obsessed that it cannot appreciate the role of these remarkable women ambassadors does not deserve respect from its citizens, nor from the international community.

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Swapping ambassadors midway

<figure><img width="918" height="645" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151116/636d07c59c7e80680e0a5fdbjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Nepali Times issues #53 (27 July-2 August 2001) and #67 (9-15 November 2001).</figcaption></figure>Sher Bahadur Deuba became Nepal’s prime minister last week, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-accidental-prime-minister/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-accidental-prime-minister/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626787748497000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEOKQcVt5lo_DELvBty5qp0r8cv0A">won a confidence vote</a> in the House on 18 July. This is familiar terrain for a man who has been <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/from-the-fire-into-the-frying-pan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/from-the-fire-into-the-frying-pan/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626787748498000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFBd1bSpQFQVPzpLxHDrFZMfDSSkQ">on this road four times before</a> in the last 26 years.And so have we, here at Nepali Times. Combing through our archives, we dug up the reports, commentaries and cartoons from the past 20 years about Deuba’s previous tenures as prime minister.Few national leaders are offered so many chances to get it right. Yet, as we can see from his past tenures including this one, Deuba has struck when the iron is hot to manoeuvre himself to prime ministership. However, there have not been too many examples of successful governance that stand out.And we hear that Deuba’s astrologers have told him he will be prime minister two more times after this!When Deuba became prime minister for the first time in 1995-97, it was still looking like the restoration of democracy and open economy would allow the country to finally take a great leap forward. Foreign Direct Investment was flowing in. His high-profile wife, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7457" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D7457&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626787748498000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHa4EJo-FajMullZm-SYyZRDjxzZw">Arzoo Deuba</a>, was a key link to the international community.Local elections were beginning to devolve political power to the grassroots, ensuring more accountability and spurring development. But that was when the Maoists decided that parliamentary democracy was too slow to bring an end to a feudal monarchy.Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai handed Deuba a 40-point demand (that included end to Gurkha recruitment and ban on Hindi movies) and an unrealistic deadline of a week to fulfil them. This was essentially a declaration of war, and sure enough on 13 February 1996 the Maoists launched their armed struggle. Deuba ignored the insurgency, and treated it like a law and order issue. But when he finally acted, it was to get the police to launch campaigns code named Kilo Sierra 1 and 2. Ordinary people in the western mountains were terrorised, and this drove them into the Maoist fold.During his <a style="font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=6685#.YPVWlS9w0Wo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D6685%23.YPVWlS9w0Wo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626787748498000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEga2JokpL9JKkRFJZEoI4FOI5gFg">second term</a> as prime minister in 2001-02 following the massacre of the royal family, the army was dragged into war and casualties escalated. More people were killed in the year after the Royal Nepal Army joined the conflict than in the previous six years. <figure><img width="1202" height="619" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151116/636d07c89c7e80680e0a5fdcjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Nepali Times issues #199 (4-10 June 2004), #229 (7-13 January 2005) and #859 (9-15 May 2017).