A republic still ruled by ritual
The true frontier of secularism is not simply removing religion from the state, but redistributing who gets to define the sacred and the just. Whether in the temple or in the algorithm, the underlying moral demand is the same: no power structure, old or new, should be allowed to legitimize inequality.
In the context of the old Nepal, to see the rulers as ordinary people was the crime. And in the context of the new Nepal, to continue insisting on the fundamental ordinariness and equality of all people, and thus the illegitimacy of any inherited hierarchy, remains the unfinished work of the revolution.
By aggressively and strategically tackling these three fronts—Infrastructure, Affordability, and Literacy—Nepal can ensure that the deployment of AI truly serves as an engine for unmaking inherited hierarchy and building a genuinely equitable, modern state.