"Brothers and sisters, listen. I have come as a candidate in the elections. Those who want to meet me, come. If you have any questions, ask. If you want to vote, vote, if you don't, don't." Magsaysay Award winner Mahavir Pun is currently touring the villages of his home district of Myagdi, asking for votes in a Katawal style.

He calls the locals to the Bhanjyang, Chautara and Tol, gathers voters and presents his point. He distributes pamphlets and then enters another settlement. Mahavir is an independent candidate for the House of Representatives election. He has been door-to-door since he filed his nomination on 6th Magh. His style of seeking votes is different and informal. This straightforward style of speaking may seem rude to some. 

Former Minister of Education, Science and Technology He is known as a teacher, social worker, telecommunications sector activist, and founder of the National Innovation Center. He was even given the nickname of 'wireless man' because he provided computer and wireless internet services to remote areas in the 2050s. Although he immediately provided wireless internet to villages to make the lives of others easier, he does not seem to be well-organized in his own life. Work, conversations, lifestyle and behavior are also not systematic and planned. “His pace is so fast and his schedule is so informal, sometimes it is difficult for his team to keep up,” says Saurabh Dhakal, a social activist who wrote his bachelor’s thesis on Mahavir. “He works without any fixed schedule. For example, when someone calls him while selling books, he would just go there.” 

In politics at 71 years old 

Mahavir was first a teacher, later an activist, inventor, and writer. At the age of 71, he became the Minister of Education, Science and Technology “unexpectedly” on 6 Asoj. After taking charge of the ministry, he had said, “You never know what will happen tomorrow in anyone’s life. They made a man who was selling books a minister. I became an unexpected minister due to special circumstances.” Will he enter politics? When asked if he would contest the elections, Mahavir had said that he would not enter politics. He said that he became a minister in the interim government only to overcome the difficult situation after the Gen-G movement. Mahavir used to say that he would resign from the ministry after the elections on 21 Falgun. He used to say, ‘I have not come to do politics, I have come to do work. Don’t call me a leader.’ 

Contrary to his own statement, Mahavir resigned from the ministry one and a half months before the elections to the House of Representatives. Not only that, he has entered politics by filing an independent candidacy from Myagdi. While he had no particular interest/attachment in politics or electoral activities before becoming a minister. He had registered his name in the voter list only on 11 Kartik. ‘For the first time in his life, I went to New Baneshwor and registered my name. I sincerely request all the brothers and sisters of the Gen-G generation who have reached the age of 18 to register their names to participate in the 21 Falgun general elections without delay,’ he had called on Facebook. There are 12 candidates including Pun from Myagdi, which has only one constituency in Gandaki Province. Pun is the only independent candidate. Harikrishna Shrestha of UML, Karna Bahadur Bhandari of Congress, Arjun Bahadur Thapa of NCP, Yubaraj Roka of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and others have also filed their candidacies. In 2079, Kham Bahadur Garbuja of Congress won from Myagdi. 

When Mahavir was the minister, he wanted to amend some laws related to education. But since the election code of conduct was issued, the government could not amend the laws, Pun met Prime Minister Sushila Karki and said, ‘You cannot help me. I will come and work after winning the election myself.’ According to a member of his secretariat, Pun had asked the Prime Minister not to make his resignation public until he reached Myagdi. ‘Punji is angry. He asked him to make two or four laws. That was in the interest of the country. Due to the circumstances, we could not help him by making laws,’ Prime Minister Karki had said in a meeting of the National Assembly a few days after Pun’s resignation. 

Pun was in favor of removing the system of the Prime Minister being the Chancellor of universities. He also wanted to ban the system of ward chairpersons being the chairpersons of community school management committees. He said that the criteria for teacher transfers should be changed and made easier. In the election campaign, he is also saying that the system of the university chancellor being the prime minister should be abolished. He believes that expert educationists should be made the chancellors to reduce political interference.

