Here’s a small voice note to introduce this week’s deep dive.

This week, we’re forgoing everything else to focus on this very important long read from Subeksha Poudel on conflict-related sexual violence and transitional justice. It is a difficult but very necessary read. Trigger Warning: This article contains explicit depictions and discussions of sexual violence and physical trauma, which some readers may find distressing.

Twenty years since the end of the civil war, still no justice in sight

The soldiers and Maoists stopped fighting, but for the victims, the war never ended.

(Image: Subhin Rajkarnikar)

by

On November 23, 2004, Maya, who was 33 at the time, was taken into detention by the Nepal Army for “interrogation.” It was the height of the Maoist civil war, and the army had been searching for her husband, who was suspected of being a Maoist. At the army barracks, Maya was blindfolded and tortured, with soldiers demanding that she reveal her husband’s location. Maya was estranged from her husband at the time, but she told them, under duress, that he was in a nearby district for work. When the army contacted him, he said he didn’t know Maya. Believing she had lied to them, Maya was subjected to more torture, forced to drink urine, and raped repeatedly by four soldiers. When she lost consciousness, she was dumped out on the streets.

More than two decades later, Maya still suffers from severe mental trauma and the injuries inflicted on her. “I had my family, but I’m alone today because of what they did to me,” she said. “I had to remove my uterus because the bleeding didn’t stop. I cannot get up, sit, or move about on my own. I struggle to afford even two meals a day.”

Maya, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, is one of thousands of women who suffered conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) during the 10-year civil war. As of September 2025, 4,226 individuals had filed CRSV complaints with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Advocates say the actual number is considerably larger, as the three-month window for registering complaints was far too short.

Yet, nearly twenty years since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between the Nepal government and the rebel Maoists, none of the victims and survivors have received any form of justice — reparative or retributive. Maya has received just Rs 25,000 in relief as an injured, internally displaced person. The perpetrators of the heinous acts against her were never identified, let alone prosecuted.

“What’s the point of getting anything when I’m about to die?” said Maya, now 55 years of age.

Sexual violence during the conflict

During the civil war, from 1996 to 2006, both the state security forces and the Maoists inflicted severe physical and sexual violence on both men and women to extort information, intimidate the community, and punish suspected collaborators. While both sides were involved in sexual violence and rape, the state security forces — the Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, and Nepal Army — appear to be responsible for most documented cases of sexual violence, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Nepal Conflict Report.

“Most violations concern alleged rape, gang rape and attempted rape, with some cases of forced nudity,” the report says. Victims included combatants as well as civilians, more than one-third of whom were children under the age of 15. Advocates say many victims of sexual violence were from deeply marginalized caste and ethnic communities, and poor households. Longstanding exclusion from land ownership, political representation, and education meant that Dalits, Madhesi Dalits, and Adivasi Janajatis were disproportionately affected by both state security forces and the Maoists.

This November marks 20 years since the armed conflict ended. Fought by the Maoists ostensibly to end inequality, exclusion, and discrimination, the conflict claimed more than 17,000 lives. But for conflict victims, the war never truly ended. While the Maoists entered mainstream politics and the Nepal Army retreated to its barracks, the tens of thousands of victims, especially survivors of sexual violence, live with debilitating psychological trauma, chronic physical pain, poverty, and social isolation. While some still wait for truth, justice, and reparations, others bury the pain deep within, trying to forget what happened.

Politically compromised

On November 21, 2006, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, pledging to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity, and to create an environment for reconciliation. While most other clauses agreed to in the CPA have been implemented, much remains to be done to ensure transitional justice is achieved meaningfully.

It took eight long years of political deadlock and legal disputes for Parliament to even endorse a transitional justice act. In 2014, Parliament enacted the Enforced Disappearances Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act. However, the Act, as conflict victims had pointed out time and again, contained a major flaw: it allowed blanket amnesty for serious violations of human rights, including rape and torture. Many conflict victims’ groups refused to cooperate with the two transitional justice commissions, arguing that amnesty for such serious violations of human rights was against the spirit of truth and reconciliation.

Months later, in 2015, Nepal’s Supreme Court, responding to an appeal from 234 conflict victims, ordered that the transitional justice act be amended to remove blanket amnesty, ruling that such provisions were unconstitutional, against established principles of justice, and in violation of international law. However, the Nepali Congress-led government immediately filed a petition seeking to overturn the ruling. While the Supreme Court considered the petition, the government proceeded to establish the two transitional justice commissions — the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP).

Although victims’ groups believed that the two commissions were politically compromised, thousands of victims filed complaints. By 2017, the two commissions had received over 63,718 complaints, out of which 314 were cases of sexual violence. Unlike other categories of victims, who received some interim relief, victims of sexual violence were excluded from it altogether. The interim relief program prioritized cases involving death and enforced disappearances, failing to recognize sexual violence, largely due to deep-rooted social stigma, institutional gender bias, and a lack of gender-sensitive policies.

The two commissions also received complaints against Dahal and former Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, during whose tenure as prime minister the highest number of conflict-era disappearances were reported. Although the two were on opposite sides during the war, they came together in the aftermath to dilute transitional justice. Victims’ groups accuse successive governments, including those led by the Maoists, Nepali Congress, and the CPN-UML, of using transitional justice for political bargaining and appointing commissioners through political deals to protect themselves. The commissioners appointed to the two commissions were repeatedly rejected by victims as political appointees not meant to ensure meaningful justice.

The two commissions have received numerous term extensions and have been reconstituted at least three times since their establishment 11 years ago. The initial appointments in 2015 were senior advocate Surya Kiran Gurung as chair of the TRC and former judge Lokendra Mallik as chair of the CIEDP. The initial two-year term for the commissions was extended twice until they finally expired in 2019. The commissions had done little work except collect complaints from victims and survivors.

The two commissions were then reconstituted in January 2020. Despite widespread boycotts from victims’ groups, Ganesh Datta Bhatta was appointed chair of the TRC and Yubaraj Subedi chair of the CIEDP. This batch of officials remained in office till July 2022.

Then, in April 2024, the transitional justice act was finally amended in accordance with the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling. This amendment, while still flawed, categorized crimes into “violations of human rights” and “serious violations of human rights” with the latter not being eligible for amnesty. However, serious violations only included enforced disappearance, “rape or serious sexual violence,” “intentional or arbitrary killing,” and “inhuman or cruel torture.” Rights organizations criticized the qualifiers to these crimes, saying, for instance, that torture is by definition “inhuman and cruel.”

Nevertheless, victims’ groups and the international community cautiously welcomed the amendment as a step forward. In May 2025, a new leadership was appointed to the two commissions — former high court judge Mahesh Thapa as chair of the TRC and former chief secretary Lila Devi Gadtaula as chair of the CIEDP. Victims once again decried these appointments as politically orchestrated and carried out without meaningful consultations with them. More than 334 victims filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking the annulment of the appointments.

A year later, in May 2026, the new Balen Shah government issued an ordinance dismissing all politically appointed public officials, including the transitional justice commissioners. No one has been appointed in their stead, and it is unclear how the government plans to proceed with new appointments.

Denied by the state, silenced by society

Civilians caught in the middle of the civil war suffered immensely from surveillance, beatings, torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and extrajudicial killing, but survivors of sexual violence continue to be doubly victimized — living with the pain of violence while shunned and ostracized by society at large.

When the peace process began, the state initially denied sexual violence altogether. “The state maintained that security forces were deployed for counterinsurgency operations to protect the nation and civilians, asserting that their code of conduct did not permit such acts,” human rights lawyer Rukamanee Maharjan told me. Similarly, the Maoists also maintained that they were fighting for a larger political cause and that sexual violence was not acceptable within the movement, she said.

While the state and Maoists both denied sexual violence due to its damaging effect on each side’s reputation, victims themselves were shamed into silence by family and society.

Twenty-five years ago, Kalpana, whom we are identifying with a pseudonym, was only 13 when the army entered her home in Kailali looking for her sister, who had allegedly joined the People’s Liberation Army. They arrested Kalpana’s 15-year-old sister that night, but kept returning to “search” her home. Whenever the soldiers came, they stripped Kalpana naked, asking what she was hiding underneath, and struck her breasts and genitals with the butts of their guns in front of her whole family.

“Our neighbors had only one concern: who would marry us?” Kalpana, who is 38 now, told me. “After all, the army came to our home day and night. I have never found the words to ask my sister what happened to her in custody, and she has never asked us what happened while she was gone. Her husband now knows what happened to her, but he still asks if she has to publicly identify as a victim of sexual violence.”

While social norms compelled victims into silence, activists shared that when they tried to document such cases, they were labeled home wreckers by the state and society. Government officials pointed to statutes of limitations — which, at the time, was 35 days for rape — and refused to register complaints of sexual violence. “Other times, we were asked why we wanted to revisit the painful past and break up families when the women were already married with children and grandchildren,” said Gita Rasaili, chair of the Conflict Victim Women National Network. “The state denied it, tried to stop it, and buried the violence. But haunted by the trauma, victims could no longer hold it in. They came out in full force.”

Up until 2025, 10 years since the TRC was first established, the commission had only registered 314 complaints related to sexual violence. In May 2025, when the TRC reopened a three-month window for conflict victims to register complaints, cases of sexual violence increased more than thirteenfold, reaching 4,226.

Rasaili recalled that when CRSV survivors first began gathering, many sat separately in meeting halls so others would not assume they were victims of sexual violence. “One positive aspect of not addressing conflict-related sexual violence immediately after the peace agreement was that survivors had time to heal, process what happened, build support networks, and gather the courage to come forward. Gradually, an environment was created where people felt safer speaking out. That process is still ongoing,” she said.

Gita Rasaili’s sister Reena was also a victim of the war. In 2004, 20 armed soldiers entered their home in Kavre at midnight and dragged Reena, who had just turned 17, to the backyard and gang raped her. The family was locked inside the house, where they could only hear Reena scream throughout the night. At five in the morning, they heard gunshots. When the soldiers left, neighbors found Reena’s body with gunshots to the head, eye, and chest. The family did not move Reena’s body for six days to ensure a proper investigation.

