The strange case of Sujeeta Shahi
Who is this war journalist turned skydiver?
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening from Kathmandu. This is Issue 167 of KALAM Weekly, the only newsletter you need to keep updated with everything happening in Nepal.
A big thank you to all of my newest paid supporters — Pasang Sherpa, Padmaja Krishnan, Sanita Dhaubanjar, Sadhana Shrestha, Bidhya Rai, Manushi Yami Bhattarai, Tsering Choden, Smriti Basnet, and Kundan Shrestha. All of you have been so supportive that it almost brings a tear to my eye. Thank you so, so, so very much.
Another short update before we get to the newsletter proper. On Wednesday, December 11, we held our first virtual event. It was called Reimagining Journalism and I spoke to Bhrikuti Rai, journalist and founder of the BojuBajai podcast, about our experiences working in mainstream media and why we both chose to branch out into podcasting and newslettering. It was a fun conversation, and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Bhrikuti. Thank you to everyone who attended the event. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. For all of you paid supporters who could not attend, we will send you a recording so you don’t miss out. This was our first event, and we hope to have many more to come!
In this newsletter:
Is the China-appointed Panchen Lama coming to Nepal?
Donald Lu was back in Kathmandu
Shortlist for transitional justice commissioners still unsatisfactory
Recommendations
The Deep Dive: The strange case of Sujeeta Shahi
Is the China-appointed Panchen Lama coming to Nepal?
Earlier this week, news emerged that Gyaincain Norbu, the Panchen Lama appointed by China, would be visiting Nepal to attend the Nanhai Buddhism Round Table from December 12 to 15. The news immediately sent alarm bells ringing throughout the Nepali establishment as politicians, government officials, and the media all scrambled to ascertain if the news was true. Norbu coming to Nepal would be a geopolitical nightmare. Why, you ask? Allow me to explain.
In 1995, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, recognized six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama, the second highest authority in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, second only to the Dalai Lama himself. Just days later, the Chinese government abducted Nyima and his family, and Gyaincain Norbu was appointed the Panchen Lama instead. Tibetans everywhere, including in Nepal, rejected Norbu, but he continues to act as the Panchen Lama. Nyima has never been seen again.
And so, Norbu coming to Nepal, especially so close on the heels of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s visit, would’ve signaled that perhaps Nepal has completely kowtowed to the Chinese. Nepal professes support for the ‘One China’ policy and maintains strict restrictions on the Tibetan population here. But it has also refrained from explicitly allowing the Chinese to run roughshod over Tibetans. Nepal is attempting a balancing act, although it has begun to tilt more towards China recently. Still, letting the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama come to Nepal would’ve incensed the Tibetan population and also provided the Western countries with a hammer with which to browbeat Nepal. The Americans, especially, would not have been happy.
But fear not—the Panchen Lama will not be coming to Nepal after all. Nepali officials were reportedly unaware of any potential visit and acted quickly to nip any such sojourn in the bud. The Foreign Ministry even dispatched a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy, asking if Norbu was really coming to Nepal. The embassy denied any such visit. That’s where the matter now rests, with government officials convinced that Norbu is not going to make a secret, unannounced visit to Nepal. And perhaps that is for the best.
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Donald Lu was back in Kathmandu
We’re not done talking geopolitics just yet. Just as Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli wrapped up his China visit, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu arrived in Kathmandu for a short visit.
Lu is no stranger to Nepal, and Nepal knows Lu quite well. In 2022, at the height of Nepal’s vacillation over whether or not to sign the US’ $500 million Millenium Challenge Compact agreement, Lu spoke to the three top politicians — KP Sharma Oli, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, and Sher Bahadur Deuba — and said that the US would be forced to “review” its ties with Nepal if the agreement was not endorsed. Many in Nepal saw this strongly worded statement as a threat, almost as if Lu was saying, “sign the agreement or else…” Randy Berry, US Ambassador then, was forced to clarify that US officials had not made any threats.
This time around, there were no such controversies. Lu met with Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba and Maoist chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Coincidentally, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was on his way to his hometown in Jhapa at the time, so Lu was unable to meet with him. Lu’s visit mostly focused on transitional justice and climate change, probably in light of the change in the US administration. With Donald Trump retaking the presidency, priorities are bound to change. So Lu’s visit felt more routine than anything. Lu didn’t even comment on Nepal’s recent signing of the Belt and Road Initiative’s framework agreement, saying that he needed to see the text before he could say anything. However, he said that all dealings under the BRI should be “transparent.”
Shortlist for transitional justice commissioners still unsatisfactory
Conflict victims and civil society have once again raised concerns about the shortlist of proposed commissioners for the two transitional justice commissions — the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission to Investigate Enforced Disappearances (CIEDP). Last week, a recommendation committee led by former Chief Justice Om Prakash Mishra released a shortlist of candidates for the two commissions. The list includes former National Human Rights Commission commissioners, judges, lawyers, and attorney generals. Conflict victims, however, have complained that the shortlisted candidates have been chosen with the “intention of forming a controlled and weak commission” and as “political management tools for henchmen.”
