The Melamchi Drinking Water Project, initiated in 1998 under the Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB), was to be completed by 2006. Yet, multiple deadline extensions later, the project remains incomplete.  The project, meant to be completed within a 17 billion rupees budget when it was started in 2001, has already cost the nation 60 billion rupees (and counting)–much of it in loans. Yet, whether the residents of Kathmandu will be able to use the water from this project is still uncertain.  

The Fast track road that started in 2017 and was to be completed in 2021, has seen several deadline extensions–now pushed to 2027–and the cost estimated at 175 billion rupees has already been projected to rise to a whopping 214 billion rupees. We don’t know how many more deadline extensions the project will need and how much more money will have to be forked out for it.

One of the reasons the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)’s Nepal Compact was taken very positively–and welcomed by a large section of political, economic, business  and media community in Nepal–was because the projects (hereafter referred to as MCC projects) to be jointly funded by the MCC–the US government international development agency–and the government of Nepal would be absolutely free from the ills described above: The frustrating delays, extensions of deadlines, cost overruns and outcomes with no or little guarantee of quality and sustainability. 

In that respect, MCC projects actually stand out as the first initiative in Nepal with a meticulously planned timeline, promising completion within five years. Timely completion of the US$697 million projects–with MCC putting in US$ 500 million and Nepal government contributing US$ 197–is not only expected to break the cycle of delays but also set a new subplot in Nepal’s infrastructure development narrative: Projects can be started on time in Nepal, completed on time within initially estimated budget in Nepal and with financing modality of 60 percent grant and 40 percent national contribution in Nepal.

In other words, if realized on time as committed, the MCC Nepal Compact, with its monumental budget, signifies a departure from the ‘norm’ in Nepal’s project implementation landscape. While other national pride projects are mired in delays, the MCC projects have an ambitious timeline, promising completion within five years. 

As Nepal aspires to shift to developing country status and aims to become a middle-income nation by 2030, the role of MCC projects in developing a high-powered cross-border transmission line will lay robust infrastructure to support its growing energy generation capacity. By 2030, Nepal aims to generate 15000 MW of electricity. The MCC projects can be instrumental in enabling the country to export the surplus power. 

The officials representing MCC in Kathmandu speak of this importance with emphasis. Diane L Francisco, Resident Country Director, Nepal of MCC, emphasizes the multidimensional nature of the MCC Nepal Compact and the need for a whole-of-government approach. “MCC provides grants to governments to support large-scale complex development projects around the world. The MCC Nepal Compact is multidimensional and cuts across various sectors of Nepali life and will take a whole-of-government approach to be successful,” she said. 

Khadga Bahadur Bisht, Executive Director of MCA Nepal, reiterates the commitment to addressing challenges and ensuring the timely completion of the project. Bisht acknowledged the urgency to implement the Electricity Transmission Project and said that MCA Nepal  is working closely with relevant bodies to address technical, social accountability, and regulatory components while exploring avenues for expediting the procurement timeline. “MCA-Nepal remains committed to ensuring the transmission lines are built on time, within budget, and in accordance with MCA-Nepal and MCC’s environmental and social standards,” he said.

Caveats and concerns

Notwithstanding the iteration and reiteration of commitment from both sides, the truth is that the MCC projects are not moving forward at a fast pace needed to accomplish the tasks within the next five years. Nearly two years after parliamentary ratification and entry into force, the MCA Nepal’s report card has mostly the field visits, consultations and surveys as progress to show. As things stand, the land acquisition process is underway but not complete. Compensation process is underway but not complete. At some places affected people are demanding more money in compensation, which could further raise the project costs. Around four billion rupees  has been spent so far, more of it from the Nepali side, according to a report.

MCA Nepal invited bids for transmission line projects but the process became controversial after the bidders quoted exorbitantly high prices. All bids were rejected due to bid prices being substantially 66 percent  higher than the original estimate. As is the case, re-bidding is going to take a substantial amount of time, delaying the project completion.

So the concerns have already started to be raised that the projects might not be completed within the five years time frame and within the said budget. But the potential delays and cost overruns will have ramifications adversely affecting Nepal’s capacity and its ability to implement projects with foreign grants.  Fingers, however, will also be pointed towards the US side for failing to live up to its promises.

Look back at your own words 

MCC projects may be the first ‘most debated’ foreign aid projects in Nepal’s modern history. Until it was ratified, it nearly vertically split the political parties and civil society. It almost became a source of irritant in Nepal’s relations with the US. There were so many geopolitical interests, blame games and war of words around it. Those of the political leaders, including the members of media and civil society who stood in favor of the projects were labeled as  Ameriki dalaals (American stooges).

If Nepali government and political actors and MCC officials look back to what they promised during the time of parliamentary ratification and the days that followed they will probably see what would be at stake if the projects are not completed within the set deadline and at the costs of $697 million.

To assure that the MCC projects have no geopolitical, strategic and military strings attached, there were exchanges of letters between the two sides. To appease the concerns that it could be used as a geopolitical tool, an interpretive declaration was issued. One famous leader went to the extent of saying that if MCC projects would not be implemented within the set time frame, or if  any day they posed any threat to the national interests of Nepal, his head could be tonsured, his citizenship and property  confiscated and he be banished from the Kathmandu valley.

One concern among political parties in Nepal was that the US side might not agree to accept the interpretive declaration. The US side has also addressed this concern by reiterating that it accepts the interpretive declaration.   

Work work work

Good thing is the government actors (including the members of those political parties which were most averse to MCC compact ratification) are advocating for all-out support for timely implementation of by far the biggest US aid project in Nepal.

What is keeping the Nepali side from speeding up the work? Is it because of the lack of cooperation between MCA Nepal and line ministries? Or is there something else to it too? 

It is worthwhile to recall the most recent comments of Nepal’s executive head as well as the finance minister. Speaking at an event held in October this year to mark the launch of implementation for the MCC Nepal Compact hosted by MCA-Nepal,  both Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (who at one time appeared to be most averse to MCC) and Finance Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat (who was the most ardent supporter of the MCC projects) promised that they would leave no stone unturned to complete the projects within the stipulated time frame.  The PM said the government will extend all support for project implementation. “The government of Nepal will do its best to ensure timely implementation of the MCC project,” he said. 

Finance Minister Mahat said that the government will remove all hurdles to project implementation. “We will extend full support from our side for its implementation,” said Mahat. “Government is committed to removing obstacles in its implementation. MCC is for Nepal and Nepali people.” 

But wishes are not horses.  

The objectives laid down by the government of Nepal and the MCC can be achieved only when two sides concentrate on nothing else but work. And work.

But as the work is not moving forward at a speed and in a way that people can feel, we also need to raise some crucial questions to the stakeholders: What is keeping the Nepali side (for that matter the MCA Nepal and also the Ministry of Finance) from speeding up the land acquisition work? Do they have real genuine issues or is there a game of commission going on (it is a common knowledge in Nepal that many Nepali leaders, including the ministers, decide what to do with the projects not based on the necessity on the ground but based on how much they get in commission money)?  Or does it have to do with weaknesses on the part of MCA Nepal? Does MCA Nepal enjoy enough autonomy from MCC? What are points of concrete progress on the ground? Have the all-out efforts been made to speed up the work from both sides?

The MCA Nepal could bring out a report card to inform the people what is underway, what has been accomplished and what is yet to be done.

The success of MCC projects will create a new story in Nepal’s infrastructure landscape and will be a matter of celebration for both sides. Meanwhile, the countdown has started. As this piece goes to the press, MCC and MCA Nepal have four years, eight months and nine days–not full five years. 

Here are other related stories by Mahabir Paudyal on MCC’s Nepal Compact and MCC projects:

Clearing the air about America’s MCC Nepal Compact

What does the Maoist Center want in MCC’s Nepal Compact?

What will Nepal lose if the MCC is not given a parliamentary nod?

What will Nepali Congress do about the MCC Compact?

This is but only one side of the story of Subash Chandra Nembang, known among Nepalis and also  among the international community as the man who contributed to making of the 2015 constitution that made Nepal a federal democratic republican secular state, which charted the new course of polity for the Himalayan republic.

In a commemoration event participated in by ambassadors of the EU, UK, Finland, Norway and other members and representatives of the diplomatic community as well as the UN agencies in Kathmandu on Friday, the speakers shed light on various other aspects of the life and attributes of the chairperson of Nepal’s Constituent Assembly.

“I met him four days before he left us and I was really moved when I heard that he was no more,” Hanaa Singer-Hamdy, the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Nepal, recalled her last meeting with Nembang. “I knew him ten years ago. He was a profound gentleman, graceful, soft-spoken and diplomatic but very firm in his belief,” said Hannah. “I loved his humility.” According to her, Nembang showed an unshakable commitment to democracy and human rights. 

The UN resident coordinator to Nepal lauded his role during the constitution making process. “His leadership role during the critical time of Nepal’s transition and his commitment for consensus building made it possible for all to come together,” she said. She appreciated him for playing a role for women’s empowerment and inclusion. “He contributed to the empowerment of women, the marginalized and the vulnerable community and importance of inclusivity and social justice in building a just and equitable society. His advocacy for the rights of women, minority and disadvantaged groups was unwavering.”

Hanaa said the passing of Nembang has left critical jobs of the peace process unfinished. He was a key person on the ongoing peace process which requires a logical and humanitarian end to the transitional justice process, she said.  “As a resident coordinator I had the opportunity to share favorable views with him. I was always enthused by his patience to discuss in detail about the need and methods of completion of the final leg of Nepal’s peace process.”

This is the job that was left unfinished when he departed, she said.

“It is incumbent upon all of us who believe in justice, including international community, to really see through the process in a way that respects the needs of the international law and practice but also of the law and practice of Nepal, as well as the precedents and the principles set by the Supreme Court of Nepal.”

Tika P Dhakal, a political analyst who presented the paper on life and time of Nembang, said, Nembang had rare quality of bridging the political divides making it possible to bring out the constitution with maximum possible consensus among the political parties represented in the 601-member Constituent Assembly.

“Subasji possessed the rare ability to bridge political divides, maintain nonpartisanship, and exhibit unwavering and unending patience,” said Dhakal. “These qualities proved instrumental in the arduous task of drafting the constitution in the highly polarized environment, with so many parallel and cross-cutting political and social divides.”

Dhakal said that Nembang’s most recent focus as a senior parliamentarian and one of the top leaders of CPN-UML had been to find a solution to the transitional justice process. “He was aware of its political and legal entanglement and was deeply involved till the last in finding a compromise in the amendment bill that was being negotiated between the political parties, with the conflict victims and rights defenders on alert,” he said. “His position was victim-centric, pro-human rights and solution-oriented. He was equally aware of Nepal’s international human rights obligations and the high value of the Supreme Court decisions.”

Bimala Rai Paudyal, former foreign minister and the member of National Assembly, remembered Nembang as a mentor and a guardian. He was the one who could tell us the context and causes of each clause and provision of the constitution, she said. When asked about some controversial clauses of the constitution he would tell us who rooted for such clauses and why they had to be incorporated. “He was a living history of our constitution,” she said.  

Kanak Mani Dixit, writer and journalist, said Nembang was a repository of all the details, the background and context of the constitution writing process. “He knew details and nuances,” Dixit said. “We are now coming in for more turbulence after some time of relative calm because the constitution is being challenged. The best person who can defend the constitution would be him,” he said.  “Constitutions need interpretations.  He could have been our interpreter of the constitution.”

Sushil Pyakurel, the chair of Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation which organized the commemoration event, shed light on the contribution of Nembang on Nepal’s human rights movement. “In 1992, when he was a member of the Upper House he tabled a resolution to form a national human rights commission,” Pyakurel said of Nembang. “His vision was realized in 2000 when the country established the National Human Rights Commission.”   

Nepal-Finland diplomatic relations reached its 49th year this September. How do you assess the evolution of the relations between the two countries?

Nepal and Finland have maintained very close collaborations since they started diplomatic relations in 1974. There has been genuine partnership and collaboration between the two countries where the focus has been on development cooperation.  Finland’s focus areas in development cooperation today are education, gender equality as well as water and sanitation, climate resilience and livelihoods. But we started with forestry.  We are a country with thousands of lakes and a lot of forests. Thus, in a way, it was natural for us to start with that sector.

At the moment, we work in education and water and sanitation, climate resilience and livelihoods, and gender equality and social inclusion.   These partnership programs have been a joint journey of the government of Nepal and the government of Finland. We have jointly planned our work together taking into account the needs of the communities. We are pragmatic and we are striving for solutions. We really value collaboration and partnership. These have been the hallmarks of the Nepal-Finland relations.  It’s about doing and learning together and striving for results. I am happy to share with you that both Nepal and Finland have been working according to this spirit.

Can you enumerate some of the areas in which Finnish assistance has contributed to Nepal’s development in the last 49 years?

 There are some very concrete examples to show in this regard. First, like I said, water and sanitation has been close to our heart. A matter to celebrate for Nepal and Finland on this front is that over two million Nepali people have access to clean water because of the work we have jointly conducted with Nepal. That is one remarkable example. Apart from supporting quality education and teacher training with the government of Nepal, we have built hand washing facilities and toilets in schools. We have also focused on bringing skills and economic empowerment to women.  These initiatives have contributed to the fact that the literacy rate has increased in Nepal. When we talk about the education sector, it is natural for us to lay special emphasis on it because Finland is the example of the country that prospered due to investment in education. We believe that Nepal too can prosper with proper investment in education.

We have been working in extremely remote areas in Nepal. So, we have concentrated very much on work in Sudur Paschim and Karnali and we are seeing the results of our work there. People in remote areas have been building their communities in a very resilient way. We do know and realize that Nepal is very prone to the impacts of climate change and natural disasters.  Therefore, this area requires attention. As such, we have worked to improve the capabilities to respond to increased disaster risks.  And we are partnering with the Finnish Meteorological Institute.   Finnish Meteorological Institute and the Nepali Department of Meteorology and Hydrology collaborate and work together for forecasting, preparedness and sharing and disseminating information and research on impacts of climate change and disaster risks, to improve capabilities and have data  for analysis and planning. It is about preparedness so that the people can learn about the threats and can mitigate the risks. The other area we work on has been on reducing arsenic in drinking water, groundwater problems being mostly an issue in Tarai .

Earlier you mentioned climate change impacts and your work on Nepal. How has Finland been affected by climate change? Or has it been affected at all?

Actually, climate change has impacted us all around the whole globe, which is why we need global action to tackle climate change impacts.  In the case of Finland, we have had warmer summers and also warmer winters, which is completely different from how it was a decade ago or two decades ago.  We have had less ice and less snow in southern parts of the country. I remember that during my childhood I saw more snow and more ice. So the impact of climate change has come to our doorstep too. We also have started to witness weather extremes such as heatwaves, heavy rains and droughts, many uncertainties that have impacted among other things our crops and productivity.  If we, a Nordic country, up north of the globe, are feeling such impacts we can imagine what may be happening elsewhere in the world.

Climate change is  interlinked with biodiversity and it is of utmost importance to address these both challenges through global action. Biodiversity is about keeping our flora, fauna and whole ecosystem rich and diverse. We work with Nepal on climate change because we are in it together.

‘Climate change has impacted us all around the whole globe, which is why we need global action to tackle climate change impacts.’   

At the moment we are very much focused on implementing our current country program for development cooperation in Nepal for years 2021-2024. Climate resilience is one key factor in our work. This requires long term commitment and work. One area I would also wish to highlight is  disaster risk management which is also related to climate change and which we are working on as well, with different partners.

The number of Nepali people going to study in Finland is increasing.  What impressions do the Finnish people in general have about Nepal? How do they perceive our country?

 We Finnish are outdoor, nature loving people. So many Finns know Nepal and the Himalayas. This respect and interest in nature is something that we share. It’s kind of a dream for many Finnish to come here and experience the country and its beautiful landscape. There is something very tempting and mystical in Nepal that is completely different from Finland because we do not have the mountains back home. We have thousands of lakes and a lot of forests instead. 

I would also say that because Nepal has been one of the major partners in our development cooperation, people in Finland have knowledge about this beautiful country and the development cooperation Finland has been committed to. Finnish civil society organizations working here with their local partners and other partners tell a lot of positive stories of Nepal in Finland, which resonates with  many. We tell the stories to the Finns about the work we are doing in Nepal, for example on our efforts on gender equality and school education–which have been the key drivers of the prosperity of Finland.  We see the value and meaning of investing in education and in women and girls both politically and economically because of our own experience and our own commitment.  Finland’s recently published Development Policy Results Report highlights Nepal within the area of development cooperation and it brings out concrete examples of our work.  

So what will be the future initiatives to solidify the Nepal-Finland relations in the days to come?

At the moment we are guided by our country program to Nepal for years 2021-2024 with the focus on education, water, sanitation, climate resilience and gender equality. The planning for our future work after this time period will be done together with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Helsinki. At the moment we are fully implementing the country program and its long-term focus areas.  I also see the possibility of diversifying our collaboration on the economic front as Nepal will be graduating from the LDC status by 2026.

A lot of Nepali students go to Finland for studies. How does your office here facilitate the process?

Indeed more Nepali students are showing their interest to study in Finland. But as a government we don’t have direct scholarships. So, it is much up to the interested individuals themselves to look into the possibilities that different institutions such as colleges and universities offer. We provide general information through the website of the ministry and through our website in the embassy.  We also participate in relevant events with the aim to distribute information. For example, we were in the ‘Study in Europe’ fair organized by the Delegation of the European Union to Nepal in April through which we provided information to the Nepali students who wanted to pursue their higher education in Finland. 

You have been the ambassador of Finland to Nepal for a year now. You have also been traveling to various parts of the country and interacting with people. What are your impressions?

Before I took office here in Kathmandu as the Finnish ambassador to Nepal, I had been working in development cooperation and the human rights field and I had already visited Nepal. So it was wonderful to be posted in Nepal because I knew that we  have a great cooperation portfolio here guided by a great team at the embassy. Professionally it was really a driving factor for me to know that I am going to a place with which we have such a good portfolio and such good collaboration. On a more personal level, the beauty of nature and the majestic mountains and the Himalayas of this country, the whole atmosphere and the depth of this country and the people were already deeply embedded in my memories since I had come here on my field visits.

As ambassador, I have had the privilege to travel around the country and our project areas, especially in Sudurpaschim and Karnali. This has been in many ways the highlight of my stay. Interacting with local communities and people—women, youth and children especially—learning from them and learning from our collaboration has left a very strong memory lane. The people of this country make the difference.

‘Traveling in the country and meeting with local people have really been highlights for me. And the snow-capped Himalayas take my breath away every time.’

Their resilience, their commitment and energy, their lovely spirit and kindness. This I will always treasure. Together with the amazing cultural richness and the snow-capped Himalayas, which really take my breath away every time. 

She then started to work to try to change this situation. And it has paid off. Women are better off nowadays in terms of health than in the past and they are so grateful to her for what she did that they call her Aama, a mother, out of love and respect.

This is but one way of describing Dr Shirley Heywood, 67, the British gynecologist, who has lived and served in Nepal for over 20 years—such a long time Nepal feels like her first home.

It all started after Dr Shirley arrived in Nepal in 2003 for the first time as a fellow of International Nepal Fellowship (INF) International. She started to work in a health camp in Mugu district and what she saw there was so painful, she decided she would work to try to make the life of women better there, come what may.

The turning point was her encounter with an adolescent girl. Married at 13, one year later she had a stillborn baby after three days of labor pain alone at home.The girl had obstetric fistula, one of the most serious and tragic childbirth injuries, which creates a hole between the birth canal and bladder and/or rectum. It is caused by prolonged, obstructed labor without access to timely, high-quality medical treatment. It leaves women and girls leaking urine, faces or both, and often leads to chronic medical problems. 

“It was such an unfortunate situation the young girl was going through,” Dr Shirley told Nepal Live Today in a video conference from London. “She was in this condition because of complications during childbirth.” Normally, doctors in such health camps would refer fistula patients to Patan Hospital in Kathmandu but in her case, it was not possible because she was abandoned by all her family.

It is then that she thought if there was a dedicated hospital to treat fistula in Karnali itself, a number of women there would benefit. But back then, there was a lack of health professionals trained to perform surgery on fistula patients.  What would she do?  Then she went to Ethiopia, under INF fellowship, to take training on fistula treatment. She ran health camps with the support of the government hospital in Surkhet where operation was performed on a number of women. In 2011, she, along with other doctors, was able to perform 56 fistula operations. In one of these camps in Surkhet, the girl from Mugu was able to have the operation which cured her.

But running health camps was not only her ambition. She wanted to build a dedicated hospital for fistula treatment where local doctors could be trained.To that end, the INF continued to lobby and Karnali province availed land to build the hospital.So today, thanks to the initiative by Dr Shirley Heywood and INF, there is a 17-bed Fistula Centre in Province Hospital, Karnali, which can treat up to 300 women annually.