Six years later, in 2010, a junior officer was arrested in relation to Reena’s rape and murder but was eventually acquitted of all charges, citing a lack of evidence. However, in 2022, the UN Human Rights Committee held Nepal responsible for Reena’s extrajudicial killing, torture, and rape under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

New government, old promises

With the 2024 amendment to the transitional justice act, and a new and powerful majority government in place, there is cautious hope that the transitional justice process will finally ensure justice for victims and survivors. Although transitional justice did not find a place on Prime Minister Balen Shah’s 100-point agenda, the ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party’s election manifesto mentions that the party will work to conclude the peace process. Victims, however, remain skeptical. They are worried that the new government’s tendency to push through major initiatives at breakneck speed could harm victims once again.

“Transitional justice is absolutely a priority for us. Unlike previous governments, where appointments were often political, we do not come with that baggage. Within the next 10 days, we will call for a recommendation committee that will identify people who genuinely understand transitional justice and its core values,” Sobita Gautam, minister for law, justice, and parliamentary affairs, told me over the phone. “It is deeply unfortunate that survivors of sexual violence were not properly recognized by the state in the past. One of our priorities now is to ensure their lives become easier going forward.”

According to Lily Thapa, a commissioner with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the prime minister’s office has requested recommendations on reparations for conflict victims. The NHRC is also in the midst of finalizing an assessment of Nepal’s second National Action Plan (NAP II), which concluded in 2025. The plan outlined Nepal’s commitments under UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820, including support for victims of conflict-related sexual violence and greater participation of women in peacebuilding.

When asked about the assessment, Thapa said, “For instance, NAP II stated that every municipality would have a committee for victims of conflict-related sexual violence. So we went to many districts with UN Women and assessed what they had done. The report will include some of the municipalities’ best practices. This will inform advocacy and make it easier for the government to decide how to proceed.”

But advocates say not all victims feel safe speaking to someone from their own community. Many have not disclosed the violence they suffered to their husbands or families for fear of stigma, abandonment, or blame. Others remain reluctant to come forward while their perpetrators are still close to power centers.

And often, it is the commissioners and officials themselves who need support investigating conflict-related sexual violence.

“We spent a year working with the commission on the proper use of terminology,” Devi Khadka, chairperson of the Aparajit Foundation, told me. “Even senior officials continued to describe conflict-related sexual violence as gender-based violence, revealing a lack of understanding. Men, too, were victims.”

For the past six years, organizations such as Aparajit have worked closely with the TRC and other stakeholders to strengthen legal frameworks on conflict-related sexual violence. Their advocacy contributed to reopening complaint registration, establishing a specialized unit to investigate sexual violence, removing amnesty provisions for sexual violence, recognizing rape as a serious violation regardless of whether the victim was a combatant or civilian, and prioritizing survivors of sexual violence in reparations programs.

“For many of the 4,200 victims, this is the first time the state has formally recognized them. Investigating these cases requires specialized support, psychosocial counseling, and strict confidentiality,” said Nirmala Adhikari, Secretary of the TRC, one of the few officials still remaining.

According to Adhikari, the TRC, with support from UN Women, has prepared draft guidelines on a survivor-centered, gender-responsive modality for investigating cases. Factors such as how they will take multiple precautions to contact survivors, where they will meet, how testimonies will be collected, and how their confidentiality will be protected throughout are part of the guidelines.

“We do not want to rush this process to a conclusion,” said Adhikari. “We want to handle these cases carefully and responsibly. Survivors should be assured that their complaints will be investigated thoroughly, their confidentiality will be protected, and perpetrators will be brought before the courts.”

How the TRC handles cases will now determine whether victims will trust the commission. And how it delivers truth, justice, and reparations will influence whether other victims, still grappling with their trauma, choose to come forward.

The recent increase in complaints reflects a long-suppressed demand for recognition, but also reveals how much has remained undocumented. “The government’s endorsement of the CEDAW roadmap in March 2026, its commitment to concluding the transitional justice process spelled out in the Fiscal Year 2026/2027 Policies and Programmes, and the allocation of Rs 1 billion for investigation, relief, and compensation are important signals of progress,” said Patricia Fernandez-Pacheco, UN Women Country Representative in Nepal. “The recently published 2026 report of the Secretary-General on conflict-related sexual violence also underscores the need for mandatory gender-sensitive procedures in Nepal.”

Survivors who have waited as long as three decades say that justice does not have to begin with grand gestures. A disability card that grants access to free treatment. A stipend to cover meals. A formal apology acknowledging what happened to them. Even these modest steps would signal that the state finally sees them.

Without so much as an acknowledgment from the state, many survivors, like 36-year-old Kamala, have found the past twenty years difficult beyond measure. Their scars, both physical and mental, have never really healed. Kamala, who is also being identified with a pseudonym, displays the burn marks on her hands and legs where police officers put out cigarettes, and the scars on her knuckles where they cut her with knives and hammered pins into her skin. She was just 12 when the state security forces stormed her school, where the Maoists had organized an event. She was taken from one police station to another for more than seven months. All the while, she was raped in public, urinated on, spat on, and beaten.

“When I did not sleep for nights and kept screaming and crying, they took me to the hospital. There, they found out that I was three to four months pregnant,” BK told me. While she was in the hospital, the police had her fetus aborted.

BK still lives with the trauma of what she went through. She had to have her uterus removed, and she still suffers from depression.

“Years of counseling have helped me harden my heart. The fact that I can wash my clothes and cook for myself is a big achievement,” she said. “But my mind no longer works, my hands and legs do not work. Perhaps it was easier for those who died. At least they found peace. I live like a dead person.”

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Before we begin, a big thank you to Dhiraj Nyaupane for becoming our latest paid supporter. We haven’t had much support in the last few months, but we hope that other readers will follow Dhiraj ji’s example and support us in whatever way you can. We really can’t do this without you!

Here’s a small voice note that talks more about this week’s deep dive. Take a listen and let me know what you think!

In this newsletter:

• Foreign Minister builds on Lamichhane visit to India with new deals

• Sudan Gurung returns, Mahabir Pun appointed Science and Tech Minister

• Opposition to cease House disruption after deal with ruling party

• Recommendations

• The deep dive: Balen vs the bureaucracy

Foreign Minister builds on Lamichhane visit to India with new deals

Last week, Rastriya Swatantra Party chair Rabi Lamichhane was welcomed in India with much pomp and ceremony. India laid out the red carpet for Lamichhane in a carefully cultivated symbolic show. Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal’s visit this week was less bombastic but much more substantial. While Lamichhane’s visit was purely political, Khanal went to Delhi with a focused agenda — clear the air on Nepal’s positions vis-a-vis India, engage with high-level officials, and strike mutually beneficial deals.

Khanal landed in Delhi on Friday, June 5, just as Lamichhane was leaving. The next day, Khanal was interviewed by Aditya Raj Kaul of NDTV where he clarified a host of issues to an Indian audience. The RSP is a new party that does not carry the ideological burdens of the past, he said. Khanal acknowledged that Nepal had missed opportunities to capitalize on India’s rise, blaming this largely on unstable governments in the past. He outlined five priority areas for cooperation with India — energy trade with India and Bangladesh, rail and road connectivity to areas like Janakpur and Lumbini, cross-border digital payments, branches of Indian education institutions in Nepal, and collaboration on technology like AI — that he would pursue during his meetings with Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Khanal said that the RSP would use Nepal’s geopolitical relations for domestic consumption but also ruled out the possibility of Prime Minister Balen Shah’s visit to India, stating that the prime minister was focused on domestic issues at the moment.

After his meetings with Jaishankar and Doval, three agreements were signed between Nepal and India. None of them are groundbreaking, more symbolic than anything. The most consequential one is the MoU signed to facilitate cross-border digital payments via QR codes. Since 2024, Indian visitors to Nepal have been able to pay for services digitally simply by scanning QR codes. However, while this was supposed to be a reciprocal service, Nepalis never received the same ease of payment. We still have to pay in cash or by bank card, which isn’t always convenient, especially since India has transitioned almost completely to digital payments. With the new MoU, Nepalis should be able to pay with their phones, but such assurances have been given before and never materialized. So I’ll believe it when I see it.

The other two agreements were regarding the handing over of 72 health facilities and 12 cultural heritage projects constructed with Indian aid as part of post-earthquake reconstruction; and an agreement between Kathmandu University and the Digital India Bhashini Division to co-create a “Voice First” language translation platform, an AI-powered tool that will instantly translate spoken words from one language to another.

Before leaving India, Khanal held a press conference at the Nepali Embassy in Delhi, answering questions from journalists. One issue he was quick to clarify concerned Prime Minister Shah’s statement that Nepal had reached out to “England” over the disputed territories of Lipulek, Limpiyadhura, and Kalapani. Nepal had only sought archival documentation from the United Kingdom, not a direct role in the dispute, which was purely bilateral between India and Nepal, Khanal said. In all, though not much came of Khanal’s trip, it did build on the momentum generated by Lamichhane’s visit. Khanal also came off well in the Indian media as articulate and soft-spoken.

Next week, June 14, Khanal will be heading to Beijing, where he will meet with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and senior members of the Communist Party of China.

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Sudan Gurung returns, Mahabir Pun appointed Science and Tech Minister

On Tuesday, June 8, President Ram Chandra Poudel administered the oath of office and secrecy to Sudan Gurung and Mahabir Pun, swearing them in as Home Minister and Minister for Science, Technology, and Innovation.

Gurung resigned in April as Home Minister after media reports alleged discrepancies and irregularities in the massive amount of wealth he had accumulated. An investigation committee formed to probe Gurung’s assets found nothing unusual in his assets, clearing the way for him to return as Home Minister. Gurung, if you recall, was the most visible public face of the Gen Z movement in September. Despite running Hami Nepal, a humanitarian organization, Gurung had great wealth, according to a voluntary asset declaration conducted by all members of the Shah Cabinet.

Pun, on the other hand, is an independent lawmaker and was Minister of Education, Science, and Technology in the interim Sushila Karki Cabinet. Pun is a beloved, if eccentric, public figure who runs the National Innovation Center. Despite entreaties from the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), Pun campaigned and won the election as an independent. He is currently the only non-RSP member of the Cabinet. Once known for his work on wireless internet in his home district of Myagdi, for which he won the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Pun is now better known for his unusual antics. During the election campaign, he claimed to have not bathed for 42 days. He has also declined to use any official minister’s quarters and will be living in the ministry itself, as he did during his last stint as minister.

