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In my last column, I had talked about how we impose on grieving families “the right way” to grieve or to do the final rituals at the ghat or a funeral place. Though I concluded by saying that sometimes silence and space are all we can give to people/family who have lost their loved ones, there are still a few things to consider post-cremation or entombment.

Every religion has its own books on how many days the family should grieve. Hindus have 13 days of mourning plus one year of different pujas that need to be done. Nowadays, families are becoming more and more progressive and rational and are trying to finish the pujas within the 13 days. It is an individual choice and decision of the family and relatives. The 13 days is the time people visit the mourning family and express their condolences. It has become a regular practice in Hindu culture.

A couple of years ago, I was shocked when someone asked me not to eat at the mourning family’s house. Since then I have noticed that a lot of people actually don’t eat at these places. Forget eating, they don’t even drink water. Maybe some religious theory, some enlightened being must have chanted and is followed from generation to generation. I asked a lot of people why they don’t eat or drink at these houses and the only close to convincing explanation was: Back in the days people died from epidemics or some communicable disease, the doubt was that the family house might be contaminated. So this might be the only practical way to stop the disease from spreading. As people would do anything if told from a religious point of view, this was induced in the rituals and religious practice.

A couple of years ago, my best friend’s grand-mom passed away. At that time her father was in a reputed government position, so a lot of people visited her place to give their condolences. As per the Nepali culture, you must take a lot of fruits while visiting the family because apparently for the mourning 13 days you must eat satvik khana and fill yourself with fruits. In this case too, the family distributed those fruits to orphanages and old homes and still, there were baskets full of rotten fruits every second day we were throwing away. Again these fruits had entered the family house and were “untouchable” and so could not be given away to extended family and friends. Two rooms were filled with fruits and for the next six months, the family did not even take one bite of any. 

That time I promised myself I will take anything but fruits to a grieving family. After years of trial and error, I have come up with my own condolence visit pack. It consists of a small bottle of ghee (as everything is cooked in that for the 13 days and so it will be properly used), a packet of sugar which won’t spoil for couple of months, teabags, and incense sticks as they will be used every day for next one year. If I am close to the family, I take a bit of grocery too. 

One appreciable practice I have noticed in India is friends collecting cash and giving it to the deceased family. We all know hospital bills are unbelievably expensive, funerals are costly and if you are Hindu, the 13 days of rituals will only add to the burden. Probably this is a little we can do to ease the family’s financial burden.

I have noticed we have our own ways of grieving. Personally, I like to be alone while I am mourning. I am not a religious person so my prayers consist of wishing for peace and nirvana for the departed soul. But my family and extended families prefer to pray in mass with religious chanting and bringing in religious gurus. As we have different temperaments even with grieving, frankly I don’t like people coming and lamenting at my loss. I want them to behave normally. I wish to cherish the memories I have with the deceased person rather than feel sad over the loss. Maybe this is my way of handling my loss. And I do request my family and friends not to go to a mourning family and keep reminding them about the beloved person. I am not indicating that you should holler at the awkward situation but at least we can have a regular conversation instead of crying and making it worse for the family. 

Grieving is a process and we should let the family take their time. In the end there is no other choice than acceptance. 

It sounds harsh but it’s the sad truth: the heaps of waste troubling Kathmanduites demonstrate ultimate lack of responsibility, not of the municipal authorities but of the citizenry itself. Kitchen waste has to be managed by the household. It should be the bottom line of a civilized and hygienic urban living. Period.

Kathmandu still behaves like a captured city. The city’s locals—the Newa people and the other communities that came along with the Gorkha rulers during the unification—are the so-called ‘raithane’ Kathmanduites. But the major chunk of the population living in the city is comprised of those who have migrated from outside, either temporarily or permanently. Many of them live in rented rooms, often students and young boys and girls sharing a single room with improvised kitchen facilities.

This situation has made the city an equivalent of a large slum, or at best, a disorganized concrete settlement. It has little of what a modern city should have. Unrestricted construction activities and municipal solid waste production have made the city unlivable, and the volume of single-use plastics, rising for decades, has also soared since the start of the pandemic.

The recycling business in Nepal is dependent on small-scale disorganized Indian collectors. Recently, there have been some creative attempts by some social entrepreneurs to tackle the issue, but kitchen waste is left completely at the mercy of the households or the municipal collection system. And that has been a cause of continuous trouble.

As a result, the best some youngsters with activist streak could think about after heaps of garbage piled up in Kathmandu was to throw waste-filled polybags in front of the mayor’s office. But there’s hardly been an attempt from the citizenry to think of other ways to clean up this mess.

Kitchen waste is easily manageable, and can even become a source of income. Some examples shared as success stories by the UN Environment Program could give us a great way out of this mess.

A few years ago, roadsides and canals filled with stinking garbage were threatening Indian coastal city Alappuzha’s status as a tourist destination as well as exposing residents and visitors alike to clouds of flies and disease-spreading mosquitoes. Protests by local residents had led to the closure of the city’s main landfill site in 2014.