This is the same criticism that conflict victims have leveled against the transitional justice commissions ever since the commissions were first formed in 2015. In nearly 10 years since their formation, commissioners have only been appointed twice. Each leadership has either been controversial or stymied by the state’s failure to enact supporting laws and amendments. Earlier this year, the government of KP Sharma Oli finally passed a long-awaited amendment to the transitional justice law. The international community has largely welcomed the amendment, but conflict victims and civil society still have reservations regarding certain amnesty provisions. Still, there is some consensus that the amendment will provide a better pathway forward for a transitional justice process that has languished for over 17 years.
However, any progress on transitional justice relies on the commissioners. If they are partisan figures handpicked by the parties, they will be less likely to ensure justice for victims and more likely to protect their political masters. This is what conflict victims have constantly cautioned against. Transitional justice must first and foremost be acceptable to conflict victims, not the political parties and not even civil society or the international community. If victims don’t feel like they’ve received justice, the transitional justice process will have been a sham.
Recommendations
Event: Who does the river belong to? at Nepal Art Council, December 13-22
Podcast: Tariq Ali on a life in writing and dissent, with Shwetha Srikanthan, Himal Southasian
Article: What Nepal’s VIP prisoners do in jail, Man Bahadur Basnet, Nepali Times
That’s all for this week’s round-up. The Deep Dive continues after the break below.
The deep dive: The strange case of Sujeeta Shahi
Page 6 of the December 9 edition of Kantipur Daily featuring a profile of Sujeeta Shahi
On Monday, a small but strange story appeared on page six of Kantipur daily, Nepal’s largest-selling and most widely read newspaper. The report, authored by Nabin Pokhrel, was titled ‘From war reporting to skydiving’ and profiled a Nepali woman named Sujeeta (or Sujita) Shahi. According to the report, Shahi graduated with a degree in mass communication in 1996 from Hong Kong and then interned at Hong Kong’s newspaper of record, the South China Morning Post and Star TV. During her internship, she was assigned to report on the construction of the Ting Kau Bridge in Hong Kong. The Stuttgart-based Zublin AG was the primary contractor for the bridge and the company reportedly invited her to Germany for the interview.
Once in Germany, she began work for DW TV and RTL TV. The report does not mention how she got these jobs. As a reporter, she went to Baghdad in 1999 to conduct “war zone” reporting. Eventually, she made her way to every major conflict in the past few decades — Afghanistan, the Golan Heights, Beirut, Palestine, and Ukraine as an “undercover journalist.” In 2013, while reporting in Afghanistan, she was reportedly abducted by the Taliban. Four days later, she was released after the explicit intervention of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Then, in 2015, the convoy she was traveling in was blown up by a mine, and as a result, she claims that she was paralyzed for five months. Doctors suggested that her legs be cut off, but she refused, saying that she would rather die than live as a disabled person. She returned to Germany and, upon further treatment, made a full recovery.
At that time, her mother was suffering from a kidney disease, and Shahi needed to get some money together for her treatment. So, in 2008, she joined the German “commando” force. Again, it is not clear how an immigrant joined the German special forces without going through basic training or any other branch of the military. Then, she apparently switched to the Austrian special forces. Now, she is a qualified skydiving instructor working in Pokhara and traveling across the world to jump out of planes.
Does this story seem just a little unbelievable to you? It did to me. And so I did what any curious person does these days. I Googled her name. For a reporter who has reportedly been to almost every major war zone in the past three decades, she doesn’t have a single byline on the internet. In fact, Googling her name brings up the Kantipur report and a few others from Nepali news sources. Oh, Google also brings up a photo shoot she did with a photographer named Anjil Maskey. There is no trace of her journalism, war zone or otherwise.
At very first glance, the story is too sensational to be true. Numerous questions come to mind. Why would a German company invite her to Germany just to conduct an interview? Even if it did, how does someone who came to interview someone for Hong Kong media start working for outlets like DW and RTL? DW is Germany’s state-owned broadcaster, while RTL is a privately owned news company. If a Nepali journalist had been taken hostage in Afghanistan, why is this the first we are hearing of it, especially if Angela Merkel herself intervened for her release? How does a Nepali immigrant then join both the German special forces and the Austrian special forces? Furthermore, the news report states that she was taken hostage in Afghanistan in 2013, but the same report says she joined the German “commando force” in 2008. So she was both a war reporter and a German commando simultaneously?
I don’t know Sujeeta Shahi, but based on this report, there should be some trace of her accomplishments on the internet, especially if she was a reporter. That leads me to believe that, once again, an unbelievably fanciful story has fooled Nepal’s paper of record. Neither the reporter nor any of Kantipur’s editors seem to have flagged any discrepancies in the story, which remains up despite criticism on social media and a lengthy takedown on the mysansar blog. The journalist and Kantipur’s editors have remained mum over the entire issue.