Pun takes charge of the newly formed Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, which was split from the Ministry of Education. The latter is now the Ministry of Education and Sports. The question for Gurung is whether he will now initiate an investigation into himself. Two weeks ago, the National Human Rights Commission recommended that the government probe the role of Sudan Gurung in inciting the Gen Z protest on September 8 and 9. The government is legally obligated to implement the NHRC’s recommendations, which means that Gurung, as Home Minister, will have to investigate himself. This does not inspire faith in any future investigation, if one even takes place.

Opposition to cease House disruption after deal with ruling party

Recent meetings of the House of Representatives have been chaotic, to put it mildly. For over a month now, the opposition has been disrupting Parliament, demanding that Prime Minister Balen Shah answer questions from lawmakers. Last week, when Shah finally spoke, controversy erupted and members of the opposition Shram Sanskriti Party and the Nepali Communist Party launched themselves at House Speaker Dol Prasad Aryal in an attempt to stop him speaking. Harka Sampang, the former mayor of Dharan and chief of the Shram Sanskriti Party, has been particularly disruptive, inviting censure from the Speaker for breaching parliamentary rules and decorum.

On Monday, June 8, RSP chair Rabi Lamichhane called an all-party meeting to discuss the ongoing deadlock in parliament. Opposition parties raised concerns about Prime Minister Balen Shah’s remarks in Parliament last week, in which he claimed that Nepal had also encroached on Indian territory. They asked that the remarks be expunged from the record, to which Lamichhane agreed. The opposition also agreed to allow Foreign Minister Khanal to address Parliament on behalf of Prime Minister Shah. On Wednesday, the opposition parties formally agreed to end their ongoing disruption. However, Harka Sampang was not done yet, once again disrupting the House in protest after claiming that the House Speaker had disrespected him and his party by not allocating them enough time to speak. Speaker Aryal had to admonish Sampang once again. House business resumed once the protest came under control.

Despite Balen Shah’s antics, Lamichhane has been playing the peacemaker. Despite not holding a government role, Lamichhane has been actively reaching out to other parties and attempting to bring them to the same table. While Shah plays the taciturn leader who works more than he speaks, Lamichhane has taken on the mantle of articulate dealmaker. It is an interesting division of roles, one we haven’t really seen before in Nepali politics. Although rumors have been swirling about an alleged confrontation between Shah and Lamichhane for months now, there doesn’t seem to be any real conflict between the two. Both certainly have their own egos, but each seems satisfied, at least for the moment, to remain in their own spheres of influence — Shah handles the government while Lamichhane handles the party.

Recommendations

Graphic reportage: Scenes of the Crime by Joe Sacco, Equator

Event: Nepali Comics: Where We Are, Where We’re Going with Kanchan Burathoki, Prakash Ranjit & Sandeep Badal, June 14, Sunday, Kathmandu University School of Arts, Hattiban

The deep dive: Balen vs the bureaucracy

(Image: Subhin Rajkarnikar)

Last Thursday, June 5, Krishna Hari Pushkar, secretary at the Vice-President’s Office, was detained by the Kathmandu Crime Investigation Office of the Nepal Police for questioning for four hours. Earlier in the day, Pushkar had sent an SMS to Prime Minister Balen Shah’s private number, requesting assistance with a diplomatic posting. Pushkar’s message said that since his retirement was fast approaching, he would not have the opportunity to become chief secretary unless he received “special attention” from the prime minister. Since the government had recently issued an open call for ambassadorial appointments, Pushkar wrote that he had put in his application and asked for “information, guidance, and necessary support.” According to the Nepal Police, Pushkar was taken into custody upon explicit orders from the Prime Minister’s Office for violating the “chain of command” and requesting special favors from the prime minister. He was eventually released with no charges filed.

Although Pushkar’s message was certainly not proper, deploying the police to detain and interrogate him seems like a step too far. If Prime Minister Shah felt the message was inappropriate, he could have directed a member of his secretariat or even one of the secretaries at the Prime Minister’s Office to caution Pushkar. While it does seem like Pushkar was looking for special favors, which can amount to abuse of authority, he hadn’t really done anything illegal yet, and perhaps did not need to be taken from his home at night and held for four hours of questioning.

Despite criticism that Shah was deploying the police in increasingly authoritarian ways, Shah himself was laughing it up. On Saturday night, June 6, Shah posted on Facebook, “I too want to be an ambassador. Can anyone give me the PM’s number?” It was quite tactless of a sitting prime minister to openly mock a sitting government secretary, regardless of whether the message the latter sent was right or wrong. What was even more contemptible was the sycophantic piling on by members of the Rastriya Swatantra Party — Shah’s political advisor Asim Shah, Education Minister Sasmit Pokhrel, and Member of Parliament Ranju Darshana — and Shah’s chaddi buddy Victor Paudel, the owner and operator of Routine of Nepal Banda (RONB).

But the new government’s social media antics are not the story here. The issue really is Shah and his government’s attempts to restructure and reform the bureaucracy, exemplified in this case by Secretary Pushkar. With nearly 20 years of service in the bureaucracy, Pushkar is one of the senior-most members of the civil service, having served in the Finance Ministry, the Labor Ministry, the Federal Affairs Ministry, the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority. Pushkar is thus a member of, to borrow CK Lal’s phrasing, part of the Permanent Establishment of Nepal (PEON).

What Pushkar did — asking for a personal recommendation from the prime minister — was once established practice. Bureaucrats had to please their political masters to obtain lucrative appointments, promotions, and, if they were to have a career after retirement. Numerous former secretaries have gone on to become ambassadors. While it makes sense for a Foreign Secretary to be nominated as an ambassador, the chief secretary and senior secretaries from other ministries are also picked for choice appointments. Lok Darshan Regmi, a former chief secretary, was named ambassador to the United Kingdom and later ambassador to the United States. Similarly, Lilamani Poudyal, another former chief secretary, was appointed ambassador to China. This is, of course, not to say that they were appointed simply for currying favors with politicians, but it probably didn’t hurt that they were politically influential.

These kinds of past practices are rampant within the Nepali civil service. Much like the Nepal Army, the bureaucracy operates under strict deference to authority, but unlike the Army, it shows less respect for the chain of command. Bureaucrats who have close ties to influential politicians tend to move up the ladder faster and receive lucrative postings with high allowances, international travel, or procurement oversight, providing opportunities to earn far more than the standard civil servant salary.

Nepal’s bureaucracy is also one of the most ossified institutions of the state, almost never changing with the times. Progressive legislation and Supreme Court orders often face resistance from conservative bureaucrats. For instance, despite constitutional legislation, Chief District Officers long refused to provide citizenship certificates through the mother’s name. Perhaps this conservatism also has to do with the fact that the bureaucracy is one of the least inclusive organs of the state. According to a 2021 paper published in Prashasan, the journal of the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, the civil service was overwhelmingly male at 74.06% and overwhelmingly Khas-Arya (Brahmin-Chhetri) at 63.5%. Things have improved somewhat since the introduction of quotas in civil service — 55.15% for open competition, while 44.85% is reserved for women, Adivasi/Janajati, Madhesi, Dalits, people living with disabilities, and those from remote areas. According to Nepali Times, in 2024, the share of Khas-Arya in the bureaucracy had declined to 54.42%. Whatever the composition, the bureaucracy has remained ossified.

So, when the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) won its landslide victory in the March election and formed a government under Balen Shah, they were certain to come up against the unelected civil servants who basically run this country. While secretaries have outwardly shown their support for the new government and its policies, many in the civil service, especially senior figures, are deeply disgruntled, at least two serving bureaucrats told me. This discontent began from the very first meeting the newly elected prime minister held with senior members of the civil service. On March 27, immediately after being sworn in as prime minister, Shah held a short five-minute meeting with senior bureaucrats, during which he delivered something of an ultimatum — either help us get work done or get out of the way. No one should be citing obscure laws or regulations to delay pressing work and obstruct ministers, he warned.

This wasn’t an idle threat. On March 15, outgoing interim prime minister Sushila Karki had said as much in an interview with the Rastriya Samachar Samiti. “Bureaucrats have been politicized,” she said. “Secretaries spin every task so that nothing gets done.” Outgoing Minister of Urban Development in the Karki Cabinet, Kumar Ingnam, also echoed the interim prime minister. During his farewell speech, Ingnam called himself a “worthless minister” who didn’t manage to get anything done, largely due to a lack of cooperation from bureaucrats. “I lost, you won. Go celebrate, have a feast,” he said bitterly to the gathered civil servants.

While Shah’s initial meeting already set a sour tone to the new administration, the government’s next actions would further rile up the bureaucracy. Shah announced, as part of his 100-day program of reforms, that he was outlawing politically affiliated trade unions in the civil service, prompting protests from officials who argued that their constitutionally guaranteed right to free association was being infringed. Shah and RSP argued that the civil service had been excessively politicized and that bureaucrats spent more time playing politics than serving the public. Shah called these unions “sleeper cells” for the traditional political parties. Instead of political affiliation, merit and performance would now decide promotions, transfers, and appointments, said the government.

Days later, on March 30, Pratibha Rawal, Minister for Federal Affairs and General Administration, transferred over 60 undersecretaries and other officials of a similar rank to local governments across the country to act as chief administrative officers. Bureaucratic transfers had become routine whenever a new government came in, but this time, instead of shuffling secretaries among power centers, the government chose to depute them to less lucrative positions, many in the country’s rural parts. Over a dozen dragged their feet, lobbying ministers and others to recall their transfers, leading Minister Rawal to issue an ultimatum — move or face departmental action. At least five officials chose to resign rather than transfer.

Now, there are reports that the government is planning to enact a new federal Civil Service Act that will include a one-time provision that will retire any civil servant who has either completed 30 years of service or reached 55 years of age. According to The Kathmandu Post, this law, if enacted, will force the retirement of an additional 10,000 bureaucrats, in addition to the 2,000 who retire every year. Furthermore, the bill proposes reducing the tenure of the chief secretary from three years to two and that of secretaries from five years to three. Nepal’s civil service consists of roughly 150,000 employees — around 85,000 permanent staff and another 60,000 or so temporary contract workers. The proposed law would force roughly 10% of the civil service into retirement all at once.

