What is the story about?
The temptation to compare Nepalese Prime Minister Balen Shah and Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) Chairman Rabi Lamichhane with the Pole Star is great. Maybe it is early yet, though they are two sides of the same coin. The Balen ‘craze’ that created the Ballot-box Revolution in March this year has transformed into ‘aura-farming’, despite his disruption of parliamentary norms and traditions, though his Gen Z followers consider them mere ‘deviations’. Balen has become bigger than his name, but he is his own man who knows Rabi is the boss.
Breaking his prolonged silence in Parliament last Sunday (May 31), Balen stunned lawmakers by answering questions from them without a stitch of a note, stumbling only on the question of the border dispute with India with the shocking revelation that ‘Nepal too has occupied Indian lands’. He had stirred the hornet’s nest. Later, the Foreign Ministry jumped in for damage limitation, saying ‘it was in no-man’s land where rivers keep changing course’.
In Balen’s first 100 days, he had pledged 100 goals; most were populist, with the 74th completed last week through an ambitious budget which has elevated salaries of government employees and provided tax concessions. The non-ideological RSP rules two seats short of a two-thirds majority, though it has no representation in the Upper House and the seven provinces, such a case has happened only after the 1960 and 1991 elections.
Further, the first year of the Balen government is dedicated to “Good Governance, Accountability and Development” — Development-Diplomacy in shorthand — precisely what the people have been demanding for the last three decades. The urban and political elite and the political opposition are not pleased with his style – not meeting people or speaking to the media; changing, through ordinance, the composition and powers of 13 constitutional councils; supersession of Acting Chief Justice Sapna Pradhan Malla; and other measures to depoliticise institutions, though the Supreme Court intervened to block the dissolution of trade unions and student organisations in universities.
Balen has regulated diplomatic protocol smothered by the likes of former Chinese Ambassador Hou Yanqi, who used to invade Sheetal Niwas (the President’s residence) and Baluwatar (the PM’s residence). Lest we forget, behind the scenes is a third leader, the learned and articulate Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle.
In an interview with a newspaper, Balen’s political confidant, Bhupendra Shah, General Secretary of the RSP, had said that PM Balen Shah would not undertake any visits to foreign countries in his first year, thereby pre-empting Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s visit to Kathmandu scheduled for 11–12 May, when he was carrying an invitation from PM Narendra Modi for PM Balen Shah to visit India.
Speculation was rife that Balen would not meet Misri, just as he declined to meet President Trump’s Special Envoy to South and Central Asia and Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor. Apparently, the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu verified the contents of the Bhupendra Shah interview before closing the issue.
Earlier, it was being said that Balen might attend the United Nations General Assembly in September and that a visit to Delhi could be planned before or after that. Grapevine also suggested that India would be his first foreign port of call. Ending uncertainty, the Modi government discovered the perfect alternative to PM Shah: Party Chairman Rabi Lamichhane.
In an interview with the BBC Nepali Service, I provided the reasons why the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suddenly invited Rabi even as the Misri episode had not died down. Delhi did not want Beijing to spring a surprise. For the first time, the party chair of the ruling establishment in Kathmandu visited Delhi before its Prime Minister, reversing the traditional norm.
It was also the first time PM Modi went to his party office to meet a foreign dignitary, Lamichhane. This has set a precedent; Indian political parties, mainly the Congress, have traditionally dealt with the Nepali Congress or the Communists.
While the RSP under Rabi made its political debut in 2021 with just 21 seats in Parliament, four years later it rocketed to 181 seats, spurred by Gen Z and Nepalese plagued by misgovernance and corruption. The arrival and rise of the non-baggage-carrying and non-ideological RSP is an accident of history, much to the relief of aspirational Nepal. It is this leadership that the BJP government is courting.
One other crucial factor that prompted the invitation to Rabi is that, once he is cleared of court cases, he is the natural successor to Balen, who recognises him as the party leader who also has the majority of the parliamentary party with him.