‘It’s not that I will stand up even 40 hours before the registration of candidacy. The situation made me stand up,’ Pun said that when he was a minister, he had drafted three laws and four regulations to eliminate irregularities, corruption and chaos in the education sector, but they were stuck in the legislative committee of the council of ministers and he resigned in a hurry. He added, ‘If they had been passed by the legislative committee and approved by the president, I would not have come here to stand up.’ There has been criticism that the ministers of the interim government resigned and contested the election under various pretexts, especially Pun.

‘They call me a cheater, a fugitive, they say I betrayed the Council of Ministers and Gen-G,’ he explains, ‘They say Mahavir’s Maha has also been removed, Veer has also been removed. I am neither a cheater nor a fugitive. Whatever they say, I have fled because I myself have been betrayed. I have been betrayed by not being able to do the work I was supposed to do for the people.’ According to Pun’s expert advisor Abhishek Ghimire, there were preparations to amend two education-related acts and two regulations. However, Pun believed that the laws, which had already been approved by the Ministry of Finance and Law, were stalled due to the Prime Minister’s Office’s delay. 

‘The Council of Ministers had reached a point where the Integrated Act on Higher Education and the Act on Research and Innovation were brought through ordinances,’ Ghimire said, ‘It was said that the education regulations and rules related to educational consultancy would also be amended. The Chief Secretary and the Prime Minister did not cooperate. He resigned saying that he would do it after winning the election.’ Ghimire comments that Pun, who appears to be isolated on the outside, is internally isolated. ‘Initially, I also found him not to be a serious person, a romantic person who mostly talks in a humorous style,’ he says, ‘but, when he is working, he is a serious person and deeply involved in his subject. He has a style of understanding the subject from the inside and moving forward strategically.’ 

Looking at Pun’s past statements and works, he seems to be a visionary in the field of technology. In the 2050s, he took the initiative to provide education and health communication through wireless internet service by bringing computers to remote areas. In a video uploaded by a channel called ‘Infopark’ on YouTube 12 years ago, Pun expressed his frustration that despite the introduction of the internet, there was no local content. ‘Various types of information are available on the internet, but only in English,’ he had said at the time, ‘Information in English is not very suitable for rural people. If there is no content in the local language, there is no real benefit in bringing the internet.’ Pun’s biography is taught in Nepali, which is mandatory for grade 4. The text discusses his simple life and past works. 

Simple style

Pun is often seen in a suit and tie. Immediately after becoming a minister, he ate and lived in the ministry located in Keshar Mahal. He said that he would not hire security personnel. After he was put in bed in the ministry, most people praised his style as simplicity. Former dean of Kathmandu University and his colleague Dambar Nepali says that it is time for Pun to show his work, not just simplicity. ‘It is impossible to talk about his simplicity, he is a person who has forgotten everything about his family,’ says Professor Nepali, ‘There is no decision about eating, drinking, sleeping, living. 

He does not need any honor or respect. He is not interested in clothes. He has a strong sense of serving the country and its citizens. He opened an innovation center targeting the young generation.’ 

Thinking about the country, leaving personal concerns behind, Nepali says that he has never heard Pun talk about his family and relatives. ‘I don’t know where my family is, what they are doing, what they ate or didn’t eat, what they did,’ he said. Mahavir-Ommaya has two daughters, Jharana and Juna. Pun himself says that he left home when he was 13 and has been living outside most of the time. For the past decade, Pun has been working hard to establish and promote the Innovation Center and the Birgunj Agricultural Tool Center.

‘Although the government promised to support the establishment of the Birgunj Agricultural Tool Center, it did not provide any money,’ says Professor Nepali, ‘He insisted that he would raise the budget by selling books. He traveled around the country selling his autobiography. He is a very hardworking person. No matter how much he talks about hard work, it is impossible.’ Born in Nangi, Myagdi in Magh 2011, Mahavir’s father Krishna was working in the British Army. He studied in Myagdi and Parbat till class 8 and passed the SLC from Chitwan. After completing his ISC from Amrit Science Campus, Kathmandu, he returned to Chitwan and taught mathematics and science for 13 years.  Pun in criticism Pun's critics consider him a maintenance or gambling man rather than a real inventor. He is accused of not being transparent in the calculation of the amount he has collected in public. He is opposed on social media for using vulgar language and abusing critics. He has also been questioned for not giving time to his family and daughters. Pun, the then president of the center, and businessman Rudra Pandey had a long-running social media feud over the non-distribution of the money raised in the US for the invention center during the earthquake. Pun had once threatened to file a defamation case against Pandey. Pandey had said that he should "stop the habit of walking around without providing the documents and putting the money collected in his pocket." Shortly after his rant on X (then Twitter), Pandey said that the Deerwalk Foundation had transferred the $21,403 it said it had collected for the invention center through 'Go Fund Me' to the center. Pun said that there was no transparency about how and how much money was raised or transferred, and that Pandey had hidden things. 

