Guru Gyanchandra (Guru is a Sanskrit term meaning teacher/mentor/religious leader) is a Hindu religious leader and serves as a priest at Ghodaghodi temple in Kalali. Besides being involved in daily religious activities, he is also a Principal at Birat Sanatan Dharma Sanskriti Gurukul Vidyapeeth where he has been teaching Sanskrit for more than 15 years now. The Veda Ashram now has more than 500 students from Dalit, Janajati, Brahmin and Chhetri communities.
National Inter-Religious Network (NIRN) Nepal in partnership with World Vision International (WVI) Nepal implemented Multifath organizations’ response for appreciative learning on religious values (MORAL Values) Project in 2020. Following this, an inter-religious network committee was formed in Ghodaghodi with Guru Gyanchandra as one of the representatives from Hinduism. Guru Gyanchandra has attended various trainings on child marriage, gender-based violence and other harmful traditional practices including legal provisions conducted by NIRN Nepal since the project implementation. After receiving these trainings, he pledged his commitment to end child marriage and started an initiative for the same.
Ghodaghodi temple is a sacred shrine for Hindu devotees and they often visit the temple to get married. As a priest of the Ghodaghodi temple and a member of the Ghodaghodi temple management committee, Guru Gyanchandra proposed the committee in making 20 years age mandatory for marriage. Thereupon, underage marriages are strictly restricted within the temple premises. After this decision came into effect, recordkeeping of birth charts and birth certificates are documented and maintained by the management committee. Whenever parents and families insist on underage marriages, Guru Gyanchandra explains them of negative impacts such as increased risk of maternal mortality, domestic violence and limited opportunities for education and employment as a result of early child marriage and informs families that marriage before the age of 20 is a crime punishable by law of Nepal meaning they could end up facing imprisonment.
He also advocates against caste-based discrimination and has started to promote and conduct marriages of people belonging to all castes without any caste-based discrimination. Along with this, he shares that there has been a growing acceptance of inter-caste marriages over the years. The recordkeeping register shows that there have been 25 inter-caste marriages with prevention of 2 early child marriages out of 299 marriages in total since 2021.
Guru Gyanchandra says, “After attending trainings conducted by NIRN Nepal on child marriage and its legal provisions, I realized that even religious leaders should comply to the state policies and work within the legal framework. Therefore, the temple has now made it mandatory for both the boy and the girl to be 20 years of age for marriage.”