Maoist policies have made the Himalayan nation of Nepal one of the poorest in Asia, says Rainer Zitelmann

On December 11 2023, I landed in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Nepal lies between China and India and has a population of around 30m. Kathmandu is located in a valley in the middle of the Himalayas with the highest mountain on earth, Mount Everest at 29,030 ft.

Agreeing on a schedule is not easy, as I learn that Nepal celebrates long and hard. Several of my original suggestions weren’t possible, as Basanta, the head of a libertarian think tank who invited me to Nepal, explained: “Actually, the festivals runs from 15 October until 19 November, but there will be a gap of 15 days in-between and we were planning our program in the gap between the two holidays. But people will still be in a holiday mood on those days”. Officially, there are 35 non-working holidays in Nepal, more than anywhere else in the world, but the people I speak to say there are actually over 50.

Basanta Adhikari is the founder of the Bikalpa-an Alternative, an aspiring public policy think tank. This man with a long beard – even longer than Karl Marx’s – is now an ardent freedom activist, even naming his daughter Liberty and his son Freedom. But at one time, he confessed, he was a follower of the teachings of Stalin and Mao.

With an average annual income of $315 per capita, Nepal is the second poorest country in Asia after Afghanistan and one of the ten poorest countries in the world. Poverty is clearly visible in the streets, both in the capital and beyond, and the stores and houses are run-down.

Seven constitutions in 80 years

Nepal is also very unstable politically. I wonder if there is........

© City A.M.