</figcaption></figure>In 2002, Deuba dissolved Parliament (much like Oli did this year) declared a state of emergency and was eventually sacked by King Gyanendra who in a televised address called his prime minister “incompetent”.  The king used and disposed of Deuba like a raggedy doll, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2494#.YPVV7y9w0Wo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D2494%23.YPVV7y9w0Wo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626787748498000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE6v6VTP1eVpde_WfbZsNbHb2MUrA">bringing him back</a> as prime minister for his third time (<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2548#.YPVXJy9w0Wo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D2548%23.YPVXJy9w0Wo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626787748498000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGOoqiHiKJ4_feVzIVbcWnbGGDW3A">2004-05</a>) and then promptly putting him under house arrest for corruption after he staged <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1260#.WS_1fZJ97Dc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D1260%23.WS_1fZJ97Dc&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626787748498000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEL0XfIiAV9awGFULZ3UgBg9QnCCA">a royal-military coup</a> on 1 February 2005. Despite the ignominy, Deuba kept <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/dahal-deuba-oli,3151" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/dahal-deuba-oli,3151&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626787748498000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFPICQ_VeXEU5l9gJkJpAzdZ8xPnw">resurrecting himself</a>. He returned to Baluwatar after 12 years in 2017 after consolidating his grip over the Nepali Congress and cobbling a coalition with the Maoists. Being prime minister between two phases of the election, Deuba after much bargaining with Dahal handed over the Home Ministry to the Maoists. He must have had a strong sense of déjà vu when he had to undertake <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/pm-deuba-iv,3745" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/pm-deuba-iv,3745&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626787748498000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEU8RxRsa5FbgFypOpxoszBOJTtTw">identical negotiations</a> last week with Pushpa Kamal Dahal over the Cabinet. This time, not to repeat the mistake and with an eye on the 2023 elections, Deuba kept the Home Ministry but had to relinquish Finance to the Maoists. Now that he has won the vote in the House, there will be more parties to reward and appease with ministerial posts. There are no permanent friends and foes in politics. But it is an irony of ironies that Deuba is now at the helm with the help of 'Prachanda' who tried to assassinate him, and on whose head he had announced a ransom during the conflict. The return of Sher Bahadur Deuba signifies a break from the paralysing power struggle that prevented the Oli administration from addressing the people’s everyday concerns during the pandemic. The confidence vote this week also saves the exchequer an estimated Rs100 billion for an early election that will now not be needed. And because this is essentially an election government, Deuba will have to get his disparate coalition to perform and deliver like never before. If he can maintain discipline in the Cabinet, showcase transparency, make breakthroughs in vaccination, job creation and disaster relief, voters may take kindly to him. The signs are not good. Even before he won the vote, Deuba got his Nepali Congress colleague Bijya Kumar Gachhedar who had been convicted of corruption released on bail, and he has vowed to release another party member, Aftab Alam, who is in jail for murder. With this kind of track record, and given that this is a coalition with the Maoist Centre, we cannot expect meaningful progress on transitional justice for the victims of the conflict either.  If the Deuba government behaves like it has before, it will only give the UML the chance to exploit the NC's incumbency disadvantage to return to power in 2023.

