Off the Record 129: How many Nepalis are fighting for Russia?
Issue 129 • 16 February 2024
It’s February 16, 2024, and you’re reading Off the Record.
I’m Pranaya Rana and in this newsletter, we’ll stop, take a deep breath, and dive into one singular issue that defined the past week.
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Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening from a conviction-happy Kathmandu. Once again, more high-profile individuals have been convicted of corruption and sent to jail. But before we get there, a short note on the newsletter. We have 30 new subscribers this week, so welcome to all of you new readers. I’d also like to shout out Dixant Rai for becoming a new paid subscriber. Thank you and I hope others will join too. Don’t forget to share this newsletter with others if you think they’d enjoy it!
Now, on to more important matters.
131 convicted in Lalita Niwas land grab
On Thursday, February 15, the Special Court convicted over 131 individuals in the Lalita Niwas land grab scam. The entire case is too complicated to get into here but OnlineKhabar has a good explainer that you can read. In brief, prime government property in central Kathmandu, currently worth millions of rupees, was sold to numerous private actors for dirt cheap in exchange for kickbacks. Those convicted include Min Bahadur Gurung, the owner of Bhat-Bhateni Supermarkets; Rukma Shumsher Rana, the son of the late Nepali Congress veteran Subarna Shumsher; and Deep Basnyat, former chief of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), for illegally acquiring the land through corrupt deals. Former high-level government secretaries who facilitated the deals were also convicted. All of them have been sentenced to two years in jail, fines in the millions, and confiscation of land.
However, the Special Court acquitted political figures who had also been implicated, including Nepali Congress politician Bijay Kumar Gachhadar and former land reform ministers Chandra Deo Joshi and Dambar Shrestha, on the grounds that policy decisions cannot be prosecuted by the Special Court. Nabin Poudel, the son of UML general secretary Bishnu Poudel, and Kumar Regmi, a sitting Supreme Court justice, were also allowed to return the illegally acquired land and evade prosecution. So this case seems like an instance of letting the tigers go free while the flies are caught in the net. It also remains to be seen if the high-profile individuals convicted will spend any time in jail, or if they too will plead illness and then retire to a hospital that will act as luxury hotel accommodations for them as has happened so many times in the past.
Meter byaj is still predatory lending
Victims of loan sharks are once again marching to Kathmandu from across the country after their demands went unaddressed by the government. In September 2022, I dedicated an issue of this newsletter to the plight of these ‘meter byaj’ victims who take out small loans from local moneylenders who charge exorbitant interest rates, often over 30%. The interest accumulates over time and debtors end up losing the homes and land that they had put up as collateral. It’s basically a scam that sees wealthy moneylenders preying on naive, uneducated peasants and farmers.
These victims have been protesting almost every year, demanding that the government take measures to prevent such scams. The government of the day pledges to address their demands and signs an agreement with the protesting parties but nothing comes of it. In April 2023, the government formed a three-member commission to look into the plight of these victims and suggest solutions. The commission collected thousands of complaints from across the country but only a fraction of them have been resolved with the vast majority still awaiting some kind of restitution from the government. With no progress even a year on, the victims have decided to march on Kathmandu again to place pressure on the authorities. It’s a shame that the government appears very much interested in sending some select high-profile individuals to jail over corruption but has yet to address the very real issues of the poorest of the poor.
Professor who plagiarized set to lead Tribhuvan University again
On February 9, Friday, 14 candidates were short-listed to take over as vice-chancellor of Tribhuvan University, the country’s largest and oldest university. The VC is the effective head of the university as the post of chancellor remains with the prime minister. The VC is usually a political figure picked not for their academic credentials but their loyalty and affiliation to certain political parties, despite Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s assurances that he would no longer make political appointments to universities. Thus, the leading candidate so far is Tirtha Khaniya, a former VC who is close to both the Nepali Congress and Dahal. Khaniya was appointed VC of Tribhuvan University back in 2015 despite serious allegations of plagiarism. Khaniya’s plagiarism was first reported by journalist Rudra Pangeni for The Himalayan Times back in 2015 but he was appointed regardless. Khaniya first denied the allegations but when presented with irrefutable proof of him having liberally copied entire paragraphs from a paper by a Turkish academic, he claimed that he “forgot to give due credit”. It would be a shame if a man who blatantly stole another academic’s work was appointed VC of the country’s leading academic institution. It wouldn’t be a surprise but it would still be a shame.
Films face new censorship
Nepal’s film community is up in arms over a draft of the new Film Screening Procedures released by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology last week. The Procedures provide guidelines that filmmakers need to adhere to before their film can be screened in public and they include some real stone-age moralistic slop. Here’s a list of things that cannot be shown on screen: drug consumption, rape or nudity, kissing scenes that go on for longer than 5 seconds, anything that will harm the ‘national interest’, anything that might cause discord between communities, religions, castes, and even neighboring countries, and anything that might offend people with disabilities.