This proposed law follows the Shah Cabinet’s decision last month to cap the number of federal ministries at 18. Although Nepali law doesn’t mandate a fixed number of ministries, the constitution mandates a maximum of 25 Cabinet members. It is the executive’s prerogative to restructure existing ministries or add new ones, given that the number of ministers does not exceed 25. The Shah government, in an effort to reduce recurrent expenditure, has trimmed the number of ministries from 21 to 18, resulting in fewer civil servant positions.

All of these measures are part of the Shah government’s effort to streamline service delivery and cut expenditure, as outlined in the RSP party manifesto and in the government’s 100-point agenda. Cabinet members critical to this restructuring — Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle and, especially, Minister for Federal Affairs and General Administration Pratibha Rawal — are both in lockstep with the prime minister. But both ministers are new to governance, while Shah has been chief executive before, and that experience seems to be guiding his radical restructuring of the bureaucracy.

While he was mayor of Kathmandu, Shah was embroiled in controversies with serving bureaucrats. In December 2024, a public spat between Shah and Chief Administrative Officer Suraj Guragain led to offices being padlocked, a corruption investigation into Guragain, and employees going unpaid for months. Shah had accused Guragain of “policy-level corruption”, which Guragain denied and instead lodged a complaint with the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration. Shah replaced Guragain with Govinda Prasad Sharma, who himself resigned in just a few days.

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Shah appears to believe that a bloated and politically compromised bureaucracy is one of the many impediments to the work that the RSP government wants to do. He is not wholly wrong. The bureaucracy does need reform. In a 2022 oped for Nepali Times, then member of the National Assembly Bimala Rai Paudyal wrote that most bureaucrats were “unqualified, under-motivated and incompetent” individuals who got to where they are through “perfunctory tests, personal connection, or political affiliation.” She also pointed out the “air of superiority” that many bureaucrats have against the public, the very people they are supposed to serve. Anyone who’s ever been to a government office where a secretary ‘sir’ needs to sign off on your papers can attest to this last part.

The bureaucracy is staffed with old folks mired in old ways of doing things. Without political connections, many have lost their moorings and are afraid they will soon be axed. Culling the herd is sometimes necessary. There are many older bureaucrats who are unable to even use email. But not all bureaucrats are pompous and incompetent; many do the thankless work of drafting bills, drafting reports, conducting oversight, and managing ministerial affairs. These civil servants must be encouraged, which seems to be what Finance Minister Wagle has done in the budget by increasing their salaries by 21%. The Shah government is preparing a lean, efficient, well-paid bureaucracy.

Shah and his ministers are going up against what is perhaps the most powerful organ of the state. Unelected bureaucrats have run things for decades now, always behind the scenes, with public-facing ministers taking the blame for any wrongdoing. Let’s recall last year, when bureaucrats went on the warpath over a proposed ‘cooling off’ period of two years before retired civil servants could take up other public positions. When parliamentarians and ministers did not relent, a secretary inserted a rogue clause into the bill’s final text.

Reform will not be easy. Shah will have to take care not to demoralize the entire bureaucracy. After all, civil servants hold institutional memory and are critical to the functioning of the state. Ultimately, a reform-minded government is taking on an entrenched bureaucracy. Who will come out on top — a seasoned civil service that has absorbed countless directives and weathered dozens of governments, or a radically reform-minded government whose mantra seems to be ‘move fast and break things’?

That’s all for this week. I will be back next Friday, in your inbox, with the next edition of Kalam Weekly.

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In this newsletter:

• Highlights from the federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year

• Pandemonium in Parliament

• Mr Lamichhane goes to Delhi

• Recommendations

• The deep dive: The royal massacre: Anatomy of a conspiracy

Highlights from the federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year

On Friday, May 29, Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle announced a federal budget of Rs 2.21 trillion (USD 13.87 billion) for the upcoming 2083/84 BS (2026/27 AD) fiscal year. Of this, Rs 1,270.58 billion (59.8%) is allocated to recurring expenditure (salaries, pensions, utility payments, travel and transport, and administrative and financial costs), Rs 431.10 billion (20.3%) to capital expenditure (new spending on infrastructure like roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools, purchasing services or machinery, and acquire real estate), and Rs 422.64 billion (19.9%) on financial management (debt repayment and financing, lending to governmental entities, and investment in shares). For comparison, last fiscal year’s budget was Rs 1.86 trillion.

The budget is ambitious in its target of a 7% growth rate for the upcoming fiscal year, even though the government’s own statistics show that this year’s growth rate is just 3.68%. Doubling the growth rate in just a year will require massive investments from both the government and the private sector. Yet there is little appetite in the private sector to increase investment, especially in light of a string of high-profile arrests of influential businessmen. As for public investment, the budget has allocated over Rs 431 billion to capital expenditure, but the full allocation has never been spent. Each year, the government spends just around 20-30%; this year’s capital expenditure sits at just around 30%. The realization of the 7% growth target will depend on this government’s ability to spend the funds it has allocated.

However, the budget is not entirely quixotic; there are significant changes with real consequences, especially for middle-class Nepalis. On the one hand, the income tax exemption limit has been doubled to Rs 1 million (10 lakh) for individuals. Anyone earning up to Rs 1 million a year will now only pay 1% tax. This broadens the tax base without burdening existing taxpayers with higher rates. taxes. On the other hand, the budget has also imposed a 5% Value Added Tax (VAT) on households that use more than 50 units of electricity per month. This seems antithetical to the Nepali state’s transition from fossil fuels to homegrown hydroelectricity. For years, the state encouraged Nepalis to consume more electricity with subsidies on power, electric stoves, and electric vehicles. Now, those who trusted the government and transitioned have been slapped with a 5% VAT.

Furthermore, the budget has also imposed a 3% equity tax on private school education, meaning parents will end up paying more for their children’s private education. Given that the vast majority of students — over 60 percent — attend public or community-run schools, the equity tax seems fair. According to Wagle, the tax will be used to expand nutrition programs and early childhood care for marginalized children, especially Dalits. The 3% tax means that parents paying Rs 5,000 a month for their children’s education will only pay an extra Rs 150. This is roughly what the middle class pays for private school education. For the upper class, which is able to pay over Rs 50,000 a month, the levy will be Rs 1,500, not much for anyone able to afford the initial sum. A similar 3% equity fee has been imposed on private healthcare.

For a finance minister who many assumed would be gung-ho for the private sector, Wagle has presented a very balanced and, dare I say, pro-poor, almost socialist budget. He has announced that the primary aim of the budget is to lift the lower class into the middle class, and that requires the middle and upper classes to pay a little more. It’s a fair argument. And supplementing this pursuit is the budget’s imposition of a final tax on capital gains from shares and from land and property. Short-term traders holding shares for less than a year will pay 10% capital gains, while long-term investors will pay 7.5%. For land and property, the rates are 10% if held for less than five years and 7.5% if held for longer. Again, these rates seem fair to me.

There are other new and innovative ideas in the budget — the establishment of a Maatribhumi Kosh (Motherland Fund) using foreign reserves to invest in long-term strategic sectors like fuel storage and AI factories; a remittance lottery to encourage the use of formal banking channels for remittances; a sovereign AI compute center in Syuchatar; restructuring the Nepal Electricity Authority into three separate companies for production, transmission, and distribution; reduction of customs rates on 273 items while completely scrapping excise duty on 360 industrial imports. All of these ideas warrant in-depth, but we will have to wait and see how they unfold before we begin to assess them. Right now, they are interesting ideas whose success will hinge largely on their implementation.

For a more informed take on the budget, read Nishant Khanal’s article in The Kathmandu Post: Budget 2026-27: Big on ambition, shaky on the math

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Pandemonium in Parliament

For weeks, the media, civil society, and the opposition demanded that Prime Minister Balen Shah address Parliament. Shah quietly refused, not even deigning to provide an explanation. That is, until Sunday, when he decided, apparently impromptu, to answer questions from the House of Representatives. He spoke for just a few minutes, answering questions from opposition lawmakers. But by the end of the Q&A, those who had been calling on him to speak ended up wishing he hadn’t.

Everything was going well. Shah was giving perfunctory answers to questions about the disputed territories of Lipulek, Limpiyadhura, and Kalapani, about the monkey menace across the Nepali mid-hills, and the budget’s imposition of a VAT on electricity. But then, he decided to go off script. First, he remarked that his government had reached out to England to participate in discussions on Lipulek et al. Then, he related to parliamentarians something he said he had learned only recently — that it wasn’t just India that had encroached Nepali land but that Nepal too had encroached on Indian land. This comment ignited a firebomb on social media, with many outraged that a sitting Nepali prime minister had just publicly admitted to encroaching on another country’s territory. Regardless of the nuances, publicly stating such a fact would weaken Nepal’s claim to the disputed territories it was trying to reclaim from India, they argued.

Shah’s supporters tried to explain the faux pas by claiming that he had meant “cross-border occupation” when Shah had clearly used the Nepali word “micheko,” which translates to encroached. After much social media back-and-forth between supporters and critics, the Foreign Ministry released a statement clarifying that Shah had indeed meant cross-border occupation and not that Nepal had encroached on any Indian land. The damage, however, was done. The Indian media and the Indian right wing were quick to seize on Shah’s comment as evidence of Nepal’s illegal encroachment of Indian territory.

Even as social media was in flames over Shah’s comment, Parliament had turned into a battleground. Opposition parties protested Shah’s remarks even as he left the House. Tensions boiled over as members of the Shram Sanskriti Party voiced their criticism a tad bit too forcefully, leading House Speaker Dol Prasad Aryal to ask them to moderate their language. Cameras caught Ashika Tamang, a social media influencer-turned-politician for the Rastriya Swatantra Party, visibly angered by the opposition’s remarks. She had to be escorted out of the House by party colleagues. The drama didn’t end there. Members of the opposition, particularly the CPN-UML’s Ain Bahadur Mahar and the Nepali Communist Party’s Ringla Yadav, climbed onto the tables and launched themselves at Speaker Aryal in an effort to snatch the mic. Things eventually calmed down, but House ushers had to step in to prevent violence.