‘Invention is about creating something new and solving local problems, this is not seen in him,’ said a critic, ‘He does not seem financially responsible either. He talks about raising 160 million by selling books, but his process of raising money is a bit more chaotic and opaque. He speaks indiscriminately on social media. After becoming a scientist or intellectual, it is not appropriate to say anything, to vent and abuse. It is wrong to confront someone when someone asks an honest question. When you raise public money, ask for money from the government, or try to become a minister and MP, you cannot escape saying that I am a person of my own caliber. You should be responsible to the people and respect others.’ 

The story of the internet 

He went to America at the age of 33 to pursue higher education on the advice of a friend. There, the University of Nebraska offered him a full scholarship to study science. In 1989, Pun earned a master's degree in science education from the University of Nebraska. After 24 years, he returned to Nangi. After returning to his village, he expanded the school that taught up to grade 8 to grade 10. He began teaching as a volunteer teacher. "To generate income for the school, I started doing things like raising goats, producing cheese, raising fish, making Nepali paper, raising rabbits, and opening hotels for tourists," his biography in the textbook says. These things that he started nearly 30 years ago are now being run as a program in community schools across the country as a way to earn while studying. 

In 1997, he set up a computer lab at Himachal Secondary School with four old computers gifted by an Australian student. Since there was no electricity to run those computers, he started computer education in the school by connecting a small hydro-generator to a nearby stream. Although there were computers, there was no internet. In 2001, after sending an email to the BBC asking for help in connecting his village to the Internet, Pun received support from all over the world. The BBC published a news story titled ‘Wooden Computer’ about Pun, who was looking for a way to bring Internet to remote areas, teaching students by assembling old computer parts. When the Internet was just starting to take off in Kathmandu or urban districts of Nepal, he had a dream of connecting Nangi, 40 kilometers from Pokhara, to the world in the 1990s.

He modified the antennas of ordinary indoor WiFi routers, which usually have a range of only 3-400 meters, to send signals up to about 40 kilometers away. Since Nangi village is not directly visible from Pokhara, he placed repeater towers or point stations on the hills. In this way, he placed repeaters in 2/3 places and relayed Pokhara’s signal to Nangi. His plan to provide Internet access to villages was realized in 2001. For the same initiative, he was awarded the ‘Roman Magsaysay Award’, which is considered Asia’s Nobel Prize, in 2007. Later, he received various honors such as the ‘Internet Hall of Fame’, the Overall Social Innovation Award, and the Jonathan B. Postal Award. The University of Nebraska in the US also awarded him an honorary doctorate. ‘After returning from the US, I did not take a job, I did not do business, I have been doing social service,’ says Pun, ‘Now everyone has a mobile phone. Instead of building a tower, I worked to provide internet to remote villages.’ 

Pun also ran a restaurant called ‘Nepal Connection’ in Thamel, Kathmandu in 2075 BS. He said that the restaurant was started to raise funds for the salaries of school teachers and that a portion of the income from there would be spent on the education and health of children in remote areas. The concept of the National Innovation Center was born in that restaurant. Later, it was used as the center’s temporary office, says Dhakal, who is associated with Pun at that restaurant. According to him, the atmosphere there was very interesting. He called that place ‘Shadow Singh Durbar’. He considers activist Dhakal Pun as a person with a big dream. He says, ‘His biggest success is continuity. He is continuing his journey from Myagdi to Thamel, Innovation Center and politics. He has a unique energy that never tires. If a plan fails, he does not have the habit of getting confused, he immediately looks for another option and moves forward. He is always ready to fight the challenges of the system and the system and find solutions himself.’ 