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Deuba's denouement

Sha Bahadur Gurung was 30 years old when he was arrested for participating in a peaceful protest. He died aged 65 last week in Bhutan’s Chamgang Central Prison. He was among 31 prisoners of conscience in Bhutan, many of whom are serving long sentences for opposing the regime’s forcible expulsion of 100,000 of its Lhotsampa people in the early 1990s. ‘Mr Gurung died on 15 December in his prison cell under circumstances that raise serious concerns about custodial negligence and long-term abuse,” said a statement by the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (GCRPPB) based in The Hague which demanded an external probe, justice and release of remaining political prisoners. Gurung was from Chirang and was arrested in 1990 while serving in the Royal Bhutan Army, and accused of having sympathies for the Lhotsampa people. He was mostly held at the notorious Rabuna Prison in Wangdi Phodrang District.&nbsp; Gurung’s relatives in the United States said he had endured prolonged physical and psychological abuse during his imprisonment, and repeatedly subjected to torture and inhumane treatment. They believe the decades of ill-treatment had damaged his health, ultimately leading to his death. Earlier this month, Gurung was transferred from Rabuna to Chamgang Central Prison. On 14 December. He had gone to bed after dinner without any visible sign of distress. He was found unconscious in his cell the next morning.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251224151248_5fc8305ecd320d89b9e343c04a1a897dc1353353da55b6d277f5398034b265ea.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251224151248_5fc8305ecd320d89b9e343c04a1a897dc1353353da55b6d277f5398034b265ea" data-rendition-name="original" width="902" height="1103" loading="lazy" alt="Sha Bahadur Gurung NT"> <figcaption>Sha Bahadur Gurung, who died at age 65 in prison in Bhutan after serving 30 years for expressing political opinion.</figcaption> </figure>  He was referred to a hospital in Thimphu, suggesting that he was still alive during transfer to a local health post. But it appears that he had already died before being taken from prison. Gurung’s death occurred two days before Bhutan’s National Day on 17 December, when families, supporters, and human rights advocates worldwide had hoped for the release of political prisoners through a royal amnesty. Instead, the death of one of the longest-serving political prisoners has caused grief and anger in the Bhutanese diaspora.&nbsp; “We strongly condemn the treatment and death of Gurung, a peaceful and justice-loving Bhutanese citizen,” the V statement said. ‘This tragedy raises serious questions about the treatment of political prisoners in Bhutan and stands in stark contrast to the country’s international image under the principles of Gross National Happiness, compassion, and mindfulness.’ Earlier this year, The <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/wg-arbitrary-detention/opinions-adopted-working-group-arbitrary-detention/opinions-adopted-working-group-arbitrary-detention-its-101st-session" target="_blank">United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention</a> said the Bhutan government was detaining citizens without parole for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/detainees-in-dire-straits-in-bhutan-s-prisons" target="_blank">expressing political opinion</a>. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in 2023 that there were least 37 <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/13/bhutan-free-long-term-political-prisoners" target="_blank">political prisoners</a> in Bhutan’s jails. Of them, 32 belong to the Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa community, which has faced <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2003/06/18/nepal-bhutanese-refugees-rendered-stateless" target="_blank">decades of discrimination and abuse</a> and eviction. Most of them were convicted because of prohibited political activity between 1990 and 2008. One political prisoner, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/no-country-for-dissent?fbclid=IwAR07lpitMBWAYSkny_3d_smQBlmoxAOQm1OxdNtl-27h8mV0RNO9IxVY2qs" target="_blank">Madhukar Monger</a>, who was released in 2023 after serving 29 years described brutal conditions in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/asia/bhutan" target="_blank">Bhutan</a>'s jails. Political prisoners were not given enough food, and medical care, he said, urging the internaitoonal community to press for the release of prisoners of conscience.&nbsp; In March, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/about/people/meenakshi-ganguly" target="_blank">Meenakshi Ganguly</a>, Deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, urged Bhutan’s international partners to call on the Bhutan government to release all remaining political prisoners immediately.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251224161216_9d11a78ed5490091c595341900e4c26f5c0dd0328718f6930ef19c1e9b7f95a6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20251224161216_9d11a78ed5490091c595341900e4c26f5c0dd0328718f6930ef19c1e9b7f95a6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1422" loading="lazy" alt="Bhutan political prisoners NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251224161216_176855f3d3df42d24ac7e77372bbf49115695b732a6c094a66267e969111dfca.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20251224161216_176855f3d3df42d24ac7e77372bbf49115695b732a6c094a66267e969111dfca" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1420" loading="lazy" alt="Bhutan political prisoners NT"> </figure>  &nbsp;