Dr Shirley has worked in major districts of Nepal’s Karnali—Surkhet, Dang, Jumla among others. She learned Nepali language here and speaks it fluently. Her obsession—to work for a cause for over a decade relentlessly can also be described as a positive obsession—to help women get rid of fistula has a strong reason. “Fistula is a very discomforting experience for women, since urine leaks all the time, the women smell badly and they do not tend to report the disease fearing that they would be shamed,” Dr Shirley told Nepal Live Today.

She has been working since 2009 to free women from disease and shame. “This is what I have been doing since 2009. I want to see the women being cured of this curable disease and live with dignity.”

She is thankful to Dr Nuchhe Man Dangal, Dr Bhola Ram Shrestha and Dr Dambar Khadka, the doctors she worked with in Surkhet who lent her all the encouragement and support she needed.

Dr Shirley also worked with the Family Health Division and encouraged the government body to run training on caesarian operation in 2006. “I was so happy when Advanced Skilled birth attendant training began. This was about training medical officers to perform cesarean operations. Nepal had few doctors at that time who could  do CS in remote areas. After the doctors were trained, I stayed in their hospitals for some weeks to help them set up the service in their hospitals.She said. “I have supported health professionals in CS training in districts like Dhankuta, Aghakanchi, Jumla and Baitadi.”

The development and positive changes that have taken place in Nepal’s health sector in recent years, however, have pleased her. “Nepal has made great progress. In every district, you see hospitals equipped with logistics and human resources who can do CS.”

What haunts her most is the memory of the suffering caused by fistulas to women in Karnali. She told of a woman, a fistula patient, whose disease she cured through surgery. The woman was 65. She had given birth to the baby when she was 25. And then she had obstetric fistula. “She came to our hospital. Her first child, the daughter, was already married off.  Her second child did not survive and her husband also died. She could not attend her daughter’s wedding, nor go to her house because her whole body stank,” Dr Shirley spoke of one of her patients. “She lived with that kind of health condition for 40 years.”

After surgery she was cured. Dr Shirley still recalls the sense of joy of that woman after surgery: Now she could sleep on a dry bed, go to visit her children, see her daughter and get reunited with the society. “But imagine the horror of living with disease for 40 years, to be secluded and excluded by the society because she had fistula.  Think about the forty years of loneliness, shame, ostracization and living with disease, being isolated.  You cannot imagine the horror. To see such women receiving treatment and returning home in happiness is a source of great joy for me,” she said.

Dr Shirley believes that Nepal’s communities can work to ensure safe motherhood, which is a precondition to preventing women from fistula. “Safe delivery and safe motherhood are the only ways to prevent women from facing the conditions of fistula. Nepal needs to work on this to ensure that Nepal will be free from fistula.”  This is her dream and from her side she will work for it as long as she can. “As long as Nepal will let me come and allow me a work visa, I will come to Nepal to do the fistula work.”

She has enjoyed working with the doctors and nurses in Nepal, with colleagues in INF and with people of the rural areas and in cities like Kathmandu. She has been fascinated by the country and people. She does not see why such a great country cannot have a robust health care system so that every Nepali benefits from it and is able to lead a healthy and happy life.

Dr Shirley comes to Nepal by raising funds from friends and organizations in England. She then stays in Nepal for up to three years and returns to the UK for about four months again to raise funds. The money she raises is given to INF which then spends it for the noble cause of providing care to the needy people in Nepal.

The people she served in Karnali reverently call her Aama, mother, that fills Shirley’s heart with emotions. “This gives me great joy. It is the most satisfying thing to hear from them.” Shirley was in England for the last few months to take care of her ailing mother.  Shirley, whom Nepalis called mother, lost her mother in July. 

Shirley will now come to Nepal to serve hundreds of mothers here and hundreds of women who regard her as a mother. “That depends on how long Nepal will allow me to come. But my heart is in Nepal and it will always remain there,” said Dr Shirley.

[Dr Shirley Heywood was honored by Nepal Live Group with the 11th Swasthya Khabar Health Award for her contribution to Nepal’s Health Sector on September 8, 2023.]

Dr Arne Drews, a pulmonologist, who lives in Grimma, about two hours drive on the motorway from Berlin, is such a person. Ever since he first set foot in Nepal 31 years ago, he has been contributing to the cause of Nepal’s public health sector, relentlessly and by exploring all possible avenues to contribute to that noble cause.

At 53, Dr Arne reminisces about his first journey to Nepal. It all started with a book. There was this volume Seven Years in Tibet written by Heinrich Harrer in his father’s bookshelf, the cover photo of which displayed the images of monks with big yellow hats. “I always dreamed of going to the Himalayas, the land of those monks, some day,” he told Nepal Live Today from Grimma, Germany.  

The journey started in 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, and the Germans could travel to different parts of the world (Dr Arne’s house was in East Germany). Then he went to the UK, then to the US and then to Nepal. “I wanted to see the Himalayas and those monks. But the moment I landed in Kathmandu in 1992 I saw that there was much more to Nepal than the Himalayas and the monks. I saw that there was so much to discover.”

In Kathmandu, he went to Model Hospital in Bagbazar, where he saw the picture of what Nepal’s health facilities were like. The hospital lacked facilities and required human resources. “If a hospital at the heart of the capital city is like this, what may be the situations of the hospitals outside of the capital, especially those located in remote parts of the country?” Dr Arne thought and he made up his mind. He would do whatever he could to change the situation for the better in Nepali hospitals, especially those in rural areas of the country.  

So he founded Nepalmed Foundation, an NGO working to support Nepali partners in health care, in 2000.  The foundation has its chapters in different parts of the world such as Nepalmed UK andNepalmed Germany, wherefrom funds are collected, which are then given to the local NGO Nepalmed Nepal, which then uses it for supporting the hospitals in need.

Ever since Dr Arne has been putting half of his heart and minds to Nepal though he practices medicine in Germany.

The hospitals which Nepalmed supported have seen changes they never saw before. Take Amppipal Hospital, a government hospital, in Gorkha district. The budget of this hospital is mainly composed of income from treatment and donations from Nepalmed. With the support of Nepalmed several infrastructure projects have been implemented. Roads have been built to connect the hospital with the adjoining villages as a result of which patients from different parts of the district can travel to the hospital with ease and receive treatment. “Otherwise, the patients would have to be carried on doko. Some people would probably not be able to make it to the hospital in the first place,” Dr Arne explained.  

One of the most notable achievements made through the initiative of Dr Arne’s Nepalmed is the health insurance scheme. Initially, it was not easy to convince people to enroll in a governmental  health insurance scheme. So Nepalmed paid for the premiums for the staff of Amppipal Hospital for the first year. The beneficiaries spread the message. Now people have understood how important it is and they are themselves enrolling in the insurance program. “Now more than 90 percent of patients in Amppipal Hospital OPD have health insurance. This is a remarkable achievement for Nepal,” he said. “We first supported them. Now they have understood the importance of health insurance. They have continued it on their own.” 

Dr Arne thinks that health insurance is one of the keys to ensuring the access to health for the poor in Nepal. “I have the hope that this insurance coverage in Gorkha will spread to other districts. Insurance cuts down your out of pocket expenditure for health care, thus contributing to reducing poverty and ensuring that nobody has to suffer for being unable to pay for health care,” he said. “I think health insurance can solve several of the problems.” 

Infrastructure is only one among other areas to which Nepalmed extends its support. Nepalmed provides funds to the hospitals to purchase urgently needed equipment such as oxygen production plants, surgical instruments, x-ray, ct scanner, ultrasound and others. “With the funds collected from various parts of the world Nepalmed helps to improve the environmental footprint of health facilities like installing water filters, solar power and warm water, and waste incinerators. We also work to improve medical quality like creating entire new health posts or new hospital wards and purchasing ambulance services for better pre-hospital care,” Dr Arne said. “We support the Nepali colleagues to improve the facilities. We discuss ideas and help to make them come true.”   

Nepalmed also sends specialists to Nepali hospitals for training courses.  For example, neurologists, pediatricians and dentists have shared their knowledge with their colleagues at Kirtipur Hospital since 2012. Nepalmed also initiates medical courses and conferences. Dr Arne is proud founding member of the Nepalese Respiratory Society and spoke at its 1^st International conference in Kathmandu in April 2023. In the last 15 years, he gave spirometry courses in several provinces from Accham to Dharan. 

Health posts in Solukhumbu and Okhaldhunga where Nepalmed has helped in setting up pharmacies, making buildings, buying equipment, setting up water filter facilities, are other beneficiaries. Apart from that, the foundation has also set up girls and boys toilets in schools as well as school kitchens in the region. 

Dr Arne is a health professional but he is a good writer too. In 2017, he wrote his first Nepal detective story entitled Himalaya Gold: A Nepal Detective Story. Then came Monsoonfollowed by Demons. Three of these books have also been published in Nepali language. Eight volumes of the detective story series, all related to Nepal, have been published in German language already. “The purpose of the publication is to contribute to the health sector of Nepal through charity,” Dr Arne said. “The money coming from the sales goes to Nepalmed, which runs different types of projects in remote areas of Nepal to improve the health care facilities,” Dr Arne further added. “It is in a way a fund writing. I write those stories to generate funds from Germany and then to contribute to Nepalmed.”

The stories of those books are true stories related to Nepal. Monsoon, for example, is about Kamalaris in Tarai districts being sold to the landowners. “It’s always true stories that happen in Nepal. They tell the real stories to the foreign visitors and introduce Nepal to the wider world.” 

Dr Arne has been supporting Nepal through Nepalmed for the last 23 years and when he sees his initiative has helped to change the situation in Nepal’s hospitals it gives him immense joy. “I do not speak Nepali and cannot express my joy to the people in Nepal. And they often cannot speak English and cannot say to me what they want to say. But in our silent communication I express my humble pleasure to be able to help them out in whatever little way I can and they show their immense love, respect and gratitude for me,” Dr Arne said.  “This is the satisfaction for which you have no other substitute in the world.” 

[Dr Arne Drews was honored by Nepal Live Group with the 11th Swasthya Khabar Health Award for his contribution to Nepal’s Health Sector on September 8, 2023.]

“MCC acknowledged receipt of the interpretative declaration last year,” said the embassy. “We agree with the interpretative declaration and consider it to be consistent with our understanding of the terms of the compact, including the prevalence of the Constitution of Nepal over the MCC Nepal Compact.”

The interpretive declaration is an addendum Nepal proposed as an amendment to certain clauses of the MCC Compact before the Compact was ratified by Nepal’s parliament in February, 2022. 

The declaration avers, among other things, that by being a party to the Compact, Nepal shall not be a part of any United States’ strategic, military or security alliance including the Indo-Pacific Strategy, that the Constitution of Nepal shall prevail over the Compact and other associated agreements and that Nepal shall own and fully enjoy all the intellectual property created under the Compact program.