Establishment of the National Innovation Center

In 2069, Pun opened the National Innovation Center in Kirtipur under his own leadership. The center made health supplies during the Covid pandemic and has also been maintaining health equipment in government hospitals. A drone has been made to transport medicine to remote areas. A robot has been invented to do household chores. He has been producing agricultural materials. Professor Rameshwar Adhikari of Tribhuvan University and colleague of the Innovation Center describes Pun as a person with a rare character. ‘Even when you read his autobiography, you can see that he has given his life in the fields of science, technology and education. He is not a god. People also have shortcomings. But it seems like Pun is in penance.’ He pointed out that Pun is a simple, ordinary, committed and honest person. 

When Pradeep Poudel was the Health Minister, Pun, the chairman of the Innovation Center, repaired and managed the equipment of 17 federal hospitals. Ventilators, dialysis machines, anesthesia machines, video X-ray autoclave machines, blood pressure monitors, ECG machines, patient monitors and other machines were repaired. In 2077, the Innovation Center produced essential health supplies required for the prevention and treatment of the COVID-19 pandemic and delivered them to 59 districts. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), face shields, swab collection booths, aerosol boxes, disinfection boxes, robots for medicine distribution, boxes for storing the bodies of people who died of corona infection and masks were manufactured. The ventilator and dialysis machine repair center repaired the damaged ones during the Corona pandemic. 

He has always been dissatisfied with the government. He has been complaining that it did not help despite assurances to operate the innovation center and the agricultural implement center. ‘I tried to convince the government to open the innovation center. But it did not work. No one believed me. No one in the government believed me. I have run the center on my own terms. The government asked me to repair and run the agricultural implement factory. They said they would pay me, but they lied. I am running it by selling books,’ he said, ‘I did not get to run the factory by trying to convince the government. I did not run it for my own benefit. The government said it had to run the factory. In the end, the government lied to me. The government must have lied and said it would give me a taste. On the contrary, I have given a taste.’ 

Mahavir's candidacy has shaken Myagdi

The candidacy of Mahavir from the Himalayan district of Myagdi in the upcoming House of Representatives elections is in the national spotlight. Even the locals were shocked after he suddenly announced his independent candidacy along with resigning from the post of minister. At this time, other political parties in Myagdi are also watching his arrival in a special way. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has supported Pun. RSSP district member Santosh Dhungana said, ‘Our friends are campaigning for Mahavir as an independent.’

Mahavir is an independent candidate, while RSP candidate Yubaraj Roka said that he ‘mid-pack’ when the time for withdrawal of candidacy expired. Even though he made his candidacy inactive, his election symbol will remain on the ballot paper. After Roka, who is active in the social sector and returned to Dubai after spending almost 8 years abroad for employment, and started campaigning, party president Ravi Lamichhane called and said that Mahavir should be supported this time. ‘The president called me to support him this time, at that time we were in the village and did not come at the time to withdraw our candidacy,’ he said, ‘Technically, his name was not removed because it was late.’

Everyone has taken Mahavir’s arrival as a natural thing, but the current situation is also a challenge. However, he believes that other parties have prioritized central issues over local agendas. Other candidates have taken agriculture, education, health, tourism and natural resource mobilization as their agendas.

Congress's Khambir Garbuja, who won the last 2079 election, is no longer a candidate. Congress has fielded Karna Bahadur (KB) Bhandari as its candidate. Bhandari says that the citizens will trust Congress as it is on the agenda of how the country will be built.

UML candidate Harikrishna Shrestha, who lost by a narrow margin in the last election, is in the running to win this time. He also said that he has taken this election as a battle of policies, principles and ideas. 'There is a competition going on between building the country and burning it,' he said. 'UML leads those who build the country.' He also said that people should vote based on the party's policies, principles and ideas. He said that the party has a strong organization in Myagdi and that his main bet is to win the election.