Powerful Predators: A Kathmandu Perspective

Abstract

When, on 27 December 2012, a group of young people, including myself, gathered outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Baluwatar, Kathmandu, to sign and submit letters to the then-Prime Minister of Nepal regarding a case of robbery and rape of a young woman, I can say with certainty that none of us expected to be drawn into the turbulent few months that followed. None of us realized that the justice which we were asking for, on behalf of the young woman who had been robbed and raped by the state’s officials, would require a lot more than a handful of signed letters. Nor did we understand the depths of injustice that permeates every level of society in Nepal and the utter apathy, cynicism and helplessness of the citizenry in exposing such injustice and demanding what is rightfully theirs. What the group of us came to counter was the backbone of the state machinery dominated overwhelmingly by powerful men — politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen.