Nepal’s First Woman PM Brings Calm After Chaos: What Malta’s Nepali Community Feels

KATHMANDU – When 58-year-old school-teacher-turned-politician Onsari Gharti Magar was sworn in on Monday as Nepal’s first female Prime Minister, the Himalayan republic exhaled. After weeks of violent street protests that left 17 dead and hundreds injured, the capital’s usually grid-locked ring road fell quiet; shopkeepers rolled up their shutters and, in a symbolic break from South Asia’s macho political tradition, the new premier drove straight from parliament to the military hospital to visit the wounded.

For Malta, a country that appointed its own first woman PM barely two years ago, the images flashing across cable news carried a familiar echo – and a reminder of how fragile, yet transformative, gender milestones can be. “We watched Roberta Metsola rise to the European podium, now we see Magar stepping over glass shards of her broken parliament,” says Kathmandu-born Maria Shrestha, who has run the tiny “Namaste Malta” grocery in Ħamrun since 2009. “My phone hasn’t stopped buzzing; every Nepali in Malta feels lighter today.”

Roughly 1,200 Nepalese citizens call the Maltese Islands home – a micro-community of security guards, chefs and care-workers woven into the fabric of St Julian’s nightlife and the island’s burgeoning care-home sector. Over the past fortnight many have been sleepless, glued to Facebook Live feeds as demonstrations against a controversial federal Bill turned into pitched battles with police. “Our families back home were afraid to leave the house,” explains Santosh Rana, president of the Malta-Nepal Friendship Association. “Yesterday my mother heard gun-shots outside her window in Pokhara. Today she went to the market because a woman is in charge. That is the psychological shift we are talking about.”

Magar, an indigenous Magar woman who began her career teaching Sanskrit in a mountain village, inherits a country still scarred by a decade-long civil war and the 2015 earthquake that killed 9,000. Her first act as premier – kneeling beside the hospital beds of young policemen who lost eyes to rubber bullets – was broadcast uncut on Nepal’s state channel. The gesture instantly trended on Maltese TikTok, paired with clips of Prime Minister Robert Abela visiting Mater Dei after the 2019 Xewkija plane crash. “Compassionate leadership resonates across continents,” notes Dr. Isabelle Camilleri, a gender-politics lecturer at the University of Malta. “When citizens see leaders physically showing up for pain, it re-humanises politics.”

Yet the road ahead for Magar is steeper than the Annapurna trail. She must still shepherd a thorny federal map through parliament while keeping nationalist protestors and an assertive neighbour, India, at bay. In Malta, Nepalis are organising a candle-light vigil this Saturday outside the Ħamrun parish church – not for politics, but for peace. “We are importing €4 LED yak-butter lamps from Nepal,” laughs Shrestha, arranging boxes of turmeric and Timur pepper in her shop. “Maltese neighbours already asked if they can join. One elderly man said, ‘Your first woman PM is like our first woman President – we celebrate together.’”

Tourism operators are also watching closely. Pre-pandemic, Malta sent roughly 3,000 adventure-seekers annually to the Everest region; numbers collapsed after COVID and again during the recent unrest. “Stability in Nepal means bookings for us,” says Claire Busuttil of Island Peak Travel. “If Magar can keep the calm, we expect a 30 % spike in 2025 trekking packages. Maltese love a good comeback story – especially one with a woman at the helm.”

Back in Kathmandu, the clean-up has begun. Street vendors sweep away tear-gas canisters; saffron-robed monks ring temple bells in thanks. Whether the lull lasts will depend on Magar’s ability to convert symbolism into substance. But for Nepalis living 6,000 kilometres away in Malta, the message is already clear: history does not always march – sometimes it tiptoes in a sari, whispering hope.