{"id":23390,"date":"2026-08-20T12:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T06:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eng.dragonmedia.com.np\/?p=23390"},"modified":"2026-08-20T12:07:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T06:22:00","slug":"rights-on-paper-distance-in-practice-the-invisible-gap-between-ordinary-nepalis-and-the-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eng.dragonmedia.com.np\/?p=23390","title":{"rendered":"Rights on Paper, Distance in Practice: The Invisible Gap Between Ordinary Nepalis and the State<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sanket Kiranti<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nepal\u2019s system of governance cannot be understood simply by reading constitutional provisions, following parliamentary debates or examining government reports. The real character of the state is often revealed more clearly through the experience of an ordinary citizen dealing with a government office, hospital, police station, court or local authority.<\/p>\n

One person may need to correct a citizenship record. Another may find that a social security allowance has stopped. Someone else may be seeking treatment at a public hospital, correcting a land record or filing a complaint with the police. It is in these everyday encounters with the state that the actual distance between constitutional rights and the services citizens receive becomes visible.<\/p>\n

Nepal\u2019s Constitution guarantees an extensive range of fundamental rights, including the rights to live with dignity, equality, justice, health, education, privacy, food, housing, employment and social security. The problem is not simply the absence of rights. The deeper issue is whether citizens can exercise those rights easily, equally and with dignity when they actually need them.<\/p>\n

The distance between the Nepali state and ordinary citizens can broadly be seen at five levels: procedure, money, time, information and technology, and dignity.<\/p>\n

The first is procedural distance.<\/p>\n

For many citizens, the state can still feel less like a coordinated system and more like a network of separate offices. A single administrative task may require visits to a ward office, municipality, district administration office, land revenue office, bank or another agency. One office may demand certification from another, and if records do not match, the citizen may be sent back to where the process began.<\/p>\n

For an affluent person, such difficulties may amount to inconvenience. For a daily wage worker, a small farmer or someone travelling from a remote district, they have a direct economic cost. Every day spent visiting government offices may mean lost income. Travel, food and accommodation add further expenses. If a citizen must return simply because of a minor discrepancy in a document, it is the individual who pays the price for administrative inefficiency.<\/p>\n

In that sense, complicated bureaucracy is not merely a governance problem. It can become an invisible fee citizens are forced to pay in order to exercise a legal right.<\/p>\n

The second distance is financial.<\/p>\n

Healthcare provides one of the clearest examples. Health is constitutionally recognized as a fundamental right. Nepal has public health institutions and a national health insurance system. Yet a substantial share of healthcare expenditure is still paid directly by households.<\/p>\n

The consequences differ sharply according to income. A major medical procedure may create financial stress for a middle-class family, while the same treatment can push a low-income household into debt, force the sale of assets or require cuts in other essential expenses. For families travelling from rural areas to cities for treatment, the burden includes not only medical bills but also transportation, medicines, accommodation and the lost income of relatives caring for the patient.<\/p>\n

A right that exists in law but remains economically difficult to access is weakened in practice.<\/p>\n

The same inequality appears in access to justice. The law may apply equally to everyone, but the ability to sustain a legal process does not. Lawyers\u2019 fees, repeated court appearances, travel, documentation and prolonged uncertainty can impose a heavy burden on ordinary citizens. A wealthy individual or institution may be able to endure years of litigation, while for a worker, farmer, survivor of domestic violence or financially vulnerable family, the waiting itself can become a form of punishment.<\/p>\n

This leads to the third distance: time.<\/p>\n

The quality of justice cannot be measured only by whether the final judgment is correct. It also matters when that judgment arrives. Compensation awarded years later may not restore an income that was lost when it was most needed. A delayed administrative decision cannot always recover a missed employment opportunity. A late judgment cannot fully repair damage to reputation, mental health or family life.<\/p>\n

How much value the state places on a citizen\u2019s time is therefore an important measure of modern governance.<\/p>\n

The fourth distance concerns information and technology.<\/p>\n

Nepal is moving rapidly toward digital governance. National identification, passports, banking, taxation, telecommunications, healthcare and social security systems are increasingly digitized. When properly implemented, technology can accelerate services, reduce duplicate records and lower administrative costs.<\/p>\n

But while technology can reduce old forms of distance, it can also create new ones.<\/p>\n

What happens to an elderly person without a smartphone? How does someone who cannot complete an online form access a service? What options exist for people living in areas with weak internet connectivity? If biometric information does not match, or if a government database contains an incorrect name or date of birth, is there a simple alternative procedure?<\/p>\n

The protection of personal information raises an even more important question. As the state accumulates citizens\u2019 names, addresses, photographs, biometric information, family details, financial records and service histories, its administrative capacity expands, but so does its potential power of surveillance.<\/p>\n

