The Sokiya Sachiv: Nepal’s Most Misunderstood Political Role
What looks like a backdoor into politics may actually be one of the most intense crash courses in how Nepal’s government works.
There are jobs in Nepal that people understand without ever having done them. Then there are jobs that almost everyone has an opinion about precisely because so few people understand what actually happens inside them. Sokiya Sachiv, or personal secretary to an elected representative or minister, is one of them. The title carries baggage. It is often associated with political connections, family members, favouritism and, at its worst, corruption. For many young Nepalis, it is easy to imagine the role as another example of how access and connections determine who gets close to power.
Aakriti Ghimire's experience tells a more complicated story. Having worked as a Sokiya Sachiv for both an MP and a minister, including during Sumana Shrestha's tenure, she experienced the role from inside the machinery of government. What she found was not simply a political assistant's job, but an unusually intense position that sits between elected leadership, bureaucracy, legislation and citizens. For someone genuinely interested in how a country works, it can be a remarkable place to learn.
The Job Behind the Title
The popular understanding of a personal secretary is often limited to managing schedules, answering calls and handling the day-to-day needs of a politician. Ghimire's experience was very different. For an MP, the role could involve reading legislation, researching policy, preparing speeches, proposing amendments and helping the elected representative understand the consequences of a decision. In that sense, she describes the secretary as something close to a “second brain” for the politician. A bill cannot simply be read from one perspective. It has to be examined through different lenses: gender, consumer protection, business, implementation and the people who will ultimately be affected by it. The work therefore requires someone who can move between subjects quickly, ask the right questions and understand how one policy decision can create consequences somewhere else.
The role becomes even more demanding when an MP becomes a minister. An MP primarily works around legislation and parliamentary responsibilities; a minister has to deal with implementation. That means entering the much larger and more complicated world of Nepal's permanent government: the bureaucracy. For Ghimire, this was where the job became a real education in how the country functions.
Learning How Government Actually Moves
One of the clearest examples came through the issue of public school teacher transfers. Nepal's Education Act of 2028 had provided for teacher transfers every five years, but the regulations required to implement that provision had never been properly developed. Over time, the absence of a transparent system created room for discretion, influence and corruption, with teachers reportedly paying significant amounts of money to secure transfers. Ghimire and her team began researching whether the process could be made more transparent. They looked at systems in other countries and found examples of algorithmic matching, where teachers and available positions could be matched based on defined criteria rather than personal connections.
On paper, it sounds like a straightforward improvement: take a process vulnerable to human interference and create a transparent system around it. Inside government, it was anything but straightforward. The proposal challenged people and interests that had become comfortable with the existing system. Ghimire describes the resistance as a confrontation with an established political and bureaucratic nexus. The experience taught her an important lesson about public-sector reform: having a better solution is not enough. You also have to understand the people, incentives and systems that the existing solution serves.
That meant consultation, negotiation and incremental improvement rather than simply announcing a radical new system and expecting everyone to accept it. The team spoke with teachers, school management committees and principals, gathering feedback and trying to understand the practical problems that existed beyond the policy documents. It was frustrating and, at times, emotionally exhausting. But those experiences also became part of the education. Ghimire learned that changing government is rarely about finding the smartest idea. It is about understanding how to move that idea through a system that has its own history, relationships and resistance to change.
The Bureaucracy Is the Real Classroom
Perhaps the most valuable part of being a Sokiya Sachiv is that it exposes someone to the gap between policy and reality. A law can look perfectly logical on paper. A policy can appear obvious when discussed in a meeting. But once it reaches implementation, it encounters departments, officials, budgets, procedures, existing practices and people whose work is affected by the change.
That is where Ghimire found some of her biggest lessons. She also experienced this while trying to introduce an internship procedure within the Ministry of Education, giving young people an opportunity to gain direct exposure to policymaking. The idea encountered bureaucratic resistance, and the process became emotionally difficult enough that Ghimire recalls moments of frustration and even tears. But those experiences also gave her something that cannot easily be learned from university or a textbook: an understanding of how institutions actually behave. She learned whom to speak to, how decisions move, where processes get stuck, why seemingly simple changes take months and how relationships matter within the bureaucracy.
Making Politics Easier to Enter
Ghimire's experience also shaped her thinking about technology and public participation. One of the problems she noticed was that ordinary citizens often have very little idea about how they can participate in the legislative process. Most people do not know how to read a bill, where to find one or how to submit an amendment. The process feels like something that belongs to politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats.