[Also see:MCC Nepal compact: What is in the “interpretative declaration” endorsed by Nepal’s parliament?]

How and why of declaration

Political  parties in power at the time–Nepali Congress, Maoist Center and CPN (Unified Socialist)–agreed on the words of declaration after much deliberation. The US side was sending one after another reminder to Nepal to give Nepal Compact parliamentary ratification by February 28, 2022 but the political parties–Maoist Center and Unified Socialist in particular–pressed for amendment on ‘controversial’ clauses. While some communist forces were outright against the Compact–even launching demonstrations and protests across the country–others looked either confused or non-committal. The Maoist Center–a coalition partner of Sher Bahadur Deuba government at the time–was a more vociferous opponent of ratification without amendment. 

Then there was an open objection from the Chinese–who viewed the MCC as part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy or as a counterbalance to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The US and China openly engaged in a war of words on MCC in Nepal. 

Against this background, some well-meaning minds started to work on the idea that could potentially obviate the geopolitical misgivings the Compact was perceived to have. Then they crafted and forwarded the interpretive declaration to the ruling parties. This is how the interpretive declaration–to which all parties in the government gave a stamp of approval–was born. Without it, the Compact would probably not have been ratified by parliament. 

Back then, however, it was thought of as a face-saving tactic of Nepali Congress, whose president Sher Bahadur Deuba was the prime minister, to woo Maoist Center which was consistently opposing the MCC Compact saying that it was a part of Indo-Pacific Strategy of the US and a tool of the US government to checkmate China in Nepal.

However, the document, which brought ruling political actors together to implement the $500 million  grant project, was/is interpreted differently by different political actors. While the Maoist Center owned up the declaration, some other leaders, in a rather jeering gesture to Maoists, called it a document of the Maoist Center to appease China, which had shown open displeasure over Compact ratification. Many others interpreted the declaration as a face-saving document, not recognized by the MCC, not recognized by the United States and, thus, of no value.

Dr Minendra Rijal, the Nepali Congress lawmaker, said that the declaration amounts to nothing and it only provides an excuse to the communist leaders to hold on to power. “The interpretive declaration does not amend the Compact. And the US does not need to decide whether to accept it or not,” he was reported as saying. “This is only meant for giving face-saving to the communist leaders.” Similarly, Bal Krishna Khand, who was the Home Minister at the time, commented on the interpretive declaration in a rather mocking tone. Khand said “there is nothing in the interpretive declaration which is not there in the Compact.” 

Other Congress leaders like Gagan Thapa, however, attached immense importance to the interpretive declaration.  Speaking in parliament during the deliberations on MCC Compact and interpretive declaration on February 27, Thapa, the General Secretary of Nepali Congress, had said if MCC does not accept the interpretive declaration, the Compact won’t move forward.

After ratification, Nepal wrote to the MCC informing that the Compact has been endorsed by Nepal parliament along with interpretive declaration and MCC responded acknowledging the receipt of the letter along the interpretive declaration though this was not brought to the public knowledge back then–probably the reason why some of the communist leaders in Nepal kept saying that MCC has not endorsed the interpretive declaration.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda raised this matter on August 29–the day MCC Vice President of Compact Operations Cameron Alford was to arrive in Kathmandu to officially kickstart the implementation of the MCC project.  If the interpretative declaration is not made part of the MCC Compact document, the PM said, they would start the street protests. He also said that he would raise the matter with Alford.

Incidentally, the embassy in Kathmandu issued a clarification that the US agrees to the interpretive declaration the same day.  It is not known whether Dahal, or any of his ministers, actually spoke to Alford about this matter.

The same day the US embassy also said the following: “The U.S. government is excited by the progress of the Nepal-led MCC Compact–made possible by continuous support from broader stakeholders, successive governments, and political parties over the duration of MCC’s work in Nepal.” “We are committed to partnering with MCA-Nepal to ensure the successful implementation of the Compact. Everyone involved is diligently working together to achieve the Compact’s goals on time,” the embassy said.

One day later, on August 30, the Nepal government and the MCC exchanged the letter on the Entry into Force (EIF) of the Nepal Compact, paving the way for successful completion of Compact projects within a five-year timeline.

Will it help?

Whether the interpretive declaration will really help in the implementation phase of MCC projects will probably be clear in the days to come as the implementation process has already started. But those who follow the issue closely say that the acceptance of the document by the US side is meaningful. It indicates two important messages, said Chandra Dev Bhatta, who is a Kathmandu-based scholar of political economy of international relations. “This shows that Americans are really serious, committed and determined to push the MCC projects to completion within the stipulated five years’ time,” Bhatta further said. According to Bhatta this also indicates the understanding of the US side about Nepal’s geopolitical sensitivity as well as its internal political dynamics. “It also shows that Americans are aware of Nepal’s internal political dynamics and its geopolitical sensitivity,” he said. “The global superpower seems to have realized the possible consequences it would have on Nepal if Nepal fails to strike a fine balance amidst the fleeting geopolitical tug of war between the US and China.”

Binoj Basnyat,  geopolitical and security analyst who has been an ardent supporter of the MCC Compact since the beginning, called the statement by the US embassy a positive response to countering misinformation and disinformation floating in Nepal about the MCC. “The US sees MCC as a means to help Nepal achieve prosperity and happiness. The outcomes of the compact will be observed in a few years when people will start to feel comfort while the nation will benefit from prosperity,” he said. 

For me, the acceptance of the interpretive declaration by the US side (unless it backtracks) is important for two more reasons.

The interpretive declaration on MCC Compact can also serve as a reference for Nepal to untangle the discord in case any project with geopolitical strings attached has to be moved forward.

First, the non-communist forces in Nepal have been using interpretive declaration as a tool to shame the communist forces.  Perhaps to project them as being more loyal to the US than their communist colleagues, non-communist leaders kept saying that the interpretive declaration is meaningless (the truth is nearly every political leader in Nepal, except the radicalists, wants to cultivate the best relations with the US). In this context, the US side seems to be saying it is not a meaningless document.

Second, it might set a wrong precedent to make a similar declaration for every single big project funded by India, the US and China in the future but it can also serve as a reference for Nepal to untangle the discord in case any project with geopolitical strings attached (perceived or real) has to be moved forward with a political consensus.

Will the interpretive declaration really benefit Nepal and the MCC project? Proof of the pudding is in the eating, says an English idiom.

Government on Friday transferred five Additional Inspector Generals (AIGs) of Nepal Police. Among them was Shyam Gyawali, the Nepal Police officer who was among a key officials to work on the investigation of the fake Bhutanese refugee scam. Gyawali, who was the chief of Kathmandu Valley Police Office, was transferred to the Administrative Department at the Nepal Police Headquarters. 

Several media reports suggest it will not be the end of the story.

The next target will probably be SSP Dr Manoj KC, the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) at Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Department, who leads the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Department and who  is credited for launching and speeding up investigation on the scam and the people involved in it. Yet another target could be SSP Dan Bahadur Karki, head of the Kathmandu Valley Police Range, who is considered to have taken a tough stand against the scam and acted accordingly. 

Gyawali, KC and Karki are known as the officers who not only helped in investigation into the most infamous fake Bhutanese refugee scam but also were instrumental in sending the accused behind the bars.

After the police action, Kathmandu District Court, on June 16, sent 16 accused, including former ministers Bal Krishna Khand and Top Bahadur Rayamajhi and Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, to central jail in the fake Bhutanese refugee scam.

To the chagrin of Nepali Congress, the police team led by SSP KC  had arrested Bal Krishna Khand.

The government’s bid to transfer Gyawali, and possibly also KC and Karki, comes in the wake of the development when as many as 18 additional complaints were filed at Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Department  on fake Bhutanese refugee scam.  The complainants, who hail from Lamjung, Sunsari, Sindhupalchok, Gorkha, Lalitpur, Chitwan and Kathmandu, have claimed that they were duped to pay around 20 million rupees.

Nepali vernacular online portals are rife with the reports that the transfer has been carried out on the behest of Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and his spouse Arzu Rana Deuba.

High level Nepal Police sources told Nepal Live Today that the transfer, which contravenes the standards set by the Home Ministry and Nepal Police which bars transferring officers unless they have served for one year in their respective offices, has been executed with the intention of weakening the cases of the fake scam or to prevent the further investigation into the fresh complaints.

It should be noted that those arrested in the fake scam had also implicated the wife of Balkrishna Khand—Manju Khand—and wife of Sher Bahadur Deuba—Arzu Rana Deuba.

In May, after the major arrest, an audio recording that claimed a large amount of money was paid to Rana and Manju Khand  in the fake refugees scam had become public. The recording claimed that Rana was paid Rs 25 million and Khand Rs 60 million.

Rana quickly reacted and filed a complaint at Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police claiming that the audio was fake and demanding an investigation into the audio recording and action against the culprits.

Investigation, however, had revealed that the voice in the audio recording matched with Sandesh Sharma, one of those arrested on charge of fake scam.

Nepal Police officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the effort of the ruling parties is directed toward saving the big names from investigation and possible prosecution.

“Such an untimely transfer and the pressure of transfer of other capable officers is the indication of how political actors can’t stand Nepal Police investigating the criminal offense independently, especially when the investigation also drags into it politicians close to power centers,” a Nepal Police officer said. “It is clear what they want. They want their people to be spared from the investigation and prosecution. Such intervention on Nepal Police will not only undermine the morale of police officers but also raises the question of what the political actors want. Do they want rule of law or rule by their vested interests for corruption?” 

Criticized, at times, for not taking up the responsibility of  enforcing law despite its proven capacity to do so with adequate sense of urgency and often accused of serving political interests, Nepal Police had earned accolades far and wide for speeding up the investigation on fake Bhutanese  refugee scam.  Police action on the fake refugee scam had also helped rebuild the good image of the country’s primary law enforcement agency entrusted for  effective prevention and investigation of crimes and enforcement of laws.

Narayan Kaji Shrestha, the Home Minister who reportedly expressed reservations over the decision to transfer police officers, had reiterated that there will be no political interference in the investigation process on  fake scam and that the government is committed to bringing to justice everyone involved in the case, without favor or fear. 

“What became of that commitment to keep Nepal Police free from political intervention?” Another Nepal Police officer questioned.

While the fake Bhutanese refugee scam exposed the corruption-crime-politics nexus in Nepal, it has also drawn concerns from the countries where Bhutanese refugees were resettled, particularly the US.  The US State Department spokesperson has already expressed concerns about the “unlawful fabrication of refugee documents in Nepal.” 

