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Most opinion columns that you read, I am sure, are about politics. The way we Nepalis have been politicized makes me always wonder and gets me befuddled. It’s not just op-ed writers. As a society, we are always hooked to politics and our politicians have not disappointed us in their capacity to deliver one height of brinkmanship after another.

As a writer, I can say that it’s easy to churn out under a thousand words about political events, and get done with your task for the week. It’s easy to make people relate, it’s also easy to get quotes because almost everyone is an expert on politics. But that's probably not the only reason why we are hooked to politics.

For some time now, I have been wondering about all the issues other than politics that could have been given space in newspapers or social media discussions. But we have this tendency to consider 'other' issues mundane, routine and small. As a result, the lead articles in papers are without fail about ideology or about the turn of events in the political sphere.

But in real life, we are struggling with so many day-to-day issues that need to be discussed, brainstormed upon, brought to the notice of the authorities or policymakers or simply documented as a testament of the time we are living in. We have come a long way, living through many transitions as a society. And we are trying to survive by quickly adapting to the insurmountable shifts.

As millennials, we are always caught between the urge to go abroad and settle in a developed country or to toil here knowing that it’s a running chaos. That dilemma of the privileged is not discussed enough. We live in a hypocritical society where those staying back pretend to be staying back because of their hardcore 'patriotism' until one day, all of a sudden, it gets traded for the comfort of a better life. But the hypocrisy is so deep that we don't discuss these dilemmas openly and we have a new generation whose only aim in life seems to be to settle abroad too.

A friend of mine, a professor in a Nepali university, writes regularly on student-teacher relationships on her social media posts. She observes that it sometimes seems so awkward that right outside the campus, the students refuse to acknowledge the teachers. They simply don't care.

At first look, it may seem like a useless ranting of an old-fashioned teacher. But these are examples of real issues that need to be addressed in our lives through collective effort. I believe the way the students behave is connected to how they view success in life. If their basic orientation in life is going abroad to a developed nation, and settling there, they are bound to consider the 'professors' who have not been able to settle abroad as mediocre or even failures.

I know that without proper research and scientific studies, such conclusions are stretching it too far. But I am using this just as an example of how small things are connected to the bigger scheme of things and need to be studied in that light. In the absence of such grassroots oriented 'sourcing' of issues, we have had the public opinion space dominated by 20^th century reductionist discussions on socialism, communism and even specific incidents in the lives of foreign leaders and thinkers who lived over a century ago.

We need less of these digging the graves and hunting for skeletons adventures and more of serious discussions on real issues of today. We need to talk more about our children and our friends and our houses and our parks rather than about Mao's wife or Gandhi's children. Let's write about these more so that the researchers pick up the clues and provide us with evidence or expose our biases. If we need to uncover the truth, if any, we need to do so about the small things that really matter in our lives today and tomorrow.

I stay in Waling, a mid-sized town in the mid hills of Nepal, in Syangja district. Apart from the stretch touched by the Siddharth Highway that runs within the municipality along the river Andhikhola for 12 kilometers, there are hardly other signs of urbanization. But it was given the status of a municipality 24 years ago, when the population was merely 20,000. Ten years ago, when a local cyber cafe had put a WiFi connection for the first time and my laptop at home could catch the signals, I was amazed with joy. In the 10 years that followed, my grandmother learnt to use Facebook and Viber, and talk to her family members spread all over the world.

The transitions we have gone through in such a short time as a society are amazing. But, apart from the changes that have been forced by the global technological flux, has there been an effort directed towards a transformation guided by clear vision of what we want to achieve as a society? There are no such signs.

I got engaged with the civil society, the local government and the youths in many different ways. Through an advisory role in our municipality following the 2017 local elections, I observed the functioning of our local government closely. The signs were disappointing: haphazard decision-making, mostly guided by personal gains and party politics, and no sense of accountability. Almost all the decisions were a bargain between the influential players, and there was hardly a drive to push for collective goals for the society’s long-term benefit.

Dejected at the state of affairs, I wanted to do things on my own. As I initiated some social projects, I got a first-hand feel of the mindset that has corrupted our society. To promote the town as a tourist destination of its own kind, we formed a non-government organization, and designed a mountain biking event, Waling 100: Ultimate MTB Challenge, surrounding the Andhikhola Valley. The idea was to create an audacious one-day marathon, designed and managed by a local Nepali team, which would be sought after by mountain bikers the world over. We generated funds through local fundraising and support of the municipality. Even though participation was encouraging, the real challenge was in creating a culture of professionalism in the managing team.

