What does Rabi Lamichhane's arrest portend?
On the arrest of the Rastriya Swatantra Party chief
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening from Kathmandu. This is Issue 161 of KALAM Weekly, the only newsletter you need to keep updated with everything happening in Nepal.
In this newsletter:
KP Oli’s 100 days in office
Bomb threat on Vistara flight bound for Kathmandu
Update: Nepali peacekeepers in Lebanon
The Deep Dive: What does Rabi Lamichhane’s arrest portend?
Dear readers, I’m trying to get to a hundred paid subscribers by the end of the year. I am currently at 70. Can you help me reach a hundred?
I spend days reading, talking, curating, and writing to bring this newsletter into your inboxes. Please pledge a paid subscription if you value the work I do. If you cannot pay, please share with someone who might be able and willing. KALAM Weekly is truly a passion project and it cannot continue without your support.
KP Oli’s 100 days in office
On Wednesday, the coalition government of the CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress completed its 100-day ‘honeymoon period.’ So what exactly has Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli achieved in this period? Not much, say media outlets and analysts. You can’t expect much from an administration in its first 100 days but it is established practice to evaluate what was done as an indication of the administration’s priorities going forward.
Under the Oli administration, foreign relations appeared to be a priority in the first 100 days. Newly minted Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba received a hero’s welcome in India during her trip there. She and Oli then flew to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. While in the United States, Oli also attended discussion programs at Columbia University and Harvard University. At both, he talked up his achievements, deflected all criticism, and just straight-up ignored difficult questions.
While he was there, incessant rains back home caused severe floods and landslides across the country, leading to over 200 deaths and thousands of displacements. Oli didn’t return immediately, choosing instead to wrap up all his US engagements before returning. Upon returning, he faced severe criticism from all corners for his handling of the disaster. In tried-and-tested fashion, Oli said his administration had done all it could and that the disaster could not have been predicted. He threw in some jokes and insults for good measure.
Then, Oli was once again criticized, even by his own party members, for accepting a giant donation from Bhat-bhateni owner Min Bahadur Gurung, who is currently facing criminal fraud and corruption cases. Gurung donated land worth millions of rupees for the UML party to build its new headquarters after the flood damaged the previous one. Gurung even pledged to construct the headquarters himself at no charge. Oli gladly accepted the donation, even as victims of the floods and landslides who lost their loved ones and homes await government assistance.
On the policy front, the Oli administration oversaw the passage of the transitional justice amendment bill, which had long been in the offing. Despite passing the bill in August, no headway has been made in appointing commissioners to the two transitional justice bodies — the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons. A committee to recommend names has been formed but that’s about it.
Pledges to pursue constitutional amendment with broad political consensus remain unfulfilled. Implementing federalism also requires the federal level to pass at least 40 more laws related to the functioning and jurisdiction of the provinces but this hasn’t figured into Oli’s priorities. Instead, Oli is pursuing an ordinance that will make it easier to split political parties. This ordinance aims to destroy smaller parties like the Unified Socialist, which split from Oli’s UML party. The criteria for party splits are pretty stringent, and Oli aims to ease them so that smaller parties can become even smaller and pose less of a threat to larger parties like his. Most parties, including coalition partner Nepali Congress, have spoken out against this ordinance. Yet, Oli seems adamant.
Under the Oli administration, previous investigations into major corruption scandals like the fake Bhutanese refugee scam and the Lalita Niwas land grab, where Min Bahadur Gurung is one of the accused, have stalled. Now that Gurung has become a major donor to the UML party, the case against him is unlikely to move forward. Instead, Oli has set his sights on Rabi Lamichhane of the Rastriya Swatantra Party, having him arrested for investigation on Friday. Former Deputy Inspector General Chhabilal Joshi was also arrested earlier in the same case of cooperative fraud. But Congress parliamentarian Dhanaraj Gurung and UML parliamentarian Rishikesh Pokharel, also implicated in cooperative fraud, have not been arrested or investigated.
