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The Chinese government is understandably touchy about any criticism of its handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak. No less than the longevity of President Xi Jinping’s tenure as Chinese president is on the line. When the contagion started spreading like Black Dragon Fire at the start of January, the consensus was that much would depend on the speed with which the Chinese leadership could contain it. Having botched his first response to the Wuhan outbreak, Xi could ill afford to let the contagion get out of hand. Thankfully for him, the rate of new infections in China is drastically down and the country is already trying to ease corona-related restrictions.

By showing that he can mount a fightback against corona, Xi is regaining the trust of his citizens. It is unclear if the slowdown in the rate of new infections is a temporary lull or a more permanent phenomenon. Yet it is safe to assume that Chinese leaders will have their hands full dealing with the fallout from the novel coronavirus pandemic for some time yet. They could have time for little else, including the kind of proactive diplomacy Xi has undertaken since the 2013 unveiling of his signature Belt and Road Initiative.

The Kathmandu Post fiasco illustrated the sort of damage-control job Chinese diplomats and foreign missions will be engaged in for the foreseeable future. The focus of Chinese foreign policy in this time will be to establish that Xi handled the corona crisis as well as (if not better than) anyone else could have. This narrative is important to assure Xi’s countrymen that he is still firmly in charge and capable of dealing with any crisis. ‘Uncle Xi’ will never fail them.

Only when he reestablishes his control over the popular narrative and firmly tamps down on any criticism from within the communist party over his handling of the coronavirus outbreak—only then will his focus again shift abroad, to that dream of making China the focal point of a new world order. This could have important ramifications for smaller countries in the region like Nepal. The Chinese leadership distracted, and the ‘botched Wuhan response’ narrative still finding takers, the westerners will try to play up the dangers of allying with an ‘authoritarian’ state like China that evidently doesn’t even care about its own people.

But the communist government in Nepal will continue to be loyal to Beijing, a position that won’t be unpopular with the people. They have not forgotten the pain of the 2015-16 Indian blockade, or China’s indispensability as that important counterweight to India. Moreover, the position of a powerful NCP faction that the American MCC compact has sinister anti-China agenda has found plenty of takers; ask any taxi-driver in Kathmandu. Perhaps there could come a time when China is mistrusted in Nepal. Right now, more common is the view that the western world is trying to demonize China when it is going through one of the toughest times in its recent history.

A Japanese emperor once asked a Zen master: “What’s the difference after you got enlightened?”

The master said: “Not much. I used to chop wood in the jungle and fetch water from the well. I do the same now. I chop wood and fetch water.”

The emperor was baffled, so the master explained: “Earlier, I did it with my deluded mind. My mind was not there when I chopped wood and fetched water. Now I can do just that. My mind is there. I can see it and enjoy it.” The emperor got the answer.

The master’s everyday life didn’t change. Only the way he lived changed. His mechanical, absent-minded way changed. A thousand thoughts hit his mind when he chopped wood and fetched water. Maybe he got angry at having to do something so menial while his friends were having a good time out there. Often his mind was everywhere but the wood and water. When he was enlightened, a total awareness opened to him. The mind got calm and settled. Now he could really be with what he was doing—chopping wood and fetching water. It was no longer a boring daily chore, but an enjoyable act of witnessing. 

That simple knowing—that awareness—about how his mind worked when he did an everyday job made all the difference. Being in that knowing—in the awareness—purified his mind of things that tainted it. That’s the mind the master carried after enlightenment.

Things do not change for an enlightened person. Only how they see changes. They go about doing the same thing, but they can see them in their untainted purity, in their perfect ‘fullness’. They are totally with the things they do, both physically and mentally. They just have cut off the mind’s ‘attachment’ to or against it. They can still play football or listen to 1974 AD. They can still disco-dance, have a girlfriend or boyfriend, or drink a few glasses of beer. (It’s a different matter that they don’t indulge in 
such things.)

Often we tend to think that enlightened people are outlandish. Not exactly. They don’t go into caves and cut themselves off from people. To the contrary, they come out of caves and mingle with people. They share true love. They know the mind and the world, inside-out, in their purity. Living goes on as usual. It only gets purer.

Almost a year ago I wrote about the Nepal Padayatra 2019, the brainchild of Homraj Acharya to help bring social justice to the millions who suffer from caste discrimination in Nepal. In March last year I met Acharya along with fellow walkers Ashok Darnal and Reeta Pariyar in Kholpur on Day 11 of their 54-day journey. This week, I caught up with Acharya again.

In a brief recap, Acharya explains, “In my earlier work, I came across a lot of caste discrimination in labor-intensive work places. I wanted to find out if this was still the case at the household and community levels: What were the drivers behind continued, although legally outlawed, discrimination and what were the blocks to ending this discrimination? Hence Nepal Padayatra.” And what are some of these drivers and blocks? Overall, the Padayatra team saw that while on the surface equality tends to be practiced, caste discrimination still exists. They witnessed many excuses for this continued practice. Acharya gave the example of grandparents passing down their prejudices to grandchildren, and of social pressure from neighbors and other family members; which perpetuates the system.

As caste discrimination is a touchy and potentially volatile topic, I asked whether there were any incidents on the road. I was told there were threats in some areas and they were aware that if they fell sick naysayers would use this as an excuse to say ‘look what happens when you go against tradition’. Thankfully there were no serious problems and no one got sick.

