What Oli said at Columbia
On Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli's discussion program at Columbia University
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening from Kathmandu. This is Issue 158 of KALAM Weekly, the only newsletter you need to keep up to date with everything happening in Nepal.
In this newsletter:
Parties rally against Lamichhane, call for arrest
Protests against Prime Minister Oli in New York
The Deep Dive: What Oli said at Columbia
Parties rally against Lamichhane, call for arrest
Last week, I wrote about a parliamentary committee’s allegations against Rabi Lamichhane, chair of the Rastriya Swatantra Party. His detractors falsely claimed that he had been implicated in fraud and embezzlement, while his supporters also falsely claimed that he had been cleared of all charges. The truth was that he had been implicated in using misappropriated funds, not fraud or embezzlement, but also not cleared of everything.
For context, Lamichhane has long been accused of misappropriating funds from several financial cooperatives owned by one GB Rai into Gorkha Media, the parent company of the Galaxy4K television network of which Lamichhane was managing director before quitting to pursue politics. The media, especially Kantipur Media Group, has led the charge against Lamichhane, accusing him of being directly involved in illegally siphoning funds from the cooperatives into Gorkha Media. However, a parliamentary probe committee, which submitted its report last week, did not find Lamichhane’s direct involvement in the embezzlement; it only implicated him in using said funds. Read more here:
All the national parties in Parliament are now reportedly in agreement that Lamichhane should be arrested and prosecuted. The report implicated three others: GB Rai, the primary architect of the fraud, Kumar Ramtel, and Chhabilal Joshi, both associates. Rai is currently on the run, reportedly in Malaysia, while Ramtel was arrested in September. Joshi, a former Deputy Inspector General of Police, was arrested on Sunday and remanded into police custody for investigation. Only Lamichhane remains free.
While I believe that the media has treated Lamichhane unfairly, I also believe that he should face the law. However, it should be clear what Lamichhane is accused of. The media continues to report that he has been implicated in fraud and embezzlement, but that’s not the case. If he is accused of employing misappropriated funds, then that is what he should be investigated for and charged with. The Rastriya Swatantra Party cannot continue to proclaim its chairman’s full innocence. As a board member and managing director, Lamichhane is responsible for due diligence concerning the investments coming into this organization. Any investigation and charges should reflect this allegation, not ones leveled by the media with circumstantial evidence.
Protests against Prime Minister Oli in New York
Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba are currently visiting the United States for the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly. While Rana Deuba attended various UN meetings and addressed forums on women in leadership and reproductive health, Oli met with USAID administrator Samantha Power and also spoke at the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University on Monday. He is scheduled to address another discussion forum at Harvard University on Friday. I did a deep dive into the discussion with Oli at Columbia. Read more below.
But a planned discussion program with the Nepali community in New York had to be canceled due to “security threats.” Although the Consulate General in New York initially claimed that the event was postponed due to Oli and Rana Deuba’s busy schedules, it eventually came to light that the reason was security in the face of planned protests by the Foreign Department of the Rastriya Swatantra Party and Indigenous groups who wished to protest Oli by displaying black flags. Oli and other leaders have recently become very wary of public protest. Since Oli and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba were booed at a public event in August, fear seems to have taken hold.
Interestingly, Republica daily issued an editorial condemning the planned protests. The editorial falsely claims that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “receives a grand welcome from citizens of Indian origin, without facing any opposition or hostility.” Even a cursory Google search would’ve brought up numerous protests against Modi by Indian Americans. But that’s beside the point. In the US and Nepal, peaceful protest is a right guaranteed under the constitutions of both countries. Contrary to the Republica editorial, it is not “insulting” or “disrespectful” to protest a publicly elected politician, no matter who they are. It is very worrying when the media itself favors curbing the right to free speech and peaceful protest.
That’s all for this week’s round-up, as we have a long, long read. The Deep Dive continues after the break below.
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The deep dive: What Oli said at Columbia
The last time a Nepali prime minister addressed the World Leaders Forum was in 2017 when Sher Bahadur Deuba spoke. That address was a poor showing. Deuba barely looked up from his notes during the introductory speech, and during the Q&A with the audience, he appeared to struggle with answers, out of breath and stammering. His answers weren’t terrible, but his performance largely overshadowed them.
So, this time, I thought I would take a closer look at KP Sharma Oli’s Columbia University address. Unlike Deuba, Oli is an orator. In Nepal, his speeches are populist and filled with jokes, asides, tangents, and idioms. He keeps the crowd engaged and laughing, even if he says very little of substance. Even when he insults and belittles his political opponents, he does so humorously, and the crowd goes along, not quite processing what was just said. But these are qualities of his Nepali speech and I wondered if they would translate into English. Oli hasn’t given many speeches or interviews in English. In 2018, he spoke and answered questions at the Asia Society in New York, and in 2021, he spoke to two Indian television networks — WION and Zee News, the former in English and the latter in Hindi. These last two interviews exemplified Oli’s particular brand of eclectic folksy rhetoric. Oli recited Sanskrit slokas and referenced history, mythology, religion, geopolitics, India-Nepal relations, and colonialism, outplaying notoriously combative Indian journalists like Palki Sharma and Sudhir Chaudhary.