The relevant question is not whether the state may collect information at all. It is how much information is necessary, who may access it, for what purpose it may be used, under what legal basis it can be shared with another agency, who is accountable if it is leaked, and whether citizens can effectively correct their records or prevent unnecessary use.<\/p>\n

These are not merely technical questions. They are questions of modern civil rights.<\/p>\n

The fifth distance between citizens and the state is less visible but perhaps the most consequential: the distance of dignity.<\/p>\n

When someone enters a government office, are they treated as a rights-bearing citizen or as a petitioner seeking a favour? Are procedures explained clearly? Is assistance available to someone who cannot read or complete forms? Are older people required to stand in long queues, or are alternatives provided? Can persons with disabilities physically access public buildings and services? When someone files a police complaint, is the matter heard on its merits rather than through the filter of social status or personal connections?<\/p>\n

Human rights violations do not occur only through major acts of violence or extraordinary abuses of power. Repeatedly sending citizens from office to office, delaying a service without explanation, demanding unnecessary documents, prioritizing people with influence, or failing to respond to complaints can also reflect an unequal relationship between the state and the individual.<\/p>\n

One such incident may appear minor. When millions of citizens experience similar treatment repeatedly, it is no longer a collection of personal inconveniences. It becomes a structural problem of governance.<\/p>\n

Nepal\u2019s picture is not entirely negative.<\/p>\n

Federalism has brought many public services closer to communities. Local governments now have direct responsibilities in social security, civil registration, education, basic healthcare and local infrastructure. Digital services have expanded. Health insurance, free-treatment schemes, legal aid and targeted social protection programmes are also in place.<\/p>\n

The central question is no longer whether such institutions and programmes exist. It is whether they are consistent, accessible, equitable and effective in practice.<\/p>\n

The real value of the same right can differ between Kathmandu and a remote village. An educated and an illiterate citizen may experience the same procedure very differently. A household with reliable internet and one without it may have unequal access to the same digital service. A person with social connections and one without them may experience the same government office in entirely different ways.<\/p>\n

Such unequal experiences gradually weaken trust in the state.<\/p>\n

Trust is not built primarily through political speeches. It is created through thousands of small daily interactions.<\/p>\n

Trust grows when police register a complaint without unnecessary obstruction. It grows when a hospital treats a poor patient with dignity. It grows when a local office does not repeatedly send an elderly or disabled citizen away. It grows when a public official, even if unable to resolve a problem personally, directs the citizen clearly to the institution that can.<\/p>\n

The opposite is equally true. When citizens repeatedly lose time, money and dignity in their encounters with public institutions, the distance between constitutional promises and lived reality expands.<\/p>\n

The next stage of human rights reform in Nepal should therefore not be limited to adding new rights. The priority should be translating existing rights into everyday administrative practice.<\/p>\n

Three basic questions could serve as an initial test for every public service: How easily can a citizen obtain the service? How much time and money must they spend to obtain it? And is their dignity protected throughout the process?<\/p>\n

The way government performance is measured should also change. It is not enough to count how many offices have been opened; authorities should measure how many times a citizen must visit an office to complete a single task. The number of complaints received matters less than the number actually resolved. The number of hospitals matters less than how many families are pushed into financial hardship by medical expenses. The volume of court cases matters less than how long an ordinary person must wait for justice. The number of services placed online matters less than whether meaningful alternatives exist for people who cannot use digital systems.<\/p>\n

Such an approach would transform human rights from an abstract principle into a daily standard of governance.<\/p>\n

From outside, Nepal presents a striking contrast. It has a democratic constitution, regular elections, an independent judiciary, a federal system and an extensive catalogue of fundamental rights. Yet for an ordinary citizen, the practical meaning of the state is still shaped largely by what happens at a government counter, hospital, court, police station or local office.<\/p>\n

Anyone seeking to understand Nepal must therefore look at two versions of the country at the same time: the Nepal written in law and the Nepal experienced in everyday life.<\/p>\n

The real human rights challenge is to narrow the distance between them.<\/p>\n

When that distance is reduced, an ordinary citizen will no longer need to know someone powerful to get routine work done. They will not need to make their suffering publicly visible to secure attention. They will not have to knock on multiple doors or feel that exercising a legal right depends on someone\u2019s goodwill.<\/p>\n

Clear laws, simple procedures and accountable institutions should be enough.<\/p>\n

That is the ultimate test of a democratic state: whether the citizen with the least influence and the greatest vulnerability can experience the state not merely as a power greater than themselves, but as a protector of their rights.<\/p>\n

The quality of Nepal\u2019s democracy will ultimately be judged by a simple question:<\/p>\n

When an ordinary citizen reaches the door of the state, do they receive the service to which they are entitled, or must they first search for influence?<\/p>\n

The real distance between the Nepali state and its citizens can be understood from the answer.<\/p>\n

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