This has caused alarm among Nepal’s Hindu elite, culminating in a provision in the 2015 Constitution that protects the country’s “original” religions of Buddhism and Hinduism by banning proselytising from “non-original” religions. Opinion polls have also consistently shown that the majority of Nepalis are unhappy with the country’s secular status, with roughly half advocating for a return to the status of a Hindu state.

Indeed, debate over the secular nature of Nepal’s Constitution erupted in 2015, in which police had to use water cannons and tear gas to dispel angry Hindu protesters. Christian churches are still not allowed to register as religious institutions but as NGOs, leading to a situation in which many evangelical groups operate under the guise of education charities.

An example of this is a group called Mountain Child, that in 2014 signed a five-year agreement to open schools in rural Nepal. From the start, there were rumours that Mountain Child was a cover for evangelical Christian missionaries engaging in religious conversion and “church-planting” in the mountains.

Their Footstool Project organises short-term mission treks for Christians from the US, focusing on “unreached peoples”, usually ethnic Tibetan Buddhists in the Himalayan Valleys, who are “crying out for help”. A blogger from one of these projects described how people in these regions are “raised the Buddhist way - no affection, no emotion, no love, just empty”, reflecting the opinion of non-Christian Nepalis as souls that need “saving”.

While Nepal’s Hindus and Buddhists have historically incorporated elements of other religions into their beliefs, evangelical groups require that their converts renounce and reject all expression of non-Christian traditions which are often viewed as the handiwork of Satan.

Another missionary was quoted as saying: “If I have a choice between possibly offending you or saying ‘OK, whatever you believe is fine’, but I believe in my heart if you don’t believe in Jesus, you’re going to go to hell; well then, I’m going to take the risk of offending you”.

The rapid growth of Christianity in Nepal is testing its new secular identity, and is fermenting an unprecedented rise in religious tension in a country formerly characterised by religious harmony. It exposes the endurance of caste-based exclusion and marginalisation that the state is quick to deny.

Conversely, it is the state’s reluctance to fully accept freedom of religion that discourages all but the most radical of evangelical Christian groups from operating in Nepal, whose actions so far appear to be feeding a negative cycle and perception of Christianity as a whole.

While in Nepal, I tried to contact the same preacher from my flight. He declined, saying he was too busy touring schools across the country and meeting with Nepalese politicians. It looks like the exorcisms will continue for some time.

Samuel John recently graduated with an MSc in international development studies. Formerly a research intern with Kinder, he is now working as an English teacher in Japan; and continues to write the occasional article for Kinder World