So, how have Oli’s 100 days in office been? Not great. It’s still too early to tell how his full tenure will be, but given the way these 100 days have gone, it doesn’t seem like Oli is interested in much except for policies and laws that affect him and his party directly. But what can we really expect from Oli except for self-promotion, nationalist posturing, indulgence of controversial personas, and a joke or two to rile up crowds?
Bomb threat on Vistara flight bound for Kathmandu
On Tuesday, a bomb threat was called into a Vistara flight that had just landed in Kathmandu from New Delhi, sending Tribhuvan International Airport scrambling. The plane was quickly isolated and the Nepal Army’s bomb disposal squad was deployed to canvass the aircraft. No bombs were discovered and the threat was deemed to be a hoax.
The bomb threat reportedly came from an Indian phone number, and it appears that Indian flights have received over a hundred such threats over the past few weeks. The threats have primarily targeted Indian airlines but also other airlines flying out of Indian airports. They have been made over social media, through phone calls, and via email, leading to serious responses from the authorities. On October 15, the Singapore military dispatched fighter jets to escort an Air India flight bound for the country after receiving a similar threat. Two days later, the British Royal Air Force did the same due to a bomb threat on a flight bound for London.
So far, the Indian authorities have not identified who is making these threats and for what purpose, although one person, a minor, has reportedly been arrested. There is suspicion that the threats are connected to the ongoing tensions between India, Canada, and the US. The latter two countries have accused the Indian government of attempting to assassinate US-Canadian citizens deemed terrorists by India. This is historical precedent for this suspicion. In 1985, Sikh separatists were blamed for the bombing of an Air India flight bound for Canada that killed all 329 people on board. In 2023, Sikh separatists issued cryptic warnings against Sikhs traveling on Air India flights. So, India is very concerned about these threats.
Bomb threats on airplanes are taken very seriously due to their potential for massive loss of life and damages, not to mention hijacking in a post-9/11 world. Any bomb threat necessitates landing the plane at the nearest airport, evacuating all passengers, and checking the aircraft thoroughly for any signs of explosives. This process can take hours, stranding passengers and costing the airlines millions. Any individual making false bomb threats faces criminal charges and often a lifetime ban on flying.
Update: Nepali peacekeepers in Lebanon
Last week, I wrote about the over 870 Nepali peacekeepers in Lebanon at a time when Israel was directly targeting UN checkposts and structures. The Nepal government hadn’t addressed their safety or any plans to recall them at the time. Now, it has. On Tuesday, Chief of Army Staff Ashokraj Sigdel held a press conference at the Ministry of Defense, saying that the UN and Nepal would pull all peacekeepers out of Lebanon if the situation worsened. Last week, the peacekeepers were reportedly facing shortages of food and water but the situation has improved, even though they are still resigned to bunkers. According to General Sigdel, all UN peacekeepers will be evacuated if fighting between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies, and there is a risk that UN compounds could come under fire. Israel, especially, has shown a willingness to target UN assets. As of now, the peacekeepers remain in place.
That’s all for this week’s round-up. The Deep Dive continues after the break below.
The deep dive: What does Rabi Lamichhane’s arrest portend?
Rabi Lamichhane speaks at a press conference before being arrested. (Image: RSS)
Dashain is over, and Nepali politics is back to doing what it does best—fomenting turmoil and division. Last Friday evening, Rabi Lamichhane, former Home Minister and chair of the fledgling Rastriya Swatantra Party, was arrested concerning his dealings with Gorkha Media, the operators of Galaxy 4K television. On Sunday, he was remanded into custody for six days while the investigation proceeded, and then seven more days on Friday to investigate charges of cooperative fraud, organized crime, and money laundering.
Lamichhane was once Managing Director of Galaxy 4K and anchored a very popular television show. Politicians and the media have accused him of embezzling funds from financial banking cooperatives and channeling them into Gorkha Media. Still, a parliamentary probe committee last month found no evidence of direct embezzlement but held him responsible for the use of embezzled funds in his capacity as Managing Director. More on that parliamentary probe and what it found in the newsletter below:
Lamichhane’s arrest has provoked disparate reactions from the public sphere. While his party members and supporters believe that he is being unfairly targeted in a political witchhunt, his detractors say that it was only natural for him to be taken into custody after a parliamentary committee implicated him in the use of embezzled funds. His party members have taken to the streets in protest in Pokhara, Chitwan, and elsewhere, demanding his release.
