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China and India are meddling in this. Nothing in Nepali politics happens without either China or India's hands or implicit blessing. Heck, regional Nepali polit

China and India are meddling in this. Nothing in Nepali politics happens without either China or India's hands or implicit blessing. Heck, regional Nepali politicans will literally vie for Nitish Kumar or Lalu Prasad Yadav's (the two perpetual CMs of Bihar) backing. Even the Armed Forces(pro-India) and the Armed Police Force (pro-China) are at each others throats. Whenever India feels Nepal is getting too close to China, a crisis happens. When China feels Nepal is getting to close to India, a crisis happens as well. It's like how Iraqi and Lebanese politics is always meddled in by Saudi and Iran. Also, the social media ban is extremely damaging. Most students use Google and YouTube to study, and WhatsApp is heavily used by Nepalis both domestically and abroad (a large portion of Nepalis work abroad in India, the Gulf, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan as migrant workers) so people are cut off from communicating with each other and getting job offers.

factorialboy 1y ago
First, Maldives. Then, Bangladesh, Now, Nepal. An unstable Nepal allows the destabilization of two critical states in India. Regime change in India is the big prize. -- China and India do meddle. But a classic color revolution, such as this one, is the signature of you-know-who.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  KP Sharma Oli is pro-China which even Nepali media has pointed out [0]. And his formative years were spent growing up in a village (Garamani) barely 30 km outside Naxalbari during the Naxalbari Uprising, and attended secondary school barely 5 miles (Mechinagar) away from Naxalbari during the uprising. In Nepali politics, Sher Bahadur Deuba is pro-India and Prachanda is pro-Prachanda (will back India some years, other years will back China). The whole Indian internet conspiracy of "CIA ki saazish" is ridiculous when the US has barely 20 India scholars at all. There is 0 domain experience in India studies in the US, and that reflects in America's South Asia strategy (there is none). [0] - https://kathmandupost.com/columns/2025/09/07/oli-s-diplomatic-snubs https://kathmandupost.com/columns/2025/09/07/oli-s-diplomati...
  - selimthegrim 1y ago
    Did the departments at Berkeley, Columbia and Chicago just turn over and capsize?
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      Their scholars primarily specialize in the history of South Asia, not contemporary foreign relations and strategy in South Asia. IMO, the only American program that has a good program in Contemporary Indian politics and foreign policy is Stanford, as Sumit Ganguly acts as the primary linkage between American and Indian policymakers, and the FSI and Hoover Institution tends to host Indian policymakers and career bureaucrats as affiliates and fellows. For example, during the US-India trade negotiations, the only public visit Nirmala Sitharaman and her staffers had was at the Hoover Institution [0]. Even the USIBC is hosted at Stanford, and that event has a lot of Indian and American dignitaries and policymakers coming. Other than Christine Fair and a couple Pakistani fellows at HKS, I can't think of a similar domain experts on Pakistan either in the US. If you want to study contemporary Indian foreign policy outside of India, your only options are NUS, ANU, Stanford, LSE, and maybe Oxford. It's the same reason why the best China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea scholars tend to be clustered at Harvard and Stanford. [0] - https://www.hoover.org/events/laying-foundations-developed-india-viksit-bharat-2047 https://www.hoover.org/events/laying-foundations-developed-i...
      - selimthegrim 1y ago
        I have gone back-and-forth with Christine Fair on Twitter DMs (she had an issue with a translation I wasn’t credited on) and she certainly has her strongly personal point of view, but she’s got a lot of sharp edges. Maybe Michael what’s his name who is always writing op-eds in Dawn would be another option.
        selimthegrim 1y ago
        Michael Kugelman
        1y ago
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > a classic color revolution, such as this one, is the signature of you-know-who I literally don’t.
  - adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
    there's a conspiracy theory that every revolution of the past 100 years was caused by the cia.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      Oh yeah, I saw it in India when Bangladesh fell. Couldn’t possibly be her incessant and well-documented corruption. I also think Barack Obama was somehow involved.
      - don_esteban 1y ago
        Corruption is endemic in many places, but somehow the chance of regime change is more correlated with unwillingness to follow the USA dictate than with corruption ....
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > somehow the chance of regime change is more correlated with unwillingness to follow the USA dictate than with corruption What did Nepal fail to do for America that supposedly caused this?
        don_esteban 1y ago
        Nepal is probably safe from US meddling (US has no interests there, India and China meddle in Nepal enough). Pakistan/Bangladesh is another manner. The way Imran Khan was ousted...
    - snapcaster 1y ago
      I don't like comments like this, because while you're right that many people think everything happening everywhere is the CIA. The CIA (and US gov) _has_ been involved in an absurd amount of regime changes (that we know about). CIA involvement in something like this shouldn't be dismissed out of hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
- Mistletoe 1y ago
  I’m hoping the one in Indonesia and this one and others catch fire. The people are starting to realize where all the money is going in the world, straight up to the top.
- idiomat9000 1y ago
  [dead]
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  Nepal has always been somewhat of a basket case. Remember when their prince went nuts and shot the royal family up? Then the whole country went through the wringer in the mid-00s. Shame, it’s one place I really want to visit, but it seems like it will be a bit of a challenge (well, at least not Iran-level challenge, which is another place I want to visit someday and has different but even bigger problems).
  - objektif 1y ago
    It is the most fascinating country I have ever been to.
checker659 1y ago
About china/india: Nope. This is objectively false.
- Quarrelsome 1y ago
  surely needs some sort of citation. Is it not rather obvious that a small nation bordered by two bigger nations would be unduly influenced by them?
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    I think what they means is dismissing the student protests as instigated by either India or China is doing a disservice to them. And I agree with them - the ongoing protests are a result of anger against the political establishment's corruption - while thousands of Nepalis go abroad to work in the Gulf and India as menial labor, the political establishment's kids go abroad to America, Canada, and Australia to study, party, and live their best life. My point was orthogonal to that - I'm saying that Chinese and Indian influence on the political establishment has been strongly entrenched. Even Nepali media calls out Sharma's pro-China leanings and Deuba's pro-India leanings, and Prachanda's "paltu Ram" antics.
kogasa240p 1y ago
>WhatsApp is heavily used by Nepalis both domestically and abroad (a large portion of Nepalis work abroad in India, the Gulf, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan as migrant workers) so people are cut off from communicating with each other. People need to start learning XMPP, cutting off of centralized services is only going to get worse.
- krior 1y ago
  Easier said than done for the tech-illiterate majority of the population.
lenkite 1y ago
> China and India are meddling in this. Nothing in Nepali politics happens without either China or India's hands or implicit blessing Neither China nor India have so far meddled in this. It came as as surprise to both nations. Also, neither China nor India control Nepal's social media. You would have to look at the yanks for that. This is Nepal's self owned problem. Corruption has got entrenched into the system and you need fresh blood and a large number of hard-working politicians to fix these issues and make the government accountable. We had many extensive corruption protests in India before the national BJP took over 15 years ago and Modi made bureaucrats accountable. Sadly, there has been some slacking after the initial years.