At a time when the officials in New Delhi are reportedly snubbing requests from Nepali side to secure time with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make him accept the final report prepared by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) formed by both the governments of Nepal and India, stakeholders in Nepal have expressed deep concerns over the lack of enough prodding on the part of government of Nepal to persuade Indian side to accept the report, while at the same time also questioning the intent of the government of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for paying no heed to acknowledge the report prepared by India-Nepal group of experts after two years of intense research and deliberations.

From former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to EPG members from Nepal side to former foreign ministers and politicians, all have raised the urgency for pressuring the leadership in Kathmandu and New Delhi—prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and PM Narendra Modi— to accept the report.  If neither government is ready to accept it, they said, Nepal’s federal parliament should demand the EPG report from the government and make it public.

The Eminent Persons Group (EPG) report that was jointly prepared by a team of experts from India and Nepal in July 2018  has been gathering dust in a cupboard of Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Singha Durbar for over five years now after the Indian side showed reluctance to receive the report that, experts claim, have recommendations to address all outstanding issues between the two countries. 

The members in EPG included Bhagat Singh Koshiyari (who led the team), former Indian ambassador to Nepal Jayant Prasad, Professor Mahendra P Lama, and BC Uprety from India’s side. EPG panel from Nepal was led by Dr Bhekh Bahadur Thapa with Nilambar Acharya, Suryanath Upadhyay and Dr Rajan Bhattarai as members.

The EPG members were to hand over the report to their respective PMs at the same time as per the Terms of Reference (ToR). Constituted in 2016 when KP Oli was the prime minister in Nepal, EPG finalized its report in July 2018, which at the moment lies locked inside a cupboard in Singha Durbar because apparently the Indian government has refused to accept it, while the government of Nepal has failed to persuade Indian side to accept the report. “The report is in the cupboard of the foreign ministry office. I have the key with me but I don’t want to carry this burden,” said Dr Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, EPG coordinator from Nepal side, adding that he would hold consultations with other members and government and decide what to do with the report.

Looked up to as a vital document that could help sort out nearly all thorny issues–including by reviewing the controversial 1950 treaty of friendship–in Nepal-India relations, it is feared that neither New Delhi nor Kathmandu will own up the report they themselves worked to bring out. Given the reluctance from the Indian side to accept the report and fatigue shown by Nepali leaders even to raise the matter with the Indian side, Kathmandu is watching with concern.

After returning to Kathmandu from his visit to India in June, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said he did not raise the issue of EPG with his Indian counterpart because he did not want to spoil the environment.

Opposition party leaders and scholars have taken strong exceptions to this remark by PM Dahal. 

Addressing a program in Kathmandu on Saturday,  UML chair and  former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli chastised Dahal for deliberately skipping the EPG issue during his India visit. “He had to raise this matter [EPG report] with India. He was told to do so but he did not do so,” Oli said of Dahal. “What’s the point in leading a delegation to India if you cannot even raise genuine issues of the country?”

When asked why the government led by him failed to submit the report, Oli said that, back then, it was decided that the report would be submitted to both the government and the date to submit the report was being fixed. “We were clear that recommendations of the EPG report would be implemented, and the dates of submission were being discussed.”

EPG finalized its report in July, 2018. Oli was the Prime Minister for the second time from February 2018 to May 2021.

Kathmandu calling

Former PM is but one of the prominent Nepali politicians to speak out for the EPG report in Nepal. Earlier on Friday, in a program organized by the Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation in Kathmandu, former foreign ministers who played a crucial role in the formation of EPG said people have the right to know what is there in the report.

Former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa, who was the one to take initiative to form the EPG, said if the Indian government does not want to accept the report, EPG members should submit it to the Nepal government. “If the Indian government does not want to accept the report and therefore the Indian EPG members do not submit it to the Indian government, from our side you should submit it to the government of Nepal,” Kamal Thapa told the EPG members from Nepal side who were present during the discussion.

Also see: Long read | Nepal-India EPG dilemma: To receive or not to receive the report

“It is up to the government whether to make the report public or not but to not to accept the report on its part for the last five years also reflects poorly on the capacity of the government of Nepal,” he said. “Our government should have been able to convince the Indian government to accept the report.”

He heavily criticized Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal for not taking up the matter of the EPG report with Indian counterpart during his New Delhi visit in June. “The Prime Minister said he did not talk about the EPG fearing that India would be angry. Is this the official position of the government?”

Nilambar Acharya, a member of the EPG from Nepal, shared his experience of lobbying for acceptance of the EPG report while he was the ambassador of Nepal in India. He revealed that PM Modi had also once said the report would be accepted. “High level officials admit that the report should be accepted but they always make excuses,” said Acharya.  He said that EPG was formed through the decisions of the governments of Nepal and India and it is the responsibility of the respective  governments to receive the report. “India neither accepts the report, nor says it will not accept the report.” Acharya further said that there is nothing to fear about the report because it is in the best interest of both Nepal and India. “The EPG report is neither anti-Nepal, nor anti-India. The report is in the best interests of both India and Nepal.”

Another EPG member Dr Rajan Bhattarai called on all political stakeholders to be united on implementation of EPG recommendations.

Former Foreign Minister and member of National Assembly Dr Bimala Rai Paudyal argued that the EPG report could be received by foreign ministry level mechanisms if the heads of governments do not accept it.  “As a last resort, the parliament can ask the government for that report and discuss it in house and let the people know what is in it,” said Paudyal.

EPG member Surya Nath Upadhyay attributed the unwillingness on India’s part to receive the report to the gap between India’s attitude towards Nepal and the aspirations of Nepal to redefine its relations with India in the changed context. “India treats Nepal like its satellite state,” he said. “The honest implementation of the recommendations of EPG could benefit both the countries.”

Former Foreign Minister Dr Prakash Chandra Lohani expressed surprise over the silence of Nepali MPs about EPG. “Why do no MPs raise this issue in parliament? Why does the opposition UML not raise the issue? MPs should speak up,” he said.

Former Foreign Minister Pradeep Gywali argued that India’s unwillingness to receive the report indicates either of the two things: That there are no issues between the two countries or that there are issues between the two countries but they do not want to resolve them at all. “The former cannot be true,” he said. While arguing that there is no alternative to redefining Nepal-India relations to reflect the changed political reality, Gyawali suggested that EPG members should seek Prime Minister Dahal’s official stance on the report and submit it accordingly. “There is no point waiting indefinitely to submit the report just because one side expresses its unwillingness to receive it,” he argued.

Gyawali also deplored PM Dahal’s remarks over EPG. “So you will allow your neighbor to stump on your feet and still bear the pain because you fear him?”

After three years, everything she did in Nepal seems like a treasure in her memory. She is going to miss Nepal wherever she will be.

“Are you exaggerating?” I asked during a recent conversation I had with her. “No, I mean it,” she said.  Though she took office in Kathmandu in 2020, her fascination for Nepal is much older.  

“Actually when I came to Nepal as the EU ambassador in September 2020, that was not my first time in Nepal.  I had made a trip to Nepal in 2011 as a tourist with my children,” she revealed. This was much before the 2015 earthquakes and things were wonderful here.  She spent a long time in Kathmandu, the beautiful city of the country, and then she went to Dhulikhel, another beautiful town and then to the Last Resort where tourists do bungee jumping and canoeing.  “I did not do bungee but my children did canoeing. That was my first trip and I enjoyed it immensely,” said her.

So when she came to Kathmandu in 2020 as the EU ambassador she felt privileged and honored. “I felt really honored to be posted in this beautiful country with an exceptionally beautiful natural landscape. I felt lucky to have to come to this country again in an official position,” Nona said. She says that nearly every European knows about Nepal and they want to visit the country at least once in their lifetime. “They know about Nepal as a beautiful country. They have this image of Nepal as the country of Himalayas, friendly people, country with spirituality, the mountains and so forth. They have a positive and special image of Nepal in Europe. And many Europeans want to visit Nepal.”

Seeing the country, meeting the people

During these three years in Nepal she has seen the best of the country as well as some sad affairs.  She received warm welcome from the government officials, the people, the colleagues in the embassy and media people. “I met a lot of people. What is so special about Nepal is that people are very welcoming,” she said.

She visited different parts of the country and interacted with a lot of people. EU has multifaceted partnerships with Nepal. Most of its programs are concentrated in three provinces—Madhesh, Karnali and Sudur Paschim—the provinces where the human development index is low.  “So I traveled mostly to these provinces. I spent weeks traveling to these places, slowing down my car so that I would not miss the beautiful landscape along the way.   I sat in the front seat, opened the window and drove slowly so as not to miss the beauty of the country,” the EU envoy recalled those days.  During those trips she met and interacted with many different people—women’s groups, farmers’ groups, young people and journalists, mayors and deputy mayors, chief ministers and others.  “I found that people are very resilient though their life is hard,” she said.   

Of all the trips and travels, she recalls the one in Karnali with special fondness. She was in the Api Himal Municipality in Darchula district, along with the then Finnish ambassador to Nepal. And she stayed in the house of deputy mayor of the municipality Urmila Bohora. “She was so hospitable, so kind and so friendly. I stayed in her house for two days,” Nona said. Urmila made bread for her in the morning on traditional stoves. The way Urmila fulfilled her duties as an elected representative and as a mother of the household was impressive to Nona. “She had to manage the household works and at the same time fulfill her responsibility as a deputy mayor to the people. She had to walk for two days to meet her people to reach all the wards. I was particularly moved by the hard work she did for the people,” said Nona.

Urmila did not know English and Nona did not know Nepali but yet the bonding was so deep they still communicated. “She did not speak English and we did not speak Nepali but we still communicated. I felt a new sense of human bonding with her.  She opened her heart to us.  Her house was not big and modern, but she made us feel at home there with great hospitality,” Nona recalled her stay at the house of Urmila Bohora. “This Nepali spirit is exceptional.”

Nona has also seen some sad situations during her trip to inspect the EU’s multi-sector nutrition program. During the tour to take stock of this program she met many young mothers and their babies who were stunting and wasting because of the lack of nutritious food.   “Seeing that broke my heart. It is not only about the lack of nutrition but the lack of knowledge about what nutritious food is and what is not,” she said. In this regard, she appreciates the role played by female community health volunteers who are educating the rural women about nutrition. She also saw how women, despite working so hard for the family and children, are still bound to eat as last due to the traditional social practices which make the women as the last in the family and they have to do with whatever little food is left. “They are the ones to eat after all others have eaten up and sometimes there is not enough food left for them. Those who have to bear the burden of the household work, who have to breastfeed their children, are themselves under-nutritioned,” she said.  “They are the ones who have to get the fodder for cattle. Even when they are pregnant they get food at last. This has had adverse impacts on their health as well as the health of their children. Children born of such mothers face learning difficulties later on. Babies born are underweight.” Nona hopes that the EU’s multi-sector nutrition program implemented in coordination with the government of Nepal will help to change this sad situation.

