Tag Archives: politics

Food Banks Were Meant to Be a Bridge, Not a Way of Life

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Dr. Rajendra K Panthee

In March 2026, Canadians made 2.35 million visits to food banks. It was the highest monthly number ever recorded and more than double the level of March 2019. In Toronto, Daily Bread Food Bank and North York Harvest Food Bank reported 4.1 million client visits in the year before April 2025, an increase of 340 per cent since 2019. More than 112,000 people used a food bank for the first time in that year alone.

Across Canada, more than 65,000 people were counted as homeless on a single night in 2025. That was 59 per cent higher than in 2020 to 2022. In Toronto, an estimated 12,196 people were experiencing homelessness in October 2025, including 1,446 people staying outdoors.

At the same time, many Canadians say they feel less safe. They see homelessness, addiction, mental-health distress, theft, and sometimes violence in their neighbourhoods. Canada’s Crime Severity Index did fall by 5 per cent in 2025, but that statistic does not erase the fear people feel on a dark street, at a bus stop, or outside a shelter.

These numbers describe a country under strain. They describe people who cannot afford rent, food, medicine, or safety. They describe cities where emergency services have become part of everyday life.

This is not the Canada I imagined when I came here.

Canada meant opportunity, fairness, order, and a decent life for people who worked hard. Like many immigrants, I admired its public institutions and its reputation for looking after those who had fallen behind. I believed Canada was a place where a person who worked honestly could live with dignity.

That is why the news I keep hearing now troubles me so deeply.

Behind every food-bank visit is a person making an impossible choice between rent and groceries, between medication and food, between paying the heating bill and feeding the children. Behind every homeless count is someone without a stable place to sleep. Behind every conversation about crime is a community asking why basic needs have become so difficult to meet.

Hunger has changed its face

For a long time, many Canadians imagined food-bank users as homeless people living on the street. That image is no longer enough. Hunger has entered apartments, workplaces, university campuses, and family homes.

Nearly one in five food-bank clients in Canada is employed. Children account for about one-third of food-bank visits. These are people who wake up, go to work, study, care for their families, and still cannot make their incomes stretch far enough.

When I hear such numbers, I think of Nepal, where poverty has often been visible and where many families have learned to live with scarcity. Canada was supposed to be different.

I still believe that. But belief alone does not put food on the table.

A rich country with a growing problem

Some people ask how this can happen in one of the richest countries in the world. I think the better question is why a rich country has allowed hunger to become so ordinary.

Canada has always had poor people. What has changed is the scale of the problem and the willingness to treat it as normal. Food banks were meant to be emergency bridges. A person might need one after losing a job, after an illness, after a family breakdown, or after an unexpected expense. They were never meant to become a permanent part of life for millions of people.

Yet that is what is happening. When millions of visits become routine, the failure does not belong to charity. It belongs to public policy.

The reasons are not mysterious. Rents have risen faster than incomes. Grocery prices climbed after the pandemic, inflation, supply disruptions, and trade pressures. Many people work in low-paid or unstable jobs. Social assistance and disability benefits have not kept pace with the real cost of living. Newcomers, international students, refugees, single parents, seniors, and people with disabilities often face extra barriers.

COVID-19 did not create these weaknesses. It exposed them. Then it made them worse.

Charity deserves praise, but it cannot replace policy

Organizations such as Daily Bread, North York Harvest, and Second Harvest deserve enormous respect. They feed people, rescue surplus food, mobilize volunteers, and preserve dignity in difficult circumstances. Second Harvest reported distributing 95.3 million pounds of food through community organizations across Canada in its 2025 fiscal year.

The recent attack on Second Harvest’s food-rescue trucks showed both the cruelty and the decency present in our society. Thieves broke into the charity’s Etobicoke yard over Thanksgiving weekend, cut the catalytic converters from seven of its eight trucks, and left most of its fleet unable to deliver food.

Then something good happened. Aurora Foods, a Toronto family business, donated $60,000 to help repair the trucks. Community members also offered money, food, and even vehicles. That generosity deserves praise.

But it also raises an uncomfortable question. Why should a charity that rescues food for hungry people have to depend on emergency donations just to keep its trucks on the road?

We should admire volunteers, donors, and community organizations. We should also refuse to accept a society in which charity must constantly repair what public policy has failed to protect.

Foreign aid and our own people

Some people now say Canada should stop helping Ukraine or reduce foreign aid because Canadians at home are struggling. I understand the anger behind that feeling. When people here cannot afford food, it is natural to ask why resources are being spent elsewhere.

But I do not think the answer is to abandon Ukraine or retreat from the world. Canada can support Ukraine and also feed its own people. These are not either-or choices.

The real issue is different. Canada should not use international commitments as an excuse to neglect people at home. Nor should it use hardship at home as an excuse to abandon its responsibilities abroad.

A mature country can do both. It can defend democratic allies overseas and protect vulnerable people within its own borders. The question is whether our governments have the political will to treat poverty at home with the same urgency they show during foreign crises.

More police cannot solve hunger

There is another uncomfortable issue. Crime, homelessness, addiction, and mental-health crises are becoming more visible in our cities. Some people respond by demanding more police and harsher laws.

Police have a role, especially where there is violence, theft, or exploitation. But police cannot build affordable housing. They cannot raise wages. They cannot improve disability benefits. They cannot make groceries affordable.

Poverty does not automatically produce crime, and most poor people are not criminals. But prolonged desperation can push people toward dangerous situations. It can lead to exploitative work, informal economies, addiction, conflict, and despair.

If people cannot meet their basic needs through legitimate means, society becomes less safe for everyone. That is why slogans about being tough on crime are not enough. A country cannot arrest its way out of hunger, homelessness, or hopelessness.

Employment insurance is not enough

Recent changes to Employment Insurance may help some workers affected by tariffs and job losses. Since March 2025, eligible claimants have benefited from the removal of the usual one-week waiting period, flexibility around severance payments, and extended benefits for some long-tenured workers.

These measures may prevent an immediate income collapse for some families. But temporary measures are not the same as a durable income-security system.