Her team tried to change that through “Vidheyak Manthan,” or Bill Hackathon. The concept was deliberately simple. Instead of creating an expensive technological platform, they used Google Forms to collect public feedback and proposed amendments to legislation. The submissions were then reviewed, organized and colour-coded, with explanations around what was accepted or rejected. The technology itself was not particularly sophisticated. That was the point. You did not need a futuristic government platform to make legislative participation more accessible. You needed to take an existing process and make it understandable enough for ordinary people to participate.
When Government Information Becomes a Product Problem
That same thinking led Ghimire to another project: an AI chatbot designed to help citizens navigate government procedures. The problem was familiar. Someone needs a No Objection Certificate, an equivalence letter or another government document and has no idea where to begin. Government websites may technically contain the information, but that does not necessarily mean the information is easy to find, understand or use.
Ghimire's idea was to treat the problem almost like a user-experience challenge. Instead of expecting citizens to understand government structures, ask them what they want to accomplish and guide them through the process. The project, called “Bureaucracy,” reflects a larger philosophy in her work: government does not become accessible simply because information has been published. It becomes accessible when people can actually understand and use that information.
So Who Should Become a Sokiya Sachiv?
Ghimire does not describe the role as an attractive career choice for someone looking primarily for money or status. The salary is modest, the hours can be long and the work can be emotionally demanding. Instead, she imagines the ideal candidate as something closer to a “nerd who loves reading.” Someone who is genuinely curious, wants to understand why something works the way it does and can move from education policy to consumer protection to technology without losing interest.
That curiosity matters because government problems rarely fit neatly into one academic discipline. A policy might involve law, economics, technology, gender, business and human behaviour at the same time. The strongest people in such environments therefore need either broad knowledge or the ability to build teams that collectively provide it.
But intelligence is not enough. Ghimire emphasizes integrity because the Sokiya Sachiv position can also put young people dangerously close to opportunities for corruption. The role provides access to politicians, bureaucrats, information, decisions and people who may want something from the government. That makes personal boundaries and judgement essential. You need to understand the system without becoming absorbed by its worst incentives.
It Is an Entry Point, Not the Destination
One of the most interesting aspects of Ghimire's experience is that she did not treat the Sokiya Sachiv position as a permanent identity. She eventually left after four months in the ministerial role, even before the government collapsed. For her, the value of the position was the learning curve. She had gained an unusually close understanding of how legislation is developed, how ministries operate, how bureaucracy responds to change and where citizens encounter friction with the state.
That experience can become a powerful foundation for many different careers. Someone could move into politics. Someone else could build a civic technology company. Another person could work in a think tank, development organization or policy institution. Others could take the experience abroad and continue studying governance, public policy or development. The title on the job description matters less than the portfolio of experience it creates.
Gen Z Doesn't Have to Wait for Politics to Change
There is a recurring frustration behind Ghimire's work. Many young Nepalis are deeply interested in what is happening in the country but have never been taught how to participate in politics beyond voting. They know how to criticize a government. They know how to debate politicians online. But they may not know where a policy actually originates, which institution is responsible for a problem or what legal mechanism determines whether something can change.
That is why Ghimire's initiative, “How Do They Speak Us,” is ultimately about more than explaining politics. It is about making the machinery of government understandable enough that young people can interact with it. The objective isn't simply to make Gen Z more patriotic. It is to make them more informed.
If something isn't working, the useful question is not simply, Why is the government useless? It is: Which institution is responsible? Which law prevents it? Which regulation governs it? Who has the authority to change it? Those questions transform frustration into participation. And participation is where citizenship becomes meaningful.
The Opportunity Hidden Inside a Misunderstood Role
The Sokiya Sachiv position will probably continue to carry its baggage. In a political system where appointments and access have historically been vulnerable to abuse, skepticism is understandable. But that does not mean the role itself is inherently meaningless.
In the hands of the right person, it can be one of the most intense learning environments in Nepal's public sector. You sit close enough to political decision-making to understand how elected leaders think, while working closely enough with bureaucracy to see what happens after a policy leaves the political stage. You learn how laws are written, how institutions resist change, how citizens experience government and how seemingly simple reforms become complicated once they encounter the real world.
For Gen Z, that may be the most important opportunity of all. You don't have to wait until you become an MP, minister or senior bureaucrat to start understanding how Nepal works. You can start by getting close enough to the system to ask better questions.
And perhaps the most important lesson from Aakriti Ghimire's experience is this: you don't change a system by standing outside it and complaining about how broken it is. You change it by understanding how it works well enough to know where, and how, to push.