Similar challenges have hit the enterprises that I have initiated at the local level. At ‘Himali: Made by Mothers’, a company that I co-founded with some friends, we are working hard to create flexitime employment for women who cannot leave their village for work. The idea is simple: if they can't leave the villages for jobs, get the jobs to the villages. But, with an ecosystem that is not only unsupportive, but at times hostile to entrepreneurship, we have faced hurdles every step. Started last year, 21 women now work with Himali, and we want to expand it to 1,000 in next five years, but the challenges are humongous.

Every day, as I struggle with issues here in this town, and occasionally get a glimpse of how things are being run politically, I often feel that our society, our politics, and the governance structure has derailed from the ideals that were promised. It’s no secret that our politicians have become a bunch of senseless individuals who are justifiably a source of mockery from all. But a close observation leads one to conclude that there is also a lot to be demanded from the younger generations who have been privileged with an access to education.

“At the moment, Nepal is facing a strange kind of mismanagement of resources,” says Prashant Singh, founder chairperson of the Himalayan Climate Initiative, who has worked in developing sustainable solutions for Nepal for many years. “Most of the educated and skilled youths are in the urban areas and the resources they were rooted in are in the villages. As a result, the brains are not being applied to generate value using our naturally disposed resources.” As I roam the jungles that our agricultural lands have turned into in the hinterlands, Singh’s words strike deep. These terrace farms were made arable by our ancestors after hundreds of years of effort, and seeing the land abandoned is deeply painful.

But as I strived to initiate some agricultural projects like fruits farming, beekeeping and a center that can be used for experiential learning by individuals and teams, the gap between our needs and what our education is providing emerged strikingly. It has convinced me that our nation is being run by politicians without any vision for the kind of society they wish to construct, and they are in the game of politics merely to make money and push people around in order to do so.

Looking around desperately for some hope and optimism, across the nation, I don't find any meaningful discussions being carried out on how to organize and mobilize our resources to find new ways of nurturing the production systems that are necessary for social advance and prosperity. The Kathmandu-centric public discourse is dominated by youths who have survived on donor funding, and those who haven’t had to work a bit for their own sustenance. Such unjust dominance has led to an unhealthy ecosystem and the trickle-down effect of ideas, if any, is loaded with misplaced priorities.

BP, in his Atmavritanta, rates the Kathmandu intellectuals very low. They are, according to him, 'making hue and cry over senseless issues, creating problems where there are none and hardly of any help for the cause.' He was talking about the Kathmandu society of the late forties. But his observation is as true today when it comes to what the neo-elites of the valley have to offer.

At a time when national politics has disappointed us badly, once again, how the intelligentsia has behaved should be of great concern. Caught in a pitiful yet laughable quagmire of power struggles and backstabbing, the course taken by our first parliament after the promulgation of the constitution is unfortunate. Hopes of stable government, connected to the future of 30 million people, have been washed away. But the intellectuals are either in deep slumber or deeply invested in the power equation already to even have an iota of critical and independent outlook.

Who is shaping opinions today in Nepal for the future? And, how are they behaving? These are important questions. Of course, times are different than in the forties, and the privilege that comes with access to even basic information about state and politics is no more exclusive to the intellectuals. But away from the cheap click-bait pop feeds in YouTube and social media, a large section of the society still looks up to the intelligentsia to make sense of things. And these elite Kathmandu intellectuals, sadly, are way off the mark when it comes to sensing the pulse of our society and identifying its real problems. Even the newer generation is already showing disappointing symptoms.

Recently, a young activist called leaders like KP Oli and Sher Bahadur Deuba lwade 'ल्वाँदे'. She wrote in her social media post: 'Who is a ल्वाँदे? The entitled mediocre men who take the space and power way bigger than their share. Ambition not fueled by purpose but unbounded greed. Their rise not powered by competence but a total lack of self-awareness. And they do rise, in a country such as Nepal, as our whole system of power has been mediocre, entitled men puffing up other mediocre entitled men. This lineup of clueless ल्वाँदेs would have looked hilarious had it not been so tragic and dangerous. Thus the need to identify these dangerous ल्वाँदेs.'