Those interviews, even if conducted with Indian outlets, were meant largely for his home base. They came in the wake of Nepal’s endorsement of a new pointy map that included the regions of Lipu Lekh, Limpiyadhura, and Kalapani, which India also claims. With India upset at Nepal’s nationalist chest-thumping, Oli put on a show, earning praise from Nepalis who commended his handling of the “condescending” Indian media. This posturing served Oli well and burnished the nationalist credentials he had cultivated during the 2015 Indian blockade.
The Columbia address, however, comes at a different time. Oli is in a comfortable position. He is prime minister in a coalition of the two largest parties in Parliament, and there are no significant domestic or foreign irritants at the moment. The pointy map remains studiously ignored by all, even Oli, and his closest political rival, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, is in no position to challenge him. Thus, Oli could speak to an international audience without playing to his domestic base. The reaction on social media, however, has been mixed, but honestly speaking, it wasn’t such a bad speech and Q&A.
Oli, like Deuba, began by narrating a brief history of Nepal, from Prithvi Narayan Shah to the present-day federal set-up. Oli promised that the two parties in his coalition — his CPN-UML and Deuba’s Nepali Congress — were “committed to providing exemplary governance with [an] impeccable standard of integrity and transparency.” He was comfortable speaking in English, and during his opening speech, he looked around at the audience, pausing at opportune moments to let his words sink in. He had none of Deuba’s fidgety, discombobulated energy.
There wasn’t much to comment on in that defiantly nationalist summation, so let’s discuss the Q&A portion, which was much more enjoyable. The moderator of the discussion was Jenik Radon, adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, whose comment that he was “instrumental and honored by being a drafter of the Interim Constitution” has created some controversy in Nepal among those who believe that a “foreign hand” was behind Nepal’s recent constitutions and its transition to federalism and secularism.
Radon asked the first few questions before taking more from the audience. His first question concerned how Oli’s government would address the yearly out-migration of over a million Nepalis, at least 100,000 of whom were students. Oli’s response made light of that massive figure, saying that most Nepalis who go abroad tend to return. He wasn’t wrong, since most migrants leave on temporary work visas to Malaysia and the Middle East. However, most of those 100,000 students, the educated and skilled class, are the ones who don’t return. To keep them here, Oli claimed that the government will “create job opportunities and support entrepreneurship.” He said that his government would create start-ups and support entrepreneurship, playing up a program where students can get loans for small businesses against their education certificates. He admitted that “facilities” in Nepal weren’t on par with those abroad but outlined no plans to improve university infrastructure and provide quality education. Instead, his response was limited to platitudes.
Let me refer to Radon’s third question before his second one since they are related. He asked why student entrepreneurs should join Oli in Nepal. It was a poorly worded question. I don’t know if Radon meant Nepali students who are entrepreneurs abroad in places in the United States or just entrepreneurs in general, and why they should choose Nepal for their businesses. Oli responded that there are opportunities in Nepal before pivoting to a strange tangent about how America became developed not because it was rich but that it became rich because it is developed. He didn’t mention cutting down on Nepal’s notorious red tape, bureaucratic inefficiency, or rampant corruption. Not to mention the constant political changes that make doing business inherently tricky.
Then, Oli pivoted again to how “we cannot run away from our problems” and we must face them, and that there must be rule of law and that rule of law must be a “just rule.” Oli said, “There must be opportunity not just for a small chunk of people but for all. And the benefits should also be distributed equally.” On that last note, I agree with Oli but his governments, past and present, have done little to ensure a “just rule of law” or that “benefits are shared equally.” Oli, like most other politicians, holds his party members to a different set of laws, and any “benefits” remain limited to a small coterie of businessmen and politicians.
Radon’s second question was about climate change and hydropower. He remarked that Nepal was blessed with hydropower but that the glaciers were melting and that Nepal’s “major resource would not be with you.” I found this question, too, misguided. There are more significant threats from glacier melt and climate change than hydropower generation, as we recently saw in Solukhumbu, where a glacial lake outburst led to a flood that swept away much of the village of Thame. Oli didn’t talk about that either. He instead went on about the importance of mountains in maintaining the ecosystem and how forest fires contribute to the melting glaciers, inadvertently downplaying the effects of climate change. Instead, he spoke about how, after harvest season, farmers burn hay, which creates smoke and leads to pollution. This pollution is “salty and acidic,” and when it collides with the mountain, the ice melts. This was another strange tangent that had little to do with the question asked and displayed a lack of understanding of climate change. Oli attributed the recent heavy pollution in Kathmandu — which led to Kathmandu being the world’s most polluted city for a week or so — to fires set by farmers when, in fact, the pollution was due to massive forest fires across the country, which could be linked to a warmer, drier climate amidst a delayed monsoon.
