If you are a service seeker at any government office in Nepal, you immediately see the gap between law and reality in its functioning. On the wall of those offices, you see framed copies of the Constitution, slogans about good governance and warnings that corruption is a crime.
However, on the other hand, around you, people quietly ask which officer can help them, which agent they should talk to, and whether they need to pay something extra, unofficially, for their file to move forward or their work to get done.
In theory, Nepal presents itself as a country with zero tolerance for corruption, but in practice many people still rely on corrupt arrangements just to access basic services, a reality clearly reflected in international data as well. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2024, Nepal scores 34 out of 100 and ranks 107th out of 180 countries, placing it among states with serious public sector corruption problems.
This painful gap between law and lived reality can be understood through two ideas: ethical relativism and moral absolutism. Ethical relativism says that what is right or wrong depends heavily on context; culture, relationships, history and circumstances.
What one society calls corruption, another may quietly treat as normal survival, for example; some might say that giving a “small gift” to a government staff during festivals is not corruption, but as part of our culture. However, moral absolutism takes the opposite view; some actions are wrong everywhere and for everyone, whatever the excuse.
For example, taking a bribe to deny a lawful service is always wrong, whether that happen in Kathmandu or at other places, and whether the beneficiary is a stranger, a party worker or a relative. Nepal’s anti-corruption struggle is shaped by how far we let relativism explain those acts, or whether we treat them as absolute wrongs.
Law on paper: Nepal sounds absolutist
If we look only at the written law, Nepal sounds quite absolutist. The Prevention of Corruption Act 2059 (2002) defines corruption broadly and makes it a criminal offence. It lists bribery, abuse of authority, illicit enrichment and the giving or taking of improper benefits, and applies throughout Nepal and even to certain acts committed by Nepali officials abroad. The Act provides for imprisonment and fines as well as confiscation of illegal assets. On paper, these are not negotiable rules, they are hard lines.
Similarly, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) is not just an ordinary organ created by a government but is a separate and powerful constitutional body guaranteed by the Constitution. Constitution provides the CIAA to investigate any abuse of authority committed through corruption by persons holding public office and to bring cases to the competent court hears corruption cases.
Internationally, Nepal has also signed and ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption, committing itself to prevention, criminalisation, cooperation and recovery of stolen assets.
Taken together, these instruments speak in the language of moral absolutes, corruption is wrong, wherever and whenever it occurs.
Everyday relativism
In real life, Nepali government offices often works very differently from what the law indicate. Instead of just following statutory provisions, people look for the ‘right person’ inside the office, an agent who can speed things up, or a personal connection who will get their work done faster.
This is where things like ‘sycophancy act’ and ‘nepotism’ come in. People try to please powerful people by visiting them often, greeting them politely, or any forms of gifts so that person will later help them when they need something. In context of nepotism, other shows the habit of giving jobs, contracts or other benefits first to relatives, party supporters or close friends, even when someone else might be more qualified.
These behaviours are often defended as culture, respect or loyalty. People say corruption is wrong in general, but a small festival gift, a little money to move a file especially when salaries are low and everyone else seems to be doing it or helping one’s own party worker first is treated as normal in “our context”. In this way, the rule against abusing public power is accepted in theory but quietly bent in everyday practice.
Selective absolutism and the search for one standard
There is another, more dangerous, type of relativism that is not about culture but about power. It is the habit of applying strict moral and legal standards to opponents while quietly relaxing them for allies. Civil society assessments of UNCAC implementation in Nepal point to public doubts about whether high-level cases are pursued consistently, or whether some powerful figures and their business partners are protected by political influence. From a constitutional perspective, this undermines equality before the law whereas, from an ethical perspective, it sends a clear message that corruption is not absolutely wrong but remains mainly dangerous for those without the right patron.
In everyday life, young-generations Nepali are increasingly rejecting that message. We can take recent youth-led protest as an example, which was a direct movement against corruption, deep-rooted nepotism and the lavish lifestyles of those in governing power. The strength of this anti-corruption protest eventually forced the prime minister to resign. Therefore, for many young-generations of Nepal, appeals to culture or compulsion no longer sound like explanations. They sound like some excuses.
Some defenders of “our context” argue that rigid moral rules are unrealistic in a poor country where public salaries are low and family obligations are heavy. It is true that ethics cannot be separated from material conditions, and any serious reform must address pay, social protection and transparency.
But recognising context is not the same as surrendering ethics to it. Certain acts need to be treated as moral absolutes; diverting money from a health-post, selling public posts to party loyalists, or taking money in exchange for denying a citizen a lawful service as these are precisely the actions that the Constitution, Statutory Acts, and the International Convention against Corruption were drafted to prohibit, not to explain away.
Conclusion
Nepal today speaks in two moral languages. In one, expressed in the Constitution, statutes and international commitments that corruption is clearly condemned. In the other, spoken quietly in offices and party meetings, rules are flexible for ‘nepotism’ or ‘sycophancy act’ is normal and everything depends on circumstances. The real choice for Nepal’s anti-corruption efforts is whether to keep living with these two conflicting ethics, or to move closer to a single standard that treats abuses of public power as wrong, always and for everyone.
Ethical relativism will always exist to some degree, because no society can ignore context completely. But if relativism becomes an excuse for treating allies and opponents differently, or for turning every clear rule into a negotiable suggestion, then anti-corruption efforts will keep failing. The growing frustration and courage of younger-generations of Nepal also shows that they want something different, a country where the same moral and legal standards apply to everyone, including those who holds governing power.
If the courage of younger-generations can push us toward that one standard, then the strong words in our laws may finally begin to match what people experience in their daily lives.