Bhutan political prisoner dies in detention

‘Get out of my house.’ ‘All my sickness is because of you.’ ‘You’re a millstone around my neck.’ Arundhati Roy heard these admonitions from her mother over and over throughout her life.&nbsp; This must be a singular, yet universal experience. There must be very few daughters who make it through life unscathed by their mothers. And vice-versa.&nbsp; How many of our mothers look at us and see in us the potential of all of the lives they could have lived? How many resent us for it, or want us to live those lives in their stead? And how many of us look back at our mothers and imagine what they would have achieved had they not been expected and assigned to play the role of wife, daughter-in-law, mother — had we never existed in their lives? How many mothers project their experiences onto their own daughters and continue the cycle? No daughter seems to escape it — no matter how well-behaved, docile, unruly, or rebellious. Certainly not the child who would go on to become a Booker prize-winning author. Arundhati Roy’s memoir Mother Mary Comes To Me chronicles her complex relationship with her mother Mary, or Mrs Roy, as her educator mother had her two children refer to her. In December, Arundhati Roy was in Kathmandu to sign books and briefly interact with readers at two bookshops in the city. She describes a childhood overshadowed by her mother’s volatility towards her and her brother. Mary herself was raised by an abusive father to escape whom she married the first man who proposed — Arundhati’s father who in her mother’s words turned out to be an alcoholic ‘Nothing Man’.&nbsp; Mary left her husband in Assam and eventually wound up with her two children in her town of Aymanam in Kerala, encountering other family members along the way who did not treat her, or her children with respect. The trauma and cruelty her mother endured could not be contained in her body, and spilled out onto her two children, towards whom she was physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive.&nbsp; While she treated her children with disregard, she would build a school in the nearby town of Kottayam from the ground up, educate thousands of children, take up a legal fight that led to the Supreme Court granting Syrian Christian women in India equal inheritance rights, and uplift many orphaned children and women in Kerala.&nbsp; Arundhati lived with both her mother’s brutality and brilliance. And like her daughter, readers must reconcile the indefensible parts of Mary Roy’s personality — the cruelty of calling her nine-year-old daughter a bitch, or shooting the family dog that mated with a stray — with her unyielding drive to educate thousands, fight for equal rights, and challenge the way her world viewed women.&nbsp; Mrs Roy had little kindness for her own children, but plenty for the students, children, and women whose lives she shaped, and made better. And her kindness was not rooted in empathy, but in anger at the hand she had been dealt in life. Eventually, Arundhati decided to temporarily cut all contact with Mrs Roy — not because she did not love her, she writes, but so that she could continue to love her. Her desire to get away from her abusive mother, and her fascination with the ideas inspired by the architect who built her mother’s school, would lead her to the Delhi School of Architecture at age 16. In Delhi, Arundhati became roommates with Hisila Yami before she and her Maoist ideologue husband Baburam Bhattarai went underground to lead Nepal’s decade-long armed struggle. &nbsp; But architecture was not her calling. In Delhi, the heart of India’s statecraft, Arundhati came into young adulthood against a backdrop of the country’s changing socio-politics, which began to take a turn for the hyper-nationalist, Hindu supremacist community that it has now largely become. The winds of those changes have now blown into Nepal. In the city, far from her mother, Arundhati met the man who would become her partner of many years, collaborating with him on several films and screenplays before finding the language (‘I needed to hunt [language] down like prey,’ she writes) she needed to become the writer she is now.&nbsp; She went on to write her Booker prize-winning novel The God of Small Things, but the wealth and status the book brought her did not sit comfortably. So she smashed her newly-built gilded cage, as she describes it, and became more political. Contrary to norm, she published several works of non-fiction, and would only publish her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, in 2017, 20 years after The God of Small Things. &nbsp;&nbsp; Her fierce opposition to India’s nuclear policies, to a dam that would displace millions of indigenous people and ecologically damage the Narmada Valley, her championing of Kashmiri self-determination, and her time spent with Maoist rebels in the forests of Chhattisgarh as they took up arms to defend their land and resources against corporate interests made her an enemy of the state.&nbsp; Meanwhile, being raised by a single mother had never sat well within her Syrian Christian community. ‘I wasn't Christian enough. I wasn't Hindu enough. I wasn't communist enough. I wasn't enough,’ Roy writes in her memoir. For all her love for India, the nation did not seem to reciprocate. The circumstances might be different, but it might strike a chord with readers in Nepal, many of whom marched on the streets in September hoping for a better tomorrow, but were gunned down by the very institutions meant to protect them. It might resonate with those who are not seen as citizens of this nation simply because they might not fit into an imagined idea of Nepali nationhood.&nbsp; Arundhati’s relationship with her mother, who was simultaneously proud and disdainful of her daughter’s accomplishments, continued to be tumultuous until the end of Mary Roy’s life.&nbsp; One of Mrs Roy’s last messages to her daughter before she passed was: ‘There is no one in the world whom I have loved more than you.’ Arundhati muses that her lifelong refusal to stop loving her mother must have finally breached her barriers. One wonders if that final declaration of love was solace enough, apology enough, for all the pain caused.&nbsp; But for Arundhati Roy, her love for her mother and her motherland outweighs the cruelty both have shown her. This, too, must be a singular, yet universal experience.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122208128_32b171acb09df2184495367b74efd91fe2896b0f5ba75b276e1533276268761c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025122208128_32b171acb09df2184495367b74efd91fe2896b0f5ba75b276e1533276268761c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Mother Mary Comes to Me review"> </figure>

