Aashish Mishra

Nepal has been using lunisolar calendar considered one of the most unique almanacs in the world. Our Bikram Sambat dating system comprises both lunar tithis and solar days and months. Its structure is fixed enough for use in administration and courts but also fluid enough to account for the ever changing festival dates and accommodate additional months (Malamaas) and subtracted months (Chhyamaas). No one can dispute Bikram Sambat’s usefulness. Unfortunately though, the same cannot be said for its inclusiveness.
As the national calendar, Bikram Sambat sure seems to exclude many groups of the nation; or, to put it more accurately, it excludes the important dates and celebrations of many ethnic communities. A case in point is the Swonti (Tihar) celebration of the Newa community. It does not acknowledge the Nepal Sambat calendar which is the basis of many Newa festivals and erroneously assumes that Swonti in Nepal Sambat follows the same dating convention as Tihar in Bikram Sambat. As a result, every few years, the Swonti and Tihar tithis do not line up, causing confusion in the Newa community. This happened last year and this is once again happening this year as well.
And this is only one such example. Bikram Sambat frequently makes wrongful assumptions about the dates of ethnic festivals. And there are many more celebrations and occasions like Chaite Chhath, Sama Chakewa, Joor Shital, Dumje, etc. that do not get included in the calendar at all. Now, the argument here can be that Nepal has 126 castes and ethnic groups and including every single festival of every single community would be impractical. Well, not really. How hard would it be to simply list out the festivals at the bottom of the page? I guess it would increase the number of pages but that’s about it. Doing so would not require any drastic changes to the calendar format or the system.
But that is beside the point. The real question here is why those festivals are excluded in the first place and why the ones that are included are seldom imprecise. And the answer to that question lies in the makeup of the Nepal Panchanga Nirnayak Samiti (Nepal Calendar Determination Committee) - the framers of the calendar. Now committee needs to be made more inclusive to make sure that concerns of all ethnic groups are addressed in the national calendar.
We cannot fault the Samiti for mistaking or overlooking festivals of non-hill, non-Nepali-speaking, non-caste-conformist groups because these are festivals they know nothing about. But, at the same time, we cannot let the present situation continue because Bikram Sambat is our national calendar and every community of the country has a right to be represented in it. A national calendar needs to be representative of the entire nation.
And, in order to have that, the Panchanga Samiti needs to be opened up. Many ethnic and indigenous groups have immensely developed astrology and highly skilled native astrologers. They need to be given a position in the Samiti. Furthermore, there is at least one other national calendar in Nepal - the Nepal Sambat. So, the Bikram Sambat needs to be compared with Nepal Sambat and any discrepancies should be addressed or at least justified before the calendar is issued (the same needs to be done when drafting the Nepal Sambat calendar too).
Before releasing it to the public, the Samiti needs to provide a draft of the calendar to various government and non-government bodies representing various ethnicities of the country and consult with them to include important occasions and to correct any mistakes. And finally, if some inaccuracies are picked up after the calendar has been released, the Samiti must immediately issue an explanation and clarify any doubt that might have developed because of it and not wait for the next year’s calendar to correct it.