In the eastern Taplejung district, the sacred Mukkumlung region, the native Mundhumi (an ancient Kirati scripture) name for Pathibhara, has been a hotbed of conflict between the Mukkumlung Conservation Joint Struggle Committee and Armed Police Force for months. The indigenous people have been staging peaceful protests against the construction of a cable car line, citing concerns over the encroachment on their ancestral land. However, on Saturday, a violent clash broke out between the police and the struggle committee, where the former opened fire and used tear gas, injuring several protestors. Following this, the struggle committee and other affiliated groups called for an indefinite transport shutdown on the Mechi Highway and the Tamor Corridor starting Tuesday.

This is not an isolated incident; similar clashes have occurred, including one in March when police secretly transported building materials at night to establish a project base and another in November when protestors were assaulted with weapons. These events highlight how environmental degradation is justified to fit grand development narratives, benefitting only a privileged few while marginalising and exploiting the very communities that have nurtured these resources for generations.

In 2018, the government approved the project, recognised as a “national pride project” by the National Planning Commission. Even as the forest is rich in biodiversity and houses over 25 species of rhododendron and rare animals like red pandas, black bears, and more, the Cabinet, in December 2018, allowed the logging of 10,231 trees; however, according to the activists, it has felled four times more trees. This will inevitably impact the area’s ecology, leading to significant environmental damage.

The construction company, with an investment of approximately three billion rupees in the project, assures job creation. Yet the locals don’t buy that. The Mukkumlung-Pathibhara cable car conflict represents the betrayal of indigenous communities on the legal recognition of their communal system of land ownership, known as Kipat. According to an article by Dialogue Earth, several laws have been ignored for the project, including the 1774 treaty between the Limbus and Prithivi Narayan Shah, which safeguards land, territory and natural resources and the cultural and religious practices guaranteed by articles 26 and 32 of the Constitution.

Generations of indigenous knowledge and culture that have empowered and united the community are being dismantled. Unfortunately, such a colonial approach to development and disregard for indigenous culture has become a norm. Around 2021, then-Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli proposed breaking a “huge rock” in the Saptakoshi River to open the waterway for jet boats and small ships. This sparked widespread protest among the Kiratis, as the rock, known as Khuwalung, symbolises the rise of Kirati culture in eastern Nepal. Similarly, in 2020, the locals of Sudol, located next to Khokana town in Lalitpur, gathered to plant paddy en masse to protest the Kathmandu-Nijgadh expressway project that was to cut through their fields. However, they got tear-gassed and baton-charged by the police.

In her story about the Mukkumlung protests at the Nepal Art Council’s “Who Does the River Belong To?” exhibition last month, Sara Tunich Koinch highlights how authorities replaced the Limbu’s sacred rock on Mukkumlung Peak with a statue of Goddess Durga in 2001, renaming the hill Pathibhara. Since then, the Limbus have continued to endure the Hinduisation and Sanskritisation of their land and beliefs. Now force is being used to remove them from their lands. The Western concept of development we idolise doesn’t work in a country as culturally rich as ours. The voices of these communities are not just about the erosion of ancestral identity but also serve as a warning about the environmental devastation that lies ahead.