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In 1782, Nepal, under the regency of Rajendra Rajya Laxmi Devi, was pushing ahead with its expansion campaign started by the regent’s late father-in-law, Prithvi Narayan Shah. In the same year, King Thongduang (Rama I) initiated the Chakri dynasty rule in Siam (now Thailand).

Nepal threw out the 240-year-old Shah dynasty in 2008. But the Thai Chakri monarchy remains unharmed. Instead, the current monarch, Vajiralongkorn (Rama X), seems intent on tightening his hold. At his prodding, police are cracking down on Thai youths who have been taking to the streets asking for greater accountability from their profligate and promiscuous monarch. They would also like to see greater respect for democratic norms from Thai military. 

The year 2001 was the Shah dynasty’s beginning of the end after a largely popular king and his family were gunned down in a royal massacre. He was replaced by a determined autocrat with no truck for democratic norms. Making matters worse, King Gyanendra and his spoilt son, Paras, were suspects in the killing of King Birendra’s family. People just didn’t trust the new monarch who had ascended the throne under such unpropitious omens.   

Something similar happened in Thailand. In 2016 King Bhumibol’s (Rama IX’s) death brought Vajiralongkorn to the Thai throne. The former was widely revered, even deified. The latter is as widely loathed. It’s hard to love him too. The new king is a free-spending playboy who has been putting up in a luxury hotel in Germany—in the warm embrace of his 20 concubines—to escape Covid-19 in Thailand.  

Thai youths had seen enough. They have been out on the streets for months, protesting against the unearned privileges of their king. But their grievances run deeper. The constitutional constraints on the monarchy and the military he controls were lifted following the army’s 2014 coup. Even before that the armed forces frequently removed popularly elected governments. The tipping point came in February this year when the progressive Future Forward Party, with 81 seats in the 500-member lower house, was banned on trumped-up charges. 

Those accustomed to unearned privileges for long assume things will always be the same. But, then, a sudden tsunami sweeps everything away, as happened with Nepal’s Shah monarchy.    

Today’s youths are supposedly lazy and complaisant, quick to pick a fight on social media but shy of any kind of direct political activism. Yet what we see is the opposite. The youths are right now at the forefront of political protests, everywhere from the US to Thailand to Nepal. They want greater democratic freedoms, an end to old unearned privileges, and less racial and economic inequality. It would be foolish to take them lightly.

Who would have thought the Shah monarchy, with its considerable public support and long legacy, could be pushed aside so easily? The protesting Thai youths may not get all they want this time; the monarchy-backed Thai junta is way too powerful right now. But the king’s blatant disregard of popular sentiments and the junta’s ham-fisted crackdown tactics suggest the days of the old Thai establishment are numbered too. The Chakri dynasty has survived for longer than the Shah dynasty. But not by much. 

The US, considered the richest economy in the world, has the highest rates of coronavirus deaths. At current count, they have lost over 220K people. Most poor countries in the Third World have seen minimal deaths in comparison. Why, we must ask?

Rwanda, for instance, seems to have adopted very good public health measures. Their air flights are still operational. People are taking precautions and safety measures which make travel safe and easy to monitor possibly infectious individuals.

In the US, by comparison, even masks are a major issue. People throw hysterical fits when asked to leave a store if they don’t have a mask on. There are videos of people lying and saying they have a medical condition in order to get an exemption. The tantrums of Americans laid bare their political stupidities. This is a key reason for high infections and deaths, but not the only one.

There appears to be a correlation between large sums paid to US hospitals for patients on ventilators, and subsequent deaths. According to documentary “Plandemic”, featuring Judy Mikovits (instantly dismissed by US media and health administration as a tinhat conspiracy theorist and a nut), hospitals get large sums for patients who are intubated and ventilated. This encourages doctors to do this procedure even when it is unnecessary, leading to coma and then death. This appears to be a major cause of mass deaths in the US.

Remdesivir, which can cause long-term kidney and liver damage, appears to be another reason. “EU Regulator Probes Possible Kidney Damage From Virus Drug,” reported AFP on 2 October 2020. “A combination of generic drugs appears to be more effective in fighting the coronavirus than Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir,” wrote Sharon Lerner on 26 May 2020 in the publication The Intercept, in an article titled “Despite the hype, Gilead’s Remdesivir will do nothing to end the coronavirus pandemic”. Gilead Sciences is well known for ridiculous scams including a course of liver medication which costs $84,000.