Many people who face food insecurity are not covered by EI at all. They may be self-employed, working too few hours, new to Canada, between precarious jobs, or living on disability or social assistance. When rents and food prices rise, these people have little protection.

A country that patches emergencies one by one will always be reacting too late. It needs stronger foundations.

Not only Canada’s problem

This is not uniquely Canadian. After COVID-19, many wealthy countries have faced rising food insecurity, housing stress, and pressure on emergency services. The United States, the United Kingdom, and parts of Europe have seen similar debates about working people relying on food charities.

In poorer countries, the crisis may look different. Families may eat fewer meals, borrow more, migrate, or depend on informal work. But the underlying issue is similar. The pandemic, inflation, war, climate disruption, and unequal economic systems have made survival harder for people already living close to the edge.

Canada’s case is especially troubling because this country has the wealth, institutions, and public values to do better. When a rich country allows hunger to become ordinary, it faces not only an economic problem but a moral one.

What Canada must do

Canada needs more than sympathy, donation drives, and temporary programs. It needs policies that reduce the need for food banks in the first place.

We need genuinely affordable housing. We need income supports that reflect the real cost of living. We need accessible childcare, transit, and health care. We need protection for workers trapped in precarious employment. We need reforms that do not leave newcomers, students, and refugees in prolonged insecurity. And we need governments to treat food insecurity as an emergency, with clear targets and public accountability.

Food banks should be able to shrink, not grow. Their success should be measured not by how many people they feed, but by how many people no longer need them.

I still believe in Canada. I believe in its generosity, its institutions, and its capacity for fairness. But a country is judged not only by how it helps people far away. It is also judged by how it treats those who are hungry, homeless, and struggling within its own borders.

Food banks were meant to be a bridge. They must not become the destination.

Reopening Nepal’s Closed Industries In RSP Era

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Dr. Rajendra K Panthee

I had been thinking about the proposal to reopen Nepal’s closed industries for some time, but I hesitated to speak publicly after seeing the emotional reactions of many Ranstriya Swontantra Party (RSP) supporters on social networking sites. For many of them, reopening a factory appeared to represent patriotism, national pride, self reliance, employment, and the rejection of previous governments. Questioning its practicality could easily be interpreted as opposition to Nepal or to political change.

My hesitation did not come from a lack of opinion. I was concerned that an economic question would be reduced to a test of political loyalty. After reading Prime Minister Balen Shah’s status and listening to Gagan Thapa’s video response, I felt that the subject deserved a wider and more practical discussion.

The promise to reopen closed industries is politically attractive. It evokes employment, national pride, and the belief that Nepal should produce more of what it consumes. It also creates a powerful political contrast. Previous governments allowed national industries to collapse, the argument goes, while a new government will bring them back to life.

The emotional appeal is understandable. Yet popularity and practicality are not the same thing.

If an industry operated at a loss for years and eventually closed, it cannot be revived merely through patriotism, good intentions, or the determination of a new government. A closed factory is not simply a sleeping giant waiting to be awakened. It may be the result of outdated technology, weak management, excessive staffing, political interference, high debt, poor procurement, an unsuitable market, or a business model that no longer works.

Before asking when an industry should reopen, we should first ask why it closed.

Balen Shah’s status presents several public institutions as examples of early improvement. He refers to increased sales and reported profit at Nepal Drugs Limited, higher sales and reduced arrears at the Dairy Development Corporation, increased revenue and seat occupancy at Nepal Airlines, test production at Hetauda Textile Industry, and increased production at Singha Durbar Baidhyakhana.

These developments may be encouraging. If a public institution has improved production, collected more revenue, met quality standards, or paid farmers more regularly, those results deserve recognition. But an encouraging sign is not the same as a successful business. Increased sales do not necessarily mean increased profit. Higher revenue does not necessarily mean lower debt. Beginning production does not mean that a sustainable market has been secured.

This is the main point raised by Gagan Thapa. His criticism may contain political calculation, but the economic questions he raises are important. If the Dairy Development Corporation reduced its outstanding payments to farmers, did it do so through operating profits, or did the Ministry of Finance provide additional money? If daily sales increased from Rs. 60 lakh to Rs. 90 lakh, how much did the costs of milk procurement, wages, transport, interest, maintenance, administration, and distribution increase?

The response from RSP lawmaker Rajib Khatri illustrates the confusion. He argued that if sales increased by Rs. 30 lakh and the profit was only one rupee per litre, the additional profit would be Rs. 30 lakh. But the reported figures refer to sales revenue, not the number of litres sold. Without knowing the additional quantity and the actual net margin, his calculation cannot establish that profit increased by Rs. 30 lakh. This is not a question of being against industry. It is a basic question of accounting.

The personal attacks surrounding this debate are equally unhelpful. Some people defend Gagan Thapa by referring to his political history, imprisonment, education, and contribution to democracy. Others defend the RSP government by accusing its critics of jealousy or hostility to national industries. A person’s political history does not automatically make every economic argument correct. Similarly, a new political party is not automatically right simply because it emerged from public dissatisfaction with the old parties.

Public institutions should be judged through audited accounts, net profit, debt, subsidies, productivity, and long term performance. The debate should move away from personal insults and return to evidence.

There is another danger that deserves greater attention. Reopening public industries may once again turn them into employment centres for party cadres, relatives, and political loyalists. This has been a problem under successive governments since the restoration of democracy. The Nepali Congress, UML, and Maoist governments all contributed to a political culture in which public institutions could be used to reward supporters.

I have seen friends appointed as general managers of industries during the governments of political parties with which they were affiliated. Some later moved to the United States or Canada and worked in occupations completely unrelated to industrial management. This is not an attack on those individuals. It is a criticism of a system that placed political connection above professional competence.

The RSP emerged by criticizing this culture of patronage. That is why its conduct should be examined carefully. A new party should not reproduce the old practices while using a different language. Changing the party in power does not automatically change the system. If reopened industries are filled with cadres and relatives instead of qualified engineers, managers, technicians, and accountants, they will soon reproduce the same inefficiency and losses.