The language and the intonation suggests the mindset of a frustrated youth. But Dovan Rai is not just any frustrated youth from the streets. She is a PhD in Computer Science from the US, and is actively involved in public discourse, ironically, as a political expert.

Rai is a representative of a new breed of young and sad to say—'entitled'—youth in the public discourse who not only display a lack of understanding of the complex Nepali society and politics, but also have no penchant for learning about it. They do not want to learn about the layered power equations at different levels that form the superstructure of our society, nor do they even consider it important to travel their own nation, outside Kathmandu, to make sense of the politics at the top. They can simply make tall claims with a sense of entitlement that emanates from their 'western degree'. Craving for a sanitized 'meritocracy' of their own preference, rooted in their basic western orientation, they forget that to complain without a commitment to fight for the change that's needed in our society and politics, borders hypocrisy.

Anyone with a basic understanding of politics in our society would know that the politicians who have managed to rise in power are not stupid. But, by calling names that suggest that our society, and politics in general, rewards stupid people, youths like Rai can walk away with a sense of gratification without doing much to change the reality. The reality is grimmer. The politics is in control of shrewd manipulators who are not 'Lwade' or stupid, but masterminds of the political game. Accepting that they are what they are also adds an onus on the avant-garde youth of the society to build an army to fight against them. But such denial is the easier option that these privileged youths have fallen for.

The comfort of collective negligence, and easy complaining without a deep commitment to fight for justice is being taken as an easy route by many talented, privileged, and capable young intellectuals in Nepal. Sadly, the leaders who are at the forefront of the fight for establishing an alternative to the criminal gangs that are misruling the country today are equally naive. They believe a sense of entitled puritan moral pitch will be enough to wrestle power from these established politicians. What BP said about the Kathmandu of the forties still holds.

Three and half years ago, the road in front of the house I lived in at Sanepa, as well as the one next to the school my six-year-old son went to, were dug up for expansion. It was a frustrating experience. A peaceful residential colony with many schools for small children was turned into a dusty construction site for months, causing traffic snarls and sandstorms. It was dusty in the dry season and muddy after rains.

We raised voices, we questioned the authorities, and I even wrote about it in one of my columns then. Still, it did not come as a surprise when authorities said they had run out of budget midway, and the dug up road remained as they were for over a year.

It would of course be too much to expect a 50m stretch of road to be expanded in a day, and that another section would be dug up only after the previous stretch is completed. We do not have a culture of keeping people at the center of planning.

The new constitution, promulgated some years ago after decades of conflict, redefined the state-people relationship: from centralization to decentralization. But that has not changed how authorities treat people. They still behave like rulers, not like service-providers.

Federalism was supposed to shake up this status quo, but it did so only on paper. In reality, the bureaucracy is too obsessed with preserving its power, and is fighting hard to not let go of it. And our politicians are playing dirty games using this character of state mechanisms, and criminal businesses are reaping benefit using both of them.

Disgruntled by the state of our capital, and espying an opportunity to make an impact through the local bodies created after local elections, I jumped in when called by the mayor of my hometown to work as an advisor.

Three years later, at the heart of the town in Waling Municipality in Gandaki Province, the main residential area where around 5,000 live has become a battlefield. The municipality dug up a portion of the Siddhartha Highway that falls in this municipality for expansion two years ago and it hasn’t yet been worked upon due to lack of budget. Authorities in the Road Department have informed in unofficial conversations that the cabinet minister from the constituency, Padma Aryal, has warned them not to undertake any work on the roads that is not initiated by her. The mayor of the municipality, Dilip Pratap Khand, pushed ahead with this highway expansion project, clearly without enough resources at his disposal. The fact that the mayor is from Congress and the minister is from the ruling faction of the NCP has made it a political fight.

While local NCP leaders deny that the budget was withheld at the minister’s instruction and blame the mayor for initiating an insensitive road expansion without enough resources or a definite plan of action, the mayor’s supporters put the blame squarely back on the minister.

