Aashish Mishra

Kamalpokhari is being destroyed. For some misguided reason, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) is going against the wishes of the locals and the orders of the Department of Archaeology and concretising the pond. On Monday, KMC showed just how eager it was to damage the pond when it sent bulldozers under the cover of darkness. This showed that the KMC was not so much serious about preserving the historically and culturally important sites.
But while we fight for the preservation of this Kamalpokhari, let us remember how we didn’t for another Kamalpokhari. Those who were expected to protect it chose to trade it off for money. Encroachers used power, stature and the law to legitimise their encroachment.
Today, the Chhaya Centre stands where the pond once was as a monument of grandeur and commercialism, a testament to how we successfully erased a thousand-year-old holy pond from existence.
The Kamalpokhari being talked about here belonged to the Shree Sartha Bahu Guthi in Tha Bahi, Thamel. In the pond’s water, floated hundreds of majestic lotuses; so beautiful that they were even presented to visiting foreign dignitaries. But, as with most other natural heritages of Kathmandu, the ill gaze of the Ranas fell on it.
Many members of the ruling Rana families tried to infringe upon the Lotus Pond but because it was sacred, associated with Kumari, Bikramsheel Mahabihar and the Shree Singha Sartha Bahu Bhagwan Guthi, they hesitated – that is until Kaiser Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana.
Kaiser Shumsher claimed the pond as his own. When the members of the Sartha Bahu Guthi protested, he had a few arrested and mobilised the army to guard what he called “his property”. He built a wall around the pond, closing it off to the public and the Guthi. However, a few years later, when Kaiser was stationed in London as the Nepali ambassador, Lord Shree Sartha Bahu allegedly appeared in his dream and admonished him for his actions. Frightened, Kaiser began paying an annual rent of Rs. 125 and even though he continued to use it as his private property, he accepted that the 26.5-ropani pond belonged to the Guthi and the local people.
This remained as long as Kaiser Shumsher lived. But after his death, his sons restarted efforts to privatise Kamalpokhari. They started filling up the pond in order to sell the land. The Guthi objected to this and in 1970 the matter reached the Supreme Court. However, in 1976, some members of the Guthi reached an agreement with Kaiser Shumsher’s sons stating that they could do with the pond as they pleased but they would not be able to sell it and would have to pay a monthly rent to the Guthi. This was controversial and many from the community accused the Guthi leaders of selling out. Nevertheless, the agreement stayed in place for six years when Kaiser Shumsher’s daughter-in-law Ambika Rana violated it by selling a piece of the pond’s land to Bina Poudel and Sudha Poudel. She and her brother Shankar Prasad Shah actively encroached upon the pond, sold its land and created documents solidifying their ownership.
Fearing for the pond’s existence, the Guthi Sansthan nullified Rana and Shah’s ownership. But Rana challenged this in court and won. The Sartha Bahu Guthi came forward in 2005 only to renounce their claims over the pond for an amount of Rs. 15 million. After the Guthi’s renouncement, the Guthi Sansthan had no case for objection. In 2006, Rana sold whatever remained of the pond to Sureshaya Housing who then sold it to Pratima Pandey who then sold it to Chhaya Devi Complex in 2008.
And that is how Kathmandu lost one of its most beautiful ponds forever. Perhaps, the KMC now wants the same fate for the remaining Kamalpokhari in Gyaneshwor.