I’m not going to comment on whether Lamichhane is guilty or not. That’s up to the courts to decide. But his arrest certainly needs to be discussed, not least because Lamichhane and his party have hogged the headlines since their surprising win in the general elections in 2022. Scandal after scandal has dogged Lamichhane. First, he was accused of using his old Nepali citizenship to contest the elections despite having given it up to take American citizenship. By law, he was required to reapply for Nepali citizenship once he gave up his American citizenship. He hadn’t done so, and the Supreme Court invalidated his election win and stripped him of his position as a parliamentarian, as Home Minister, and as chief of the RSP. Defiantly, Lamichhane reacquired Nepali citizenship, this time by the book, recontested the by-election, and won resoundingly. He was then reappointed Home Minister in the erstwhile Pushpa Kamal Dahal administration.
Then, he was accused of embezzling funds from cooperatives. Kantipur Daily led the charge, publishing front-page report after front-page report, accusing him of knowingly transferring money into Gorkha Media from numerous cooperatives owned by one GB Rai, also the owner of Gorkha Media and once Lamichhane’s close associate. Calls for an investigation into Lamichhane were then taken up by the political parties, particularly the Nepali Congress and the UML. But the RSP resisted, and eventually a cross-party parliamentary investigation committee was formed to look into all manner of issues with the cooperative sector. That committee held Lamichhane somewhat guilty, as mentioned above.
And here we are now.
So, let’s get into the motivation behind Lamichhane’s arrest. Was it solely a legal issue? No, I don’t think so. I’m not a Lamichhane fanboy, but I see how his supporters believe the entire process was politically motivated. If Lamichhane and his party did not pose such a threat to the established order, he wouldn’t have been hounded in the manner he has. People accused of much more severe crimes — corruption, rape, fraud, murder — were not pursued as relentlessly as Lamichhane has been. The same parliamentary committee also implicated Dhanaraj Gurung, a parliamentarian from the Congress party, of embezzling funds from cooperatives. Yet, Gurung remains a free man. If Lamichhane was arrested, why hasn’t Gurung, RSP members are asking. A fair question. If the ruling Congress and UML parties truly believe in applying the rule of law equally, then Gurung, too, should have been taken into custody and investigated.
On the other hand, the RSP claims to believe in the rule of law. It offered itself as an alternative to the traditional mainstream political parties and said it would do things differently. If the party believes in institutions, it should let the police and the courts do their job. Right now, Lamichhane has just been taken into custody for investigation. He hasn’t been charged with anything. The district attorney will likely file a chargesheet soon and then the ball will be in the judiciary’s court. Lawyers will argue for and against Lamichhane, and a judge will decide his fate based on the evidence presented. That’s how the system works, and although the judiciary might have been compromised, that’s a different argument altogether.
Furthermore, for a party that claims to be different, why is it so obsessed with Lamichhane? The UML has KP Sharma Oli, and the Congress has Sher Bahadur Deuba, and the Maoists have Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Is the RSP just Rabi Lamichhane? What about the rest of its roster, once touted as among the best in the country? Why is Harvard-trained economist and former vice-chair of the National Planning Commission Swarnim Wagle out on the streets protesting the arrest of his chairman? Why is former Education Minister and MIT grad Sumana Shrestha doing the same? Why is Manish Jha, the party spokesperson, making speeches saying he is ready to spill his blood for Lamichhane? This is cult-like behavior. This is what Congress, UML and Maoist party cadres do. What makes the RSP any different?