Since then, the city in the eastern state of Kerala—dubbed “the Venice of the East” for its network of backwaters and coastal lagoons where tourists can rent houseboats—has addressed the problem by introducing a decentralized waste management system. This separates biodegradable waste at ward level, treats it in small composting plants, and provides many of its 174,000 residents with biogas for cooking.

Another example is Ljubljana in Slovenia. As the first European capital to aim for zero waste, Ljubljana is reaping multiple benefits from its commitment to cutting-edge waste management. While some countries have opted for incineration to control landfill, the Slovenian city has chosen to maximize recycling and reduction.

After more than a decade of improvement and education, Ljubljana has one of the highest rates for the separate collection and recycling of waste in Europe—over 60 percent. That performance helped it secure the European Commission’s Green Capital award in 2016. It has also banned cars from its center, revived its parks, and helped Slovenia become a sustainable tourist destination.

A key step has been to collect separated waste directly from people’s homes. Biodegradable and recyclable waste is collected more frequently, encouraging people to separate diligently to prevent it from piling up (and beginning to smell). The city is also running information campaigns to promote reduction, re-use and responsible consumption to curb the amount of stuff people throw away. Reducing food waste is a particular target.

The results are impressive: the quantity of recovered materials rose from 16 kg per person in 2004 to 145 kg in 2014; the amount sent to landfills fell 59 percent; total waste decreased by 15 percent. The average monthly waste management cost was less than 8 euros per household in 2014—the lowest in the country.

It is high time we start thinking about waste differently in Kathmandu. The key to success is the willingness of households to separate their waste before it is collected. This demands years of awareness-raising including public meetings and door-to-door visits across the city. Knee-jerk reactions and blame shifting activism will not give us a permanent solution.

Throwing plastic bags full of your rotten tomatoes in front of the mayor won't help. We must help our municipalities. The money spent to open more sites to burn or bury rubbish, or to deal with non-recyclable plastic food containers, milk jugs and yogurt cups could go toward building new libraries or hospitals or parks—this new approach is a potential game changer.

Recently termed the ‘lightning rod for controversy’, the MCC is among the most talked about topics among Nepali citizens, politicians, experts and media, and they continue to be divided over the $500 million-worth compact.

Who would have thought that a development cooperation project would be so politicized? According to political pundits, China and the US seem to be direct players in the MCC and India’s approach seems aligned with the US.

Nepal seems to be struggling to balance geopolitics and to develop broader political consensus on the issue. The MCC’s Vice President Fatema Sumar’s Nepal visit coincides with the Nepal government’s call for a new session of the parliament, which is expected to ratify or reject the compact. According to the US, Sumar’s visit will be aimed at assessing the compact’s progress, but many in Nepal view it as a US pressure tactic to force Nepal to make a final decision.

The ongoing debate has political and technical dimensions. At the political level, there are concerns about whether Nepal, through this compact, will fall into the sphere of the American Indo-Pacific Strategy. Although the compact is not directly related to any security agenda, many suspect Nepal is being tricked into agreeing to one.

At the technical level, there are few provisions in the compact, which are taken as a threat to Nepal’s sovereignty, independence and non-aligned foreign policy. 

The blessing in disguise is that the MCC debate has also contributed to the overall discussion about the effectiveness of foreign aid in Nepal. What kind of financing is needed for Nepal’s development projects? Should Nepal finance those projects of strategic importance on its own? What kind of projects should we accept? Regardless of whether Nepal’s parliament ratifies or rejects the compact, there is already a major lesson: Nepal should accept foreign aid only after a thorough study of terms and conditions and the project’s overall impact on Nepal’s political and economic future. 

If the MCC compact fails to get parliamentary approval, there are concerns that Nepal’s ties with the US could suffer. Nepal has over 70 years of diplomatic, development, and military engagements with the US, including recent cooperation on Covid-19 vaccines. Due to the prolonged process to approve the compact, the American patience seems to be running thin. Nepal’s credibility is also in line if the compact is rejected, potentially impacting US collaboration and assistance in other sectors (vaccine support, health and education support, etc.). 

Second, at the technical level, revisions are sought on many legal provisions in a mutually agreeable way. Amid rumors of a secret military conspiracy, there are some real concerns about the pact's implications for Nepal’s sovereignty, including the superiority of US laws against Nepal’s constitution and laws. Moreover, Nepal should not give the impression that it is leaning towards the Indo-Pacific Alliance against China. 

Given the growing geopolitical, security and economic US-China rivalry, many Nepalis suspect a hidden agenda behind the MCC. In fact, many Asian countries, including Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Maldives, and Nepal, are now reassessing the vaccine diplomacy of China and US, as well as assistance through both the MCC and the BRI. While donors emphasize their strong oversight for the money given for big infrastructure projects and expect aid recipient countries to appreciate the support, the receiving countries are also paying close attention to overall benefit of infrastructure projects. 

There are also arguments that Nepal could fund those two MCC funded projects on its own. However, the Nepal government’s borrowing from the internal and external capital markets have tripled in the past three years, reaching more than 40 percent of Nepal’s GDP. In this perspective, a development pact with a grant of a half a billion dollars is not a small amount for Nepal. 