Meanwhile, Shah left Parliament in chaos and has not commented since then.

Mr Lamichhane goes to Delhi

Even as Balen Shah was tossing fuel on the proverbial geopolitical fire, it would fall to his party chairman, Rabi Lamichhane, to court the Indian establishment. Instead, it was India that courted him. On Monday, June 1, Lamichhane arrived in New Delhi, where he was welcomed by Arun Singh, general secretary of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Vijay Chauthaiwale, head of the party’s foreign affairs department. The next day, Lamichhane visited BJP headquarters, where a shower of flower petals and a red carpet announced his arrival. On Tuesday, he met Nitin Nabin, chief of the BJP, Home Minister Amit Shah, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. On Wednesday, Lamichhane met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who announced the meeting on social media in Nepali. Lamichhane returned home to Kathmandu on Friday.

Lamichhane’s visit to India is significant in more ways than one. First, Lamichhane is chief of the ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP); he is not the prime minister or the foreign minister. India has rarely accorded a similar welcome to prime ministers, let alone party chiefs. Second, unlike traditional parties like the Nepali Congress, neither Lamichhane nor the RSP has any close ties to the Indian establishment. The last time a Nepali politician received such a welcome was when Arzu Rana Deuba, then Foreign Minister, visited India in August 2024. Deuba shares close institutional and personal ties with Indian politicians, particularly Chauthaiwale, with whom she has an almost fraternal relationship. It is clear that the BJP and the Indian establishment are attempting to woo Lamichhane and the RSP after being rebuffed by Prime Minister Balen Shah. In a post-Gen Z Nepal, India has realized the need to cultivate connections with the RSP, a party with an unprecedented mandate for the next five years.

The RSP wave washed away all the older parties, leaving the Indians with no close contacts in the current administration. South Block and the Indian Embassy in Lazimpat are both reportedly attempting to chart these unknown waters. The contacts that they had cultivated over the years — politicians, civil society personalities, and journalists — have all been consigned to the dung heap. Politicians are no longer in power, civil society is hopelessly out of tune with the current ruling dispensation, and journalists have been frozen out by an administration that prefers to communicate over social media. India is thus scrambling to form new alliances and find younger points of contact.

The other major geopolitical actors — China and the United States — are attempting the same, but they seem to be slower to the draw. China appears to be waiting things out, while the US, beset by its own internal contradictions, is insisting on high-level engagements after gutting USAID and other cultural programs that provided Americans with insight and influence over a younger generation of politicians and civil society. Speaking of the US, while in India, Lamichhane also met with Sergio Gor, the American ambassador to India and a close confidant of President Donald Trump. Gor was in Nepal in May and attempted to meet with Prime Minister Shah, only to be rebuffed. Lamichhane, it appears, was much more willing to meet.

It seems that Shah is leaving all of these perfunctory diplomatic matters to Lamichhane and his foreign minister Sishir Khanal. He appears less interested in diplomacy, which requires a lot of posturing, and more interested in domestic matters. This is not a fault. Diplomacy should be the purview of the foreign minister, and the prime minister should not be meeting with all foreign officials, as was the precedent in the past. It might seem like arrogance on Shah’s part to refuse to meet with visiting officials, but maybe it’s just pragmatism. Lamichhane and Khanal handle photo-ops and public diplomacy while Shah gets things done at home. It’s a fair tradeoff. Given Shah’s remarks in Parliament, perhaps he is not cut out for making speeches or engaging in public diplomacy.

Just as Lamichhane departed Delhi, Foreign Minister Sishir Khanal arrived for a three-day visit.

Recommendations

Newsletter: Back up a sec, by Surabhi Pudasaini, Substack

Argument: No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious by Ted Chiang, The Atlantic

Opinion: How can an aspirational Nepal and a rising India reconnect? by Rabi Lamichhane, Hindustan Times

The deep dive: The royal massacre: Anatomy of a conspiracy

(Image: Subhin Rajkarnikar)

by

Twenty-five years ago, on June 1, 2001, Nepal’s royal family — King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, Prince Nirajan, Princess Shruti, and five others — was gunned down in cold blood by Crown Prince Dipendra, according to the official narrative. That tragedy, known as the Durbar Hatyakanda, or the Royal Massacre, forever altered the course of Nepal’s history and politics, marking the beginning of the end of the Nepali monarchy.

Although much is murky about what exactly transpired that June evening at the Narayanhiti Palace, what is certain is that nine members of the Shah royal family — King Birendra Shah, his wife Queen Aishwarya, son Nirajan, daughter Shruti, brother Dhirendra, sisters Shanti and Sharada, cousin Jayanti, and brother-in-law Kumar Khadga — died that night. Crown Prince Dipendra allegedly shot himself in the head after gunning down his family members. After initially slipping into a coma, he, too, was announced dead three days later. By then, he had already been elevated to King Dipendra. Hours after Dipendra’s death, Birendra’s younger brother, Gyanendra, who was absent during the night of the massacre, became the new — and last — king of modern Nepal.

The days following the massacre were shrouded in disbelief, as thousands took to the streets in mourning. Men shaved their heads, women wept openly. Many refused to believe that Dipendra could have killed his own parents and siblings, especially brother Nirajan, whom he was said to adore. For 13 days, the entire country was in mourning. Rumors spread almost immediately — it was the Maoists, who were in the middle of conducting an armed rebellion against the state in 2001; it was the CIA; it was RAW; it was the CIA and RAW working together; it was Gyanendra.

Two weeks after the massacre, on June 14, the high-level inquiry committee led by House Speaker Taranath Ranabhat and Chief Justice Keshav Prasad Upadhyaya, set up to ascertain what exactly happened, submitted its findings to the government in a report that included witness testimonies, along with medical, forensic, and ballistics reports, and Dipendra’s call logs. The commission, citing the corroboration of 13 eyewitnesses, announced publicly that Crown Prince Dipendra, dressed in military fatigues and toting automatic weapons, had single-handedly conducted the mass shooting before attempting suicide.

In the report, witnesses claim that he was under the influence of alcohol, given how he was acting right before the massacre. Testimonies say that Dipendra claimed that he drank whiskey that was served to him. A palace orderly and an aide-de-camp testify that he had requested a cigarette mixed with marijuana and an “unknown black substance”. Paras Shah, Gyanendra’s son and Dipendra’s cousin, speculates that the rampage had to do with a woman that Dipendra was in love with — Deviyani Rana, the daughter of Rastriya Prajatantra Party chairman Pashupati Shumsher Rana. Birendra and Aishwarya had reportedly forbidden Dipendra to marry Rana, leading to tensions within the family.

Despite the official narrative, over the next two decades, speculation over what exactly occurred that fateful night would turn into a cottage industry, leading to book deals, foreign films, and media reconstructions. Many continue to believe there is no definitive conclusion on what happened and who was ultimately responsible. Twenty-five years later, this gaping hole in the national imagination continues to haunt the collective memory of Nepalis.

The seeds of conspiracy

Many Nepalis still refuse to believe that Dipendra could have committed the heinousness he was accused of. When tragedies, especially ones that strike the public imagination, remain unexplained, they turn into conspiracies. Theories begin to abound that purport to not only poke holes in the inadequacies of the ‘official narrative’ but also propose ‘alternative theories’ that claim to establish what ‘really happened’.

Part of why the discourse around the royal massacre has predominantly endured as a conspiracy lies in the schism between how the investigation report portrayed Dipendra — as a merciless, belligerent mass shooter — and his public image — as a well-liked, intelligent prince who excelled academically and was a passionate ambassador of Nepali sports. The proponents of Dipendra’s innocence seem to ascribe to a conception of moral character that holds that people are either capable of committing such acts of gruesomeness or they are not.

However, accounts from those who knew Dipendra in his personal life attest to tendencies towards violence and aggression. Vivek Kumar Shah, Birendra’s military secretary and once an aide-de-camp to Dipendra, claims that the crown prince was sadistic, taking pleasure in hurting both animals and humans. He began smoking cigarettes early in seventh grade and grew to drink heavily and smoke marijuana. Shah also portrays the relationship between Dipendra and his family, especially mother Aishwarya, as increasingly frayed, further exacerbated by their opposition to his choice of bride.

At the time, however, the public knew little of Dipendra’s personal life beyond glowing profiles in the press, which was still constrained by the palace. The image of the royal family was that of a dynasty ordained by divinity, with the king as the earthly avatar of the god Vishnu. Though the 1990 revolution had challenged its infallibility and brought an end to absolute monarchy, the Nepali state and its socio-cultural apparati still stood in deference to the constitutional monarchy, whose members were above the constitution.

During such ambiguous times, people often look at who benefits from the chaos and attention quickly turned to Gyanendra, Birendra’s younger brother, who succeeded Dipendra to the throne. Gyanendra was absent on the night of the massacre. Dipendra had spared Gyanendra’s son Paras while killing his own siblings. Gyanendra’s wife, Komal, was shot and spent four weeks in the hospital battling critical injuries, but ultimately emerged alive. How had Gyanendra’s entire family survived such a bloodbath, many asked skeptically.

Gyanendra’s accession to the throne even sparked protests. Six protesters died from police gunfire during Gyanendra’s coronation on June 4. Many objected particularly to his son Paras, who, just a year earlier, was accused of running down and killing a beloved singer. In interviews conducted by international media in June 2001, Nepalis expressed incredulity that Dipendra might have been responsible and anger that Gyanendra had been crowned king.

The fires of conspiracy were further stoked by the lack of official information from the palace. According to journalist Gajendra Budhathoki, Nepal Samcharpatra, where he worked at the time, and Spacetime Daily were the only Nepali newspapers that reported on the massacre the morning after. Nepal Samacharpatra reported it as a mass shooting, while Spacetime attributed the deaths to a bomb explosion, with neither story specifying who exactly was killed or who was responsible, writes Budhathoki. The next day, on June 3, Gyanendra, as regent, confirmed a massacre at the palace and stated that the deaths were the result of an “accidental firing.”