I don’t know if Radon meant to ask Oli easy questions with the understanding that students would ask harder ones, but his line of questioning and subsequent moderation was lackluster. As someone involved in drafting the interim constitution, he surely knows that Nepal has backslid much since that document. Even the 2015 constitution removed many of the progressive provisions in that interim statute. Oli especially has opposed many of those provisions, including federalism, secularism, and inclusion. Radon didn’t even hold Oli back from his ramblings to answer specific questions from the audience. It was disappointing.
The first set of questions from a Nepali student in the audience squarely asked what Oli and the numerous governments he has led for decades have done to stem out-migration. Then, the student asked why Oli and other elderly politicians refused to step aside and allow the youth to run the country. There were two more questions on Nepal balancing India and China, and what steps the government would take to prevent mass migration from Nepal’s rural towns and villages. Radon summed up these questions to Oli but blunted the force of the first question. The student had specifically asked why Oli and his colleagues were unwilling to step down from party leadership and allow younger members to lead. Radon instead lumped this specific query with the rural out-migration question and allowed Oli to ramble on about how Nepalis needed to love their country like a mother and how youth needed to face their problems, instead of running away.
The question about handing power to the youth was ignored, either deliberately or inadvertently, and Radon, the moderator, did not press Oli either. This question is vital to the interests of the youth who are sick of seeing the same five elderly men leading government time and time again. This is why they’re voting for upstarts like Balen Shah for mayor of Kathmandu and electing the newly minted Rastriya Swatantra Party to fourth position in the federal parliament.
The remaining questions were geopolitical, with students questioning how Nepal would balance its two giant neighbors, how it would continue to cultivate close ties with India in the wake of the 2015 blockade, and why it had abstained from the recent vote in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Oli’s responses were milquetoast, but that was to be expected, given that Oli was speaking at Columbia and not Nepal. He ignored references to the 2015 blockade and stressed dialogue and discussion. “We have to talk to them frankly, candidly, openly, share our views with them and through a discussion, dialogue, we can reach a [common] point,” he said. However, Oli didn’t miss the opportunity to pay lip service to Nepal’s “glorious” past, reminding the audience that Nepal had no independence day since it was never colonized. He also blamed irritants with both neighbors on the fact that they are our neighbors and it is only natural to have “contradictions” with those close to you. Classically, he resorted to an amusing analogy to hammer in the point: “If you sleep with someone, then they may put their leg on you, but if you sleep in separate beds, no problem.”
As for the Israel-Palestine question, Oli stuck to the middle, saying that while Hamas attacked Israel, which was “not a good thing” but in retaliation, Israel was “destroying innocent children,” the elderly, patients in hospitals, and those who were not involved in the war. Again, he recited the tried and tested “we are the land of Buddha” and proclaimed that Nepal is “always in favor of peace.” “Our ideology is peace, harmony, tolerance, coexistence. Our fundamental foreign policy is friendship with all, enmity with none. We are a neutral country, a non-aligned country. We don’t tilt to this or that side,” he said. That might be true in a superficial sense, but it has long been clear that Nepal swings wildly from side to side depending on which government comes to power.
Oli didn’t directly answer why the Nepal government’s position had suddenly changed regarding the Palestine vote. Nepal has always consistently voted in favor of recognizing Palestine, condemning Israeli excesses, and advocating for a ceasefire. Still, in the most recent vote to condemn Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, Nepal abstained. I don’t think Oli could’ve elaborated on this change in position even if he wanted to. But to even condemn Israel’s excessive retaliation and cold-blooded murder of innocents has to be commended. This is far more than what many Western countries, including the United States, have ever said in public forums. Any slight criticism of Israel by most Western countries is always followed or preceded by the phrase “Israel has a right to defend itself” as if it were some magical mantra. At least Oli didn’t resort to that. However, it was an opportune moment to bring up the fact that Bipin Joshi, a Nepali student, is still being held hostage by Hamas. As I’ve said consistently, free Palestine, free Bipin Joshi!
In all, Oli’s performance at Columbia wasn’t terrible, and it wasn’t impressive. Oli’s apparent confidence was refreshing in contrast to the discomfort evinced by so many Nepali politicians when in foreign lands. But Oli’s answers were limited to appearance. He didn’t speak much on substance and didn’t stay on point, something that the American public is probably used to by now, given that long, rambling non-sequiturs are the hallmark of their current Republican candidate for president.
This interview also leads me to question why we can’t have Q&A sessions like these in Nepal anymore. BBC’s Sajha Sawal used to host these sessions with politicians, but that program has been off the air for some years. Perhaps universities like Tribhuvan or Kathmandu University could host similar programs with local politicians and visiting ones. If Oli can speak at Columbia University, why can’t Narendra Modi speak at Tribhuvan University?
Oli will be speaking at Harvard tonight. Let’s see how he does in that discussion program.
That’s all for this week. I will be back next Friday, in your emails, for the next edition of KALAM Weekly.
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