Another sad moment she faced in Nepal was during the Covid-19. When the second wave hit Nepal in April 2021, she saw the suffering of the people during the lockdown. “People were suffering, there were no hospital beds available, there were not enough vaccines and medical equipment. There was a lot of human suffering because of the lockdown,” she recalled the days of Covid-19. So she did whatever she could from the embassy to secure support for Nepal. “We made strong appeals to EU member states to provide medical equipment to Nepal.  I am proud to say that 14 EU Member States through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism provided medical equipment, ventilators, oximeters, vaccines and masks. We supported Nepal through the Co-vax facility as well,” she said. The EU office in Nepal supported hospitals with equipment and trained the health staff how to operate and maintain those equipment. “I am proud that I could do whatever I could from my side to secure support and assistance for Nepal during those trying times.”

Apart from what you mentioned, what were your achievements for Nepal during your tenure? I asked. 

She thinks the assistance provided to Nepal during the Covid-19 was a major one. Then comes the EU’s support to Nepal in programs related to education, gender equality and nutrition sectors followed by the green resilient inclusive development (GRIID) program which is a top priority for the EU in Nepal. Setting up of Youth Sounding Board and programs for economic empowerment of women are other achievements to note. “This is about making sure that we hear the voices of the youth and making our support responsive to their needs,” she noted. Recently over 10 billion rupees assistance in education and local adaptation to climate change was offered to Nepal by the EU. “The EU remains a steadfast supporter of Nepal’s development. There will be more such support for the country in the days to come,” she said. 

Nepal’s future is bright

Nona Deprez will leave Nepal in a few days but she will do everything she can to project Nepal in a very positive way. The main reason she has a really positive feeling about Nepal is because she thinks Nepal has a huge potential in its diversity, nature and people. She thinks Nepal has a bright future but Nepal really has to make important decisions now itself on society, economy and sustainable development because Nepal’s demographic window is closing very quickly. “Youths are leaving Nepal and you have an aging population. This will fundamentally change the structure of Nepali society and even the economy,” she said.

Ten years later, Nepal may be in a completely different situation. “So now is the time for Nepal to take really decisive steps to prepare for what seems like the eventuality with the sense of urgency to implement the constitution meaningfully and to graduate sustainably to the developed country status from LDC status,” she said. In her view, Nepal should work on sustainable and inclusive development and sustainable peace, for the wellbeing of people so that no one is left behind. “If this is done, Nepal has the brightest future because you have a huge potential,” she concluded. 

How much will you miss Nepal?

“A lot,” she said. “Nepal is very close to my heart, the people here and everything about Nepal is so special to me.” Nona has picked some Nepali words in these three years. “Nepal mero man mutuma baseko chha (Nepal is both in my heart and feelings),” she said in a typical European accent. “Wherever I will be after leaving Nepal I will really miss Nepal. This is a very special country and I might not be able to find such a special country again.”

She meant it.

[Related: Then Nona Deprez said ‘India cannot be safe unless Nepal is safe’]

Nepali officials, including the ministers and prime ministers–sitting as well as former–give them unrestricted access and good hospitality, probably to make them feel welcomed and special. 

The most recent stopover of the US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu was no different. Within a day, Lu met with whoever he had to meet–Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, former prime ministers KP Sharma Oli and Sher Bahadur Deuba, foreign minister NP Saud and so on.  All appeared to give him the warmest welcome. One could read this in Lu’s countenance. Nepali politicians and bureaucrats have accorded similar importance to visits by nearly all American officials.

State Department officials’ visits to Kathmandu are more frequent in recent years than in the past. Lu’s was his second trip to Kathmandu within one and half years; several other American officials came here prior to him. 

As Nepal-US diplomatic relations reached 75 years of age last year, Americans are giving the impression that they care for Nepal more than in the past.  They have also reiterated their concern about the sovereignty and independence of Nepal (for how America supported Nepal’s sovereignty read my article ‘Tracking the trajectory of Nepal-US relations’).

On Nepal’s part, politicians project their trip to the US–official or unofficial–as a status symbol. As most politicians, bureaucrats and security officials here in Nepal have their children pursuing higher studies in the US, regular trips to the US also become their family matters.  Nearly every sitting Nepali Prime Minister makes a trip to New York  to participate in the United Nations General Assembly meetings and uses the occasion to meet the US president to take photos with him, even exchange brief talks on the sidelines. 

To sum up, more and more Nepalis–from the top politicians to bureaucrats to security officials to the commoners–go to the US probably more now than in the past–thanks also to the growing size of the Nepali diaspora in the US. No wonder, the US is also referred to as Nepal’s third neighbor, Aakashko Chhimeki (distance neighbor) in Nepali parlance.

One-way traffic 

But there is a conspicuous miss and mismatch here if you consider the number of official or state visits from the heads of governments and states of the two countries. 

Since the diplomatic relations were established between Nepal and the US in 1947, there have been a number of state and official visits to the US from Nepali side. King Mahendra made two visits–one state and other official–in 1960 and 1967 respectively. King Birendra paid a state visit to the US in 1983. It is intriguing that for the next 19 years,  no Nepali government head would go to the US on an official trip. The last Nepali prime minister to go on an official trip to the US was Sher Bahadur Deuba in 2002.  Other PMs’ US visits are limited to their participation in the UN general assemblies–thanks to the spectacle again, Nepalis perceive Nepali PM’s participation in UNGA as their official trip. The photos with the US president helps  establish this perception.

Two decades of absence of official visits by the Nepali head of government was almost going to be broken last year in July.  It was reported then that the US had invited Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba for an official visit. The context was the 75 years of Nepal-US ties, and the ratification of the much-debated MCC’s Nepal Compact by the federal parliament, for which Deuba had provided his steadfast support. But the proposed trip never materialized. Speculations were that the Oval Office dropped the idea after the government led by Deuba took the decision not to go ahead with the State Partnership Program (SSP), considering the perceived security implications it would have for the Himalayan nation. 

Who came to Nepal in the last 75 years from the US? You have only few big names to name: Vice-president Spiro Agnew in 1970, former president Jimmy carter and his wife in 1985 (on a vacation trip), Hillary Clinton in 1995 while she was touring South Asia as the first lady, Colin Powell, Secretary of State, in 2002 and Jimmy Carter in 2007 and 2008 as former president and founder of the Carter Center.  

Save this, most officials to come to Nepal have been either assistant secretaries or deputy assistant-secretaries. 

In the 75 years long history of the Nepal-US relations, while Nepali heads of state and government have taken the official trip to Washington a number of times, not a single sitting American president has come to Kathmandu.

This one-way traffic, or the absence of reciprocity, has created an unwelcome gap in the Nepal-US ties.

Contrast this with the history of presidential and prime ministerial visits to Nepal from Nepal’s neighbors and other friendly countries. Nepal hosted Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in 1957 and 1960, Deng Xiaoping in 1978 (as a vice premier), Zhou Ziyang in 1981 (as vice premier) President Li Xiannian in 1984, Premier Li Peng in 1989, President Jiang Zemin in 1996, Premier Zhu Rongji in 2001, Premier Wen Jiabao in January 2012 and President Xi Jinping in October 2019. High level exchanges with India are probably more regular and more frequent than with any other countries in the world. 

Nepal hosted Queen Elizabeth in 1961, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1987 and German President Roman Herzog in 1996. Missing in this big list is the president of the US. Probably because no sitting American president has ever set foot in Nepal, some think Nepal is part of India  and mispronounce Nepal as nipple. 

Remaking history 

It’s no brainer that the US president is among the busiest heads of states in the world and it requires a lot of homework from both sides to plan for and materialize the president’s visit to Nepal.   There are issues of security, and agendas and priorities to show. Ambassadors have to work really hard to make high-level visits possible. Dr Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, who was the Nepali ambassador to the US in 1983, recalls how (with wisdom and diplomacy) he worked to materialize the state visit of King Birendra to the US(Nepalko Kutnitik Abhyas, Institute of Foreign Affairs, P 168-170).

When ambassadorship becomes something of a reward a political party pays to an individual for his/her party affiliation (most ambassadors are appointed on the basis of political affiliation rather than merits in Nepal), and also involves exchange of kickbacks, we can imagine what they would do after being appointed. There is no way of knowing if any sitting US ambassador in Kathmandu ever thought about bringing their president to Nepal, or even considered it a worthwhile initiative. If they have not, our ambassador based in Washington and the US ambassador based in Kathmandu have ignored a matter of huge significance in the Nepal-US ties.

Admittedly, here is a catch in Nepal. Nepal’s government instability is a distinct phenomena–the Prime Minister who meets the president today may not be the PM six months down the line. And with weak institutional memory the new one might not follow up the agenda pushed by his predecessor.  Again, there is a label that each PM comes to be tagged with–so and so man is pro-China or anti-US and so on. 

Needless to say, relations between the two countries are not only about the presidential visits and exchanges and it should not be only about this either. But,again, not every such visit has to be loaded with hard agendas. Such visits can also be made to show a good will, a sincere friendly gesture, and to display the closeness of relations. Such visits show how importantly one country treats the other and their friendship and mutual respect for each other is not limited to diplomatic rhetoric. 

When the US sends only assistant secretaries and deputy secretaries to Nepal like it has been doing for the last two decades, the claim that the US attaches immense importance to Nepal sounds like mere rhetoric. 

It would not be impossible to materialize the US president’s visit to Nepal if the officials in Kathmandu and Washington really want to make it happen. There is no reason for any sitting US president to skip a trip to Nepal–the country that lies between more resourceful, stronger and geopolitically influential neighbors in Asia. Nepal is probably the friendliest country for the US in South Asia which, despite some unwanted aberrations, has strived to cultivate the best of the relations with the US, India and China, carefully guarding itself against falling into the self-damaging geopolitical trap that the US and China have set for each other. 

Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ will probably meet US President Biden in the UN General Assembly in September this year and will probably take a photo with him. He may (or may not) extend invitations–former secretaries I talked to said Nepal has not failed on extending official invitations to the US presidents.  When the US sends only assistant secretaries and deputy secretaries to Nepal, like it has been doing for the last two decades, the claim that the US attaches immense importance to Nepal sounds like mere rhetoric. It rebuilds the perception that the US still looks into Nepal through someone else’s lens, rather than through its own independent policy on Nepal. 

While addressing a program to mark the 75th year of Nepal-US diplomatic relations in Kathmandu in April 2022,  Randy Berry, the then US envoy to Nepal, made some glowing remarks about the Nepal-US ties: “We recognize that America is stronger when Nepal is stronger, that Americans are healthier when Nepalis are healthier, that America’s sovereignty will be stronger if Nepal’s sovereignty is strong and resolute.” Indicating that there would be more engagement with Nepal he said “the best is yet to come.” 

