I hardly believe it when someone tells me, 'my brother (or other relative) didn't succeed because he was honest'. I am more inclined to believe it if you give me circumstances in detail when his honesty worked against him and what kind of honesty was he practicing. 

Homeyji,

I think corruption is a fraction of problem in Nepal. The major problem is the lack of schooled approach in doing business and other stuffs. At least, half of the successful people I have met are actually very honest and deserved to be honest. You need to have a drive to do better, to provide better quality service to people, and when necessary you need to be able to stick to the rule and go all the way to uphold it.

Speaking of Marwaris too, I find them very honest and they are willing to spend a lot of money in local temples. Often they are the only people who are donating quilts, kammal, free food to the old people living in temples. Our administrative workforce is mainly made up of Pahadiyas, and if the Marwaris are good enough to deal with it and make it to work in their advantage, we should really look at the whole issue of 'we can't do business in Nepal because it is a corrupt country' differently. I know a lot of poor Marwaris who had worked their way up to be rich in Nepal, and initially they worked hard, and they worked against discrimination too.

Most of our problems come from the fact that our country was under one family until 2007. Chakari was very important and accepted at the time. It became same until 2046, when royals pretty much had everything. These days it is free for all. Just look at the current scam, Unity Scam. The guys who ran Unity were ordinary villagers, who went undetected until they had scammed 8 billion+ rupees. Some of them were cycle repairmen. For these ordinary men, it would have been impossible to do so(i.e. to scam billions) in Panchayat era. I come from outside Kathmandu, and some people in my neighborhood left school, did some agriculture/poultry farming and rightnow, there are about half a dozen of such ordinary men who drive cars, and are karodpati multiple times. Nepal has changed, even if it may not be that obvious in Kathmandu. Corruptions and other stuffs are there, and it is probably where educated men can make a difference by joining government office (if they are not too old to take Lok Sewa Exam).