The palace’s statement and immediate local reporting were contradicted by international news outlets, like the BBC and The New York Times. Between June 2 and 3, the BBC and the New York Times had already reported Dipendra as the perpetrator and primary suspect, respectively. While local media began reporting on the deaths and injuries in the days that followed, they avoided identifying a malefactor. But by June 4, local dailies had begun acknowledging rumors of Dipendra’s culpability, both implicitly and explicitly. Kantipur ran a story by Madhavi Bhatta featuring quotes from Dipendra’s school friends and teachers who expressed incredulity that the crown prince could be responsible. For weeks after the massacre, newspapers ran condolence ads for the royal family, including Dipendra. This would continue even after the inquiry commission identified him as the shooter.

A media bombshell appeared on June 6. In a now-infamous op-ed published in Kantipur daily, then underground Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai claimed that Birendra’s perceived softness towards the Maoists and China had become “an irritation to the American Imperialists and especially to the Indian expansionists,” leading to their orchestration of the massacre. It was a Machiavellian attempt to drum up support for the Maoist movement by aligning King Birendra with the rebels, but what Bhattarai’s letter ultimately ended up as ground zero for the enduring conspiracy that the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) were the primary agents behind the royal massacre. Though this theory has never been substantiated, it remains popular and figures centrally in what is now a multi-generational canon of conspiracy theories.

The same day as the op-ed was published, new King Gyanendra admitted that the palace’s initial attribution of the deaths to an accident was false. He attempted to justify the lie as “influenced by legal and constitutional hurdles,” as the then-king Dipendra would have had immunity against being charged for mass murder. On June 7, one of the survivors of the massacre, Dr. Rajiv Shahi, the son-in-law of Dhirendra, Birendra’s youngest brother, who also died that night, would announce that Dipendra was the sole perpetrator in a press conference, becoming the first eyewitness to publicly do so.

Looking over archives and re-constructing how news of the royal massacre reached the general population in its immediate aftermath, it is not difficult to see why the incident has become a breeding ground for conspiracy. While the palace’s initial decision to mislead the public about the exact nature of the massacre might have been an attempt to protect the institution’s sanctity, the Nepali populace was simply unwilling to give Gyanendra the benefit of the doubt. Nepalis processed Gyanendra’s initial explanation as proof of his dishonesty, complicity, and rapidly diminishing credibility.

The inconsistencies between international and national coverage provided more fuel for conspiracy theories, with many taking the foreign reporting as proof of an “international” cover-up. However, the BBC’s June 2 report, as well as that of other international outlets identifying Dipendra as the killer, attributes the information to then-deputy prime minister and current president Ram Chandra Paudel. The investigation report attests to the fact that the prime minister’s office was among the first to be informed of the killings and the alleged perpetrator.

Accounts from journalists actively reporting at the time, like Gajendra Budhathoki, Rama Parajuli, and Kanak Mani Dixit, paint a picture of a difficult media landscape where information was hard to come by and reporting was dangerous. Kantipur’s editor, Yubaraj Ghimire, was jailed for publishing the aforementioned Baburam Bhattarai article.

While the cornucopia of circumstances outlined above had already made the royal massacre susceptible to conspiracy mongering, the inquiry committee’s findings exacerbated an already suspicious atmosphere. At the press conference announcing their findings, chief investigator and House Speaker Taranath Ranabhat courted ridicule with his onomatopoeic rendition of Dipendra’s discharge of automatic weaponry. The almost-comic bhutututu was seen to embody the inquiry committee’s lack of seriousness. It certainly didn’t help that the investigation itself was shoddy, hurried, and littered with inconsistencies. As is clear in retrospect, if the mere incidence of the royal massacre had already sown the seeds of conspiracy in the Nepali collective consciousness, the manner in which its details reached Nepalis only provided fertile ground for them to take root and sprout.

A flawed investigation

A close reading of the investigation committee report reveals that it is riddled with inconsistencies. One such instance, which conspiracy theorists have latched on to, is Dipendra’s aide-de-camp Gajendra Bohara’s statement that he heard gunshots ringing even after Dipendra’s unconscious body was discovered. If such shots were indeed fired inside the palace premises, they contradict the committee’s conclusion that Dipendra was the sole shooter that night.

Surya Kiran Gurung, member secretary of the inquiry committee, conceded to me in an interview the report’s shortcomings, attributing them to having been forced to conduct the investigation within a limited timeframe amid excessive political and public pressure. Though the investigation report was published 10 days after it was commissioned, Gurung clarified that the committee had been mandated to conduct and conclude the investigation within 72 hours. This made it impossible to conduct more detailed forensic tests that required sending samples to India and further abroad. It also meant that the report’s writers didn’t have enough time to assess and proofread their already rushed work.

Another recurring point of contention is the contradiction between witness testimonies stating that Dipendra appeared heavily intoxicated, to the point that he needed help being escorted to bed and undressing, and royal surgeon Dr Khagendra Bahadur Shrestha’s statement in the investigation report that “alcohol didn’t play a part” in his actions. The report also cited test results on cigarettes found at the site for psychostimulants, all of which came back negative.

Dr Upendra Devkota, the neurosurgeon treating Dipendra after the massacre, later doubled down on the crown prince’s sobriety. According to Devkota, his alleged drinking was a last-ditch attempt by the palace to portray Dipendra’s actions as having resulted from intoxication, a narrative Devkota believed was more respectable than what he saw as a calculated and cold-blooded move. The inquiry concludes that Dipendra had imbibed 1-2 pegs of Famous Grouse whiskey, citing testimonies from his ADC and two additional survivors. Curiously, none of these witnesses claims to have actually seen him consume the drinks. The report further states that Dipendra requested a cigarette mixed with cannabis and another “black substance”. There is no confirmation that Dipendra ever received these cigarettes. The orderly who prepared them testified that he had actually handed them to Paras.

Surya Kiran Gurung does not rule out the possibility that Dipendra could have been pretending to be inebriated, something military secretary Vivek Shah, too, contends. According to Gurung, the committee found no physical or forensic evidence of Dipendra having consumed alcohol or the widely reported black substance. There is speculation that the black substance was a fabrication, again meant to imply that Dipendra was under the influence of intoxicants and not in his right mind.

Much of the skepticism regarding Dipendra as the shooter lies in conflating the improbable with the impossible. Regicides and royal massacres are not exactly rare in history. Nepali history itself is replete with numerous massacres involving the royal family and courtiers, like the 1806 Bhandarkhal Massacre by Bhimsen Thapa and the 1846 Kot Massacre by Jung Bahadur. Furthermore, many have doubts over Dipendra’s suicide, pointing to how right-handed Dipendra couldn’t have possibly shot himself in his left temple. However, studies around self-inflicted gunshots have found that there is a strong but by no means perfect correlation between handedness and the side of bullet entry.

That said, there were no eyewitnesses to the deaths of Dipendra and Nirajan, who were found in the garden, or Aishwarya, who was found by a nearby staircase. That Dipendra shot himself is established circumstantially on the basis of shots heard by witnesses coming from the area where he was eventually found by palace security forces. While Gurung is certain that Dipendra was responsible for the deaths that night, he is less certain about whether the crown prince shot himself. Gurung points to the lack of gunpowder residue and burn marks around the fatal wound, as would likely be present in a self-inflicted gunshot to the temple. This uncertainty could easily have been resolved with an autopsy, says Gurung. However, the investigation report claims that the royal family, allegedly Queen Mother Ratna, opposed the autopsy.

Conspiracy literature and the media

If the first wave of conspiracies around the royal massacre was born in its immediate aftermath, British scholar Michael Hutt has noted a second wave taking form in the late 2000s to early 2010s. A popular genre of speculative fiction about the massacre emerged, with the most popular works being Krishna Abiral’s Raktakunda (2006) and Pardafas (2007), written under the pseudonym Salina Thapa. Though both were marketed as portraying what really happened that night in Narayanhiti, only a single chapter in each is dedicated to the massacre. Both present Dipendra as an innocent scapegoat. While Thapa depicts the royal massacre as a Maoist plot, Abiral’s story has an imposter carrying out the massacre and shooting the real Dipendra.

Though both books were categorized as “historical fiction”, allegedly to protect the authors, both Abiral and Thapa swear to the reader in the book that these are true stories. Abiral has implied in interviews that Raktakunda is a work of non-fiction and characterized it as an ākhyānikaran, narrativization, of reality. He claims that his follow-up novel, Raktabij (2014), which claims that the massacre was coordinated by RAW, is completely factual.

Both Abiral and Thapa use “fiction” to circumvent the established methodological, citational, and evidential standards for a work of nonfiction. As such, both books are dubious in their presentations and should not be seen as unvarnished tellings of historical truth.

The form and content of royal massacre conspiracies have since evolved. A more recent and very popular addition to this corpus is the Nepali YouTube channel In Depth Story’s (IDS) video, ‘Durbar Hatyakanda - Nepal’s BIGGEST LIE?’ This video, between two versions uploaded in mid 2024 and early 2025, has accumulated over four million views. Unlike the literature preceding it, IDS presents its “findings” as journalistic and grounded in extensive primary and secondary research, attempting to collate many strands of existing theories into a single narrative. The video ultimately concludes that the royal massacre was orchestrated by Indian and American intelligence forces, presenting an “alternate theory” where three men donning masks resembling Dipendra shoot through the palace.

However, the information underpinning IDS’ narrative is selectively culled to feed a confirmation bias that has, from the outset, internalized Dipendra’s innocence. Their claims are often rooted in dubious sources, like the widely discredited conspiracy theorist Wayne Madsen and Raktakunda. The video contradicts itself by initially accepting that Dipendra was not intoxicated but later stating that he was killed by mysterious shooters while drunk and asleep.

While these works of conspiracy literature often rightly point out deficiencies in the investigative report, the alternative theories they offer are riddled with even more egregious inconsistencies, contradictions, and double standards. For instance, they conveniently frame multiple witness affirmations of Dipendra’s culpability as unreliable and fabricated while providing no real evidence to support their own arguments of an external shooter. Their interlocutors are always conveniently privy to classified information, but their identities and allegations are indemonstrable. Aware of the royal massacre as a continued point of heated debate, they frequently evoke appeals to emotion over logical reasoning. Most damningly, in the 25 years since the massacre, no reliable witness or source has ever corroborated any of these outlandish claims.