A short distance away, in a place called Bhalu Pahad in Putli Bazar Municipality, the Road Department initiated another expansion almost six months ago. It has come out in a local newspaper that the contractors involved were trying to make extra money by selling stones in Pokhara, which in turn is resulting in unnecessary delays in the busy highway, disrupting traffic-flow for five to six hours a day.

As is becoming clear, having a constitution promulgated by an elected assembly of the people is not enough to sort out the issues of governance. People are not at the center of our planning. When Waling residents question about the dusty roads, the mayor answers insensitively, “We have to learn to take pain to gain something”. Such irresponsible attitude has, in fact, been the hallmark of most of our political leaders across the spectrum.

The past three and half years were a steep learning curve for politicians, bureaucrats and people alike. It should have been a golden era of nation-building, development and progress. But looking at how the government, people, the media and the party systems conducted themselves in the years that followed the course the nation took has been disappointing, to say the least. We all learned the wrong tricks and fast.

The useless and senseless political tussles, indifference of the general public, especially the youth, and the haphazard character of our governing mechanisms are taking us to the edge of a cliff.

Nepal probably is the most fortunate nation today. Its population statistics would make any planner or policy maker gasp with excitement. Our average age is 24, which means we are one of the youngest countries in the world. Presently, with around 95 percent of our population in working age or yet to enter working age, we have a golden opportunity at hand.

But the sad destiny of our youth and our nation was summarized aptly by champion shooter Jitu Rai back in 2014. Asked by Setopati.com what he thought he would be doing if he hadn't joined the Indian Army, Rai had replied bluntly, "I would either be in the Gulf, or tilling my farm in Sankhuwasabha."

Born in Sankhuwasabha, Jitu Rai had joined the Indian Army in 2006. As a recruit, his instructors noticed his excellent pistol shooting skills and he was selected for the 'Young Blood Championship' of the National Rifles Association of India. Rai proved his merit and rose in the game to become a gold medalist in Asiad, Commonwealth Games and the World Cup. In 2014, he was world no 1 in 10-meter pistol shooting category. What Rai did and what he said suggest that given the opportunity Nepali youths can shine in any field. But the Wikipedia page on Jitu Rai proudly declares him as a naturalized citizen of India, which has also awarded him with a Padma Shree.

"Given an opportunity, a Nepali can do anything," is an oft-spoken phrase of our Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. But our politicians, and government officials alike, have become champions in missing golden opportunities and covering it all up with such rhetoric. While addressing a group of sports persons and related stakeholders last month, the prime minister was, as always, in a preachy mood.

"Practice is a must to win. You all must practice and practice hard to win," were the overarching themes of the PM's address. But sports history proves that every achievement is hard-earned. And nothing can be a better proof of leadership, management, teamwork, dedication, hard work, as well as strategic clarity and effective utilization of resources in today's world than the medal tally in sports championships. Our sports achievements are a representation of how we have, as a nation, hopelessly mistreated our talents and wasted opportunities for many years. Examples like Jitu Rai are a living testament that the burden of this failure does not rest on individual players.

If we look deeper, we find stories of unparallel dedication among us. In the national women's under-19 football team that played in Dhaka last year, there were six players from a football club in a small town in Syangja district. Three of the girls were from the marginalized communities: two Dalit and one Muslim. Last 20 years of our country are marked with unprecedented political turmoil. As a result, this has also been an era of policy paralysis in different sectors. Despite that, dedicated sons of the soil like the coach of Waling Football club Dilip Thapa have worked tirelessly. He trained young boys and girls, mostly from marginalized communities and poor families, rigorously almost two times a day. Surprisingly, all of his dedication and service is voluntary. 

With such an apathy to developing an institutional support for its citizens' growth, no nation can do justice to its resources. This lack of an institutional result-oriented approach to performance is one big reason behind our collective failures in other fields too.

The prime minister, at the same event, announced that players would be supported according to government capacity—the underlying assumption being that sports aren't a priority, and hence resources will be used only after addressing other greater priority areas. But it is time we learn from success stories across the world.

At the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta, Great Britain had ranked thirty-sixth in the medal tally, finishing below countries like Algeria, Belgium and Kazakhstan. The British press had named it a 'national scandal', the country's worst-ever result. But the government intervened swiftly. UK Sport, a dedicated agency, was set up and a vast amount of money was sourced from National Lottery revenues. The funds were utilized for a strict 'no comprise' system that invested in best chances of winning medals, and it set up the English Institute of Sports for providing sports scientists to all the national sports teams.