Gagan Thapa’s broader point also deserves consideration. The government’s primary responsibility is to create a fair business environment, regulate markets, protect the public interest, and support strategically important sectors. It does not necessarily have to operate every commercial factory, airline, textile mill, or trading institution. Essential medicines, food security, emergency supply, and national resilience may justify public ownership. Ordinary commercial production should generally be managed by professional and accountable businesses, whether public, private, or operated through genuine partnerships.

Nepal does not have to choose between reopening every closed factory and selling every public enterprise. Each institution should be evaluated separately. Some may be strategically important. Some may become viable after restructuring. Some may be better operated through public private partnerships. Others may be beyond repair and should be closed in an orderly manner.

For every institution, the government should publish a clear plan explaining its purpose, required investment, market, production costs, staffing, debt, subsidy, management structure, and performance targets. Recruitment must be open and competitive. Senior appointments should be based on qualifications and experience, not political loyalty.

Patriotism does not mean reopening an old factory regardless of cost. Patriotism means using public money carefully and honestly. If a closed industry can become competitive through new technology, capable management, a clear market, and transparent financial planning, it deserves an opportunity. But a flag, a ceremony, and a photograph of a factory floor cannot make an industry viable.

A factory needs customers, productivity, quality, discipline, competent management, and accountability. Reopening a closed industry may be a meaningful policy. Reopening a failed business model and filling it with political appointees is not economic nationalism. It is simply repeating the past with a new slogan.

Canada’s Housing Market Is Unfair, Not Broken

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Dr. Rajendra K Panthee

Canada’s housing crisis is usually described as a problem of supply and demand. Build more homes, the argument goes, and prices will eventually come down. That explanation contains some truth, but it also hides a deeper reality that Cara Stern brings out in her conversation with mortgage expert Ron Butler. Canada’s housing crisis is not only about supply. It is about fairness.

The question is no longer simply why houses are expensive. The more important question is why the rules of homeownership have changed so dramatically for one generation while remaining so favorable for another.

A society cannot remain healthy when people working full time, including teachers, nurses, grocery store managers, engineers, and young professionals, can no longer afford to live in the communities they serve. Housing is more than a commodity or an investment. It is the base on which people build families, careers, communities, and a sense of belonging.

Listening to Stern and Butler, one realizes that the conversation is not really about mortgages or real estate. It is about how decades of public policy have quietly reshaped the Canadian dream.

From Ordinary to Unreachable

Ron Butler recalls entering the mortgage industry more than three decades ago when an assistant grocery store manager and a registered nurse could regularly purchase a home in the Greater Toronto Area with a modest down payment. Home prices generally ranged between two and a half and three and a half times a household’s annual income.

Today, in many Canadian cities, particularly Toronto and Vancouver, home prices have reached seven, eight, or even twelve times household income.

That is not just inflation. It is a complete redefinition of adulthood.

For previous generations, buying a home was a realistic milestone reached through employment and savings. For many young Canadians today, homeownership increasingly depends on inherited wealth, parental support, or the willingness to take on decades of crushing debt.

We are told this is progress. It is not. It is a narrowing of social mobility dressed up as a normal market adjustment.

The Myth of Equal Effort

One of the strongest points Stern makes is that acknowledging generational inequality does not diminish the hard work of previous generations.

Many older Canadians respond, quite understandably, by saying, “We worked hard too.”

No one seriously disputes that. The issue is not effort. The issue is whether equal effort still produces equal opportunity.

A young couple earning above the national median income, saving diligently, avoiding extravagance, and making responsible choices can still find themselves priced out of family sized housing. If financially responsible households cannot buy modest homes, the problem cannot be reduced to budgeting discipline or lifestyle choices.

It becomes structural.

Stern speaks from experience. She and her husband were earning above the median household income, living frugally, and saving consistently. Yet they still found themselves unable to purchase even very small homes that could accommodate the family they hoped to build.

That frustration eventually became professional curiosity. Instead of accepting the situation as inevitable, she began asking why the housing market seemed so detached from ordinary incomes. That inquiry led her into housing journalism.

Housing Is a Policy Choice

Perhaps the most important insight in the conversation is Stern’s insistence that today’s housing crisis did not simply happen. It was created through policy.

Too often Canadians speak about housing affordability as though it were a force of nature. It is not.

Governments make decisions about zoning regulations. Governments determine development charges. Governments decide how municipalities finance infrastructure. Governments establish tax systems. Governments regulate land use. Governments shape immigration targets. Governments influence mortgage rules.

Every one of those choices affects housing affordability.

In Stern’s words, the economy is a series of choices.

That changes the whole conversation. If policy helped create the crisis, policy can also help solve it. The challenge is not mainly technical. It is political.

The trouble is that political courage is usually in short supply when the people most protected by the current system are also the loudest defenders of it.

When Cities Fund Themselves Through Housing

One of Butler’s strongest criticisms concerns the enormous rise in municipal development charges.

Municipal governments need revenue, but they do not want to anger existing homeowners by raising property taxes. So instead, they shift infrastructure costs onto new housing developments. The logic is obvious. Existing voters stay happy. Future homeowners pay the bill.

It is a neat trick, and it has been repeated often enough to become normal.

Of course, developers do not absorb these costs forever. They pass them on to buyers. So development charges that were once relatively modest have grown dramatically over the past two decades, adding tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars to the price of newly built homes.

The result is perverse. Policies sold as responsible municipal planning end up making homeownership harder for the very people trying to enter the market.

In other words, younger Canadians are paying twice. They pay through high housing prices and again through the financing mechanisms hidden inside those prices.

The Missing Middle

Another major theme in the conversation is Canada’s obsession with building either detached suburban homes or very small condominiums.

What has largely disappeared is what urban planners call the missing middle. Duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, courtyard apartments, townhouses, and other family sized medium density housing have been squeezed out by zoning rules and planning habits that no longer serve the reality of modern cities.