Much before Balen hit the spotlight as a rapper and outspoken Mayor of Kathmandu, Rabi was a household name running the popular TV show Sidha Kura Janta Sang. He raised the RSP and became Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister.
In short, for now Balen is the lead engine and Rabi the double engine on the uphill track. The ownership of the mandate is Balen’s; party unity and cohesion are with Rabi.
That’s how India’s Neighbourhood First policy selected Rabi as the BJP’s first guest from Nepal, and much was made of him during the two days he was in Delhi with band-baaja et al and meetings with Modi, Amit Shah, Ajit Doval, S. Jaishankar and Vikram Misri.
Rabi’s arrival was synchronised with his signed Hindustan Times article that encapsulated aspirational Nepal’s wish-list, playing up Modi’s benchmark Nepal visit in 2014 and listing Kathmandu’s history of grievances. Former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai and journalist Binod Dhakal responded differently to the article – Bhattarai noting India’s fixation with the security of the Himalayan frontiers and Dhakal emphasising institutionalising high-level diplomacy rather than relying on personal chemistry.
Modi’s statement on X was short and sharp, focused on elevating India’s ‘special and multifaceted relationship’ to greater heights. While the exchange between Modi and Lamichhane will not be known any time soon, the post-election diplomatic vacuum has been bridged.
In 2014, Modi praised in Nepal’s Parliament the soldiers who spilled blood in India’s wars. Before his visit to India, Rabi had met Indian Army Nepali veterans who urged him to help restore Gorkha recruitment, a strategic bond stopped under the Agniveer scheme by the ousted government.
Interestingly, the RSS was kept out of conversations, given that its mouthpiece, Organiser, was sceptical about Gen Z and critical of alleged US support for the RSP. The royalist Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, demolished during the electoral sweep, has split yet again. Former King Gyanendra has prophetically noted that monarchy is the last option if even the 181-seat government fails.
Notwithstanding stable governments and popular leaders in asymmetric Nepal and India, history has proven that relationships are never constant but are subject to snakes and ladders. Development diplomacy will clash with security concerns.
(The author is former GOC IPKF South Sri Lanka and founder member Defence Planning Staff, now Integrated Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)
Breaking his prolonged silence in Parliament last Sunday (May 31), Balen stunned lawmakers by answering questions from them without a stitch of a note, stumbling only on the question of the border dispute with India with the shocking revelation that ‘Nepal too has occupied Indian lands’. He had stirred the hornet’s nest. Later, the Foreign Ministry jumped in for damage limitation, saying ‘it was in no-man’s land where rivers keep changing course’.
In Balen’s first 100 days, he had pledged 100 goals; most were populist, with the 74th completed last week through an ambitious budget which has elevated salaries of government employees and provided tax concessions. The non-ideological RSP rules two seats short of a two-thirds majority, though it has no representation in the Upper House and the seven provinces, such a case has happened only after the 1960 and 1991 elections.
Further, the first year of the Balen government is dedicated to “Good Governance, Accountability and Development” — Development-Diplomacy in shorthand — precisely what the people have been demanding for the last three decades. The urban and political elite and the political opposition are not pleased with his style – not meeting people or speaking to the media; changing, through ordinance, the composition and powers of 13 constitutional councils; supersession of Acting Chief Justice Sapna Pradhan Malla; and other measures to depoliticise institutions, though the Supreme Court intervened to block the dissolution of trade unions and student organisations in universities.
Balen has regulated diplomatic protocol smothered by the likes of former Chinese Ambassador Hou Yanqi, who used to invade Sheetal Niwas (the President’s residence) and Baluwatar (the PM’s residence). Lest we forget, behind the scenes is a third leader, the learned and articulate Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle.
In an interview with a newspaper, Balen’s political confidant, Bhupendra Shah, General Secretary of the RSP, had said that PM Balen Shah would not undertake any visits to foreign countries in his first year, thereby pre-empting Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s visit to Kathmandu scheduled for 11–12 May, when he was carrying an invitation from PM Narendra Modi for PM Balen Shah to visit India.