So far, neither Lamichhane nor his party members have offered any evidence of his innocence. Their arguments have been purely political and polemical. Whataboutism at its finest. What about Congress MP Dhanaraj Gurung and UML MP Rishikesh Pokharel, both of whom have been implicated in cooperative fraud? What about Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, who recently accepted a massive donation of land and buildings from disgraced businessman Min Bahadur Gurung? What about Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba, who was implicated in the Bhutanese refugee scandal? Yes, these questions must be asked, not just in connection with Lamichhane.
Perhaps Wagle, Shrestha, Jha, and all the other RSP members protesting know that their party has no future without Lamichhane. Lamichhane’s popularity bought the party its votes, and his wheeling and dealing got the party powerful ministerial positions. No one in the party can rival Lamichhane’s public appeal. Wagle and Shrestha are technocrats; they are not politicians. They lack the charisma and broad-based appeal required to lead a national political party. If Lamichhane is pronounced guilty by the courts, the RSP is done. The party will die with a whimper, not a bang.
But more than just the RSP, let’s reflect a bit on what this entire process says about Nepali politics and the direction in which it is headed. It is clear that the traditional parties will tolerate no challenges to their stranglehold on the state. Tomorrow, if Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah forms a political party and wins enough votes, he will likely face the same fate as Lamichhane. The parties are afraid that the public is reaching its breaking point with them but instead of attempting to reform their ways, they’ve taken up a different approach – offer no alternative. As long as the three major parties are the only choices on the ballot, the public will be forced to vote for one of them. And no matter who among them wins, deals can always be struck to share power, just like they’ve been doing for the past two or three decades.
The question we must also ask is, what kind of alternative political force do we want? Every alternative before Nepal today is populist, whether it is the RSP, Balen Shah, or Dharan Mayor Harka Sampang. All three won their mandates based solely on their populism, not on their agendas or policy platforms. And all of them have been dogged by controversy. In Kathmandu, Shah has grown increasingly closed-off, surrounding himself with yes men and pursuing increasingly intolerant policies against the poorest of the urban poor – squatters and street vendors. In Dharan, Sampang has turned bizarre, lashing out at journalists, making unhinged social media posts, and acting dictatorially. The only independent mayor who’s skirted all controversy so far is Dhangadhi Mayor Gopal Hamal. A businessman-turned-politician, Hamal has eschewed social media, preferring to let his work speak for itself. Dhangadhi residents appear to be largely happy with him.
When the RSP was first formed, it claimed it was ‘independent.’ Its name itself proclaims that it is ‘swatantra’, independent. But then, I had asked, what is it independent of? What does independence mean to the RSP? The RSP has no ideological moorings; there is hardly anything the party seems to agree on except for vague homilies about good governance and rule of law. A party must have something it believes in. It cannot be a mishmash of whoever wants to join. The RSP, or any other party, cannot define itself by what it is not; two years since its formation, we don’t know what the RSP really is beyond a personality cult around Rabi Lamichhane.
Let’s not forget the role the media has played here. It is the media’s job to hold power accountable, but it has spent a disproportionate amount of time and energy on Lamichhane. Kantipur, Nepal’s paper of record, has dirtied itself by stopping to new lows and publishing anything and everything it could get its grubby hands on as long as it was linked to Lamichhane. I had never seen such dogged reporting before. I would’ve welcomed it had it not been so personal a fight between Lamichhane and Kantipur. The media provided the ammunition and the political cover for the parties to go after Lamichhane. Now, Kantipur needs to do the same for all these other politicians if it is to salvage its tattered reputation.
The RSP has disappointed, as have most other independent and alternative forces. I thought 2022 could’ve been an inflection point where we’d see the fortunes of the traditional parties decline. But it doesn’t look like that will happen. The RSP has been scuttled but Lamichhane himself is responsible for many of the holes in his boat. Does this mean that we are resigned to another decade or so of the Congress-UML-Maoist combine? Unfortunately, it appears so.
That’s all for this week. I will be back next Friday, in your emails, for the next edition of KALAM Weekly.
If you enjoyed today’s newsletter, please consider sharing it with others who might enjoy weekly updates from Nepal or consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Thanks for reading KALAM Weekly! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.