When 37-year-old Prem Prasad Acharya died after setting himself on fire in January 2023, Balendra Shah was the mayor of Kathmandu, Nepal’s bustling national capital. Acharya had been frustrated by the repeated failures of his business ventures. At the time, Shah termed the incident a sign of “the state’s extreme failure.”
That comment is now coming back to haunt Shah, the country’s prime minister since March 2026.
On July 9 this year, it was the turn of 25-year-old Ganesh Nepali, a Dalit who was providing for his family by running a ride-hailing service on his motorcycle, to try to self-immolate. He chose to do so rather than pay 1,000 Nepali rupees (roughly $6.5) in parking fines. He died a day later. Nepali was seemingly under great financial stress as he had to support his family on his meager income while paying the bank installments on the bike. At the time of the incident, Nepali had been applying to work in the UAE.
Nearly two weeks later, Shah continues to feel the fallout from the incident.
The parking fine imposed by Kathmandu’s municipal police acted as the immediate trigger for Nepali, who was already under considerable financial strain.
