Seventy-two dead. Let that number sink in. Twenty-somethings! 21, 22, 20. Say their names: Gaurav Joshi, Prabin Kulung, Shri Krishna Shrestha. Our bhais and nephews! Young men in the city looking to connect. To get some knowledge. To make a living. And the Nepali state massacred them.
I’m thinking of Peace Zone Nepal from the 1980s, a sweet potion offered by a wimpy monarch to the Panchayat-era technocrats and experts who chugged it as if it was a bottle of imported whiskey!
I’m thinking of tourism propaganda. A friendly country full of smiling people! How everyone loves Nepalis! How hardworking and loyal Nepalis are! And the Nepali state massacred these smiling boys and girls.
Isn’t Kathmandu the city of temples? Oh how clean and pure the religious leaders are! How proud we are of our brave Gorkhalis! These clean, brave men and women have allowed the state to massacre our youth.
I use the word “allowed”. I’m not blaming any one demographic. I say “clean, brave men and women” and that might include you and me, readers and writers, the intellectual class, the old money elites, the ones supposed to be participating and defending our democracy.
I say “allowed” because that implies passivity. And we know we have been passive for generations. We know we have witnessed federalism fumble forward for two decades.
And here we are.
We should never forget this. We should never let anyone get away with this. When a wily, despot attempts to sell shipping dreams to a landlocked populace, insulting our intelligence, we shouldn’t giggle. We should never turn the other way. Already, ‘life is almost normal’. We have begun to pretend again. But before celebrating and commenting and predicting, we must ensure that we have properly understood the gravity of how we arrived at September 8, 2025 collectively as Nepalis.
This was not just a mistake or an accident. So let’s not be hasty and try to move on. The funeral pyres are burning daily and the dead are still lying cold inside hospitals.
No, we don’t need to know every detail of what is happening, or what the Real Story is. Oh, was it actually India who sent their terrorists to kill these people? Don’t let them distract you. The truth is plain and simple and staring at your face: The Nepali state has massacred innocent lives.
Don’t blame the police. Who hired them? Who was responsible for training them? Who provided the guns and bullets to these civil servants? Don’t blame the infiltrators. Why did they want to loot and destroy? Why were they so angry with the Nepali state? What is the Nepali state anyway? Who created that? Who voted for these criminals? Weren’t they supposed to be our guardians? Our elders? But we had lost our way a long time ago.
I’m thinking of arrogant neo-liberals in bed with hardened murderers, desperate for photo-ops in front of five star hotels!
I’m thinking of apathetic bureaucrats signing off young Nepalis out of the country in droves for decades! First, to fight and die in foreign armies and now, to build monstrous concrete structures in the middle of deserts! Inside inhumane factories!
I’m thinking of upwardly mobile aspirants sipping cocktails at fancy parties, bragging about their children’s corporate jobs, waiting for their turn to get a Tel visa to America.
I’m not blaming any one group. We live in a diverse, multi-ethnic country with a history of oppression and deep inequality. While everyone was taking their turn, the 72 innocent lives perished.
Where are our elders? Where are our leaders? Why did we fail to protect our young so grossly?
Where is the media? Aren’t they supposed to hold politicians accountable? Are we still going to discuss the Nak-chuchche naksa? To delude ourselves and drum up empty nationalistic rhetoric when we know that they allowed the Nepali state to massacre 72 lives?
Have we understood what has happened? Are we okay with this? And how are we going to ensure that this never happens again in Nepal?
How are we going to hold ourselves and those in power accountable? A country gets the politicians they voted for. A government is made of its people, supposed leaders of civil society. The state is a symptom of a country’s health, or its malaise. So now is the time to get a thorough medical check-up. Merely monitoring your heart rates and sugar will not suffice this time. Have you examined your own thoughts? Have you conducted a spiritual scan of your psyche?
No more passing one’s trauma to one’s sons and daughters. Enough with the intoxication! How about counting the number of party palaces in Nepal and comparing that with the number of libraries and community centers?
Look at the condition of our towns and cities, the quality of our public schools, the ethics of private school businesses! How many well-functioning libraries can we count? Perhaps it’s because of this gross negligence that we are collectively witnessing this mid-September devastation.
If our elders truly wanted a democratic society, they would have thought about public services more carefully. They would have reached out to the youth and held town hall meetings. Instead, our infantile authorities demand obedience, afraid of their own perverse shadows, ignoring the potential of art and literature, only showing up for ribbon cutting at opening ceremonies.
Now that the PhD bhauju’s bruised face has gone viral, perhaps it’s time to have a conversation with our own bhaujus and maijus about basic values. About beauty pageants and celebrity culture. About climate change and digital addiction.
Even the Universe is screaming, sending distress signals, eclipsing the Newa’s Indra Jatra; eclipsing the Hindus’ Ghatasthapana! Hopes and dreams massacred. If our elders have let us down, this is the moment to pray to our ancestors and make a vow. To never let this happen in Nepal again. To do everything we can. So that the guardians we entrust to lead our country do not lose their way and end up massacring our boys and girls.