These forms of housing once allowed neighbourhoods to grow gradually while remaining affordable. Today many municipalities continue to restrict them through rules inherited from another era, as though the car oriented suburbs of the mid 20th century should still dictate how a 21st century city must function.

The result is predictable. Developers either build luxury detached homes where land is available or maximize profit by producing tiny condominium units in expensive urban locations.

Families searching for modest three bedroom homes find very few choices.

Canada has become increasingly successful at producing housing units while becoming less successful at producing homes that ordinary families can actually use. Those are not the same thing.

Counting units tells us little if families cannot live in them.

What Housing Really Means

Perhaps the most affecting part of Stern’s interview is her own plain and deeply human wish.

She does not dream of luxury. She wants what previous generations often treated as ordinary. A stable home. A neighbourhood. Children attending the same school. Some freedom from the anxiety that a landlord may decide to sell and uproot the family.

That should not sound radical. Yet in today’s Canada, even basic stability can sound like a privilege.

Housing shapes far more than the real estate market. It shapes whether people marry, whether they have children, whether they stay in a city, whether they volunteer, whether they build roots, and whether they imagine a future at all.

A country that makes stable housing inaccessible is not just creating a housing problem. It is weakening its own social future.

A Fairness Crisis

The housing debate is usually framed as a contest between homeowners and renters, developers and environmentalists, cities and provinces, or supply advocates and affordability advocates.

Cara Stern’s conversation with Ron Butler suggests a better framework. The central question is fairness.

Can a young Canadian working full time reasonably expect to own a modest home. Can ordinary families remain in the cities where they grew up. Can children afford to live near their parents. Can essential workers afford to live where they work.

If the answer increasingly becomes no, then Canada faces more than a housing shortage. It faces a fairness crisis.

Fixing that will require more than adding units. It will require rebuilding a system that once allowed ordinary work to produce ordinary dreams.

Until that happens, Canada’s housing market will remain not only expensive, but fundamentally unfair.

The Rich Men’s Club That Nepal Never Had

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Dr. Rajendra K Panthee

Picture from Balen Shah’s Facebook!

Sometimes I wonder whether some of our newest political heroes in Nepal simply chose the wrong career.

Perhaps they should never have entered government at all.

Instead, they should have established a national institution called the Rich Men’s Club for Nepal’s Development.

Membership would be simple. You must already have enough money that politics cannot tempt you. You must sincerely love Nepal. And you must be fully convinced that everyone who governed before you was either corrupt, incompetent, or both.

Confidence has never been in short supply.

The Club would have obvious advantages. Its members could build schools without first declaring every existing school a failure. They could finance hospitals without turning administrative reshuffling into public spectacle. They could support universities without discovering halfway through that institutions cannot function when leadership is abruptly removed without due process.

They could fund scholarships instead of exposing how fragile national systems can be when handled without care. They could experiment freely and revise quietly.

Most importantly, they could spend their own money while testing their own ideas.

Citizens would applaud. Nobody would object. Everyone likes philanthropy.

What people fear is something else. They fear becoming unwilling participants in political experiments.

The problem begins when success in media, business, or public visibility starts to look like qualification for constitutional leadership.

Business rewards speed. Democracy rewards restraint.

Business celebrates disruption. Democracy survives because institutions are deliberately difficult to disrupt.

In a company, yesterday’s strategy can be abandoned overnight. In a constitutional system, institutions exist because they were built through long struggle and painful compromise.

That difference matters.

Yet recent political practice suggests a different understanding of governance. It resembles a simple pattern. Announce boldly. Receive applause. Encounter legal difficulty. Clarify. Revise. Then explain that revision shows maturity.

Repeat as necessary.

Citizens have already adapted. They no longer react to the first announcement. They wait for the correction.

The rise of the Rastriya Swatantra Party was built on real public frustration. That frustration was justified. Established parties have failed repeatedly on governance, accountability, and delivery. Rabi Lamichhane’s appeal came from positioning himself outside that failure.

That appeal translated into political power. It did not automatically translate into constitutional competence.

Rabi Lamichhane’s political brand helped create the belief that a new kind of leadership could rescue Nepal from old habits. But governing a republic is not the same as exposing a scandal on television or winning public applause for speaking hard truths. It requires respect for law, procedure, and the limits of authority.

Gyanendra Shahi has been among the clearest voices exposing that contradiction. He has criticized RSP for rising on public anger and then behaving as if it stands above the same political rules it used to condemn. That criticism matters because it comes from inside the wider opposition space and shows that the complaint is no longer only external. It is now part of the political conversation itself.

The same problem appears in the rise of Balen Shah. He came from outside the old political class. He had money, talent, visibility, and a public image built around independence. Many people trusted him because they believed he was not part of the corrupt machinery that had disappointed them for years.

That trust was understandable. It was also dangerous if it became blind faith.

If a person enters public office with wealth and good intentions, that is not a sin. The problem begins when he starts treating state institutions as if they were private projects that can be redesigned by instinct. Government is not a startup. It is not a foundation. It is not a club. It is the formal arrangement through which a diverse and often quarrelsome society manages power without destroying itself.

That is why constitutional norms exist.

This is where the richer satire lies. If these leaders already had money, and if they genuinely wanted to serve the country, then the honest path would have been to serve first through private or civic institutions. They could have built schools, hospitals, scholarship funds, local development trusts, research centers, and civic programs. They could have shown public spirit without touching the machinery of the state.

That route would have done two things.

It would have protected constitutional government from being treated as a laboratory.

And it would have given them the very thing they lack now, practical experience in handling complexity.

A country is not run by outrage alone. It is run through compromise, restraint, process, and an acceptance that every decision has consequences beyond the headline. A mayor, minister, or prime minister cannot simply act on impulse and then expect legality to catch up later.

That is why some of the actions associated with the current RSP leadership have created unease. Strong declarations often arrive before the legal foundation is secure. Public relations moves sometimes appear to matter more than institutional durability. Even the cabinet can look more like a showcase of youthful enthusiasm than a serious instrument of statecraft.

