Hinduism in Nepal

Hinduism is the main and largest religion of Nepal. The Constitution of Nepal have established a call for protection of old aged religion i.e Hinduism through out the country and this state that Hinduism is the Official religion of Nepal which have got special privileges in the Constitution. In the 2011 Nepal census, approximately 85 percent of the Nepalese people identified themselves as Hindus including Kirati ethnic indigenous religion which is also considered as sect or a branch of Hinduism, although observers note that many of the people regarded as Hindus in the 1981 census could, with as much justification, be called Buddhists. According to 2011 census, the Hindu population in Nepal is estimated to be around 22,493,649 which accounts 85% of country's population.[2] The national calendar of Nepal, Vikram Samvat, is a solar Hindu calendar essentially the same to that widespread in North India as a religious calendar, and is based on Hindu units of time.

Quotes

• Whenever any attack on Hinduism threatens, all Nepali Hindus have done was to give in without a fight. A few years ago, the Maoists demanded the abolition of the Sanskrit class in schools, and the course was dropped at once. .... Ever since I first met a Nepali Hindu (at Benares Hindu university in 1989) and he gave me an account of the situation in Nepal, I have been very pessimistic about the future of Hinduism there. Never in the intervening years has even a single news item reached my ear that indicated a counter-trend, it was slowly downhill all along. Bangladeshi infiltrators accumulated, the ISI set up shop, the Christian missionaries lambasted the country's anti-conversion law all while making converts by the thousands...
  • Elst, Koenraad (2012). The argumentative Hindu. New Delhi : Aditya Prakashan. 225-27