Interestingly, both India and Bangladesh’s diplomatic arms suddenly decided to gift Nepal planeloads of Remdesivir a few weeks ago. This leads me to suspect Big Pharma marketing went into overdrive, using all marketing channels including diplomatic ones to arm-twist poor countries into using this dubious drug. As to why WHO continues to endorse this drug is moot.

Previous research shows pandemic deaths can be underreported by a factor of seven. With 1.12 million recorded deaths worldwide, this means we could now have approximately eight million covid-19 deaths. Many deaths could have been caused by lethal medical and pharmacological interventions, especially in highly developed countries like the US, France, Spain and Italy. That’s an iatrogenic disaster.

In countries like Nepal where people have chosen to stay away from hospitals and self-medicate with Ayurveda, death rates have been very low. Despite evidence, Western scientific organizations like WHO continue to insist Western medicine is the only way to deal with this crisis. Dr. Tedros has not deviated from his stance that hospitalization, intubation and ventilation, antibiotics, and Big Pharma are the one and only way to deal with this pandemic.

Which brings us to Hippocrates. The Hippocratic Oath is to do no harm to patients. But it is clear millions of people have already died from two factors: a) the inherent inefficiency and lack of healing potential of the Western medical system in dealing with this pandemic and, b) the deliberate misuse of the Western healing system. If so, should not an organization like the WHO which professes to heal the world show humility and acknowledge other medical traditions may have better solutions?

Perhaps Western science is not all its cracked up to be. Perhaps the Western medical system is an elaborate and expensive hoax on some level. In Nepal, hospitals charge their Covid-19 patients heavily, then dispose of the dead without showing the corpse to the family. If unethical capitalists inside hospitals, of which they are plenty, decide to start a kidney harvesting operation, no Nepali would know. Army jawans who cart away dead bodies do not check for an operation scar. Nepal remains a key location for kidney sales, fetching up to 60 lakhs. All these possibilities should be considered with an open mind.

No amount of jeering about cow urine can take away the fact Ayurveda is an ancient system of healing involving many complex formulations which have healed efficiently and safely for thousands of years. In Nepal, most people live an Ayurvedic lifestyle, no matter how modern and professional they appear. Thankfully, most people decide they cannot afford expensive iatrogenic intervention, which saves them from ventilation, coma, and death. As a society, we are already a large scale “clinical trial” which has proved the efficiency of Ayurveda.

We seek international recognition for our system of healing. But perhaps it is time to recognize that organizations like WHO, which profess to certify and regulate medicine, are themselves very limited in understanding global healing systems, and narrow in their scope of advice. Perhaps the WHO should be labeled what it is: an outdated and irrelevant organ of what was once “Western civilization” but now looks perilously like white supremacy.

(The article represents the author’s personal views)

“Why is the Nepal Army making the Indian Army Chief its honorary General?”

This was the question asked to me at a teashop in Waling, my hometown, recently. I was fumbling for an answer myself. Not the least because this strange puzzle called Indo-Nepal relations has been at the center-stage of my life so far.

Apart from my own experience with the Indian Army, the question is pertinent also because a lot has happened under the Oli government this year. We have had a dramatic turn of events in our relationship with India.

Waling is the biggest town of Syangja-2 constituency of the federal House of Representatives, represented right now by Padma Aryal, the sitting minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation. The minister was seen presenting framed map of Nepal, as a trophy, to the Who's Who of Nepali politics. This was after the government released a new map that includes the 300 square km land from the northwest end of the country that had gone missing suspiciously some decades ago.

In an interview that I took for a Live Talk Show, on the day the new emblem of Nepal government with the new map was approved by the lower house with a thumping majority, the minister had presented this cartographic development as her government's biggest political achievement. Was she too busy with the map, or had her ministry worked out a strategy to deal with Covid-related poverty and unemployment issues? She did not have a data-based answer, nor a promising plan.

Oli had taken his verbal bellicosity with India to a new low by appearing to mock the Indian national emblem. Although it created a puerile support in Nepal among the masses, for a more mature audience, it came out foolish.

I wasn't surprised by the way politicians behaved. But what General Narawane, the Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army, did at this time was disappointing.

My father was a Nepali-origin Gorkha soldier and he took us along for education in various places in India. Dehradun and Darjeeling, places where I did my schooling, each has a sizable chunk of Nepali-speaking people. They are the Indian Gorkhas in military parlance now.

As a 'line boy'– the name given by the British to sons of the soldiers who grew up away from the rustic hardships of the rural countryside of Nepal, I understood the Gorkha Regiment from the inside.

