By Narayan Prasad Mishra
Our country is rich not only in natural splendor but also in inherited wisdom and social tolerance. Few nations of Nepal’s size carry such civilizational weight. And yet, step into its cities, markets, bus parks, airports, or even its streets, and that beauty seems trapped beneath disorder.
What confronts the citizen and the visitor alike is not a lack of resources but a poverty of planning, leadership, and discipline. Roads appear where they should not, and disappear where they should exist. Cities grow without design, markets without regulation, and public spaces without respect for the public. The result is a mesh—confusing, chaotic, and exhausting—where movement is difficult, time is wasted, and dignity is routinely compromised.
This disorder is visible every day on the roads. Traffic jams occur frequently not only because of the growing number of vehicles but, more importantly, because of undisciplined driving. Motorcycles and motor cars routinely overtake in violation of traffic rules, block intersections, and ignore lanes and signals. What should be a smooth flow becomes congested by impatience and the absence of enforcement. When rules exist only on paper, chaos becomes the norm.
Corruption in Nepal is often discussed in terms of scandals, commissions, and stolen money. But its most damaging form is everyday corruption—the quiet normalization of rule-breaking, shortcuts, and favors. When traffic rules are optional, building codes negotiable, licenses purchasable, and public land encroachable, disorder is no longer accidental; it is institutionalized. The system does not merely fail to enforce discipline—it silently encourages indiscipline.
Kathmandu’s rivers offer another painful example. Once central to the valley’s civilization and spiritual life, they have been reduced to dumping grounds. They are polluted not only by unmanaged squatters along their banks but also by uncultured behavior—people casually throwing garbage into flowing water as if rivers were drains. This reflects a deeper failure of civic education, enforcement, and respect for shared natural heritage.
Crowds, too, have become part of the problem—not because people are inherently unruly, but because no one sets boundaries. At bus stations, passengers push because there are no queues. At airports, confusion reigns because systems are weak and staff are unaccountable. On roads, pedestrians risk their lives because sidewalks are absent, narrow, or occupied. Everyone adapts to disorder, and in adapting, sustains it.
This creates a vicious cycle: misgovernance produces chaos, chaos breeds cynicism, and cynicism erodes civic responsibility. People stop expecting the state to function and stop behaving like citizens. They become mere survivors in a crowded, unmanaged space.
The tragedy is that none of this is inevitable.
Nepal does not lack laws, plans, or technical knowledge. It lacks leadership that believes in enforcement, accountability, and long-term public interest. It lacks leaders willing to be unpopular in the short term to create order in the long term. The situation is that a person like Balen, the ex-Mayor of Kathmandu Municipality, is discouraged and unsupported by the government of the country for removing squatters from the river banks. Fixing cities, roads, rivers, and public behavior requires more than speeches—it requires consistent rules applied equally to the powerful and the ordinary.
Discipline is not authoritarianism. The order is not anti-democratic. On the contrary, a functioning democracy depends on predictability, fairness, and respect for shared space. A country cannot be free if its citizens live in daily chaos created by neglect and tolerated illegality.
What Nepal needs today is not another vision document, but visible and decisive action: well-planned urban development, disciplined and regulated transport systems, protected rivers and public spaces, and institutions that function with integrity even when no one is watching. Above all, Nepal needs moral leadership—leaders who understand that governance is a sacred public trust, not a personal opportunity —and who are prepared to serve the nation with honesty, responsibility, and courage after the upcoming general election.
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