That ‘best’ can come in the form of breaking the record of no sitting president visiting Nepal. Every sitting US president makes an official trip to New Delhi every four years. Joe Biden is reportedly going to come to New Delhi in September this year to participate in the G20 Leaders Summit. 

One goodwill trip to Kathmandu would make new history in Nepal-US relations. 

I was thinking I would not write it, for two reasons. First, I pinned big hopes on some political leaders in the past and they shattered my hope. In 2010, I wrote that Baburam Bhattarai should become the prime minister. Those were the early days of my column writing and I would look for what attracted more public attention. At the time, Baburam Bhattarai was the talk of the town–he had completed his first stint as the finance minister in the first Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government. The euphoria and expectations from the Maoists were high. As the finance minister, Bhattarai was said to have performed well. 

The second person I relied on was KP Sharma Oli. The way he defended the country and tried to keep the morale of the people high during the 2015 blockade, his attempts to end the sole dependence of Nepal in trade through one single country, and his stand for territorial integrity of the country touched a chord with me. I got totally disillusioned with him after he dissolved the parliament twice in a row—and made the third unsuccessful attempt. There may have been a great geopolitical game behind the scene to dethrone him from power (hopefully the truth will come out one day) but on hindsight only if he had taken Madhav Nepal (whose greed for power has been about nothing more than securing ministerial berths for some three lawmakers from his camp) into confidence, he would probably be able to serve his full term. 

These two incidents have taught me two big lessons. First, in Nepal you should begin by doubting every leader before believing in them. Second, our opinion about certain leaders is true only to the context in which you are making the opinion. The next moment the situation changes and the person you expect so much from either falls into the corruption nexus, or becomes totally inept, or becomes totally non-performing.

So what I write about the person in the title is true for now, for this context.

Reason to endorse

Why do I endorse Swarnim Wagle? Why should he win?

Not because he is a PhD, for there are many other PhDs in Nepal. Not because I know him very well. My knowledge about him is based on his interviews with Nepali press. I know a little about his family history–which is immaterial anyway.  Nor because  he joined the Rastriya Swatantra Party, the RSP still appears to be a political party in the making. The biggest challenge it faces is in becoming different from other political parties in behavior and conduct. Whether the entry of people like Swarnim Wagle and Ramesh Kharel will make any difference is only a matter of guess but thanks to some of its lawmakers, there already is some hope they can be the voice of the people.

Wagle is an economist, a desirable qualification for a prospective lawmaker to have at a time when the alarm bells are ringing about the impending collapse of Nepali economy. Wagle’s test in Nepal parliament, when he wins, will be whether he will be able to forward workable solutions to ameliorate our economy. But Sri Lanka has already recognized his worth. It invited him to the parliament in April last year to speak on what could be done to repair the country’s completely-broken economy. 

Sri Lankan lawmakers relied on the expertise of a Nepali lad who rose to eminence from a humble family background of Gorkha more than his erstwhile colleagues from the erstwhile party–Nepali Congress. 

I want him to win for far more serious reasons.

One, Wagle rebelled against the thoroughly corrupt and immoral leadership within the Nepali Congress and spoke out against the corrupt nexus–something Nepali media and critics have not much cared to take up with urgency.

Prateek Pradhan was an exception. He exposed the corrupt nexus sustained by Congress leadership in December last year. According to him, a son of a Congress leader got 15 ropanis of land in Pokhara registered in his name in return for granting election ticket in Kaski. Extortion in millions for appointments in ambassadorship and other vital positions is a common story in Congress, according to Pradhan.

Wagle spoke out against this ‘grand larceny’ racket thriving in Nepali Congress under the patronage of big bosses. And he  named the names: Sher Bahadur Deuba and his wife Arzu Deuba.  

The way Congress leaders are hounding him including through attacks on his personal life–studying abroad, having lucrative jobs in the UN agencies and so on–is the indication that Budhanilakantha will flex all its muscles–money, propaganda and narrative setting and whatever else works–against Wagle. The battle on April 23 in Tanahu is going to be between all parties in the government (around 10) plus opposition CPN-UML versus an individual and RSP. 

Within Nepali Congress, there is no soul-searching, no worries about the party becoming a patronage of grand larceny.  The immediate reaction from the Congress cadres  was loaded with envy and anger against Wagle’s personality: He speaks English well, he knows politics and economics and international affairs better than us.

We need a man with excellent communication skills and knowledge on geopolitics and geoeconomics at the time of this great geopolitical turbulence.

Congress cadres and apologists are speaking of Wagle joining the RSP as an act of opportunism, a political crime, a betrayal. They only have to look back to the November 2022 elections.

Congress allowed the biggest opportunist to win by guile, deceit and deception.  They allowed the man whose misguided war—which was mainly targeted towards the butchery of Congress cadres—whose political misadventure pushed the country years back, who has blood of hundreds of people, many of them Congress cadres, on his hands, who, ever since he came to power, has only been the cause of instability and who, by trickery, deceit and foul play, has always been a major actor in making and breaking coalitions, who, with just 32 seats in parliament, has been able to make parties with as many as 89 and 78 seats (Congress and CPN-UML respectively) dance to his tune–to stay forever relevant in politics. He is the Prime Minister of the country today precisely because Congress surrendered and sacrificed its principles and ideologies to his whims and wishes.

Swarnim Wagle has done no harm to this country.

Message matters

Wagle may win or may not win. He might or might not be able to deliver as per our expectations after winning the election. But both his victory and loss will have implications and messages far and wide across the political spectrum in Nepal.

The very rise of RSP as the fourth largest national party from November 2022 elections, within the span of six months of its formation, was the loudest alarm bells to the old parties such as Nepali Congress, UML and Maoist Center. The message of votes for RSP was clear: For the last several decades you misruled the country. We don’t trust you any more.

These political parties should have taken this message as a warning, which it was, for them to make amends to their modus operandi. Instead, they jeered at the members of the new force, tried to dismiss RSP as a bubble and waited for it to fade away. They still believe they will be relevant without accountability.

Top leadership in nearly all the established political parties show no respect for those who hold different opinions. Those who challenge the leadership are either cornered or situations are created in such a way they do not feel welcomed in the party any more or they are forced to make an unceremonious exit. Wagle’s electoral victory will challenge this age-old assumption with the leadership that they are the masters and cadres are their vassals. 

We want political parties which are accommodative, which recognize the merits, expertise and credentials of leaders rather than considering who is close to which particular ringleader of grand larceny and for how long.

Swarnim’s victory will give a message that a capable candidate can rebel, quit and rise to a dignified space by contesting elections from another party. 

If Wagle wins, it will be  a blessing in disguise for those Congress leaders who speak of ideologies, reforms and leadership change. Well-meaning Congress reformists who speak about the malpractices and wrongdoings of the leadership will be able to speak more loudly.  Swarnim’s victory will give a message that a capable candidate does not have to stick to the same party by suffering humiliation and insults. S/he can secure a dignified space by contesting elections from outside the party too. 

It will also boost the morale of those Congress leaders who have been persecuted (denied election tickets, deprived of dignified positions in the district and central committees for example) or who have not been allowed to rise in politics simply because they have no money to pay to the party bosses. 

Such a message will hopefully resonate across the political parties.

His loss will have an opposite effect. It will further embolden the party leadership to be authoritarian, non-accommodative and extractive. The leadership in whose hands Wagle suffered insults and humiliations will further be emboldened to corner and silence the legitimate voice of reforms within the party. 

All eyes  in Nepal are waiting to watch what the conscience keepers of Tanahun-1 will choose.

What is alarming about the line of the recent debate is the implied message:  We are not capable of fighting war with any powers in the world, therefore we do not need to have an army at all. This fringe notion misses larger historical, geopolitical and social contexts. This narrative also presents the Nepal Army as if it has no role to play for the country, as if it is only a resource-gobbling institution.

We will be making a big mistake if we lose sight of what Nepal Army did for Nepal in the past and the potential role it can play to safeguard the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, if/when these two vital arteries of the nation come under threat. It is true that Nepal Army has not fought any wars in the last several decades and hopefully it will never have to but let’s not forget its contributions, take note of what it has been doing and what it will have to do in times of unforeseen eventualities.

Not an idle force

Nepal Army is not an idle force as many of us tend to think. Nepal Army is a frontliner during the times of disasters and crisis. It stands at the forefront to provide vital relief during floods, earthquakes, avalanches, fires, landslides, air and other transportation disasters. Nepal Army soldiers have been there in rescue missions, medical assistance, evacuation, air rescue, mass evacuation, flood control among others. The draining of a  dangerous lake by the Nepal Army had become a global news. Besides, some of the infrastructure projects we have today were constructed by the Nepal Army. According to the data of Nepal Army, they include the Kharipati-Nagarkot road, the Trishuli-Somdang road, Katari-Okhaldhunga road, Hile-Leghuwaghat road, Salyan-Musikot road, Surkhet-Jumla road, Baglung-Beni-Jomsom road, Drabya Shah Marga, Satdobato-Niwel-Balua road, Gorkha-Mankamana road, Gorkha-Aarughat-Orkhet road among others.

Besides, since 1975, Nepal Army has been on the ground to protect forests and national parks. According to NA data, some 8000 troops protect forest areas which has contributed to saving rare species. Its ‘Mountain Cleaning Campaign’ is invested in collecting tons of garbage from mountain areas including Everest. Its contribution to the UN peacekeeping is a well-known story. In the process, Nepali peacekeepers also stand as the goodwill ambassadors of peace and Nepal’s non-aligned foreign policy.

In other words, they are the ones who reach out to the sites of the disasters first of all, they are the ones who rescue people from floods and landslides, they are the ones to keep our national parks and wildlife protected.  They have reached from the top of the world to the far corner of Africa.

Historian Sardar Bhim Bahadur Pandey writes in Tes Bakhatko Nepal that Nepal’s Army institution was pivotal in saving this nation from various external attacks— through the gallantry and tricks–during the war with colonial British in 1815 and the war with Tibet-China (1792).

In the 70s, Nepal Army successfully disarmed the Khampas, which had become a geopolitical thorn in the flesh for Nepal in the 70s. Most recently, Nepal Army prevented Nepal from being further ravaged by the misguided people’s war of the Maoists.  

