I am Babi Rani Poudel \u2014 a proud daughter of Nepal, now living and working in Melbourne, Australia. I am an LGBTQIA+ activist, a passionate health advocate, and a support worker devoted to those most overlooked by society. From people living with HIV to displaced communities, from queer youth to forgotten elders, I dedicate my voice and life to those still struggling to be heard. But today, I write not just as an activist \u2014 I write as a witness. As a child of Nepal, I watch in grief as my homeland is set ablaze \u2014 not only by fire, but by anger, by despair, by a slow-burning collapse of trust, unity, and morality.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can burn the building, but not the memory of what it once stood for. You can burn the road, but not the path we must still walk.\u201d These words ring louder each day. All across Nepal, buildings are torched, streets are blocked, health posts vandalized. The air smells of smoke, not just from fire, but from frustration. But amid the ashes, I ask \u2014 what did we really destroy? Not just stone and steel \u2014 we destroyed hope. Not just offices \u2014 we burned away trust. We say we want change. We demand justice. But can justice grow from destruction? Can a future be born from the funeral of our own institutions?
\nEach time a protest turns violent, it is the innocent who suffer. When a school is set on fire, a child loses her dreams. When a rural health post is burned down, a mother dies in labor, unseen. When roads are closed for days, a farmer\u2019s produce rots before it ever reaches the market. A patient dies in the back of an ambulance. A student misses their exams. A laborer loses their daily wage. A grandmother walks for miles because the bus cannot pass. So again \u2014 who are we really fighting? The system? Or ourselves?<\/p>\n
We forget that government buildings are not mansions of the elite \u2014 they are built with the blood, sweat, and labor of everyday people. With the remittance of fathers working in the Gulf. With the unpaid care of mothers raising children alone. With the sweat of farmers, teachers, and workers. When we burn a ward office, we are not punishing the corrupt \u2014 we are punishing the poor. Inside that office are your land records, your ID, your grandmother\u2019s pension file, your sibling\u2019s scholarship form. That desk may hold a bureaucrat\u2019s pen, but the paper is ours. We demand reform \u2014 but reform doesn\u2019t grow in rubble. It grows in responsibility.<\/p>\n
Our nation has never lacked revolution. We\u2019ve lived through the Sugauli Treaty, the Kot Massacre, the People\u2019s Movement of 2007, the democratic waves of 2046, the Maoist insurgency, and more. We tore down thrones, embraced republics, and watched governments fall like dominoes. Yet somehow, poverty stayed. Education remained a privilege. Jobs disappeared. And justice? Still just a word in speeches. We rotate leaders, we recycle slogans \u2014 but do we ever transform ourselves? We\u2019re not just burning buildings. We\u2019re burning lessons. And still, the past repeats.<\/p>\n
Look at the world. Japan rose from nuclear ashes. Germany rebuilt from genocide. South Korea, once poorer than Nepal, is now a global leader in technology and education. They didn\u2019t waste time burning \u2014 they built. They turned pain into purpose, not protests. They educated their children, paved their roads, and brought their diaspora home not to serve others \u2014 but to lead their own. What do they have that we don\u2019t? Not more brains. Not more money. They had vision. Discipline. A shared goal. We have emotion \u2014 but without direction, emotion becomes destruction.<\/p>\n
And yes, corruption is real. It lives in ministries and mansions. But let\u2019s be honest \u2014 it lives in our homes too. In the bribes we pay to fast-track a passport. In the donation demanded by private schools. In the \u201cextra charges\u201d at hospitals. Corruption is not just top-down \u2014 it\u2019s inside our culture. We say, \u201cThe system is broken.\u201d But have we ever asked ourselves: \u201cWhat have I done to fix it?\u201d Change begins not at Singha Durbar \u2014 but at our own front door.<\/p>\n
When you burn a clinic, it\u2019s not the Health Minister who suffers. It\u2019s the mother in labor, the child with fever, the elderly man who walked two days for insulin. When you destroy a bus, it\u2019s not the CEO who suffers \u2014 it\u2019s the student who misses class, the maid who loses her job, the family that goes hungry. This is not revolution. This is self-harm. Real revolution builds \u2014 with courage, with ideas, with discipline.<\/p>\n
Today, we are not at war with kings. We are at war with ignorance. With apathy. With our own lack of patience. We post outrage, but don\u2019t vote. We scroll TikTok, but don\u2019t read books. We quote Mandela and MLK, but ignore our own grandmothers. We rage online, but forget to ask ourselves: What are we really doing? Passion without purpose is chaos. Anger without action is just noise.<\/p>\n
And in that noise, it\u2019s always the most vulnerable who are silenced first. When programs are shut down, HIV testing disappears. LGBTQIA+ lives are put at risk. Rural youth lose safe spaces. Indigenous voices are drowned in slogans that were never theirs to begin with. Organizations like UNAIDS leave \u2014 not because their mission is done \u2014 but because we failed to protect their space. A nation that steps over its most fragile to shout louder will never rise. We rise together, or we do not rise at all.<\/p>\n
Even here in Australia, I see the storm follow us. Anti-immigration protests rise. Migrants \u2014 Nepalis among them \u2014 are deported, detained, discriminated against. Once, we left Nepal to chase opportunity. Now, we flee just to breathe freely. But ask yourself: if Nepal had dignity, equality, justice \u2014 would we leave at all? We sent our youth abroad not with platforms, but with passports. They didn\u2019t go for dreams \u2014 they went to survive.<\/p>\n
So before you light the next fire, think: What will I destroy? A document someone waited years for. A vaccine a child needs. A road a student must take. Every flame scorches the future. Every stone aimed in rage bruises an innocent soul. Instead, ask: What seed can I plant here? What path can I build?