The home minister, the education minister, and others may all carry the burden of this same style. They are expected to perform change quickly, visibly, and dramatically. But performance is not the same as governance. And novelty is not the same as competence.

The problem becomes even clearer when this same instinct is applied to the poor.

A government can claim to be modern and disciplined, but if it shows little compassion toward sukumbasi, informal workers, and people living on the edge of survival, then it is not reforming the state. It is hardening it.

Reports of holding centers being emptied with demands for Rs 25,000, the public anger after flooding forced some of those centers to be shifted, and the outrage over how vulnerable families were handled all point to the same failure. Rules are necessary. But rules without study, without context, and without humanity are not governance. They are punishment dressed as order.

A state that cannot understand the difference between discipline and cruelty will eventually lose its moral authority.

Yubaraj Dulal has also spoken forcefully against the same double standard. He has treated RSP’s approach to the provincial question and its wider conduct as dishonest toward the people rather than as some innocent administrative adjustment. That matters because it shows the criticism is not just about style. It is about the party’s willingness to say one thing and do another when it suits power. The provincial question especially reveals the problem, because a federal structure built through sacrifice cannot simply be brushed aside by political impatience. The decision is not neutral. It is a political message about what kind of state the party thinks Nepal should become.

The same concern appears in the use of fines and enforcement. It is one thing to insist on order. It is another to impose penalties without asking who will suffer most. When poor people are punished harshly for violations that the wealthy can absorb with ease, the law stops looking neutral. It starts looking class based.

The death of Ganesh Nepali brought that cruelty into sharp focus. According to reporting and parliamentary debate, a poor ride-hailing driver was fined and then later died after a self-immolation attempt, turning a routine enforcement action into a moral scandal. Whatever one thinks of rules, no civilized government can dismiss such a case as ordinary administration. It should have forced a deeper reflection on how the state treats the poor, the desperate, and the powerless.

That is why public criticism of harsher fines matters. People are not rejecting rules. They are rejecting a system that appears eager to punish the weak while speaking gently to the powerful.

Nepal’s democratic institutions were not handed down by benevolent rulers. They were built through resistance against Rana rule, through the struggle against Panchayat, through democratic movements, and through the sacrifices of people who believed that the country should be governed by rules, not personalities.

Those sacrifices created a system that is imperfect but precious.

To break its norms in the name of change is not courage. It is carelessness.

To appoint near and dear ones to key posts while speaking the language of merit is not reform. It is old patronage in new clothing. To talk about efficiency while treating the poor as administrative inconvenience is not compassion. It is class arrogance.

This is why the idea of a Rich Men’s Club is more than satire. It is a warning. If people have wealth, sincerity, and public trust, let them prove themselves outside the state first. Let them learn how difficult public life is before taking control of it. Let them discover that running a country is not the same as funding a project or speaking in slogans.

If they do that, they may one day become better leaders. They may come to understand that institutions are not obstacles to be defeated but safeguards to be respected. They may also understand that justice without empathy is only a cleaner form of cruelty.

And citizens, having watched them serve without power, would trust them more when they finally do enter government.

That is the real irony.

If these men had chosen the private route first, they might have earned the authority they now assume.

Instead, they entered the state too early and began learning at the public’s expense.

That is an expensive education.

And in every democracy, it is the people who pay the tuition.

Ranstriya Swontantra Party’s First 100 Days: What It Was Meant to Be and What It Has Become

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Dr. Rajendra K Panthee

The first 100 days of the Ranstriya Swontantra Party (RSP) led government in Nepal were never going to be a routine political checkpoint. For a party that entered public life speaking the language of clean governance, efficiency, accountability, and a new political culture, the hundred day mark became a test of character. It was meant to show whether a movement that rose by criticizing the failures of old parties could actually do politics differently once it reached power. So far, the answer is mixed. The government has moved faster than many of its predecessors in some administrative areas, but it has not yet delivered the depth of change it promised.

That gap matters because the RSP did not rise simply as another electoral force. It came in as a political mood, almost as a correction to the old order. Its appeal rested on frustration with corruption, slow bureaucracy, elite capture, and the sense that the state had become detached from ordinary people. It also drew strength from a national anxiety that young Nepalis were leaving in large numbers because the country no longer seemed able to offer them a future. In that sense, the party presented itself not just as a governing alternative, but as a moral alternative. It said, in effect, that politics could be made cleaner, more efficient, and more responsive if the right people were in charge.

That promise created a high standard. The RSP was not judged against a weak baseline. It was judged against its own rhetoric. It told the country that it would reduce waste, cut bloated structures, choose qualified people, and put public interest above party networks. It suggested that reform would be visible, not merely theoretical. It spoke as if the old habits of favoritism, symbolic appointments, and empty performance could finally be broken. That is why the first 100 days matter so much. They are the first real chance to see whether the party meant what it said.

There have been some real signs of movement. The government has shown that it can act quickly in certain administrative matters. It has pushed digital governance, tried to streamline services, and projected an image of energetic reform. In a country where delay is often normalized and inefficiency is treated as a permanent condition, that speed has symbolic value. Citizens do notice when a file moves faster or when an office becomes less obstructive. Reform begins there, not only in speeches but in the small experiences of public life.

Yet symbolism is not enough. A government that claims to be transformative must be measured by whether it changes conditions for those who have the least power. That is where the early record looks much weaker. The poor, the unemployed, the landless, and the young people still leaving the country have not yet seen a level of change that matches the party’s promises. The state may sound more active, but that is not the same thing as being more just. In the end, people do not live inside policy language. They live inside jobs, rent, food prices, public services, and dignity.

The treatment of sukumbasi communities is one of the most painful examples of this contradiction. A party that presents itself as modern and humane cannot afford to handle landless and informal settlers as if they are merely a nuisance to be moved aside. Eviction without sufficient resettlement planning creates not just hardship but humiliation. It tells vulnerable people that they are still the ones who absorb the cost of state action. That is not reform. That is displacement with better branding. For a government that promised fairness, this issue has become morally and politically damaging.