What makes the Nepal Army stand out from other security forces so far is that it is relatively free from political interference. The generals are not picked and chosen like it is done with the police chiefs and their deputies. Former Army officials say this is the key strength that has kept the prestige of the institution intact. “Promotions in Nepal Army are done through the defined policies and standards. Officials are promoted based on their merits, experience, service duration and performance,” said Suresh Sharma, who in the past served as the spokesperson of Nepal Army. “That tradeoffs happen in promotion is inconceivable within the army. Nepal Army conducts its activities as guided by the Nepal Army Act, approved by Nepal parliament.”

According to him, the government itself tasks Nepal Army in various development works, mainly track opening in remote and hard geographical terrain of the country. “It is not the Nepal Army which urges the government to award them such projects. It is the government which invites Nepal Army and assigns them particular projects where no other alternatives exist.”

Attempts had been made by the Maoists to politically influence the institution.  One goal of the Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ after he came over-ground was to integrate as many PLA cadres as possible into Nepal Army—at least 20,000—to prepare a ground for capturing the national defense force and eventually the state. This plan became public after the secret videotape was leaked in 2009.   Political leadership of the time handled the situation well and foiled this plan.

Prachanda made the second attempt to politically influence Nepal Army in 2009 when he sacked the chief of Army Rookmangud Katawal when the latter resisted the plan to integrate nearly all of 20,000 politically indoctrinated PLA soldiers into Nepal Army. His plan to sack Katawal and install a general of his choice at the top of the Nepal Army hierarchy was foiled by President Ram Baran Yadav, the supreme commander in chief of the institution.

Retired Nepal Army officials recall this incident with trepidation.

 “If the attempt of Prachanda to sack Rukmangud Katawal and install Kul Bahadur Khadka in his place had become successful, it could destabilize and politicize the army institution,” said Prem Singh Basnyat, retired brigadier general and the author of books on military history of Nepal. “If that design had succeeded, Nepal Army would not remain an apolitical institution as it is today, it would probably be Maoistized (maaobadikaran),” he added. “Political leaderships have tried to politicize the Nepal Army but the Nepal Army leadership has so far been able to resist such attempts. Which is why people trust it more than other institutions.”

Just in case

What is happening around the world is scary. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not seem to be going to end any time soon. The world is divided—with the West siding for Ukraine, and other big powers either staying neutral or silently supporting Ukraine. Back home in South Asia, China and India appear to be friends at one moment and foes at other moments. There is a real fear and concern that Nepal could be squeezed into this great geopolitical game.

Purna Silwal, major general (retired) of Nepal Army and the author of the book Nepal’s Instability Conundrum: Navigating Political, Military, Economic and Diplomatic Landscape put it in better terms. “Geopolitics is veering towards competition and conflict. We don’t know what will happen in Taiwan, for example, or when another world war will begin,” he said. “We are on a slippery slope. The strength of the military and defense budget is being increased worldwide as well as in South Asia.”

Silwal argues that Nepal should be really concerned about the ongoing geopolitical tensions. It is Nepal’s official position and commitment not to allow its land to be used against neighbors and friendly countries. “If, for example, one power attempts to or does use our land against another, then words will not be enough.  Nepal Army will be a key to prevent the external aggressors from our land in such a situation.”

“Therefore, we need a stronger, more equipped, more professional and more resourceful Nepal Army,” he said.

Nepal’s geo-sensitive location is such that it could be dragged into the conflict that it has absolutely no role to play in its genesis and development. The African proverb that ‘when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers and they make love it is again the grass that suffers’ has always been relevant for Nepal. Now the number of elephants in geopolitics is more than two.  

As a state not aligned with any security umbrella led by any big power or bloc, Nepal will have to take care of its defense by itself in case of the worst eventualities.

Nepal is not aligned with any security alliance or led by any big power or bloc. It will have to be self-dependent for its defense in case of eventualities. Every sovereign and independent nation keeps its own army keeping such potential risks in mind. 

A Survey of Nepali People 2022  shows that Nepal Army is the most trusted institution in Nepal—with 91 percent people trusting it, while only 44 percent people trust political parties and 51.6 and 56.2 percent people trust provincial and federal government respectively. 

That unprecedented level of trust must have come out of the belief that the institution is still impartial, apolitical, and the last bastion of defense for national security. It is up to the Nepal Army how to keep this reputation intact but the government and political leadership have no less role to play.

[Photo credits: Twitter handle of Nepal Army Spokesperson]

First of all, why Study Europe Fair 2023? What was the objective of the fair?

European Union Delegations organize “Study in Europe” fairs across the world, in order to showcase what higher education in Europe has to offer to students worldwide and provide information about study and research periods in Europe. We also provide information about the Erasmus+, the EU’s program supporting students from EU and partner countries across the world to study in Europe. We used to organize “Study in Europe” Fairs in Nepal, before COVID and it was a pleasure to be able to meet potential students in person.

What was the level of participation from Nepali students? What did you observe?

Seven hundred persons had registered online for the 2023 edition of the “Study in Europe” fair. We observed that they all spoke English and sometimes other European languages. Many of them already had a degree and seem keen to study abroad. In other words, they were serious candidates and we believe we will be able to follow-up and support them with their respective academic projects.

In your view, what attracts the Nepali students to go to Europe for studies?

Studying in Europe is particularly attractive to Nepali students because of the extensive choice of bachelor’s and master’s courses, doctoral study programs and more. It is a unique opportunity to gain international experience, skills and knowledge. It is also an opportunity to explore diverse languages and cultures in a welcoming, social environment. Lastly, in Europe, we believe in providing free quality education and we also offer scholarships to cover the costs of education for European and foreign students. This is particularly attractive for students with limited financial resources.

In what way was the education fair this year different from that of the past?

This year’s “Study in Europe” fair was not very different from the previous editions. There were 11 booths from 10 EU Member States (Austria, Czechia, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Romania) and the Erasmus programme. We hope to attract more Member States and more visitors for our next edition.

In your view, how does an event like education fair help to enhance Nepal-EU relations?

The European Union shares many values with Nepal and one of them is the importance of education. For this year’s fair, we chose to reproduce a quote by the 16th century Dutch philosopher and humanist, who declares that “the main hope of a Nation lies in the Proper Education of its Youth”. Like Nepal, the European Union’s main resource is its people. By supporting Nepal’s education and by providing opportunities to Nepali students to acquire new skills and broaden their horizons, we think that we are providing the best kind of support. It also helps develop enduring ties between Nepal and the European Union.

Any final words?

We are already planning our next edition of the “Study of Europe” Fair, which we also hope to take out of Kathmandu to reach students in other provinces. So stay tuned and if you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Delegation of the European Union to Nepal.

[Related: Then Nona Deprez said ‘India cannot be safe unless Nepal is safe’]

When Samantha Power said that Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda—then with CPN-UML as a main coalition partner—would be invited to participate in the event, it was even thought he would visit the US to participate in the event face-to-face.

Prachanda did participate virtually and did deliver some four minutes of written speech, in his typical Maoist style Nepali accent, which is fine.

Prachanda is the second prime minister from Nepal to address the Summit for Democracy. In 2021, Sher Bahadur Deuba had addressed the Summit virtually by reading out the written statement.

Ideally, Nepali PMs speaking in the global forum is something to celebrate for Nepal and Nepalis. Such global platforms, if wisely used, can be real opportunities to project Nepal in a positive light, raise its international standing and communicate Nepal’s concerns with the rest of the world.  The audience and participants, if not all people, at least know more about the Himalayan nation.

But their words in such forums are not mere words, they are the words to be recorded and archived.

What is concerning is that both Deuba and Prachanda told flagrant lies to the world during their respective addresses, on very sensitive issues, and yet their lies went largely uncovered.

Prachanda rightly said there is 41 percent of representation of women at the local level and overall 33.1 percent representation of women in provincial assemblies and federal parliament. But he told flagrant lie about the transitional justice process. “Nepal’s home grown peace process has been a successful example. To complete the only remaining task of the process an amendment bill related to the transitional justice process has been presented to the parliament,” he told the world leaders.  “The content of the bill captures the spirit of comprehensive peace accord, ruling of the supreme court, relevant international commitments, concerns of the victims and ground realities.”

Nothing could be far from the truth. The amendment bill has been heavily criticized by the civil society, victims’ family, international rights bodies and various victims’ communities for its apparent attempts, and even intentions, to give amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes committed during the war-era (1996-2006). The victim communities have said ‘no’ to this bill and demanded revision.

Sher Bahadur Deuba, who addressed the first Summit for Democracy in December, 2021, seems to have set a precedent for Dahal in misinforming the world about transitional justice and corruption. “We are fully committed to zero tolerance against corruption,” he said while in truth there was no commitment nor any actions from the government to punish the corrupt while he was the prime minister. In fact, his tenure was marked by financial crime, misrule and serious misconducts. “Our homegrown peace process has been unique and provide successful example of peaceful political transformation.”  One would agree. But consider this: “We are committed to transitional justice. We will move ahead with the amendment bill in compliance with the Supreme Court ruling and in consultation with the victims.” This particular statement makes the mockery of injustice done to the transitional justice process by political leadership, most notably the leadership from Nepali Congress and Maoist Center—the parties which ran the government in 2021 and which run the government today as coalition partners.

“Democracy must address people’s livelihood and their desire for better life,” Deuba said. It sounded like a cruel joke then and it sounds like a cruel joke today.

When the USAID administrator Samantha Power was in Kathmandu in February, she was of the view that the second Summit for Democracy would be an opportunity for Nepali Prime Minister “to take stock of the reforms and implementation of the commitments that were made at the last summit.” 

Like his predecessor (Deuba), Prachanda used it as an opportunity to hide the home truths.

The actors in the United States may not have been convinced by what Deuba and Prachanda told them for the 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices published by the United States Department of State point out what is wrong with Nepali democracy—including on human rights, transitional justice, corruption and so on.

Nepalis cannot be convinced by what Deuba and Prachanda told the Summit for they know what the ground realities are and many of them do not know about Summit for Democracy at all.

A survey conducted in August and September 2022 to measure public perceptions of the Summit for Democracy showed that only 25 percent of the respondents are aware of it and they showed limited trust that the commitments made in 2021 could help address the challenges that Nepal faces.

Only Deuba and Prachanda may be convinced by what they said, for they have been running the show for several years without a slightest sense of realization that they need to act as per the ‘everything is right with Nepal’ story they tell the outsiders.

Is there a global forum that also warns the Nepali political actors of the consequences when they willfully mishandle democracy and turn it into kakistocracy?

Nepali people are more frustrated today than they could ever have been with the political leadership.  They are leaving the country in droves every single day because large majority of them think Nepali democracy has been for a handful of leaders by a handful of leaders and of a handful of leaders. 

Is there a global forum that also warns them of the consequences when they willfully mishandle democracy and turn it into kakistocracy?