Four games later, in 2016, at the Rio Games, Great Britain stood second in the medal tally, proudly above China. As João Medeiros writes in a beautiful book, Game Changers, "behind every medal was a closely bound triumvirate: a talented athlete, an astute coach and a methodical sports scientist. And theirs was invariably a story of struggle, guesswork, dedication and conflict."

We as a nation have to do a lot to set up a culture of institutionalized support for dedicated champions in every field. The performance of the likes of Jitu Rai shows that if we build mechanisms to invest in young talents, our youth will do what it takes to win. But time is running out, and we are indifferent as a great window of opportunity is speeding toward a permanent closure.

History was made by a group of young Nepali men away from home last week, while less than a dozen political heads have kept us locked in a state of senseless and toxic amusement here. A surreal video of 10 Nepali men singing national anthem atop the second highest mountain in the world, K2 in Pakistan, went viral on social media. This justifiably made millions of Nepalis swell with pride and bow in respect for their audacity, grit and wisdom.

Their exact stories of hard work, dedication, sacrifice and team spirit are yet to emerge in detail but by all accounts, it’s a great feat. K2, the “Savage Mountain,” hadn't been conquered in winter, till now. And a team of Nepali climbers permanently intervening to write a climbing history of this scale is a revenge on history.

Freddie Wilkinson, a writer and climbing guide, wrote in The New York Times: “Last month two expeditions of Nepali climbers converged on the Godwin Austen Glacier in a remote corner of Pakistan to attempt the feat. Neither of the groups was there to guide wealthy Western clients to the top and then take back seats to their accomplishments, as Nepalis in general and ethnic Sherpa in particular often do as the hired help. They were climbing for themselves.”

The leaders of the two Nepali teams that came together to achieve a winter ascent of the K2, Nirmal Purja and Mingma Sherpa, are two such champions.

Purja had joined the British Army at 18, and served in the special forces. Mingma G Sherpa comes from a family of climbing guides. His father had lost fingers to frostbite after tying the laces of his client’s boots on Everest. Purja made a record climbing all 8,000-plus peaks in six months and six days, while Sherpa has stood on top of Everest five times and K2 twice.

From 1950 to 1964, all 14 of the world’s mountains above 8,000 meters (26,247 feet) were climbed for the first time, and local guides, working for paltry sums, were used in a thankless manner. What began as a competing ground in the high Himalayas for countries during the Cold War, has evolved as a pursuit of vanity for the super-rich. This has taken the form of exploitation in what has often been called 'High Altitude Colonialism'.

It's a great irony that 'climbing for ourselves' is still a privilege for Nepali climbers. Nepalis with immense potential have been betrayed by the political instability within, and the external factors also haven't been supportive.  Globalization, and the accompanying technological revolutions, were expected to flatten the world, but we see a continuation of the unjustified privileges of the previous era.

Every nation that's left out has its own tragic story. Nepal at the moment has almost 95 percent of its population under 65 years of age. Almost 65 is in the working age group, ie 15 to 65. Despite these promising statistics, our GDP per capita remains just over a thousand dollars.

Our economy shadows our politics. Volatile, unpredictable and mostly unreliable (experts say the official statistics don't represent the actual scale) our economy hasn't been able to build a supportive base for any kind of sports or other creative endeavors. As a society we haven't worked on providing institutionalized support to the efforts of committed individuals like these 10 climbers who made us proud. The achievements that Nepal has made in different fields have been made by individual champions or teams lead by outstanding leaders who fought the odds at every step.

In 2012, Sano Babu Sunuwar, a paraglider who had started his journey as a river guide in Pokhara, attempted what would be considered an audacious endeavor by all standards. He got hold of a Sherpa friend of his, and together they climbed Everest, and jumped from there and kayaked through the gorges to the rivers down below to the Bay of Bengal. From the top of the highest peak in the world to the sea level, this amazing journey got the duo the Nat Geo Adventurer of the Year 2012 award.

But in 2018 when Sunuwar wanted to hold the world championship of paragliding in Nepal, government bodies did everything possible to make things difficult for the team. Finally, a small amount was passed for the event by the ministry of tourism, which, the organizers told me, was mostly spent on ministry officials themselves. Sunuwar runs his own paragliding school and has been working hard to pay the dues of the event till date.