Per these conspiracy theories, the same inquiry committee that was supposedly so inept that it bungled the whole investigation was somehow also capable enough to plan a cover-up so immaculate that it hasn’t been penetrated in over two decades. Even considering the ridiculous and implausible proposition of men wearing masks of Dipendra’s face, the only corroboration from a witness is in a 2008 interview in the Nepali paper Naya Patrika with a man named Lal Bahadur Lamtari, who claims to have been a guard on duty the night of the massacre. He claims that Dipendra was shot six times in the back, a detail that is contradicted by the medical report, which cites an entry and exit wound on either side of his head. This inconsistency is not included in Raktakunda, Pardafas, or the IDS video, despite the latter citing Lamtari’s interview to validate its masked-men theory.

The royal massacre in the collective consciousness

Twenty-five years on, the royal massacre retains a curious place in the Nepali collective consciousness, social imaginary, and public discourse. While the elimination of the first family dealt a debilitating blow to the monarchy, the palace’s conduct in the aftermath, both by disseminating misinformation and by instituting repressive censorship, would prove a fatal error in judgment, imbuing a tangible erosion of faith in the institution.

As the Maoist civil war escalated over the next few years, Gyanendra’s increasingly autocratic attempts to curtail the reforms set in place by the 1990 people’s movement, culminating in his 2005 coup d’état, would prove to be massively unpopular with the general population while also isolating him from the country’s political leadership, effectively creating the conditions that would lead to his ouster. By contrast, the Maoist strategy to posthumously present Birendra as an ally and drum up conspiracies around his assassination seemed to work. They were able to ingratiate themselves with those sympathetic to Birendra while also underscoring their opposition to Gyanendra. It was a crafty play that allowed the Maoists to associate with what the public held as the positive facets of the monarchy while disassociating from its disfavored remnants.

The royal massacre shattered the invincible sacrosanct self-mythologization of the Shah dynasty. In its place came new mythologies where Birendra is a martyr, Dipendra a scapegoat, Gyanendra the villain, and foreign intelligence shadowy and dangerous co-conspirators.

The uncertainty around the massacre has also left a gaping hole in the national imagination where there is no seemingly definite and credible explanation for such a pivotal moment in our national history, only a threadbare set of formal findings. The skepticism directed at the palace and the government has also manifested in a still-prevalent, heightened mistrust of Nepali state institutions.

Realistically, we have probably gotten as close to the truth as we ever will. Even if the investigation were to be reopened, barring an unlikely, dramatic reveal of previously concealed information, its cogency would be compromised by the time that has elapsed. As such, we are left with a multitude of imperfect theories that attempt to explain what really transpired on that fateful night at Narayanhiti Palace. As it stands, the inquiry commission’s version of events seems to be the least imperfect, and that’s not saying much.

That’s all for this week. I will be back next Friday, in your inbox, with the next edition of Kalam Weekly.

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In this newsletter:

• Human Rights Commission releases report on Gen Z protest

• Proposed House rules favors majority for constitutional amendments

• EU Ambassadors meet Balen Shah

• Foreign Ministry calls for ambassador applications from citizens

• Recommendations

• The deep dive: Behind the Kishor Shrestha-Jana Aastha affair

Human Rights Commission releases report on Gen Z protest

On Wednesday, May 27, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) submitted its report on the Gen Z protest in September last year to the government. This is the second report on the Gen Z movement from an investigating body, the first being the Gauri Bahadur Karki-led commission report, submitted to the then Sushila Karki government in March. The report’s broad conclusions mirror those of the Karki commission, placing responsibility squarely on the political leadership and the security forces for failing to adequately prepare and respond to the largely peaceful protest on September 8. The security forces, primarily the Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force, are accused of failing to coordinate and using deadly force against unarmed protesters.

Just like the Karki commission report, the NHRC too has held then prime minister KP Sharma Oli and then home minister Ramesh Lekhak responsible for the carnage of September 8 where 19 unarmed protesters were shot dead by the security forces. Additionally, the NHRC report has held then minister for communication, Prithvi Subba Gurung, responsible, as he was the one who implemented the Oli government’s ban on social media, the primary trigger for the September 8 protest. The NHRC has recommended six months imprisonment, a fine of Rs 300,000, or both, according to Article 249 (2)(c) of the constitution. It further recommends that, if convicted, these individuals be prohibited from holding public office for five years and barred from traveling abroad for three years.

In addition to the political leadership, the NHRC has also recommended departmental action against the then chiefs and senior officers of the Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force, the National Investigation Department, and the Chief District Officer. The government should also initiate an investigation into individual officers who fired upon the protesters, the role of a group of 15–20 bikers wearing black t-shirts with the label “TOB” (Tibetan Original Blood) who incited the crowd to break barricades and attack the Parliament building, and the role of Sudan Gurung, former home minister and founder of the NGO Hami Nepal.

Unlike the Karki commission report, the NHRC has also looked into the events of September 9, particularly Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) chief Rabi Lamichhane’s jailbreak. It has called for further investigation into how Lamichhane was freed during nationwide riots, particularly the roles of RSP members Manish Jha and Hari Dhakal. The report also asks the government to investigate the participation and social media rhetoric of over 30 influential actors — including Karki commission chair Gauri Bahadur Karki, former prime minister Sushila Karki, former home minister Om Prakash Aryal, current Members of Parliament Ganesh Karki, Toshima Karki, Bablu Gupta, Ashika Tamang, KP Khanal, Jwala Sangroula, actor Nishchal Basnet, Gen Z activist Rakshya Bam, Routine of Nepal Banda founder and Balen Shah confidant Victor Paudel, content creator Tanka Dahal, and infamous rabble rouser Durga Prasai — for criminal incitement.

The report is also critical of the role of the Nepal Army, alleging that the army did not respond adequately to requests for assistance from the Nepal Police and Armed Police Force on September 8 and only deployed at 10pm on September 9, after hundreds of private and public buildings had been set on fire and looted. The NHRC has questioned why the Nepal Army failed to protect vital institutions like Singha Durbar and the Office of the President at Shital Niwas despite having battalions stationed nearby. The Army’s Narsingh Battalion is housed inside the Singha Durbar complex, while the Bhairabnath Battalion is located just opposite Shital Niwas. The report further notes that army officials did not cooperate with the NHRC’s investigation as expected.

In contrast to the Karki commission report, the NHRC report is legally binding. Section 17 of the National Human Rights Commission Act mandates that the government implement the report’s recommendations within three months. The NHRC is also subject to international scrutiny under the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review, which assesses the human rights records of all member states. Failure to implement the NHRC’s recommendations could raise serious questions regarding Nepal’s commitment to human rights at the next Universal Periodic Review in four years.

You can read the full report (in Nepali) here.

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Proposed House rules favors majority for constitutional amendments

This past week, the House of Representatives Rules Drafting Committee proposed an amendment to the House of Representatives Rules to make it easier for the Rastriya Swatantra Party government to pass constitutional amendments. The House Rules is a procedural document outlining the rules and regulations governing the functioning of the House. The amendment proposes that a combined two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament should suffice to pass constitutional amendments. This proposal directly contradicts Article 274(8) of the constitution, which states that all amendments must be “passed by at least two-thirds majority of the total number of the then members of both Houses of the Federal Parliament.”

The proposed amendment, even if passed by the House of Representatives, will be challenged at the Supreme Court, which will most likely scrap it as it conflicts with the constitution, which is the highest law of the land. So, it is quite surprising that such a proposal has even been made in the first place, given how blatantly it contradicts the constitution. Members of the Rules Drafting Committee reportedly said that RSP members were insistent on including this amendment, which suggests either that RSP legislators do not understand the lawmaking process very well or that they have nefarious goals. The RSP has a near two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives (Lower House) but no representation in the National Assembly (Upper House), meaning any constitutional amendments it proposes are likely to fail unless approved by the parties represented in the National Assembly.

In April, the Balen Shah government formed a task force to draft a discussion paper on constitutional amendments, consulting with all political parties, government officials, and legal experts. The task force is led by Asim Shah, a former film professional who is now Prime Minister Balen Shah’s political advisor, and includes members of all the political parties represented in federal Parliament. Earlier this week, the task force proposed 54 agendas for broader discussion, including changes to the parliamentary model of governance, the mixed electoral system, and the selection of Cabinet ministers. The discussions will include whether to keep the current parliamentary model, make amendments to it, or transition to a directly elected executive head; keep the mixed electoral system, transition to a full proportional or full direct election; keep the current system of ministerial appointments, or appoint ministers from among experts rather than members of parliament. Discussions are also proposed on changes to the functioning of federalism to make it more effective, administratively and financially. There doesn’t seem to be any discussion on doing away with federalism entirely and reinstating the monarchy, as quite a few conservative parties and actors have demanded.

EU Ambassadors meet Balen Shah

On Tuesday, May 26, ambassadors from 22 member states of the European Union, led by the EU Ambassador to Nepal Veronique Lorenzo, met with Prime Minister Balen Shah. The EU ambassadors were reportedly impressed with the Shah government, noting the historic mandate given to the Rastriya Swatantra Party in the March election. They noted that this was a critical opportunity for Nepal and that Nepal needs to “play its cards well.” Shah acknowledged the responsibility entrusted to him and expressed his desire to “enhance cooperation with the EU and its member states.”

One pressing issue that always comes up with the European Union is the ‘blacklisting’ of Nepali airlines from European airspace. Nepal was placed on the EU Air Safety List in 2013 and has been reaffirmed since. This has prevented Nepali airlines from flying to European destinations, even if they had the capacity. It has been a stain on Nepal’s airline industry, and successive governments have attempted to get off it. However, the EU’s primary demand — that the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal function independently and free from conflicts of interest — has remained unfulfilled. CAAN currently acts as both regulator and service provider, overseeing the airline industry while also operating aerodromes and providing air navigation services. Governments have attempted to introduce legislation to split CAAN in two, establishing a new Air Service Authority to take over its services. Political and partisan interests have prevented the passage of this legislation in the past, but with a new government and a new director-general at CAAN, the EU is optimistic that progress will finally be made.

Foreign Ministry calls for ambassador applications from citizens

On Thursday, May 28, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an open call for all eligible Nepali citizens to apply for ambassadorial positions. Interested applicants can fill out this form on the ministry’s website or even drop off a physical application at the ministry itself. This is the first time that Nepal has issued an open call for ambassadors. In the past, half of all ambassadors were drawn from the foreign service, while the other half were political appointees, often used by political parties to reward loyalists.

