Mimicry and Amnesia: How Liberal Thought Undermines Nepal’s Sanatani Heritage and the Need for Cultural Revival

Someone recently asked me, with the innocent bluntness of a child pointing out an emperor’s nakedness: “Why are Hindus themselves so aggressively against Hinduism in Nepal?”

That question lodged itself in my mind like a pebble in a shoe—small but impossible to ignore. The result is this op-ed.

Nepal today presents a fascinating, almost humorous civilizational paradox. It is a country where the vast majority identify as Sanatani Hindus. Yet, its intellectual life, public institutions, and elite cultural tastes are influenced by a unique form of liberalism that is neither native nor thoughtfully embraced. Instead, it consists of layered imports—Indian concerns wrapped in Western language, all tied together with an English ribbon and presented to the public as enlightenment. Recognizing the importance of indigenous traditions is essential for authentic cultural revival.

The irony is striking: a civilization with one of the world’s oldest philosophical heritages being lectured by people who haven’t even read a single original text from the traditions they dismiss. A land of profound metaphysics led by elites whose understanding of secularism mostly comes from TED Talks, Netflix series, and something vaguely remembered from a YouTube interview with Yuval Noah Harari.

Historically, Nepal’s intellectual foundation was closely connected with Sanatana Dharma. The gurukul system, monastic institutions, and temple-based schools provided much more than just rote memorization. Students learned logic, ethics, mathematics, grammar, philosophy, and duty—integrated seamlessly into a culturally unified worldview. Knowledge was not separate from life; it influenced behavior, character, and civic duty. Understanding this heritage should motivate the audience to feel hopeful about restoring their cultural confidence and guiding future generations.

But the erosion started subtly. For generations, Nepali students traveled to India for higher education, while fewer went to the USSR. In Nepal, most teachers were Indian, the bureaucracy was based on Indian models, and the judicial system—using impressive English terms—was also based on Indian precedents. Nepal’s knowledge infrastructure was effectively outsourced long before globalization became popular.

Into this landscape stepped King Birendra, an intelligent and refined monarch who understood the costs of educational dependence. He pursued reform, partly inspired by Western educational philosophy. Yet even this well-meaning modernization carried the risk of cultural displacement. Among those warning him was Yogi Narhari Nath—a scholar whose intellectual importance Nepal neither fully recognized nor safeguarded. He passionately argued that importing Western models without cultural grounding would threaten Nepal’s civilizational roots.

He was dismissed as old-fashioned, then ridiculed, and eventually jailed—an elegant example of what happens when a society mistakes the allure of the foreign for the wisdom of the familiar. Today, Yogi’s warning sounds more like prophecy than protest.

The outcome of these historical currents was the emergence of the liberal Nepali Hindu elite—a class whose intellectual vocabulary is borrowed, whose anxieties are imported, and whose sense of sophistication is measured not by philosophical depth but by the stylishness of their lifestyle. This is the class for whom speaking English, drinking wine, and eating pasta have become the aristocratic symbols of being “modern”—as if authenticity were a provincial inconvenience and cosmopolitanism a performance staged for Instagram.

And so, armed with second-hand theories and third-hand confidence, the Nepali liberal Hindu began interpreting Nepal through India’s lens—adopting India’s secular insecurities without its historical complexities, its political vocabulary without its demographic realities, its cultural critiques without its philosophical lineage. Kathmandu suddenly became a miniature Kolkata, Nepali history was recast as an echo of Indian communalism, and Sanatani philosophical traditions were reduced to superstition by people who had never read the very texts they dismissed.

Then came the Western influence. The children of those India-trained teachers discovered American universities, European campuses, and Australian hostels. They returned not with Descartes, Kant, or Niebuhr in hand, but with the polished accent of global urbanity. Their secularism—unmoored from either Hindu philosophy or Western scholarship—became a performance of mood rather than a product of study. “Critical thinking” meant disdaining anything indigenous; “rationality” meant quoting Twitter threads; “progressiveness” meant an allergy to temples.

These trends led to a society that no longer understood the significance of its own rituals. Festivals became spectacles instead of heritage. Temples turned into tourist attractions rather than centers of thought. Epics were seen as childhood stories instead of texts that defined civilization. Meanwhile, the urban elite—armed with café-latte wisdom and self-taught cynicism—mocked the very traditions that had shaped the nation’s moral foundation.

The sociological consequences are severe. A society whose elites are ashamed of their own heritage struggles to develop policies based on continuity. Intellectual debates become disconnected from indigenous knowledge systems. Secularism turns into a superficial imitation—an imported critique lacking context, depth, or philosophical rigor. Nepal becomes a stage where foreign anxieties are reenacted by actors who barely understand the script.

The liberal Nepali Hindu today is a philosophical orphan.

• ideologically second-hand,
• culturally fragile,
• emotionally allergic to tradition,
• and intellectually dependent on foreign validation.

This is a modern individual who wears branded clothes but lacks a philosophical foundation.

Meanwhile, rural Nepal quietly upholds the essence of Sanatana Dharma. Festivals, rituals, and cosmologies continue with dignity and depth. Here, philosophy is experienced rather than just performed. The urban-rural divide widens—not only in wealth or opportunity but also in worldview. One side maintains depth; the other embraces sophistication.

The tragedy is no longer subtle — it is structural. Nepal is not suffering because it interacts with the world; it is suffering because it does so without intellectual autonomy. It imports ideas without digestion, critiques without comprehension, and reforms without roots. It is a civilization blessed with immense philosophical wealth, impoverished only by its elites’ inability to recognize it. This realization should evoke a sense of urgency and empower the audience to act in safeguarding their heritage.

Yet the path forward is not backward. Nepal does not need to step away from modern progress. What it needs is maturity—a renewed confidence, a rediscovery of its intellectual heritage, and a willingness to engage with global ideas without losing itself in them.

The Sanatani majority doesn’t need to dominate; they only need to remember.

And memory, in this context, isn’t nostalgia—it’s mental clarity.

It is essential to understand that inherited wisdom is not a relic, that temples are not museums, that philosophy is not superstition, and that identity is not provincialism. Embracing and engaging with Nepal’s indigenous traditions is essential for a genuine cultural and philosophical revival.

In the end, Nepal has to face a final uncomfortable truth:

Why are we surprised that society isn’t what it used to be when we intentionally built a system meant to undo our own legacy? Why do we act surprised that our children aren’t the same when we raised them on borrowed scripts and outsourced philosophies?

A civilization forgets gradually, then all at once.

Nepal is on that edge.

The choice before us is straightforward: either keep performing mimicry or start the work of remembering.

Author Subedi is a Professor of medical sociology at Miami University