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Globally, HIV is considered a complex global pandemic. The devastating effects of HIV/AIDS are profoundly alarming as it continues to be one of the leading causes of deaths in the world. In recent years, it is increasingly realized that HIV is more than just a public health issue. Rather it is a social issue that causes severe development challenges in human history. 

The spread of HIV embraces social inequalities that specifically impact the poor, socially marginalized and vulnerable communities. The socio-political, cultural, economic, historical and psychological factors contributing to HIV/AIDS are equally important to consider while addressing the HIV epidemic in a larger context. Anthropologists are interested in understanding prevailing cultural beliefs, social norms, value systems and local practices that place people at risk of HIV. 

In addition to biomedical and public health sciences, anthropology as a discipline has significant contributions to generate evidence that has greatly enhanced epidemiological and biomedical understanding of HIV epidemic. Apart from this, there is an emerging need to explore the political economy of HIV that shapes people’s behaviors in different socio-political and cultural contexts. The intersecting yet diverse social inequalities and structural barriers have both direct and indirect impacts on people’s nuanced understanding of the HIV epidemic and their access to the services they need. 

The issues of sexuality, gender, risk groups, stigma and discrimination, social and behavior change within and across cultures can be meticulously accessed with an anthropological perspective. In most societies, local knowledge, biosocial processes and cultural influences on patterns of infectious diseases are often neglected. Linking these wider social determinants of HIV is crucial for sustained local responses. 

Moving away from traditional approaches for HIV response, we need a paradigm shift that demands human rights-based, people-centered policies, community-led interventions and resilient health systems. Gender and social inclusion in HIV response is critical as there are differential effects of the epidemic on people who are poor, socially excluded and vulnerable. 

The evidence shows that social vulnerability to HIV is more prominent in specific population groups such as migrants, sex workers, people who use drugs, men having sex with men and transgender communities.  Their social, cultural, legal and economic disadvantages have largely contributed to the high risks of HIV and vulnerabilities. 

From the HIV response perspectives, there are increasing needs of community-led interventions, which are more culturally appropriate. Such interventions are likely to be more effective as community engagement is ensured to create an enabling environment for social and behavior change among the vulnerable groups. In essence, overcoming socio-political, cultural, religious and economic barriers is a key challenge to end the epidemic. 

The cultural understandings of HIV are essentially diverse in different contexts. Anthropological inquiry to growing needs of public awareness of HIV for prevention has made clear emphasis on social and cultural environments where vulnerable groups are realistically experiencing their own livelihoods in their everyday life. Social resilience and adaptive wisdom are critical to cope with the devastating effects of HIV on population groups who are socially excluded and vulnerable in the communities. 

While integrated bio-behavioral surveys and assessments are largely focusing on quantitative research methods and approaches, implementation of ethnographic field research is relatively low. The anthropological approaches will help explore wider inequalities of class, gender and ethnicity in terms of risks and vulnerability to HIV. Therefore, engaging anthropologists in HIV responses is crucial in addressing social concerns from people’s perspectives, designing community-led interventions, undertaking ethnographic field research for evidence-informed policy and strategic actions.   

Given our biological knowledge and the availability of effective medical and behavioral solutions, anthropological perspectives are useful to have greater details of why HIV continues to spread. More importantly, these perspectives aim to explore what impacts does HIV have on human populations. Ethnographic field research collects the stories of local realities and social sufferings experienced by people living with HIV in their everyday life and their choices for healthcare and social services.  

In this context, the basic health belief model developed in the 1950s has been instrumental in obtaining the information related to an individual’s perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits and barriers regarding any threat related to HIV or health conditions or behaviors. The community-led responses require effective representation and meaningful engagement of people living with HIV and other key populations at high risk of HIV infection. 

In all social hierarchies, it is necessary to examine how HIV policies and strategic priorities are shaped by socio-political, economic and cultural contexts in terms of inclusivity, equity and diversity. The disparity between rural and urban, rich and poor has evoked a serious concern in terms of people’s access to prevention, treatment and care services. Unfortunately, the policy responses to ensure the right to healthcare are not sufficiently addressed yet within and across cultures.