When great champions make us proud and give us those rare chest-thumping moments as Nepali citizens, we must remember the apathy these endeavors face from the society, government and the corporate world in general. If we do not work to set up institutions to support these champions, these moments will be rarer still.

Once again, KP Oli seems to have done the impossible. Once again, he seems to be turning the tide in his favor when it was thought to be insurmountable. Once again, he has lifted mountains through his sheer grit, and his wit.

In a pair of confident and wide-ranging interviews delivered in English and Hindi to Indian Journalists this week, Oli, as the sitting prime minister, has come out as a leader who can speak truth to the powerful. He didn't dodge any question; neither did he make an effort to find a diplomatic escape when asked difficult questions. Both the journalists were bent on cornering Oli by blaming him of cozying up to China and staging forward an antagonizing stand against India, especially blaming the timing of Nepal publishing a new map that included a disputed territory. Oli gave it back straight to them.

There is no doubt that this is a clever political move to gain support back here in Nepal at a time he is being attacked from all sides. But despite the political maneuvering that these interviews are part of, they will remain in the archives as an example of a bold statement of Nepal’s official line vis-à-vis its two giant neighbors.

Oli's decision to dissolve the parliament has left the intelligentsia in Nepal divided, and the politicians befuddled. The moderates among his close supporters are finding it difficult to justify the action, and have invented metaphors for doing the same. Pradeep Gyawali, the foreign minister, and a sober voice among the supporters, said that the decision to dissolve the parliament could be accepted as democratically correct in a 'Nepali flavored democracy'.

How did it come to this? How did a seemingly black and white decision fall into the grey area? And why is Oli able to slowly generate public support despite his obvious disregard for the constitution? The answer to this lies in the long history of moral degradation Nepali politics has entertained.

For a long time, Nepali politics, and the intelligentsia, have allowed themselves to be manipulated. During the early days of the peace process after the signing in India of the 12-point agreement, the media, the international community and the intelligentsia closed their eyes and allowed themselves to be fooled by the trickery of the Maoists. It was an open secret that the Maoists had a force of no more than 5,000 in their roster when they entered the peace process and they had gone on a rampant drive to recruit new soldiers to inflate the numbers.

The UNMIN got manipulated and more than 15,000 were registered as verified PLA members. The media misreported, and the intelligentsia kept mum. This collective moral failure of Nepali society has manifested itself many times thereafter in politics, in multiple forms. And people deeply resent the fact that Nepal's politicians and intellectuals have been fooled time and again by the trickery of one clever Man.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', who became the co-chairman of Nepal's largest party after merging his Maoist party with the Nepal Communist Party (UML), hasn't allowed the transitional justice process to be completed. The whole political juxtaposition, and the complex power sharing mechanism, has ensured that the hazy ground of immorality and injustice gains acceptability and politics remains dirty.

In his new avatar as a player in the parliamentary system, Prachanda has proved that the tactical tendency of a guerilla mastermind hasn’t been shed. In the build up to present crisis, while the constitution didn't allow a no-confidence motion for the first two years of government, Prachanda was Oli's best friend. But the moment the door to destabilize the government technically opened, he launched attacks on all fronts. With two powerful media houses under his direct influence, the tides turned.

KP Oli in an interview has claimed that all engagements Prachanda had with Oli as the head of the government were always focused on bargaining for power for his near and dear ones. Hard evidence substantiates this. He has a network of family members and close relatives who have been placed in powerful positions, including his daughter Renu Dahal as the mayor of Bharatpur. She was elected in a controversial re-election after a party member tore ballot papers during the vote-counting process.

After doing this while in an election coalition with the Congress, he broke the tie immediately and merged his party with UML. With such clever but immoral maneuverings still etched fresh in public mind, it's difficult for them to believe Prachanda's claims about a new struggle to save democracy.

So, what we clearly see is a great political manipulator completely flabbergasted by the unexpected step Oli took. While the intelligentsia feels obliged to speak against Oli’s steps due to technical reasons, the general public will not come to streets in Prachanda’s support. Luckily, they have no such pretentious dilemmas about technicalities.