The minimum eligibility criteria, as outlined in the Terms of Reference, require applicants to be Nepali citizens of at least 35 years of age; hold at least a Bachelor’s degree from a recognized university; have experience in foreign policy; be fluent in English; must not hold temporary or permanent residency in another country; must not have been declared ineligible for public office or convicted of any crimes; must be free of any conflict of interest, including not working in any non-governmental organization funded by foreign countries; be of high moral and ethical character; and have knowledge of the Vienna Convention. These are the minimum application criteria; the preferred criteria build on them and are more rigorous. The deadline for applications is 1700 hours, June 5.

It will be interesting to see what kinds of applications the Foreign Ministry receives and who is eventually recommended as an ambassador. It is, however, unclear how these open applications will affect the postings of ambassadors drawn from the foreign service. Many members of the foreign service spend years waiting for an ambassadorial appointment, and now others can simply apply and be appointed as ambassadors. That’s got to sting a bit.

Recommendations

Article: Nepal’s forgotten cultural revolution by Sushan Bhattarai, Himal Southasian

Interview: A single film can open a door, but lasting change requires a stronger ecosystem, Abinash Bikram Shah interviewed by Anish Ghimire, The Kathmandu Post

Interview: You must, in some sense, go mad with literature, Vivek Shanbhag interviewed by Parul Sehgal, Scroll

The deep dive: Behind the Kishor Shrestha-Jana Aastha affair

(Image: Subhin Rajkarnikar)

On Sunday, May 24, a Facebook page calling itself ‘Youth of Birgunj’ posted a three-minute audio clip of an alleged conversation between an unknown individual and journalist Kishor Shrestha, the editor of the weekly tabloid Jana Aastha. In the clip, a voice speaking English with a distinct accent tells Shrestha that his “work” regarding former Home Minister Sudan Gurung has been appreciated and offers him a “gift” to be delivered by a “lady” under the pseudonym White Crane. The voice claims that Sudan Gurung is “dangerous” and “not good for us,” and tells Shrestha to continue the good work he has been doing. The voice purported to be Shrestha’s only responds tersely, sounding noncommittal. The audio clip later reveals that the gift was Rs 100,000 and a bottle of liquor.

Shrestha responded to the audio clip with a clarification on Facebook. He admitted that the voice heard on the recording was his, but claimed that the audio had been selectively edited. He further claimed that the leak was part of a plot to discredit him and Jana Aastha, saying he had been repeatedly contacted by Chinese phone numbers using the names Mr. Ying and Mr. M. One of the phone numbers allegedly belongs to an Indian national named Saurabh, who lives in China. Shrestha alleges that this is part of a broader conspiracy to malign Sudan Gurung and establish the narrative that Gurung is unacceptable to China.

The audio clip and the allegations against Shrestha were widely shared on social media, along with CCTV footage of a woman in a mask and sunglasses handing over a bag to an employee at the Jana Aastha office in Sanepa. Shrestha claims that he has reported the entire affair to the police and that the authorities are currently investigating the matter. On Sunday evening, the Chinese Embassy in Nepal responded, saying that China “categorically rejects” the rumors and urging the Nepali authorities to conduct a serious investigation and punish those involved. “We stand ready to strengthen law enforcement and security cooperation with the Nepali side to safeguard the shared interests of our two countries. Let reason and wisdom put an end to rumors,” said the Chinese Embassy.

Meanwhile, a host of journalists and journalist unions have come out in support of Shrestha, saying that the audio leaks constitute an attack on the press. The Federation of Nepali Journalists, Press Chautari Nepal, and even the World Press Council Association variously claim that Shrestha is being threatened, surveilled, and hounded by the authorities to reveal the sources behind reporting critical of the current government. Shrestha has alleged that the authorities are acting under direct orders from Prime Minister Balen Shah, who has held the Home Minister portfolio since Sudan Gurung resigned. It is a little strange that, rather than addressing the ongoing bribery scandal, these unions allege that Shrestha is being persecuted by the state, based solely on Shrestha’s own claims.

But that is Kishor Shrestha, one of the most influential and controversial figures in Nepali media. Shrestha has been a journalist for over three decades, the latter two as editor of Jana Aastha, and in that time, has emerged as the king of the tabloid press, publishing leaks, conspiracies, ‘investigations,’ and everything that the mainstream press will not — or can not — touch. Shrestha is infamous in Nepali political and media circles as someone who can gain access to any information, no matter how closely guarded.

This reputation comes from the monarchy years, when reporting on the goings-on of the palace was out of bounds, except for the occasional glowing tribute to the royals. While the mainstream media dutifully ignored the royals’ bad behavior, Jana Aastha, which was published every Wednesday, reported scandal after scandal. Among the most notorious was the killing of singer Praveen Gurung by a drunken Paras Shah. In 2000, Paras, the son of then-prince Gyanendra Shah, ran over Gurung in his Pajero SUV, killing him. Despite widespread public outcry, Paras was never prosecuted.

Jana Aastha reported on the palace, the Nepal Army, the political parties, and the media, often relying on leaks from disgruntled members of these organizations. This meant that most of its reporting could not be independently substantiated, but nevertheless created a furor. Shrestha, as the weekly’s editor, has been threatened, assaulted, and jailed. But he has never relented, continuing to publish what many would call ‘yellow journalism’.

However, the biggest stain on Shrestha’s career has been the Shreesha Karki affair. In 2002, Jana Aastha published a nude photograph of the 24-year-old actor Shreesha Karki on its front page, under the headline, ‘The colorful nights of film city.’ The article alleged that actors like Karki were engaged in prostitution, with the photograph as proof. Karki died by suicide just a few days later. It later emerged that Karki had been forcefully photographed in the nude by a police officer, which should have been obvious given the pain and discomfort in Karki’s face in the photograph. Actor Basundhara Bhusal accused Shrestha of blackmailing Karki with the photograph and publishing it when she refused to pay him. Shrestha went underground for two years and only emerged after the anger had died down. To this day, he claims that he did nothing wrong except expose the “sleaze in the film industry” and that Karki’s suicide had nothing to do with the publication of the photograph.

In the years since, Shrestha has been rehabilitated. He continues to be seen as an intrepid investigative journalist with sources that no one else has. His brand of tabloid journalism, once popular in the heyday of print media, has not quite declined but has moved online. Shrestha took Jana Aastha online in the late 2010s and has gained a wide following. The kind of news he peddles — akin to what would appear in the British Sun or the New York Post — is easily marketed for the digital space, where allegations and juicy gossip go viral faster than thoughtful journalism.

More recently, Jana Aastha famously published the Gauri Bahadur Karki commission report in full. The Karki commission, formed to investigate the violence and arson during the Gen Z protests on September 8 and 9, had handed its report to the interim government led by Sushila Karki days after the March 5 election. Prime Minister Karki, however, had refused to release the report to the public, arguing that it was the responsibility of the incoming elected government. Before the new government could take shape, the report was leaked in full to Jana Aastha, which duly published it. The new government under Prime Minister Balen Shah tacitly endorsed the leak as official.

Jana Aastha’s recent articles have largely covered controversies surrounding actors in the new government, most prominently Sudan Gurung, the former Home Minister. Gurung resigned in April, after a series of media reports about his wealth and questions over where it came from. Jana Aastha, among others, led the charge in exposing the size of Gurung’s wealth. Last week, Jana Aastha reported on Member of Parliament Krishna Kumar Karki’s alleged affair with a Nigerian woman whom he had abandoned after she got pregnant with his child. The report, though sensational and gossipy, was cited in Parliament, with opposition members demanding an investigation into Karki for bringing shame on the august House of Representatives.

At one point in Nepali history, Jana Aastha and Kishor Shrestha were perhaps necessary evils. The public needed to hear about the sordid affairs and criminal past of the untouchable monarchy. But with the monarchy gone and rumors proliferating faster over social media, Jana Aastha initially struggled to find a niche. Now, it seems to have found a place once again as a new generation of readers discovers its penchant for unsubstantiated, anonymous leaks about powerful people.

But back to the bribery allegations, Shrestha is no doubt a controversial character, but in this instance, there is room for doubt. For a journalist so used to being surveilled by the authorities, it is doubtful that Shrestha would be dumb enough to negotiate a bribe with an anonymous caller over the phone. It is even less likely that he would accept a bribe of just Rs 50,000 and a bottle of Green Label, which is what the young woman left at the Jana Aastha office, and that too at his own workplace under the watchful gaze of CCTV cameras.

The police are investigating, and the truth of the matter will likely be revealed soon. Or perhaps it won’t, like so many other bribery scandals caught on tape. But just the fact that such an allegation is so broadly palatable says a lot about the state of the Nepali media. Sure, Shrestha was never the paragon of ethical journalism, but ‘paid news’ has become so normalized that the allegations are hardly a surprise. That journalists receive kickbacks and bottles of alcohol in exchange for favorable reportage is widely believed by a majority of readers, hence the precipitous fall in trust in the mainstream media.

Add the geopolitical angle into the mix and we have a scandal made for Nepali social media. Foreign embassies offer junkets, training programs, and academic scholarships to journalists and media houses in exchange for favorable coverage. While the quid pro quo might not be so transparent, media houses operate under the assumption that all perks will stop should a critical article appear. So it is not unthinkable that the Chinese, or an Indian pretending to be Chinese, would offer such a bribe to a journalist.

The media’s credibility is fragile, and scandals like these only serve to reinforce the perception that the Nepali media is for sale to any bidder, even those offering Rs 50,000 and a mass-market bottle of Johnnie Walker. Nepal needs serious, critical journalism, but we cannot always rely on anonymous leaks that provide fodder for gossip rather than grounds for investigation or prosecution.

That’s all for this week. I will be back next Friday, in your inbox, with the next edition of Kalam Weekly.

If you enjoyed today’s newsletter, please consider sharing it with others who might enjoy weekly updates from Nepal or consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening from Kathmandu. This is Issue 225 of Kalam Weekly, the only newsletter you need to keep updated with everything happening in Nepal.

The campaign period for the March 5 election officially began on Monday, February 16. The parties can now go door-to-door, hold rallies, and host events to convince voters to su…

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