At the core, anthropological perspectives offer a broad overview of the social, cultural, political, economic and psychological factors shaping the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The wider determinants of HIV are significantly influencing HIV vulnerability cross-culturally, and the ways in which governments, civil society and development partners are working together for sustained responses in different contexts. Therefore, the new approaches for HIV responses must focus on humanity, dignity and right to health to scale up person-centered HIV care across the communities.

The author is a health policy analyst and has an interest in anthropology

With the country set to graduate from the group of least developed countries in 2026, it is an imperative for Nepal to be able to attract foreign investments. The nation, in order to turn itself into a lower middle-income country with a clear pathway ahead for further economic growth, is compelled to diversify its economy, overcoming its dependency on foreign remittances.

Tourism and hydropower are showing high potential and, in recent years, some efforts have been made at making the national economy more attractive for global companies looking for new markets to produce and sell their products. With its low manpower costs, Nepal could become an important destination for global investments.

Yet, it is equally important that the country creates conducive conditions to boost its national GDP without jeopardizing local communities and while safeguarding its unique biodiversity and intangible customs and traditions that are often at risk of being disrupted by business interests.

That’s why the agenda of Business and Human Rights becomes so relevant not just to ensure, in a tokenistic fashion, some nice optics on the way Nepal is pursuing its national growth. Rather, it should become an essential, indispensable core component of any national strategy aimed at laying the ground for a successful graduation from the grouping of least developed countries.

When we talk about Business and Human Rights, we refer to a niche area of human rights laws and practices at a crossroads with many other legislations and regulations. Businesses intersect with and impact a multifold array of sectors and areas, from labor to customer protection, to customary and indigenous rights to gender and environmental related legislations and regulations.

There are many cases of business and human rights infringements.

Cases of labor exploitation, lack of consultations with local communities before breaking ground, denial in giving proper compensation when private lands are expropriated, exploitative working conditions and illegal but silently tolerated disruptions of the local environment are some of them. So, it is essential to ensure that business houses, especially those reaching a certain turnover, are operating not only by upholding the law but also by adhering to the highest standards stemming from international law and practices.

This is particularly essential in a country like Nepal.

Here we normally witness a weak rule of law characterized by a political class often marred in controversies with the private sector, a slow judiciary often accused of lacking transparency and integrity and a generally feeble enforcement of rules and regulations. As I write, the 13th United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights is unfolding at the United Nations in Genève.

The gathering is the most important venue to discuss challenges and best practices related to business and human rights and it is normally preceded by regional forums around the world. 

For example, back in 2023, Nepal hosted, for the first time, the fourth edition of the South Asia Forum on Business and Human Rights. At the beginning of 2024, with a lot of delays, the government officially launched its first ever National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights. This represents an important milestone for Nepal but there is a high probability that such a plan will only remain a lifeless document, unread and forgotten, a plan that, like many others, will never be brought to action because of lack of enforcement.

But the document is not only at risk of being ignored. The plan is also problematic because of its nature and way it was designed. Because the area of business and human rights is very vast, the Action Plan covers a multitude of issues that are extremely complex on their own. 

How could we, for example, downplay the plague of child labor, for example? What about the necessity of creating awareness-raising programs on the rights of the consumers, who are so often deceived by the private sector? What about the need for developing industrial waste processing mechanisms or the formulation and revision of the law relating to import, sale, distribution and justified use of pesticides?

These are all essential items of policymaking included in the Action Plan that, if put into practice through effective legislation and regulations, could make a real difference for the lives of millions of citizens. 

Yet the whole plan is missing the point. Rather than being a checklist of disparate and unrelated actions to be undertaken by the legislator and executive, the plan should have focused on key essential items. At the foremost should have been the Corporate Sustainability and Human Rights Due Diligence legislation.

This is basically a regulation that would force corporations to uphold mandatory standards and behaviors by demanding them to report and explain how their business practices respect human rights across their value chain. This provision is entirely missing from the plan whose first activity, just to give the reader an idea, is to “formulate national policy on business and human rights” that is supposed to be implemented in the third year of implementation.

The contents of such a policy, its purpose and its key features are still a mystery. Nepal, like many other nations, needs a binding Due Diligence legislation. Designing such legislation won’t be easy. It is a complex task that would require a continuous engagement with stakeholders, starting from the business sector that would probably push back against it.