These are draconian rules and are certain to limit the artistic freedom of filmmakers. It’s not as if Nepal’s censor board is particularly open-minded or considers context. If it sees anything it doesn’t like, it refuses to issue a screening certificate and the film can no longer be shown in theaters. Films shown in Nepal are already heavily censored of all nudity and sexual content, even films that are rated ‘adult only’. These new Procedures are going to make certain that only the most sanitized cookie-cutter films will now be produced. It’s not like Nepal was making anything particularly revolutionary anyway but that’s no reason to attempt this kind of moral policing. Films are art and art should be allowed to offend and provoke. I wonder about the puritan bureaucrats running Nepal’s ministries. For shame.
Nepal’s killer roads continue to take their toll
A few weeks ago, Nepali Times published a searing indictment of the state of Nepal’s roads, blaming all three tiers of government for the massive number of fatalities. In the last decade, 24,000 people died on Nepal’s roads, according to the report. This week alone, at least 20 people have died in road accidents. On Tuesday, 10 people died and 17 were injured in a jeep accident in Palpa, and on Thursday, another 10 people died in Kapilvastu in a bus accident. We call them accidents but Nepali Times is calling them murder. “Nepalis are not dying on roads, they are being killed,” the report says, blaming corruption and political apathy. Roads are being constructed at breakneck speed across the country as local governmental units pour cash into infrastructure. These roads often do not satisfy environmental regulations or even meet road standards but they are constructed by companies that are either in cahoots with local authorities or are mayors and ward chairs themselves. Nepal, it seems, is pursuing ‘development’ at any cost.
28 years since the war
On February 13, 1996, the CPN-Maoist launched its ‘People’s War’, plunging the country into a civil conflict that would go on to take over 18,000 lives. The achievements of the conflict are debatable. Certainly, the war brought about a class and caste consciousness that has continued to this day. It also helped establish secularism and republicanism. But the Maoists of today have abandoned the ideals of the war they launched. Ordinary Nepalis who put their lives on the line have been forced to go abroad for work while their leaders have gone on to become ministers and prime ministers. Every year, on the anniversary of the war, the question gets asked: was it all worth it? In some ways yes and many others no. As with everything, the answer is not black and white. For better or worse, we live with the burden of the war.
So it goes. And on that dour note, I leave you to the deep dive.
The deep dive: How many Nepalis are fighting for Russia?
Photo: Nepalpress.com
This past week, numerous reports have emerged in the international media about Nepalis fighting for the Russians in Vladimir Putin’s ‘special military operation’. First, there was a piece written for Agence France-Presse by Paavan Mathema on February 8 that details the continuing plight of Nepalis fighting in Russia, focusing on the experiences of those who have returned. It’s a well-reported story that quotes one of the returnee Nepalis as saying “We were among the early ones to join, but now there are many Nepalis, there must be 2,500 to 3,000.”
There was another piece on Al Jazeera on February 10 by Samik Kharel, a former colleague of mine from my days at The Kathmandu Post, which details individual stories of Nepalis fighting on the Russian side. The stories detail the plight of Nepalis seeking jobs that will pay them enough to lift their families out of poverty. It, however, also emphasizes their ignorance of the cost of war, not realizing that going to war as mercenaries means being put on the front lines as cannon fodder to be shot at by the opposing side. It didn’t take long for Nepalis with no real stake in the war to come to terms with the fact that they had gotten themselves into a very sticky situation that would most likely result in either their death or grievous injury.
Both of these were good pieces of reporting that place the experience of Nepalis at the center of the story with no overblown claims or an obvious narrative slant. Then, we come to a report by CNN with four by-lines: Sugam Pokharel, Matthew Chance, Mihir Melwani, and Nishant Khanal. This is one of the most egregious pieces of reporting propaganda that I’ve seen from CNN or any Western media. The slant is just so blatant that CNN is not even concerned with trying to disguise the piece as accurate reporting. Let me tell you why.
First, the headline itself: “Russia has recruited as many as 15,000 Nepalis to fight its war. Many returned traumatized. Some never came back.” A three-sentence headline, blocky and alarmist. Compare this to the headlines of the two pieces above: 'There To Die': Nepali Mercenaries Fight For Russia In Ukraine’ (AFP) and ‘Want to go home’: Nepalis fighting for Russia in Ukraine describe horrors’ (Al Jazeera). In the latter two headlines, the Nepali experience is front and center. Interest in the experience of Nepalis in Russia, however horrific, is what attracts readers to the article. Now in the CNN piece, Russia is the central actor. It is Russia that has “recruited” Nepalis, making Russia the active subject, even though it is Nepalis who have voluntarily signed up for the war effort. Russia is not recruiting Nepalis specifically; it is simply taking in anyone who wants to join.
