If you are struggling with mental health issues—especially when those issues are fueled by the bleakness of the world around you—one coping mechanism is to look for the funny side of things. Doing so allows you to laugh when you might otherwise spend all your time crying.
This is an account of a coping mechanism I adopted while in Nepal and how, in the process, I ended up documenting the shocking level of patriarchy and sexism that exists there.
Since the formation of the modern Nepalese state via the expansion of the Gorkha kingdom approximately 250 years ago, the country has been internally colonized by hill-origin, so-called high-caste Hindu men through the poor, minimal, and selective education of the population. Consequently, all four pillars of democracy have remained monopolized by this demographic, even throughout the nation's thirty-year democratic experimentation. This data-driven analysis details their continued hegemony over the Executive branch. Until the population attains a significantly higher level of education, these entrenched power structures are unlikely to yield.
Throughout Nepal’s 250-year history, the nation has endured a persistent internal colonization by the Khas-Arya—specifically, Khas-Arya men. This hierarchy remained immutable even after the hereditary monarchy was toppled in 1990; the Khas-Arya elite simply metamorphosed from royal subjects into democratic hegemonists. The upcoming March 2026 elections fail to signal a departure from this legacy. By orchestrating a selectively educated populace, the ruling caste has ensured that the mechanisms of their power remain both unchallenged and, for many, invisible.
Autocratic Shah monarchy and feudal Rana oligarchy entrenched structural discrimination and systemic casteism in Nepal for more than two centuries, structurally privileging the ruling caste, the hill so-called high caste Hindus. Shackled by their legacies in the twenty-first century, Nepal still struggles to make progress. But, even as challenging and daunting as fighting against and correcting them in order to create a just and equitable Nepali society for all may appear, there are ways forward. Education has a major role to play.
In a three-post blog series, I am reproducing the answers Grok 3 provided on the subject. This one--the third and final one in the series--details the way forward.
Autocratic Shah monarchy and feudal Rana oligarchy entrenched structural discrimination and systemic casteism in Nepal for more than two centuries, structurally privileging the ruling caste, the hill so-called high caste Hindus. Shackled by their legacies in the twenty-first century, Nepal still struggles to make progress. But, even as challenging and daunting as fighting against and correcting them in order to create a just and equitable Nepali society for all may appear, there are ways forward. Education has a major role to play.
In a three-post blog series, I am reproducing the answers Grok 3 provided on the subject. This one--the second one in the series--details the legacies of the deliberately instituted structural discrimination and systemic casteism.
Autocratic Shah monarchy and feudal Rana oligarchy entrenched structural discrimination and systemic casteism in Nepal for more than two centuries, structurally privileging the ruling caste, the hill so-called high caste Hindus. Shackled by their legacies in the twenty-first century, Nepal still struggles to make progress. But, even as challenging and daunting as fighting against and correcting them in order to create a just and equitable Nepali society for all may appear, there are ways forward. Education has a major role to play.
In this first of a three-post blog series, I am reproducing the answers Grok 3 provided on the subject. This one details how all that happened and/or how they were all deliberately instituted.