Yet, it is essential to compel the private sector to undertake binding rather than voluntary commitments. This is the major lesson learned over the years while trying to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 

This is a voluntary framework that provides corporations with the key expected behaviors and important principles like the right of the people that are affected by alleged and presumed abuses by the private sector to have multiple pathways toward a remedy.

Such an approach did not work.

That’s why many developed states have enacted mandatory Due Diligence regulations, including the EU with the most ambitious legislation, the ‘EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive’ that entered into force for all its members on 25 July 2024. It is a regulation that will be fully implemented in the coming years on the basis of a gradual, step by step timeline by giving enough time for corporations to be ready for its compliance by identifying, addressing and providing remedy for their negative impacts.

It is a legislation that attracted a lot of resistance and it is still being fiercely criticized but is setting the standards. Developing or emerging nations should not just wait and watch for developed nations to take the lead. For a country like Nepal, there is an opportunity to lead in its own way with a less complex but solid legal framework that would ensure highest practices on the part of the corporate sector.

If corporate houses take a long view, they will realize that, ultimately, that it is in their own interest to embrace this road. Better business practices, more attentiveness toward the rights of the citizens, will bring stronger financial returns even though due diligence legislations will force them to change many aspects of their business models.

Shortcuts won’t be tolerated any more. For example, Environmental Impact Assessments or the so-called Free Prior Informed Consent that gives special rights to indigenous people when dealing with land inhabited by them, are both often not taken seriously and taken too much for granted. There is no doubt that this type of legislation will only work if the state is serious about implementing them and at creating the conditions for these regulations to do their job.

The ongoing forum in Genève is focused on the so-called “smart mix”, a combination of voluntary and mandatory regulations at local and national levels. In the case of a nation with a strong rule of law culture, such an approach could make sense even though the mandatory, binding components of any Business and Human Rights legislations should be stronger and more prevalent than the voluntary ones.

Perhaps, a country like Nepal would need a gradual approach based on a strong core of mandatory provisions to be accompanied by voluntary ones. In matters of Business and Human Rights, it is now proved that it is better to have a strong stick and few carrots to make sure corporations can thrive while championing human rights. 

After completing my six-year tenure as an election commissioner in July 2000, I decided not to return to teaching, my original profession. Instead of confining myself to the classroom, I decided to write articles on electoral matters to share my ideas with the people at large.

In the beginning of 2001, Padmaratna Tuladhar invited me to meet a foreigner (whose name I don’t remember) at a five star-hotel in Kalimati. There, I met Charan Parsai for the first time and a lady whose name I cannot recall. I don’t remember the subject we four deliberated upon. But this was my first interaction with civil society leaders. Devendra Raj Pandey got me associated with Nepal South Asia Center in March 2002 and I worked with him until I was made national coordinator for the Ceasefire Code of Conduct in June 2006.

However, I was in constant touch with Daman Nath Dhungana through the 22-member Civil Monitoring Committee, formed to monitor the ceasefire that the Maoists had declared for Dashain in 2005, as both of us were its members. We remained associated through several organizations like Parliamentary Foundation, Friends for Peace and Nepal Transition to Peace Institute Nepal/Nepal Shanti Pratishthan, which was established in 2014.

During this period, we used to meet at least thrice a week and share our views over phone every evening till recently. After developing a theme to write on, I used to talk about it and after publication of the article, get his comments, which were always objective. He was actually my friend, philosopher and guide. Even when he was almost bedridden after his return from Delhi, where he had been for medical treatment, I used to meet him on alternate days. Though unable to speak fluently as before, he used to infer that I must be busy with my writing. Referring to our cordial relationship, I used to tell him that it must have been fixed in our previous lives, though neither of us believed in past lives. Even today I do not know why he was so cordial and helpful to me as we were far apart geographically: I am from Madhes and he was from Kathmandu.

There were some salient traits of his personality, which I want to share with the reader. First, he was a full-time politician, though not active but always participatory. He never declined an invite for a meeting, whether called by a party or a group, and he was a true politicoholic. Second, he was a democrat by conviction and practice, and never compromised with his ideals for any gains. It was he who raised, for the first time, the issue of electing a Constituent Assembly (CA) for framing a people’s constitution, in Nepal. So, the CA was his brain-child, though India’s first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, had included the agenda in the ‘Delhi Compromise’ signed in Delhi in Feb 1951. The agenda remained on paper until the Maoists included it in the 12-point understanding reached with the Seven-Party alliance in Nov 2005.