Then, there is the number in the headline: 15,000. CNN sources that number to “multiple sources” but the only source identified in the report itself is Bimala Rai Paudyal, a Member of Parliament who herself was citing Nepalis who have returned from Russia. She herself put the number between 14,000 and 15,000 but CNN decided to go with the more definitive 15,000. Paudyal’s source for the number was a press conference held by Suman Rai, a Nepali who deserted the Russians and came back to Nepal. In the conference, Rai claims that around 15,000 Nepalis are currently fighting for the Russians and over 400 have died. These very large numbers have not been repeated by any other returnees. Each Nepali has given a different figure but those don’t make it into the CNN report. The only other figure it provides is the Nepal government’s official estimate of around 200 Nepalis, which everyone agrees is very low. But the government must err on the side of caution. It cannot provide figures that cannot be confirmed or backed up by evidence. Lone figures like Rai, however, can estimate without consequence.
Far be it for me to teach CNN journalism but the way I’ve been doing journalism is to verify claims and never use a single source, especially when it comes to outrageous claims. If it is necessary to include that claim from a single source, the report must clearly state that it is suspect and has not been verified. Such claims should not be placed in the headline or the lede since they could very well be wrong. CNN does not verify that large number with any other source. The report does not even attempt to signal to the reader that the number might not necessarily be accurate. In fact, it attempts to legitimize the number by attributing it to “multiple sources” without telling us what those sources are.
This 15,000 number is actively disputed by journalists in Nepal. They will tell you that it is a ludicrous figure that is not based on anything concrete but rather the words of one man who might be prone to exaggeration. So far, just around 150 families have registered complaints with the Nepali authorities asking that their sons and husbands be brought back from Russia. In CNN’s own report, an activist maintains that 2,000 families have reached out to her for help bringing back their family members. It is a huge leap from 2,000 to 15,000. If 15,000 Nepalis really were fighting in Russia and if 400 of them had been killed, as opposed to 12 by official numbers, the outcry here in Nepal from their families would’ve been deafening. Just for context, the official number of people killed during the Maoist conflict is 17,800.
The question now remains, why would CNN do this? The Nepali journalists writing the report must certainly know that the number is not accurate and the foreign editors too must know that basic journalistic rigor has not been applied here. So why? The answer is propaganda. If anyone still believes that only countries like Russia and China engage in propaganda then I’m sorry but you are hopelessly naive. The Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Palestine conflict have both exposed just how biased the Western media is. (Before you call me out, Russia-Ukraine is a war because there are two relatively symmetrical armies fighting each other; Israel-Palestine is a conflict because one side has one of the most sophisticated armies in the world and the other side has militants wielding hand-held rockets.) In case it isn’t obvious, just note how much the New York Times, BBC, CNN, and the like mangle the English language to avoid saying that Israel killed anyone. Children are mysteriously ‘found dead’ after being fired upon by Israeli soldiers while ‘explosions occur’ in hospitals that have been bombed. These are not just allegations; journalists at the BBC and New York Times have themselves called out the slanted coverage.
I’m not attempting to equate the two conflicts. They have vastly different contexts and histories and I don’t want to conflate one with the other. Russian aggression in Ukraine must be condemned but so should Israeli excesses in Palestine. But the most influential Western media outlets toe the line when it comes to Ukraine and Israel. Russia is the aggressor, that much is fact, but it is not necessary to twist the facts and report dishonestly to marshall public sentiment against Russia. In this particular instance involving Nepalis, it is not Russia that is recruiting Nepalis and 15,000 Nepalis have certainly not been recruited. This is just one small example of the wider war that is being fought for the world’s hearts and minds.
I am writing all of this because, in the digital age, it is necessary to be critical of what we read and consume. We no longer live in a world where truth is dictated by whether it is printed in the New York Times or not. That is not to say that whatever Al Jazeera writes is the truth either. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. Lies do not always come in the form of disinformation or misinformation. In fact, inexact language, massaging of the facts, and selective reporting are much more common, just harder to notice. We must thus exercise our critical faculties to ascertain truth with a capital T. Critical thinking is more important now than ever before.
In the end, how many Nepalis are really fighting for Russia? I don’t know. No one does, except perhaps for the Russians. Journalists can be honest about that. It is okay to say we don’t know. All I know is that it is most likely not 400 and not 15,000.
That’s all for this week. I will be back next Friday, in your emails, for the next edition of Off the Record.
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We will never know how many Nepalese fighting for Russia. As an insult to the injury, we do have an explanation saying recruitment of Nepalese into Russian Army is because Nepal Government did not take interest with "agniver" recruitment in India.