The observer, at work.

Dheeraj Joshi — known online as Bhappa — is a child-rights activist, cartoonist and writer from Far-Western Nepal. His public profile describes him in a single word: दर्शक, the observer.

Biography

Originally from Baitadi, Dheeraj came up through the child-club movement of Kanchanpur. He was an executive member of the District Child Network in 2015 and later its chairperson. With Narmada Child Club and the district’s child clubs he took part in the rescue of working children, a 2016 campaign that saw 103 hotels in Bhimdattanagar declared child-labour-restricted, and a care camp for children in Gorkha after the 2015 earthquake.

From 2017 he organised youth programmes with the Leo Club of Mahakali Classic — among them the Classic Speaking Idol competition for teenagers — and in January 2019 he served as district ambassador and coordinator for the Leo District Council 325 B2 award ceremony in Kanchanpur.

In 2018, as an activist in the central coordination of the National Campaign for Child Rights, he was twice taken into police custody: after tearing copies of the Bill on Children at the National Girls’ Conference, and after protesting a ministerial appearance at an INGO-run programme. He has argued consistently that children’s rights must not be turned into projects.

He later joined Kathmandu Metropolitan City as a member of the Mayor’s Secretariat. Press reports from 2023 to 2025 describe him coordinating the city’s child-rescue work — including the June 2024 rescue of four children found working in canteens inside Singha Durbar. In September 2025 Republica named him among the Gen-Z leaders in talks that followed that month’s protests. After the protests he joined the secretariat of Home Minister Om Prakash Aryal.

Alongside the public work he draws cartoons under the hashtag #dheerubhaicartoons and writes — short reflections, reportage filed for Farwest Times in 2015, and commentary in Nepali and English.

Disciplines

• CartoonsSocial and political drawings, #dheerubhaicartoons
• WritingReflections, reportage and commentary in Nepali and English
• Child rightsRescue, advocacy and children’s participation
• Public speakingYouth competitions, assemblies and forums

“Sometimes, somewhere, silence becomes the real means of communication.”

— Dheeraj Joshi, Facebook, c. 2015