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Saying the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns have devastated the studies of Nepali school- and college-going students is no overstatement. Many have been forced into online learning overnight, after having done nearly all their learning up to that point in physical classrooms. The impersonal e-classes over patchy internet connections have put off countless students. If conducting online classes has been hard, examining student learning over the internet has been tougher still. Yet, overall, those who get to study over the internet are still lucky. 

That is not an option for most Nepali students. Many may have no laptops, nor reliable internet connections in their homes. Their parents, many of them uneducated, wouldn’t be able to help them much with online education even if it were an option. Over the past three decades, the Nepali education system has discriminated against those attending under-funded and under-staffed government-run institutions. Most of the manpower produced by these institutions is not ready for the 21^st century labor market. By contrast, the students who attend expensive private institutions enter the workforce with distinct advantages: better grades and skills, better handle of English, and confidence given by quality education.

The pandemic is deepening the gulf between these two sets of students. Another problem is that even the teachers who have taken to online teaching are poorly equipped for it. There is a need for the government, the education providers, and those coming up with innovative online learning tools to develop a broadly applicable model of education, perhaps a calibrated blend of online and offline learning. As it is hard to forecast the end of the Covid-19 crisis, a revamp of our education system has become essential. 

There is up until now no clear model for home schooling. What kind of practical skills can children be taught at home, for instance, skills they can later use in their lives? What is the role of the parents in this? How do we ensure the cognitive skills of the students are not depleted while they are out of their schools and colleges? The cancelation of the SEE this year was an ominous portent. Millions of Nepali youths could permanently damage their chances at gainful employment if they can’t soon be reengaged in meaningful learning. 

How do you identify someone as a Nepali citizen? Do they have to look a certain way, carry certain surnames, speak certain tongues, and have certain biological attributes? Why do we so easily embrace Prashant Tamang (an Indian national) and Dibesh Pokharel (now an American one), yet shun another equally talented singer Preeti Kaur, who has not gotten Nepali citizenship despite being born in Nepal four decades ago and despite being married to a Nepali national? Perhaps she was born into the wrong gender, came with a wrong skin tone, and bore the wrong surname. Not that Tamang or Pokharel are now Nepali citizens or Kaur can’t ever be one. It’s more a question of the mindset of our lawmakers. 

An amendment to the citizenship law stipulates that a woman married to a Nepali man must live in Nepal for at least seven years to be eligible for citizenship. With a Nepali woman married to a foreign man, the latter has no chance of ever getting a Nepali citizenship. True, nearly all countries have restrictions on citizenship, including cooling-off periods. A person who has identified as a citizen of one country all her life cannot shift her loyalty to another country she marries into overnight. But why seven years? The common answer is that India has the same provision. This is dubious. Most of us who identify as the most patriotic Nepalis are also often the most strident anti-Indians. Yet when drafting the country’s most important laws, we nonchalantly borrow from the south. 

Seven years is a long time. If we are a progressive country, why can’t our ideal be, say, Canada (three years for naturalization) rather than India? It is also misogynistic to dissuade, even implicitly, Nepali women from marrying the men of their choice. Whatever gloss they may try to put over it, this is a sign that our predominantly male parliament still believes in inherent superiority of men over women and is thus looking to preserve the age-old patriarchal privileges. The proposed amendments to the citizenship law are in violation of the constitutional norm that proscribes discriminations based on caste, gender and ethnicity. Nepal has made some progress in gender equality in recent times. But it is far from an equal place for men and women. 

The government has a plan to gradually open up the country from Covid-19 lockdown in three phases. But even in Phase I, bar education institutions and public transport, most of the country is already open for business. People have started crowding, and many have ditched their masks and hand sanitizers, as if they are now out of danger. In fact, the danger to Nepali lives and livelihoods from Covid-19 has never been greater. The number of corona-positive folks is rising exponentially, and so are related health complications. Yet most people have had enough of the lockdowns. 

Around the world, wherever lockdowns have been relaxed, from the US to Germany, the Covid-19 infections, serious illnesses, and deaths have all shot up. Even China is seeing a troubling uptick in Covid-19 cases—when the country was thought to have largely gotten over the pandemic. In India, as of this writing, nearly 400,000 had corona and close to 13,000 people had died. The stream of Nepali migrant workers in India trying to return to their homeland has remained steady, and they continue to bring the virus along. Meanwhile, most of the lockdown restrictions in Nepal have been lifted. 

There are now over 7,200 corona-positive cases in Nepal and at least 20 deaths. Nepali epidemiologists say this is just the tip of the iceberg; most cases remain hidden because of the paucity of Covid-19 test kits. The virus is silently spreading. Yet people are now moving around and working as if everything is hunky-dory. Confining people to their homes for months on end is never easy. And they are justifiably frustrated. Yet a lot more could have been done to mitigate corona’s impact. 

The federal government has shown shocking neglect in its handling of the crisis. Corruption and mismanagement have marred its efforts to import vital test kits and protective material for health professionals. The communication, from the prime minister down, has been abysmal too. KP Oli claims, without a shred of scientific proof, that Nepalis are naturally immune to Covid-19. Many have taken him literally, to their peril. This is no joke. If complications and deaths shoot up, is the PM ready to take responsibility? And what good will admission of his wrong do when the damage is done? If the government does not correct its mistakes and cannot regain public faith over its handling of the pandemic, the Covid-19 crisis could soon spiral out of our control. 

Today’s citizen protests outside the prime minister’s official residence in Baluwatar, and the state’s brutal response to it, don’t bode well for the health of a country fast sinking in the quagmire of a troubling pandemic. The hundreds who came out to protest on Tuesday, knowing full well they were putting their health on the line by congregating during a pandemic, had no desire to do so. But they could no more ignore the travesty of justice happening all around them. The state had badly botched its corona response; people were starting to die of hunger and racism; and tales of official corruption, including in Covid-19 response, were getting deafening.

The police tried to explain to the protestors they were violating the rule that no more than 25 people could gather during the lockdown and asked them to disperse. When they stayed put, the police opened water canons on the peaceful protestors. Why blame the police though? They were only going by the law. The incident taking place so close to the PM’s residence, they could not have acted on their own: the orders must have come from above. Strictly speaking, the protestors were indeed in violation of the lockdown rules. But had the government done its part during the lockdown, they would never have had to protest.

Such acts of public defiance of government-imposed restrictions will only intensify in the days ahead. The protests on Tuesday are a warning sign. If the government we elected refuses to act responsibly, it is our duty as citizens to speak up, to protest. Right around the world, millions of people have taken to the streets in support of #blacklivesmatter, defying the lockdown, putting their lives at risk. For these folks incensed by entrenched racism in their society, the virus is not nearly as dangerous as the risk of losing their right to live in a free and equal society.

It is no different in Nepal. The Oli government has been irresponsible in its handling of the pandemic, to put it mildly. While it imposed crippling lockdowns, it did precious little to widen the scope of reliable testing for Covid-19, which is the only credible method to limit its spread. The shocking lack of responsibility displayed by government ministers and bureaucrats at a time of a national crisis could not have gone ignored in a democratic society. The country is young, and it is vocal. We won’t be silenced.