I wanted to know about the positives of the journey. According to Acharya, meeting and connecting at a personal level with different communities—being welcomed and offered food and accommodation—was the highlight of the actual journey. “Wherever we went, people would come out to listen to us or walk alongside us. We had no real expectation as to how many people would turn up. But by the end of trip the vibration rippled out and over 5,000 people came to meet with us at Baglung,” says Acharya.

Last year Acharya told me the walk was organized entirely without NGO or other funding. To accept funds would be missing the point of the initiative. It turned out the generosity of communities and individuals was enough. Many of those who came to listen were open-hearted enough to give Rs 10 or Rs 20 to this self- and community-funded walk.

Any negatives? Blisters! The least pleasant part of the 54-day walk were the blisters (yes, I saw those blisters even on Day 11). And the permanent damage done to two of Acharya’s toes with all that walking. Sometimes 40 km a day.

What comes next? Acharya tells me he expects the momentum to be kept up. Having reached out to Bipin Sharma, chairman of the Suchana Chautari Sanchar Cooperative Society Ltd, Sharma will be working to galvanize the cooperative machinery in the country. “We need community-led change, whether it be through cooperatives, user groups, cottage industries, clubs, etc. Hopefully a conglomerate of them all,” says Acharya. To ensure this, over the next four years, a ‘compliance fellow’ will be selected, motivated and trained within every municipality. This fellow will then connect the community to the government through talks and discussions, to bring social justice at all levels.

And what of the walkers themselves? Acharya will be involved in working with the potential compliance fellows on social justice, climate change, and local entrepreneurship. Ashok Darnal continues to write about social justice through his journalism and Reeta Pariyar is continuing her social activism.

To see more of their story, you can find them on Facebook under Nepal Padayatra 2019.

All Asian cultures, especially the Chinese, agree disease is caused by an imbalance of elements which make up the human body. Ayurveda recognizes five elements (pancha bhuta) that make up the body. All five elements—air, fire, water, earth, ether—have to be in balance for the body to be healthy. Too much air element can cause joint and bone pains, too much fire element can cause fevers, too much water can cause diarrhea, for instance. Food must always be prepared in a way which balances sattva, rajas and tamas elements for perfect health.

This leads me to theorize that all elements of the environment also have to be in balance for life to be healthy. That is not the case in the current frenetic search for “development.” China is filled with asphalt and concrete, suffocating the earth element. Their factories are fueled by coal and fossil fuel, creating global heating and imbalancing the fire element. Their waterways are overexploited, dammed and full of plastic, destabilizing the water element. Industries spew chemical pollution in the air, imbalancing the air element. CFCs and other dangerous chemicals burn holes into the ozone in the stratosphere, imbalancing the ether element. How then can a dangerous pandemic like the coronavirus not take hold? The environment itself is deranged and out of balance—how can it support healthy life?

Yet this is the same model our communists have triumphantly followed. They don’t want any “feudal” elements in their lives—not the ancient ponds and waterways which were associated with Hindu worship, and which are now buried for building supermalls and commercial complexes; not the forests which sheltered the monkeys and deer of Shiva because they see no profit in taking care of trees and animals; not the temples which hosted ancient gods and goddesses because they are better cleansed for gilded plastic Laughing Buddhas promising prosperity and manufactured in dubious conditions in factories in China.

I was in Patan and aghast to see they’d demolished the Krishna Temple, made of stone and full of carved Vishnus from centuries ago. They had done the same to the JaiBageswori Temple near Pashupati. They are replacing them with shoddy carved imitations which even a first year art student would scorn to make. This is an international art crime that those who are selling and those who are buying will have to pay for, in the not so distant future. Interpol must send out a red alert to catch these criminals.

For Nepali communists, getting rid of two million trees in Kathmandu to widen the roads a few feet has been a triumph of urban planning. Never mind if destruction of greenery has brought severe air pollution, water shortages and a new ominous threat in the form of urban plagues like dengue to the overcrowded city. The feudals were always wrong and always evil, they argue—there is no discussion of how their policies to restrict demographic growth in a small bowl-shaped valley like Kathmandu contained the seeds of urban wisdom, not just social exclusion.

As to how the communists plan to provide water to the rising population of millions there is no answer, other than allowing more and more fossil fueled tankers to go around selling water in plastic canisters, a clearly unsustainable albeit popular strategy which doesn’t have a future in the long run. Will they fund the gravity-fueled dhungay dharas of yore? But there is no tax in that!

How would our comrades make money if they created infrastructure which provided basic services to people at a low or free cost? At the moment, they get to dig up the Melamchi pipes every few months (as they are doing right now in Handigaon). Someone makes a fat profit form this Kafkaesque exercise in digging up a non-existent waterpipe while getting their annual contract from their comrades. I assume this “cake” is cut and shared with the top leaders, not just the local contractor who bid and got the job.

The danger of communism is not just stupidity, which is emptying our country of its cultural heritage, forests and wildlife. It is that their vision of governance is so short sighted, with everything centered around collection of tax and distribution to near and dear ones, that they have created an ecological imbalance of living conditions which makes a pandemic a very real possibility, as we saw with dengue in the summer. Getting rid of them and bringing in a more ethical crew is now a matter of life and death for almost everyone (bar a few) in Kathmandu. Polluted air does not discriminate between rich and poor. Even though your air-conditioned car may carry you through the worst stretch in a seeming environment of pristine air, that security is very, very deceiving.