The same contradiction appears in the question of migration. One of the RSP’s most attractive promises was that Nepalis would no longer have to leave the country in desperation. Its leaders spoke as if opportunity could be rebuilt at home and as if the state could become a place where young people might stay, work, and dream. But the reality has not changed in any meaningful way. People continue to leave because they still do not see enough hope inside the country. That is not a failure of messaging. It is a failure of results. A government may talk about bringing people back, but it will be judged by whether it can make staying worthwhile.

Swornim Wagle’s role also reveals something important about the character of this government. He has often been presented as a serious and technocratic figure, someone who can give the party an image of competence and discipline. But technocratic language has limits. It can explain what should happen, but it cannot substitute for what people actually experience. If health insurance remains weak for the poor, if welfare commitments are uncertain, and if economic relief does not reach the vulnerable, then the question is not whether the analysis sounds sophisticated. The question is whether the poor are protected. A polished argument in parliament does not mean much if the social reality outside remains unchanged.

There is also a deeper political issue here. The RSP built its reputation by attacking the culture of patronage. It said that public office should go to qualified people, not loyalists or relatives of the powerful. That was one of the reasons it attracted public trust. But once in power, any sign that appointments are being influenced by friendship, faction, or informal access weakens the party’s central claim. A new government can survive criticism of policy. It cannot easily survive the accusation that it is reproducing the same old network of influence it once condemned. That is why questions around appointments matter so much. They are not a side issue. They go to the heart of the party’s identity.

Taken together, the first 100 days suggest a government that is energetic but not yet transformative, vocal but not yet deeply credible, visible but not yet fully effective. It has shown that it can generate attention and move quickly in some areas. It has also shown that governing is far harder than opposition politics. In opposition, it was easy to identify what was broken. In power, every decision runs into institutions, budgets, legal limits, and public expectation. The party is now discovering that rhetoric is easy to distribute, but outcomes are much harder to deliver.

So the question is not whether the RSP has failed or succeeded in some absolute sense. The better question is whether it is becoming the kind of party it claimed to be. At present, the answer is uncertain. It still carries the hope of change, but that hope is no longer unchallenged. It has begun to look like a government caught between its moral image and the practical habits of Nepali politics. That is a dangerous place to be, because the public is willing to forgive early difficulty, but not the quiet return of old behavior under a new flag.

The real test will come in the next phase. If the RSP can move beyond appearances and produce real improvements in employment, welfare, service delivery, and public trust, then the first 100 days may later be seen as the rough beginning of something meaningful. If not, they will be remembered as the point when a promising movement started to resemble the politics it had once set out to replace. That is the core issue. The RSP did not come to power merely to govern. It came to prove that Nepali politics could be cleaner, fairer, and more responsive. After 100 days, that promise is still alive, but it is clearly weaker than it was before.

Money Cannot Buy Integrity

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Dr. Rajendra Panthee

Recently, while listening to CBC Radio’s Ideas program on The Age of Billionaires, I found myself thinking about a question that has become increasingly relevant in Nepal.

Can wealth eliminate corruption?

This question became especially important after the formation of Nepal’s new government. When ministers declared their assets, many people were surprised by the amount of wealth some of them possessed. Supporters argued that these were successful people who had already earned enough money and therefore had no reason to engage in corruption. According to this argument, wealthy individuals enter politics to serve the country rather than enrich themselves.

It is an attractive argument. Unfortunately, history and global experience suggest that things are not so simple.

Wealth does not automatically produce integrity. Financial success is not a certificate of morality. Being rich does not guarantee good governance any more than being poor guarantees honesty.

The recent discussion on CBC Radio’s Ideas raised an important concern. Across the world, extreme wealth is increasingly shaping politics and public policy. Economic power often translates into political influence. As a result, policies may begin to favor those who already possess wealth and influence, while ordinary citizens are left to bear the costs.

Nepal appears to be facing similar questions.

Recent tax policies have provided relief for gold purchases and electric vehicles. These measures may benefit affluent and middle class consumers, but they raise legitimate questions about priorities when ordinary people continue to struggle with the cost of daily necessities.

At the same time, several ministers and public officials are facing growing public scrutiny regarding their decisions and conduct. Citizens who expected a new political culture are beginning to ask difficult questions.

This does not mean that wealthy people are inherently corrupt. Nor does it mean that every allegation is true. Allegations must be investigated fairly, and conclusions must be based on evidence rather than emotions.

However, one assumption deserves reconsideration.

The belief that rich politicians will automatically eliminate corruption has no historical foundation. Wealth alone cannot replace accountability, transparency, or strong institutions.

In fact, when wealthy and powerful individuals become involved in misconduct, the consequences can be far greater because their influence, networks, and resources are also much greater.

Ultimately, the issue is not whether politicians are rich or poor.

The real question is this.

Who benefits from public policy?

Do policies serve the majority of citizens, or do they increasingly protect the interests of those who already possess wealth and influence?

The true test of governance is not how firmly the state acts against the powerless. It is how fairly it treats everyone. A government that can easily remove street vendors, evict landless settlers, or confiscate the livelihood of the poor, but hesitates when confronting wealth and influence, risks creating two different systems of justice.

Nepal must ask itself whether development should benefit the many or merely preserve the privileges of the few.

Money can buy success.

Money can buy influence.

Money can even buy political power.

But money cannot buy integrity.

That must still come from character, accountability, and a commitment to the public good.

Clean Leaders Alone Can’t Make Nepal a Ram Rajya

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Dr. Rajendra K. Panthee

Imagine for a moment that Nepal is suddenly ruled by the most corruption-hating leader in the world. Let us say someone like Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, who is globally known for turning a corrupt and underdeveloped port into a clean and efficient economy. Or perhaps Estonia’s reformers, who built a digital governance model that many countries admire. Imagine his cabinet ministers are equally clean, selfless, and devoted only to the nation. In one magical day, Nepal becomes a Ram Rajya. Honest. Efficient. Benevolent. No more rigged tenders. No more ghost schools. No more money laundering through cooperatives.