As I interact with the people on the streets, I find a common sentiment of support for Oli for having the courage to tackle an unjust manipulation; and with some courage I feel forced to say that in a democracy, we should let people decide what's right or wrong.

Pokhara, with its heavenly scenery and peace, is a bliss for tourists. And it has over the years been developed as a convenient base for adventure activities in and around the Annapurna Range. But this year has been a disaster, like everywhere else.

Tourism, naturally, has been hit hard by the pandemic. Travelling is last thing on people's mind. And for countries like us banking on tourism as one of the pillars of economic development, this is a huge setback.

The year had started with the launch of Visit Nepal 2020 as a government flagship program. There were high hopes that it would help undo the effects of the 2015 earthquake. But right from the start, the indicators were not good.

When then Tourism Minister, Yogesh Bhattrai, inaugurated the campaign’s marketing in Australia in the midst of one of the greatest wildfires in that country's history, we could guess the execution was going to be messy and mindless. On top of that, the program itself was held at a public place without the permission of city authorities, causing much embarrassment for the rookie minister.

Then Covid struck. The same minister was on his toes again, this time with a plan to declare Nepal a 'Corona Free Country', and initiate a new phenomenon: ‘Shelter Tourism based on Refuge from Epidemic’.

As ridiculous as the idea was, it was also an indication of how our leaders think—mostly myopically or, at best, under the influence of a small echo-chamber of advisors whose only expertise is political bickering.

As the pandemic unrolled itself, it engulfed mighty plans and shattered many dreams. The beginning of Covid-19 vaccine program in many European countries had given a glimmer of hope. We expected visitors from the European and American markets. But then the new Covid strain changed the game again.

Bijay Amartya, who has been involved in the tourism business for a long time, says: “The new Covid-19 virus strain and countries’ restrictions in the form of flight bans could be a major blow to the global tourism industry. Nepali tourism industry was expecting some positive announcement from the government on opening on-arrival visa facilities and more international flights from the New Year. Things, apparently, won’t be so straightforward. ”

The main tourist season in Nepal is between September and March. With the season opening on a low, all hopes were pinned on the vaccinations to balance the 2021 season. But now the vaccinations too are doubtful.

One would expect the government to act swiftly to mitigate job losses and step up in every possible way to ease the hardships. But Nepal's politicians instead brought in a bigger disaster. With the parliament dissolved, all investors, including in the tourism sector, are jittery. The arrivals this year have already reached a new low, comparable to that of pre-1996 conflict era.

However, there is a new way to look at the reality that could change how tourism works in Nepal forever. Pokhara saw a surge in domestic tourism during this festive season despite the pandemic, giving new hope and window of opportunity for a paradigm shift.

Florence Karki, the Co-founder and General Manager of The Cliff, Kusma, an extreme adventure activities resort that began operations October this year, says: “We were skeptical about the opening. But it had already been seven years since we started working on this, and waiting any longer was not an option. We have been overwhelmed by the response. Nepali travelers, with their new purchasing power, can upturn how the tourism industry operates.”

But as operators and investors speak from insight and wisdom they have garnered after much pain, the ones who decide on these matters are clueless. And recently, the previous health minister who was ridiculed for his work, has now been given the responsibility of the tourism ministry. The ministry has mostly been a silent spectator on matters that concern tourism.

In a Facebook Group named Nepal Tourism Think Tank, many participants expressed befuddlement as to why foreigners coming from other countries have to spend seven days in quarantine despite their PCR negative status while the same rule doesn't apply for Indians even though India is perhaps the worse-affected country in the world.

A similar question has confused many foreigners in Nepal for years: why do they have to pay almost three times for domestic flights to what is charged of Nepali and Indian citizens?

So, apart from the pandemic, we clearly see problems like misplaced priorities, policy disorientation and government inaction. And now, the question that the people from the industry are asking is: How are we going to survive?

But, Marcus Cotton, who has been involved in the industry for over three decades, and is currently the CEO of Tiger Mountain Resort, Pokhara shows us that there is a flip side to it too: “I have less sympathy with well-established tourism businesses who cried foul and immediately laid off all staff. These companies should have had at least six months of contingency funding for a crisis. But for new businesses, this obviously wasn’t an option.”

The blame game between industry operatives and government agencies will lead us nowhere. The onus to tackle this is a shared one.