The sins of our mothers

Nepal’s Gurkha soldiers have a well-deserved reputation worldwide for uncommon valour and loyalty. However, what happened in Hawaii in 1986 and the long struggle for fair pay and pension shows that the formidable fighters from Nepal also do not tolerate injustice. The Hong Kong-based 1st Battalion of the 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles was in Hawaii for jungle warfare training exercises at the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center when they beat up their commanding officer, Major Corin Pearce. &nbsp;&nbsp; The Gurkhas said Pearce had insulted them, and 111 soldiers were dismissed. Pearce suffered broken ribs and a head injury, and was himself also discharged. The incident got worldwide publicity and enforced the belief that the Nepalis were not treated fairly in the British Army. It also led some retired soldiers to begin a decades-long struggle for compensation at par with their British peers.&nbsp; Retired British Gurkha soldier Shankar Rai in his book Triumph and Tears revisits the Hawaii incident which he witnessed, and also his experience in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas war in 1982.&nbsp; He has lots of grievances: unequal treatment and injustice from the British Army towards himself and his comrades. This is an indignant and disillusioned account of the good, the bad and the ugly of being a British Gurkha, which he says let him down despite his service and belief in it.&nbsp; The book could also be a cautionary tale of how one person on a power-trip can tarnish two centuries of the shared history of Nepal and the UK, as well as ruin the lives of those involved. It also is proof that loyalty should never be taken for granted. Four years after defeating the Argentinians in the Falklands, several companies and platoons of Gurkha rifles were stationed in Hawaii in 1986 for joint US-UK ‘Exercise Union Pacific’ military exercises. The goal was to ‘perfect the art of marine warfare in collaboration with the US Marine Force’. The rules were that a British Gurkha company commander needed to have the rank of major and pass a Nepali language test. Captain Pearce was the son-in-law of a British Brigadier on extra-regiment employment, and this rule was waived. He was appointed Acting Major. Pearce didn’t bother to learn Nepali language or culture, and from Rai’s account took every chance to belittle and embarrass the Gurkhas as poor, stupid, rude, backward, and lucky to be there. He writes: ‘After Captain Pearce reached Hawaii, he began to project himself as a master and the Gurkhas as servants, to show off to the Americans.’ The author also recounts other slights, such as only receiving a fourth of the rations they were due during hard training, being forced to train even when some of the soldiers had high fever, and claims to have ‘civilised’ the Nepalis.&nbsp; Pearce had been to eastern Nepal before the training and seen the grinding poverty. He kept telling the Gurkhas how lucky they were to be in the job, and that they were making ‘more money than Nepal’s prime minister’. During the final farewell party in Hawaii, Pearce set up tables to form a saluting platform, and asked the Gurkha pipe and drum band to march around him while playing. The enraged soldiers could not take it anymore, and after the party an inebriated group ran Captains Pearce and Chandra Kumar Pradhan out of their tents and beat them up. Both officers broke ribs, and the major needed 15 stitches on his head. ‘This sorry and unseemly episode is considered to have been entirely at odds with the Brigade of Gurkhas’ tradition of loyalty and gallant service in the British Army. It is regarded as an isolated and untypical event, which will not be permitted to detract from the high esteem in which the Brigade is held,’ reads the report of an investigation. Most of the 1/7 company soldiers were dismissed whether they had been involved in the assault or not. The author describes the shame that followed, with dismissed soldiers returning to Nepal with lost face.&nbsp; ‘I burned with humiliation, and life scared me,’ writes the author, whose father told him that he was ashamed to call him his son. ‘Many of my friends’ girlfriends left them and married other people. Rifleman Khem Gurung (21162015) of Itahari committed suicide,’ writes Rai, adding that those dismissed were blacklisted, and could not get other jobs.&nbsp; They tried to pursue legal action against the British Government, but backed down when they could not afford expensive hotshot lawyers, and would not have the money to cover the British government’s legal fees in the likely case of a loss in court. Gurkhas who had served for four years in the UK were allowed to move there, an option that many of those dismissed in the Hawaii incident took, including the author, who now lives in Oxford. Rai pours out his hurt and emotion in the book. Towards the end, he writes: ‘I depend on small jobs for livelihood. In the remaining time, I actively raise the issue of the victims of the Hawaii incident. We are burdened with insults, hatred, and contempt for a lifetime. It was harsher than a court martial, too heavy to bear.’ The is a slim book, and is a quick, engaging read of an incident 30 years ago, and Rai writes with a soldier’s precision. Even though the anger shows even after all these years, there is no over-dramatisation in the narrative.&nbsp; The first part of the book is about sailing across the South Atlantic in the QEII, which had been converted into a troop ship to take the Gurkhas to war. The soldiers from landlocked Nepal were mostly sea-sick, but were happy to get two cans of beer a day. Barclays Bank even had a branch on board. Rai’s descriptions of the friendships he developed in the Company and on the battlefield are poignant. They braved Argentinian bombs, dug trenches and fought through the rain in the Southern Hemisphere winter. There are vignettes of sharing tea with fellow Nepalis, seeing comrades fall, and finding pictures of wives and children in the pockets of dead young Argentine soldiers. Behind the prestige, honour and myths of being a Gurkha soldier, it seems this is just another job with nepotism, horrible bosses and bad pay. But such is the desperation that up to 20,000 young Nepalis still apply for 300 openings in the British Army every year. &nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Triumph and tears book details NT"> </figure>