Still, Nepal might not change or develop. For a few stubborn reasons.

1. The people
Too many of us do not think about the nation as a shared project. We think about personal benefit, party loyalty, and who will protect our group. Blind support for a party becomes more important than policy, integrity, or long term vision. We say we want clean leaders, but when it comes to our own people, we say, he is not corrupt, he is our guy, he feeds us, he protects us, he is like family.

We want clean leaders at the top, but we also want our own people to be protected, promoted, and let off the hook. We want the system to work for us, not for the nation. We want to be the exception, not the rule.

Even a perfect government gets worn down by our own cynicism, favoritism, and indifference to the public good. We ask for Ram Rajya, but we do not want to live in it. We protest against corruption, but we also protect our corrupt uncle. We vote for clean candidates, but we also vote for the one who gives us a job, a contract, or a favor.

Nepal will not change because we do not want to change. We want the system to be clean, but we do not want to be clean.

2. The political class
There is another ugly truth. Many Nepali political leaders and their supporters also make India into a convenient political weapon. When they feel close to India, everything suddenly feels normal. When they feel ignored, less useful, or less favored than other leaders, they quickly start saying India is playing a game or interfering in Nepal’s affairs.

This is where the hypocrisy becomes obvious. On one hand, some of them are ready to become a puppet of India when it suits their own power. On the other hand, they pull out the nationalist card and shout anti India slogans to emotionally blackmail simple Nepali people. They do not use nationalism as principle. They use it as a tool.

This pattern is dangerous because it turns foreign policy into a domestic performance. Instead of speaking honestly about Nepal’s interests, they use India either as a shield or as a villain depending on what benefits them politically at that moment. That is not patriotism. That is manipulation.

India, as a big and powerful country with its own strategic interests, will never ignore Nepal completely. That much is obvious. But Nepali leaders also help create this cycle by using India whenever it helps them defend themselves, attack rivals, or distract the public from their own failures.

The result is always the same. The public gets confused, the debate gets emotional, and serious national issues become cheap slogans.

The bitter reality
Nepal’s future is not just about cleaning up corruption at the top. It is about how we, as citizens, act. It is about whether we can stop being blind supporters of one party and start being citizens who demand accountability. It is about whether we can stop thinking about personal benefits and start thinking about the nation as a shared project.

It is also about whether our leaders stop using India as a political mask whenever it suits them. A weak political class cannot build a strong state by playing nationalist theater on one side and foreign dependence on the other.

Nepal is stuck between pride and weakness, between sovereignty and dependency, between slogans and reality. Even Ram Rajya in Nepal would struggle, not because leaders alone are bad, but because the people are divided and the political class is often dishonest about bigger forces at play.

What can we do
We can stop being blind supporters. We can stop protecting our corrupt uncle. We can stop voting for the one who gives us a job and start voting for the one who gives us a future. We can start asking questions, demanding transparency, and holding our leaders accountable. We can also stop falling for the same tired game where leaders pretend to defend the nation while using India only when it suits their own power.

We can start being citizens, not just loyalists.

Conclusion
Even if Nepal gets Lee Kuan Yew as its Prime Minister, even if his cabinet is made of angels, even if Nepal becomes Ram Rajya overnight, it will not change or develop unless we change first. Unless we stop being blind supporters. Unless we stop protecting our corrupt uncle. Unless we stop letting leaders use India as a political weapon whenever they want sympathy or advantage.

Nepal’s future is not just about clean leaders. It is about clean citizens. It is about clean institutions. It is about honest politics. And it is about refusing to be emotionally blackmailed by nationalist slogans every time leaders want to hide their weakness.

Members of Parliament Don’t Know Parliamentary Language and We Call It Okay

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Dr. Rajendra K Panthee

I teach David Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University” where he says entering a community means learning its language AND its culture. Understanding mere words, grammar, sentences is not enough. You must learn the values, the norms, the ways of thinking. Now look at our Parliament. Many MPs today have learned the words of democracy but not the culture of democracy. They can say accountability but skip Parliament when questioned. They can say the people but ignore parliamentary procedure. They can say revolution but refuse to learn the institution that gives them power.

This is populism at work. Populism teaches the vocabulary of change but not the culture of accountability. It teaches you to say the people but not to submit to institutions that represent them. It teaches you to say democracy but not to respect the rules of democracy. When Prime Minister Balen Sah skips Parliament and avoids answering questions, when MPs do not know parliamentary procedure and followers call it anti establishment, this is not revolution. This is performing ignorance and calling it virtue.

Balen Sah’s behavior is wrong. It is not just about one party. Other leaders like Harka Sampang are no better. But RSP has been especially responsible for ignoring the superiority of Parliament and normalizing this anti institutional attitude. The party has helped create a culture where skipping Parliament is acceptable, where parliamentary procedure is elite, and where accountability is optional.

Bartholomae would say you cannot participate in a community you refuse to learn. Parliamentary culture means the Prime Minister answers questions even when uncomfortable. It means rules apply to everyone not just the opposition. It means accountability through institutions not social media. It means respecting debate even when you disagree. It means you submit to the institution even when it costs you politically.

Many MPs have the words but not the culture. They have democracy vocabulary but not democracy practice. They have the appearance of representation without the substance of accountability. This destroys institutions built over decades. When leaders treat norms as optional, democracy erodes. When followers accept anti intellectualism as virtue, institutions lose authority. When populists say institutions are corrupt, they weaken representative democracy itself.

This is the destructive nature of populist anti-intellectualism. Populism while potentially serving as a corrective force poses significant threats to democratic norms. The pattern is clear. Institutional erosion happens when leaders treat norms as optional. Democratic accountability disappears when followers accept anti intellectualism as virtue. The research shows we need to strengthen checks and balances to counter the appeal of populism. But first we need to recognize what is happening. We need to name it. We need to teach people why institutions matter. We need to teach them that culture matters as much as words.