This isn’t the first time that Kantipur has fallen victim to outlandish stories told by unscrupulous people. In 2003, both Kantipur and its sister publication, The Kathmandu Post, published front-page articles gushing about one Rasendra Bhattarai, a Nepal-born Spain-based billionaire. Bhattarai had left Nepal with just five dollars in his pocket and ended up a billionaire with Bill Clinton’s number in his Palm Pilot. Here’s the opening of the Kathmandu Post piece:
He boasts a Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), owns a fleet of cars: Rolls Royce, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Ferrari, Audi and so on. He has prime residential properties in Los Angeles, Orlando, London, Paris, Madrid and elsewhere. Bill Clinton is his friend, knows George Bush, Kofi Annan, Tony Blair and other heads of state personally.
He is not Bill Gates nor the Sultan of Brunei, but a Nepali. He is Dr Rasendra Bhattarai, 50, a Nepali turned British.
Although the article has disappeared from The Kathmandu Post’s archives, you can read the entire article here, reposted on the mysansar blog.
Rasendra Bhattarai, if it wasn’t obvious, turned out to be a fraud. He lied through his teeth, and the country's largest Nepali and English dailies bought his story hook, line, and sinker. Like with the Sujeeta Shahi story, there was no vetting, no fact-checking, or even an attempt to talk to anyone else in his life. Whatever he said was written down verbatim. When Bhattarai was exposed as a fraud, neither Kantipur nor The Kathmandu Post apologized, but Yubaraj Ghimire, who was editor of both Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post, resigned. Later, in a book article, Ghimire said that he had previously stopped an article about Bhattarai but the offending piece was later published without his knowledge. Prateek Pradhan, the author of The Kathmandu Post article, went on to become the paper's editor-in-chief.
That wasn’t the only time Kantipur was suckered.
In 2021, Kantipur reported that Anuja Baniya had discovered a bag on a public bus containing Rs 9.1 million in cash and a diamond necklace. Baniya, being a good citizen, returned the bag to the alleged owner, cash and necklace intact. The owner, Purushottam Paudel, was so impressed that he attempted to give Baniya Rs 200,000 and the diamond necklace as a reward. She refused. The story was widely read and picked up by many other newspapers. President Ram Baran Yadav and the Attorney General even called Baniya to congratulate her.
And then, the story turned out to have been faked. There was no bag, no Rs 9.1 million in cash, and no diamond necklace. Baniya had lied about the entire thing. She wanted to get herself published in Kantipur and had concocted the whole story, hoodwinked the reporter, and fooled the entire nation. Her house of cards collapsed when some enterprising citizens raised concerns about the story, prompting the President’s office to direct the police to find out the truth of the matter. Investigation showed that no one had withdrawn that much cash from any bank that day, let alone lost it on a public bus. Sudheer Sharma, who was editor-in-chief of Kantipur at the time, apologized publicly in print.
There are other similar incidents, but I won’t get into them right now. Suffice it to say that the Nepali media seems to constantly fall for these outlandish stories. I don’t know what motivates people to lie so blatantly and publicly, but the media appear to trust these storytellers so quickly and without question. As journalists, we’re taught to question everything, especially stories that appear so sensational. And yet, Kantipur’s reporters and editors don’t seem to have exercised even the basics of journalistic rigor. Large media houses like Kantipur have numerous layers through which stories travel. From the journalist, it goes to the desk editor, from desk editor to a copy editor, and from a copy editor to a proofreader. That these stories passed through all these layers and no one raised a single red flag is a cause for concern.
The Nepali media also has a bad habit of not owning up to mistakes or admitting when they got something wrong. It is established practice for news media worldwide to admit to mistakes and issue a correction, or if a correction is insufficient, then to pull down the article with an explanatory note. Yubaraj Ghimire and Sudheer Sharma had enough integrity to resign and apologize, respectively. Umesh Chauhan, the current editor-in-chief of Kantipur, has yet even to admit that the report on Sujeeta Shahi might have been a mistake. The article itself remains online. This, too, furthers the perception of journalists, especially from legacy media outlets, as being out-of-touch and unconcerned with the opinions of the public.
I’m not asking Chauhan or Nabin Pokhrel, the reporter who wrote the Sujeeta Shahi story, to resign. But I am asking that they admit that they might have made a mistake. If they believe they have not, then they need to address the very fair criticism leveled against the article they published. Journalists are human and we make mistakes too. The best thing we can do is admit when we fail and try to do better. Pretending nothing’s wrong and refusing to apologize just shows the discerning public that we don’t value truth, honesty, and integrity. That is exactly what politicians like Rabi Lamichhane have accused the media of, and Kantipur’s actions are just proving him right.
We criticize because we care. We expect storied newspapers like Kantipur to do better and set an example. We rely on the media to become more informed citizens. How can we do that when we don’t trust the stories they write? Slip-ups like these are more than just a blot on editor Umesh Chauhan’s tenure; they stain Kantipur’s reputation and legacy.
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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