KATHMANDU — There is a word in Nepali: "aba huncha." It means "now it will be done." For three decades, it has been the most abused word in the country's political/economical/social vocabulary. Every election, every new government, every freshly signed accord has been accompanied by the promise that 'aba hunch'—'now it will be done'—things will change. Now the roads will be paved. Now the children will find jobs at home. Now the corruption will end.
And for three decades, 'aba huncha' has meant nothing.
But on 5 March, 2026, the word acquired teeth. The people of Nepal, led by a generation too young to remember the monarchy and too angry to forgive the republic, delivered a mandate that was less a vote and more an eviction notice. The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), fronted by the engineer-turned-mayor-turned-prime-minister in- waiting Balendra "Balen" Shah, did not simply win an election. They were handed a loaded weapon and pointed at the status quo. RSP is heading for a 2/3 majority in the new Parliament. A Miracle Indeed!
This is Nepal's actual "aba huncha" moment. It is now or never.
The Weight of "Never"
To understand what "never" looks like, one need only glance at the past. Since the restoration of democracy in 1990, Nepal has cycled through more than two dozen governments. It has written and rewritten constitutions. It has fought a Maoist insurgency, abolished a 240-year-old monarchy, and declared itself a federal republic. And through it all, the fundamental experience of being Nepali saw very limited change: you wait.
You wait for a water line (may be Melemchi) to be connected. You wait for months to get your driving licence. You wait for a job that never comes, until you give up and join the exodus to the Gulf, to Malaysia, to anywhere that does not feel like home. The remittances sent back by those who leave now constitute nearly a third of the country's GDP. Nepal has become a nation that exports its young people and imports its survival.
That is "never." A future where the only thing that grows is the queue at the airport.
The Blueprint for "Now"
The RSP's 20-point manifesto is, on its face, a technocrat's wish list. But read against the backdrop of Nepali history, it is something far more radical: a declaration that the waiting may be over.
The Manifesto Specifics
Consider the RSP Manifesto specifics.
1. The promise to return cooperative depositors' savings within 100 days is not just about money; it is about time. It says that this government will not ask you to wait another five years for justice.
2. The pledge to put every government service online—"no queues, only clicks"—is a direct assault on the culture of chakari, the brokerage system where middlemen profit from citizen desperation.
3. The declaration of Information Technology as a "National Strategic Industry" is a bet that Nepal's youth, who are among the most digitally connected in South Asia, can build server farms instead of cleaning bathrooms in Dubai.
4. The target of 10,000 megawatts of electricity is an acknowledgment that Nepal's rivers, which have flowed past hungry villages for centuries, must finally be harnessed to light homes and power factories.
5. And then there is the most dangerous promise of all: to investigate the assets of every public official since 1990. This is not a policy; it is a reckoning. It is an audit of an entire political class that treated public office as a license to steal. If implemented, even partially, it would send shockwaves through every village, every district headquarters, every Kathmandu coffee shop where the old guard gathers to reminisce about the good old days of impunity.
The Earthquake Beneath Their Feet
But a blueprint is not a building. And the forces arrayed against the "now" are formidable.
The old parties—the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML, the Maoist Center—may have lost the election, but they have not lost their grip on the institutions that matter. They own judges. They control unions. They have spent decades embedding their cadres in the civil service/universities/banks/NGOs/INGOs, creating a system of 'middle agents' that are trained to outlast and in some case act as government by 'default'. When the RSP manifesto promises to "end partisan organizations in civil service," it is declaring war on a parallel government that has never been voted out.
The courts, packed with appointees of the old regime, will be flooded with injunctions. The unions may call strikes that paralyze Kathmandu. The media outlets owned by political families will portray Balen Shah as a dangerous autocrat, a strongman disguised as an engineer. The narrative will be relentless: he is moving too fast, he is disrespecting tradition, he is breaking things that were never meant to be fixed.
And they will be right about one thing: he is breaking things. That is what the mandate demands.
The Geopolitical Tightrope
Nepal's "now" is complicated by its geography. Sandwiched between India and China, the country has long survived by playing its neighbors against each other—a dangerous game that has left it with grand agreements but little progress. The RSP's energy ambitions depend entirely on India's willingness to buy power and allow transmission lines. Its IT dreams require reliable internet infrastructure that neither neighbor has been eager to guarantee.
The old guard's preferred method of survival—delays, committees, further study—has suited Nepal's neighbors just fine. A weak, chaotic Nepal is easy to manage. A strong, functional Nepal is unpredictable.
Balen Shah must convince New Delhi and Beijing that a stable, prosperous Nepal is in their interest. That is a harder sell than any domestic reform.
The Patience of the Protesters
There is one factor that gives the "now" government a fighting chance: the people who put them there.
The Gen-Z protesters of September 2025 did not return to their dorm rooms after the rallies ended. They are watching. They are counting. They are the most politically conscious, digitally connected generation Nepal has ever produced. If the RSP falters, if the old guard succeeds in strangling reform, those young people will not go quietly back to waiting in lines.
They will be back in the streets. And next time, they may not be so patient.
That is the pressure that makes "now" possible. Balen Shah does not have the luxury of gradualism. His mandate is not five years; it is measured in the attention span of a generation that has been told "aba huncha" one too many times.
The Verdict
Nepal stands at a hinge point. On one side lies "never"—the slow slide into irrelevance, a beautiful country that becomes a museum for its own lost potential. On the other side lies "now"—the terrifying, exhilarating possibility that a small Himalayan nation might actually govern itself differently.
The engineer has been handed the tools. The blueprints are public. The workers are ready.
THE TIME IS 'NOW' OR 'NEVER'. THE CHOICE IS YOURS!
Professor Shrestha is an Engineering Teacher with some interest in political and social engineering.