When we lose parliamentary literacy, we lose the ability to hold power accountable through institutional means. When we lose parliamentary culture, we lose the values that make accountability possible. We lose the ability to debate respectfully. We lose the ability to build consensus. We lose the ability to protect minority rights. We lose the ability to govern effectively.

What we gain is chaos. What we gain is personal rule. What we gain is the illusion of representation without the reality of accountability. What we gain is the words of democracy without the culture of democracy.

We need to teach democratic literacy the way we teach academic literacy. We need to teach students and citizens how institutions work. We need to teach them why rules matter. We need to teach them that accountability is not optional. And we need to teach them the culture of democracy, not just the vocabulary.

David Bartholomae taught us that learning a new language is hard. It requires effort. It requires humility. It requires practice. Entering a new community means learning to speak like its members. But it also means learning to think like its members. It means learning its values. It means learning its culture.

Entering a democratic community means learning the language of democracy. It means learning parliamentary procedure. It means learning to hold power accountable through institutions. It means learning that rules protect us all not just the elite. And it means learning the culture of democracy, which means submission to process even when it is uncomfortable.

When MPs refuse to learn this language and culture they are not revolutionaries. They are illiterates. And when their supporters say it is okay they are complicit in the destruction of democracy.

Democracy requires language. It requires culture. It requires institutions. It requires people who know how to participate in the code even when it is uncomfortable. Populism promises to give power to the people but it delivers power to the leader. It promises to disrupt the system but it disrupts democracy itself. It teaches the words but not the culture. It teaches the vocabulary without the values.

Balen must answer questions in Parliament. MPs must learn parliamentary procedure. RSP must stop normalizing disrespect for institutions. Other populist leaders must stop treating Parliament as optional. Accountability is not optional. That is the point.

Democracy is not a protest. It is a practice. And you cannot practice if you do not know the language or the culture.

A Reflection on Rabi Lamichhane’s Hindustan Times Article

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Dr. Rajendra K Panthee

I started reading Rabi Lamichhane’s article “How can an aspirational Nepal and rising India reconnect?” in Hindustan Times and felt compelled to share some thoughts on how we remember Nepal’s recent political transformation.

The article frames Nepal’s transformation as a “peaceful ballot-box revolution” focused on development and aspirational vision. However, the historical record shows that the 2026 election was called because of the September 2025 Gen Z protests, which resulted in:

  • 19 people killed when police opened fire on protesters
  • Over 300 injured with tear gas, rubber bullets, and live ammunition
  • Parliament building damaged during the protests
  • $21 billion in damage — half of Nepal’s annual GDP
  • School kids in uniforms brought to the streets

More than 800,000 new voters registered—two-thirds of them Gen Z. The movement wasn’t about RSP specifically; it was about accountability, anti-corruption, and demanding a political system that serves ordinary citizens. The 2/3 RSP majority we see today is a direct result of this Gen Z movement.

When the article describes this as a “peaceful ballot-box revolution,” it risks erasing the young people who died to make this election possible. The families of the martyrs deserve to be acknowledged in any narrative about Nepal’s transformation.

On border relations, the article’s call to “resolve disputes through dialogue” is constructive, especially after PM Balen’s recent parliamentary remarks on border encroachment sparked debate. What would strengthen Nepal-India ties is not just aspirational vision but transparent governance, accountability for all parties, and respect for democratic institutions.

The warm reception Rabi received in India reflects genuine interest in Nepal-India cooperation, which should be welcomed. However, for that cooperation to be sustainable, both countries need leaders who balance diplomatic engagement with domestic accountability.

When RSP’s 2/3 majority enables governance, it also brings responsibility to ensure that power serves all citizens, not just party interests. True reconnection between Nepal and India will come not from rewriting history, but from building relationships grounded in mutual respect, transparency, and honoring the Gen Z generation whose uprising made this new political moment possible.

We should all remember: accountability today strengthens democracy tomorrow.

RSP’s First Month: Visible Action, But the Real Test is Still Ahead

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Dr. Rajendra K Panthee

The RSP government has opened its tenure with speed, energy, and a clear effort to project competence. Its one-month progress report is packed with concrete measures, from telecom and postal reforms to digital service upgrades, cybersecurity steps, and administrative discipline tied to the 100-point governance roadmap. That is a promising start. But a promising start is not yet proof of lasting reform.

What stands out most in the report is its focus on visible, everyday services. Extending prepaid package validity, introducing choice in PAYG billing, improving data-usage alerts, advancing 5G readiness, expanding one-time KYC, and improving passport delivery are practical changes people can understand. In a political culture where governments are often accused of producing more slogans than results, that kind of specificity matters. It gives the administration something tangible to point to.

The report also suggests a government that understands that reform is not only about high-level announcements. Its emphasis on zero pending files, business process re-engineering, and better coordination across agencies shows some awareness that the machinery of government must be fixed if public service is to improve. That is a welcome sign. Administrative reform is often boring, but it is usually the difference between public frustration and public trust.

Still, one month is too short a period to treat these measures as full achievements. Many of the report’s items appear to be starts, not finishes. A policy can be introduced, a system can be launched, and a directive can be issued without yet producing durable institutional change. That distinction matters. Citizens do not ultimately judge governments by the number of announcements they make, but by whether those announcements improve the way the state actually works.

That is why the 100-point roadmap should be read as a test, not a trophy. Roadmaps are useful only if they can be translated into deadlines, measurable outcomes, and real accountability. The report shows movement, but movement is not the same as transformation. Some projects appear to be operational, while others are still at the stage of preparation or coordination. The real challenge is whether this initial momentum can survive beyond the first month.

There is also an important political dimension here. Every new government wants to create a story of competence early in its tenure. That is normal. But the more strongly a government advertises early success, the more closely it will later be judged on whether that success endures. Public trust is not built by momentum alone. It is built by consistency, follow-through, and visible results that ordinary people can feel.

So the fairest reading of the report is balanced. The RSP government has made a fast and visible start, and that should be acknowledged. But it has not yet proven that this start will become a sustained record of reform. The one-month report shows intention, direction, and energy. What it does not yet show is whether the government can turn those qualities into lasting change.