What is the way out then? Given the level of politicization of MCC all the way down to the grassroots, there seem to be only two choices. First, there should be an open discussion in Nepal’s parliament regarding all provisions of the compact so that the general public clearly see the risks and benefits. Suspicion about the MCC seems to be a combination of two things: misinformation and a few unclear provisions. For example, there is misinformation that the US is desperate to give the grant to Nepal because of its security interest. In fact, the MCC board in 2018 approved Nepal’s grant proposal not just because the US chose Nepal for its strategic importance. It was because Nepal met the MCC’s eligibility criteria of good governance, economic freedom, and citizens-centered investments.

Nepal needs to clearly convey to the US that it should agree to revise unclear or controversial provisions of the Compact. Nepal should also convey the message that the US should not expect any security favors in return. Most important, there has to be a broad consensus among Nepal’s major political parties, particularly among those in the current coalition, on whether to accept or reject the compact. 

There is a silver lining to the MCC issue. Nepal government’s request to the US to clarify the provisions deemed controversial is a good start. The US is also sending a positive signal that it is ready to revise these controversial provisions in a mutually agreeable way. 

But if the US does not revise unclear or controversial provisions and if there is no broad consensus about the MCC among the major political parties in Nepal, it is better to reject the compact than risk the instability in the government and rift among coalition partners. A development project, even if it has a good intent, should not be accepted if it brings long-term political instability. 

The author holds a Master of Science in International Affairs from New School University, New York, and specialized Post Graduate courses from Harvard University, Boston

Pushpa Kamal Dahal (nom de guerre: Prachanda), Chairman of the CPN (Maoist Center), former prime minister, and chief architect of the country’s civil war, is now a man in search of a mission.

At the Maoist Center’s central committee meeting on August 16, Prachanda gave a stirring speech where he pointed out that the party risked becoming irrelevant. “If we continue with our current activities,” he said, “this party will be of no use.” He called for reforms within the party.

This introspection, from a man who is otherwise tirelessly confident, caught even his most loyal party members by surprise. Despite the theatrics of that speech, its power ultimately originated from its underlying truth: the Maoists are indeed becoming irrelevant.

Over the years, since first coming to power, CPN (Maoists), the party that led the civil war, has splintered. Key ideologues have left. All that now remains, the Maoist Center, is held together by Prachanda’s crafty stratagems to stay relevant. He has skillfully merged, parted ways with, aligned, and maneuvered with other political parties to keep him and his party visible.

While Prachanda and his Maoist Center amble about the corridors of power playing political games to stay relevant, the party is bereft of ideology—lost about what it should do in the Nepal they themselves helped create.

There are, no doubt, many factors why the Maoists lost their way. For a large part, it was because they rushed to rule, not govern. Instead of seeking to empower individuals, communities, local governments, and provinces to make their own decisions, their leaders rushed to centralize, direct, and rule.

Among the many examples, consider for example, the story of Barsaman Pun (nom de guerre: Ananta). As deputy commander of the People's Liberation Army during the civil war, he led the attacks on Bandipur and Sindhuli barracks where approximately 50 people died. In the government, he last served as the Minister of Energy, Water Resources, and Irrigation.

As minister, his actions centralized power in Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the country’s national power utility, further intensifying its monopoly, deepening political interference in NEA, and undermining the role of provinces, local governments, and individuals in the power sector. He failed to pass a single transformative legislative Act, the Electricity Act for example, which was in desperate need of reform.

Nepal’s deep-rooted problems cannot be solved by a single person, entity, or authority. It needs individuals and communities who are empowered to make local decisions and are accountable to their stakeholders. This is what federalism and decentralization offer, and what the Maoists had fought for.

Once in power, however, they forgot their fight for local empowerment and rushed to rule. Put aside concerns about corruption and vested interest that they enabled. The Maoists leaders decided what was best and went about forcing those ideas down from the center. They forgot that empowering local communities entailed just the opposite.

In hindsight, the Maoist civil war doesn’t anymore look like a fight for empowerment that is embodied in the constitution’s federalism, decentralization, and local governance. The activities of Maoist leaders have made it look like the civil war was nothing more than a bloody battle for political power.

The Maoist demand for an Executive President reflects its motivation to rule. Within Nepal’s federal structure, it is unclear how an Executive President would enhance governance, as they argue. On the contrary, it would institutionalize a structure for the centralization of power, and create a bigger risk for an authoritarian rule.

If Prachanda and his Maoist Center seek to genuinely explore how to stay relevant, they must ask whether they intend to rule or govern. To rule is easy: the party is full of clever people with political acumen and craftiness to vie for power, just like every other party.

If Prachanda and his Maoist Center intend to govern, they must return to their roots. Nepal’s progress doesn’t lie in a few wise men (or women) deciding the right solutions for everyone. It rather lies in empowering individuals and local communities to decide what’s best for them. Federalism and decentralization are still the best way to enable this.

Nepal’s federalism and decentralization remains weak, republic and secularism are unsteady. If the Maoists weren’t so busy trying to establish whose turn it was to be minister, they would already know their next mission: save federalism and Nepal’s constitution.

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