\nNepal doesn\u2019t need more rebels. It needs reformers. Builders. Teachers. Voters. Health workers. <\/p>\n
Leaders. If even half our angry youth picked up tools instead of torches, we would rebuild this nation within a generation. We have enough pain. What we need now is purpose.<\/p>\n
Nepal is not just a piece of land. It\u2019s not just a flag or a constitution. Nepal is you. It is your courage, your choices, your integrity. You may not trust the system \u2014 but the system watches you too.
\n“Arko ko lahilahi ma nalagnu, dukkha paunuparcha.”<\/p>\n
(Don\u2019t follow others blindly \u2014 or you\u2019ll suffer the consequences.)<\/p>\n
“Fal khanu, butonachinanu.”<\/p>\n
(Don\u2019t expect fruit if you don\u2019t know the path.)<\/p>\n
“Buddhi le aru kha, ris le afu kha.”<\/p>\n
(Wisdom feeds others. Rage devours the self.)<\/p>\n
We say Nepal is the land of Buddha. Then why are we burning it? Why do we choose violence, if we claim to follow peace? We bow before Sita\u2019s purity, yet degrade women on the streets. Our schools taught us moral science \u2014 where is our morality now? Death is not new in Nepal. We\u2019ve lost lands like Kalapani and Tista \u2014 but more painfully, we\u2019ve lost lives. We\u2019ve lost dignity.<\/p>\n
My own Arami brother died while serving in a UN peacekeeping mission during the Second World War. Others died in 2007, in 2046, in the Maoist insurgency. Still we have not learned. We are repeating history, expecting different results.<\/p>\n
I may not be able to become a father. I cannot become a mother either. But around me, I have 50 children who call me family. They love, they trust, they hope. That\u2019s enough to know the power of compassion. And that is enough to remind us: children are watching. What we say, what we write, what we post \u2014 they see it all.<\/p>\n
When a child scrolls their mother\u2019s phone and sees burning tires, bleeding faces, and hateful posts \u2014 what do we think it does to their mind? To their heart? What trauma are we passing down in the name of protest?<\/p>\n
Social media is not a battlefield. It is not your stage. Be a responsible user. Think before you post. Think not of your image \u2014 but of the impact on someone vulnerable, someone suffering with PTSD, someone young, confused, scared.<\/p>\n
Let us stop burning what we love. Let us build it. Let us be the peace we preach. And maybe, just maybe \u2014 the day we stop shouting, and start listening, will be the day Nepal begins to truly rise.<\/p>\n
By Babi Rani Poudel \u2013 LGBTQIA+ Activist, Health Advocate, and Support Worker for Marginalized Communities. Born in Nepal, Residing in Melbourne, Australia.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am Babi Rani Poudel \u2014 a proud daughter of Nepal, now living and working in Melbourne, Australia. I am an LGBTQIA+ activist, a passionate health advocate, and a support worker devoted to those most overlooked by society. From people living with HIV to displaced communities, from queer youth to forgotten elders, I dedicate my voice and life to those still struggling to be heard. But today, I write not just as an activist \u2014 I write as a witness. As a child of Nepal, I watch in grief as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":14135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1081,8,621,492,490,3,2065],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-issue","category-explanationawareness","category-human-rights","category-news","category-opinion","category-slider","category-society","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14134"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14141,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14134\/revisions\/14141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}