Speculation was rife that Balen would not meet Misri, just as he declined to meet President Trump’s Special Envoy to South and Central Asia and Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor. Apparently, the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu verified the contents of the Bhupendra Shah interview before closing the issue.
Earlier, it was being said that Balen might attend the United Nations General Assembly in September and that a visit to Delhi could be planned before or after that. Grapevine also suggested that India would be his first foreign port of call. Ending uncertainty, the Modi government discovered the perfect alternative to PM Shah: Party Chairman Rabi Lamichhane.
In an interview with the BBC Nepali Service, I provided the reasons why the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suddenly invited Rabi even as the Misri episode had not died down. Delhi did not want Beijing to spring a surprise. For the first time, the party chair of the ruling establishment in Kathmandu visited Delhi before its Prime Minister, reversing the traditional norm.
It was also the first time PM Modi went to his party office to meet a foreign dignitary, Lamichhane. This has set a precedent; Indian political parties, mainly the Congress, have traditionally dealt with the Nepali Congress or the Communists.
While the RSP under Rabi made its political debut in 2021 with just 21 seats in Parliament, four years later it rocketed to 181 seats, spurred by Gen Z and Nepalese plagued by misgovernance and corruption. The arrival and rise of the non-baggage-carrying and non-ideological RSP is an accident of history, much to the relief of aspirational Nepal. It is this leadership that the BJP government is courting.
One other crucial factor that prompted the invitation to Rabi is that, once he is cleared of court cases, he is the natural successor to Balen, who recognises him as the party leader who also has the majority of the parliamentary party with him.
Much before Balen hit the spotlight as a rapper and outspoken Mayor of Kathmandu, Rabi was a household name running the popular TV show Sidha Kura Janta Sang. He raised the RSP and became Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister.
In short, for now Balen is the lead engine and Rabi the double engine on the uphill track. The ownership of the mandate is Balen’s; party unity and cohesion are with Rabi.
That’s how India’s Neighbourhood First policy selected Rabi as the BJP’s first guest from Nepal, and much was made of him during the two days he was in Delhi with band-baaja et al and meetings with Modi, Amit Shah, Ajit Doval, S. Jaishankar and Vikram Misri.
Rabi’s arrival was synchronised with his signed Hindustan Times article that encapsulated aspirational Nepal’s wish-list, playing up Modi’s benchmark Nepal visit in 2014 and listing Kathmandu’s history of grievances. Former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai and journalist Binod Dhakal responded differently to the article – Bhattarai noting India’s fixation with the security of the Himalayan frontiers and Dhakal emphasising institutionalising high-level diplomacy rather than relying on personal chemistry.
Modi’s statement on X was short and sharp, focused on elevating India’s ‘special and multifaceted relationship’ to greater heights. While the exchange between Modi and Lamichhane will not be known any time soon, the post-election diplomatic vacuum has been bridged.
In 2014, Modi praised in Nepal’s Parliament the soldiers who spilled blood in India’s wars. Before his visit to India, Rabi had met Indian Army Nepali veterans who urged him to help restore Gorkha recruitment, a strategic bond stopped under the Agniveer scheme by the ousted government.
Interestingly, the RSS was kept out of conversations, given that its mouthpiece, Organiser, was sceptical about Gen Z and critical of alleged US support for the RSP. The royalist Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, demolished during the electoral sweep, has split yet again. Former King Gyanendra has prophetically noted that monarchy is the last option if even the 181-seat government fails.
Notwithstanding stable governments and popular leaders in asymmetric Nepal and India, history has proven that relationships are never constant but are subject to snakes and ladders. Development diplomacy will clash with security concerns.
(The author is former GOC IPKF South Sri Lanka and founder member Defence Planning Staff, now Integrated Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)