Not taking loyalty for granted

After a week of to-and-fro that culminated in all-night bargaining, two populist young figures in Nepali politics agreed at 4AM on Sunday to join forces ahead of elections in March. Rabi Lamichhane of the RSP, who came out of jail a week ago, has forged an alliance with Kathmandu mayor Balen Shah. Both are keen to ride on the GenZ wave that radically changed the direction of Nepal’s politics that has been dominated by three mainstream parties for the past three decades. Under the 7-point deal, Lamichhane will still head the RSP, while Shah has been promised prime ministership if the party wins a majority in the federal elections. Shah will also be the parliamentary party leader. The RSP will keep its name and election symbol. “Agreements must be made not on the basis of what leaders want, but on what the country needs,” Lamichhane wrote on social media announcing the alliance. The RSP chair is said to have put his own prime ministerial aspirations on hold to ensure the Kathmandu Mayor's support for the March polls. This is an alliance of convenience. Lamichhane requires the backing from Shah’s youth voters to face the legacy parties, while the mayor needs a political platform. Ultimately the prospect of leading not just Kathmandu but Nepal itself appears to have been the deciding factor for Balen Shah. The Kathmandu mayor is reportedly keen to contest the election from Jhapa against former prime minister K P Oli in his constituency.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a" data-rendition-name="original" width="900" height="900" loading="lazy" alt="Balen-Rabi alliance"> <figcaption>Photo: BALEN SHAH, RABI LAMICHHANE / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  The two have much in common. Lamichhane, a former tv anchor, returned from the United States and launched the RSP as an alternative party four months before elections in 2022. He served as Home Minister twice in Pushpa Kamal Dahal's coalition government before being jailed for defrauding cooperatives depositers. He made a jail break during the September protests, returned to prison voluntarily, and was released on bail last week. Balen Shah stood as an independent candidate for mayor of Kathmandu in local elections in 2022, and was catapulted to victory because of anti-incumbent protest votes among urban youth.&nbsp; Both campaigned on social media, pushing a populist anti-corruption agenda and against the governance failure of the three establishment parties — the same logic that drove the GenZ protests in September that escalated into violence and brought down the UML-NC coalition. Even as government buildings smouldered on 10 September, GenZ members were strongly urging Balen Shah to be the interim prime minister, but when he declined they voted on Discord for former chief justice Sushila Karki.&nbsp; With just over two months to go for elections on 5 March, Prime Minister Karki has been trying desperately to get the mainstream parties on board. She has met twice with the top leaders of the UML, NC and the NCP. All three parties have been dealing with internal power struggles, and the UML appears to be the most reluctant to face elections.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Sushila Karki with political leaders"> <figcaption>Prime Minister Sushila Karki has been meeting with leaders of the mainstream parties to get them on board for the election. Photo: PMO</figcaption> </figure>  The UML’s former prime minister K P Oli has refused summons by the Judicial Inquiry Commission charged with investigating the massacre of protesters on 8 September and the arson and vandalism the next day. Then home minister Ramesh Lekhak is scheduled to give his deposition to the Commission this week. The legacy parties appear to be taking the threat from the Rabi-Balen partnership strongly, and have been trying to forge an electoral alliance so they do not compete against each other.&nbsp; They are relying on traditional vote banks among the rural electorate, and calculate that alternative forces will cancel themselves out. They could also be hoping that Balen Shah’s erratic behaviour and Rabi Lamichhane’s prison conviction will put voters off. A total of 837,094 first-time voters have been registered in Nepal ahead of the elections.&nbsp; The Kathmandu mayor is an engineer and rap artist, and had till now been reclusive, preferring to post on social media rather than face the press. His late-night online posts have been impulsive: like the one urging that Singha Darbar be burnt down, or another one recently in which he used the f-word against the US, China, India and the mainstream parties. He later deleted both posts.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1112" height="1440" loading="lazy" alt="Balen Rabi agreement NT"> <figcaption>The seven-point agreement between Shah and Lamichhane. </figcaption> </figure>  Lamichane and Shah had also been negotiating with Energy Minister Kulman Ghising’s newly-forced Ujyalo Nepal Party, but the bargaining did not go well because Ghising refused to fight elections under the RSP banner. If the three had been successful in coming together, it would have been a formidable alliance. There are misgivings about the RSP-Balen Shah deal, even among some GenZ who see the two prominent men dividing up the power structure as just the kind of political culture they wanted to reform. Many are already predicting exactly the kind of clash of egos between the two alpha males that characterised Nepali politics since the restoration of democracy in 1990. In the coming days, as with most political change in Nepal, there will be much speculation about the geopolitics behind the Rabi-Balen deal. Balen Shah’s angry post against India-US-China as well as his past nationalistic pronouncements on Nepal’s territorial dispute with India over Kalapani will be recalled, while Beijing has misgivings about the antecedents of some GenZ figures. Dharan-mayor Harka Sampang, who has also formed his own political party, has already pronounced the Rabi-Balen deal as being “foreign backed”.

um

Swapping ambassadors midway

Deuba's denouement

Bhutan political prisoner dies in detention

The sins of our mothers

Not taking loyalty for granted

Old vs New in Nepal in 2026