I joined as an officer some years later. Although I had options to join any of the regiments in the Army, or even Navy or Air force, I preferred my father's regiment. I couldn't think of the Indian Army beyond the Gorkhas. After some years, not being able to justify to myself the rationale of serving in a foreign army, I refused to serve. As a Conscientious Objector, I was framed for desertion, and dismissed from service by a Court Martial.

Through this thick and thin, however, I have had very little to complain against the Officers of the Indian Army, my Brothers at Arms once. It's one of the most professional armies in the world, with amazing young leaders leading it from the front. Most importantly, there is a respect for the Gorkhas among the officer cadres that is unparalleled to any other creed of warriors. In the academy, newly commissioned officers compete ferociously to join one of the seven regiments of the Gorkhas.

This respect is hard earned by the Gorkhas, through commitment, loyalty and display of sheer mettle, grit and courage, for over two hundred years, all over the world. A Gorkha soldier is not a war-making machine, but he is the best a military leader can hope for to get the job done, with least of complaints.

What made Gen Manoj Naravane forget this sizable chunk of ferocious warriors who are part of the army that he commands? I couldn't arrive at a logical conclusion. The only plausible reason I could think of was that the Indian Army has now been heavily politicized, and the Generals have started becoming too ambitious for their boots. They are now keen to tow the lines of the politicians.

On the map issue, Gen Naravane had accused Nepal government of acting at behest of 'others', meaning China. In five months, it has come full circle and now he will be conferred the rank of an honorary General of the Nepal Army by the President of Nepal.

Has he, the Indian Army, or the Indian government issued an official apology? If not, why is the Nepal Government making him a General?

I’m having a love-hate relationship with Facebook at the moment. My sister has gone fully for the latter and completely come off it this week. Often referred to in the West as an ‘old persons’ app, my young relatives do not use it but prefer Instagram and Snapchat. Thankfully Nepal is still very much ‘old school’ when it comes to social media and everything you ever wanted to know about anything is there. On Facebook. I don’t think I could go through the strain of learning a new app. So for those two reasons I love it. It’s easy to use and all I want to know is there at my finger-tips.

But I hate it right now because it keeps coming up with those “Memories”.  Memories of what you were doing this day last year, or the year before, or the year before that. Stretching all the way back to 2009 in my case.

And what I was doing this day in year 20xx is:

Jazzmandu: Always scheduled between Dashain and Tihar I have been attending Jazzmandu since I do believe the second one held in 2003. Those early festivals saw very few locals in the audience, which was mainly made up of resident foreigners. But since Nepalis love music and have no preconceptions, jazz grew to be loved and played around town. As Jazzmandu grew, more and more international musicians joined the local jazz musicians and those playing Nepali classical music on traditional instruments.

In 2013 and 2014 I was part of the Jazzmandu Media Team and got to see behind stage. That was a lot of fun and hard work. My two favourite events are always the Jazz Bazaar at Gokarna Forest Resort and Jazz at the Temple House. The former, a whole day of music in the autumn sun, then wrap up, and letting dancing warm us up in the cool of the evening; the latter, an extraordinary blend of the traditional and the modern set in a beautiful inner courtyard and bringing Tihar alive for me. Actually with Nepali classical musicians the likes of Santosh Bhakta, and the late Rabin Lal Shrestha, Jazz at the Temple House IS Tihar for me. But sadly Jazzmandu is missing this year.

Theater and performing art: Whether ‘regular’ theater at one of the many around town, or a special performance by likes of Solis Performing Arts or visiting performers hosted several times a year by the Japanese Embassy—I miss them all! All over the world performance art has been cancelled in 2020. From the Edinburgh International Festival to the International Theatre Festival held in Kathmandu, and a host of others—they are all missing this year.

Leading up to Dashain: As well as the above, post-monsoon and the lead up to Dashain is always a fantastic time music-wise in Kathmandu. Whether its album launching at 25 Hours or Moksh; a visiting rock band at Purple Haze; the house band at Shisha; festivals the likes of the Boudha Rock Festival or the Kathmandu Blues & Roots Festival and gigs at numerous other venues, this time of year is always a time of music. Venue hopping and even genre hopping in an evening was nothing unusual for this time of year. All missing this year.

Then there are holidays: Often in September and October I would be in either Scotland or South East Asia, normally Thailand. Sadly holidaying in any country is out of question for the foreseeable future. Even Pokhara looks alarmingly tricky. 

So while it’s lovely to see those old memories and watch the past live videos I posted, some days I just can’t bear to open those Facebook Memories.