Third, he was a politician with a difference as he neither sought any favour for himself nor obliged anyone for profit. Perhaps, this was the reason why he got respect from others but not their support, which is required the most in today’s electoral politics and that was also the reason why his institutions always lacked funds to operate smoothly. Fourth, he was always ready to address any meetings and deliver speeches but was quite lazy when it came to writing, which deprived us of his knowledge and wide experience for our guidance.

Fifth, he was a witty orator and knew how to twist and turn the subject matter he took up for deliberations. Sixth, he was a treasure of knowledge acquired by reading books, which he used to share with us in our meetings. Seventh, he was very hospitable and used to receive visitors well before the scheduled time. Eighth, I always found him very accommodating. During the launch of my books, he used to busy himself with the management aspect of the events. Lastly, he was always worried about the low level of politics and the future of Nepal. He wanted to take the lead in improving the situation but found himself handicapped by not having any organization to support him.

He wanted the Parliamentary Foundation, the organization he had founded, to function smoothly to provide organizational support for streamlining the parliamentary system and also wished to get the initiatives of NTTPI for documenting the peace process. Sadly, his wishes remained unfulfilled.

Fulfilling his wishes through joint efforts would be our tribute to the departed soul. In his death, I have lost one of my great well-wishers, whom I will be missing all my life as the void resulting from his absence will never be filled up.

Nearly five decades ago, when I was a student of economics at the Tribhuvan University, all master’s level students had to serve in rural areas of the country—they had to perform social work and teach in schools under the program called National Development Service (NDS). Normally, master’s degree programs took two years to complete, but the NDS component turned into a three-year program.

My assignment was at a lower middle school in Khurkot (Sindhuli district) and I was the first NDS student to be sent to this school, where I received a warm welcome from the teachers and villagers.

Our primary task was to help build a toilet at the school, as there was none. Local people and teachers came together, pooled in necessary resources and built the toilet in three months. In addition, I organized an inter-school quiz competition, launched an awareness campaign encouraging parents to send their daughters to school and worked to reduce anti-social activities.

A bridge between the hills and the Tarai, Khurkot, located at the foot of the Mahabharat range and on the banks of the Sunkoshi river, has been a center for trade and commerce between the people of the hills and the Tarai for centuries. These days, Khurkot, with roads all around it, namely the Dhulikhel-Bardibas road (west), Khurkot-Manthali road (north) and the Khurkot-Katari road (east), has transformed into a bustling small town on the Sunkoshi banks with shops, hotels and lodges.

Despite these changes on the outside, there has not been any marked improvement in the life of its residents. The most visible change, perhaps, is the replacement of thatched roofs with zinc sheets. What struck me was that many of the shops, hotels and lodges that have sprung up in Khurkot do not belong to the local people; they belong to outsiders.

Primarily, Khurkot is home to Chhetri and Bahun (Brahmin) communities, most of whom are farmers, with a handful in civil service. Many youths from these communities have gone abroad for work to support their families, leaving behind the once fertile land near the Sunkoshi that is now home to nearly 1,000 families.

This is a departure from the past when people used to live off less fertile land, particularly on the lap of the Mahabharat range, growing crops like maize, paddy and wheat. In those times, they used to grow crops three times a year.

Close by Khurkot are the fertile farmlands of Jhagajholi, Ratmata, Mulkot and Khalte that support the livelihoods of around 5,000 households. But during my recent visit to Khurkot, I saw a disturbing trend from Ghurmi and beyond: the conversion of fertile farmlands into residential plots everywhere—across the hills, the valleys and the Tarai.

While taking a break from the journey in Khurkot, I had the opportunity to strike a conversation with some locals in a shed, which is a popular hangout. When I took up the issue of loss of farmland through its conversion into residential plots, they acknowledged that the farmlands could have supported a thriving agricultural economy. They lamented that they no longer had fertile land for farming.

Mulkot too has lost its fertile land and turned into a concrete jungle.

In summary, Khurkot and Mulkot point at an alarming rate of loss of fertile land across the country, a phenomenon that has caused a drastic decline in food production and increased our dependence on food imports, exacerbating food insecurity and landlessness.

Time has come to reverse this disturbing trend.