In his long years as a rebel, Che Guevara never actually visited Nepal. But the country is still in a way marked by his legacy.

Several Nepali revolutionary leaders claim to have been directly inspired by Guevara’s example; and one (Ram Raja Prasad Singh) recalls in his memoirs that he actually met him (in Burma). He remains a vital point of reference for today’s activists. Che’s ideas about revolution run like a bright thread through the country’s radical tradition.

Singh, a Nepali political activist whom C. K. Lal describes as “the warrior revolutionary,” was born in 1936 in the Saptari district on the terai (plains). At the time, the border between Nepal and the Indian state of Bihar was virtually nonexistent. Singh grew up in the political ferment of the 1940s, when Mahatma Gandhi’s supporters faced ruthless and, at times, bloody suppression during their nonviolent protests.