factorialboy 1y ago

First, Maldives. Then, Bangladesh, Now, Nepal. An unstable Nepal allows the destabilization of two critical states in India. Regime change in India is the big prize. -- China and India do meddle. But a classic color revolution, such as this one, is the signature of you-know-who.

alephnerd 1y ago
KP Sharma Oli is pro-China which even Nepali media has pointed out [0]. And his formative years were spent growing up in a village (Garamani) barely 30 km outside Naxalbari during the Naxalbari Uprising, and attended secondary school barely 5 miles (Mechinagar) away from Naxalbari during the uprising. In Nepali politics, Sher Bahadur Deuba is pro-India and Prachanda is pro-Prachanda (will back India some years, other years will back China). The whole Indian internet conspiracy of "CIA ki saazish" is ridiculous when the US has barely 20 India scholars at all. There is 0 domain experience in India studies in the US, and that reflects in America's South Asia strategy (there is none). [0] - https://kathmandupost.com/columns/2025/09/07/oli-s-diplomatic-snubs https://kathmandupost.com/columns/2025/09/07/oli-s-diplomati...
- selimthegrim 1y ago
  Did the departments at Berkeley, Columbia and Chicago just turn over and capsize?
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    Their scholars primarily specialize in the history of South Asia, not contemporary foreign relations and strategy in South Asia. IMO, the only American program that has a good program in Contemporary Indian politics and foreign policy is Stanford, as Sumit Ganguly acts as the primary linkage between American and Indian policymakers, and the FSI and Hoover Institution tends to host Indian policymakers and career bureaucrats as affiliates and fellows. For example, during the US-India trade negotiations, the only public visit Nirmala Sitharaman and her staffers had was at the Hoover Institution [0]. Even the USIBC is hosted at Stanford, and that event has a lot of Indian and American dignitaries and policymakers coming. Other than Christine Fair and a couple Pakistani fellows at HKS, I can't think of a similar domain experts on Pakistan either in the US. If you want to study contemporary Indian foreign policy outside of India, your only options are NUS, ANU, Stanford, LSE, and maybe Oxford. It's the same reason why the best China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea scholars tend to be clustered at Harvard and Stanford. [0] - https://www.hoover.org/events/laying-foundations-developed-india-viksit-bharat-2047 https://www.hoover.org/events/laying-foundations-developed-i...
    - selimthegrim 1y ago
      I have gone back-and-forth with Christine Fair on Twitter DMs (she had an issue with a translation I wasn’t credited on) and she certainly has her strongly personal point of view, but she’s got a lot of sharp edges. Maybe Michael what’s his name who is always writing op-eds in Dawn would be another option.
      - selimthegrim 1y ago
        Michael Kugelman
      - 1y ago
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> a classic color revolution, such as this one, is the signature of you-know-who I literally don’t.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
  there's a conspiracy theory that every revolution of the past 100 years was caused by the cia.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    Oh yeah, I saw it in India when Bangladesh fell. Couldn’t possibly be her incessant and well-documented corruption. I also think Barack Obama was somehow involved.
    - don_esteban 1y ago
      Corruption is endemic in many places, but somehow the chance of regime change is more correlated with unwillingness to follow the USA dictate than with corruption ....
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > somehow the chance of regime change is more correlated with unwillingness to follow the USA dictate than with corruption What did Nepal fail to do for America that supposedly caused this?
        don_esteban 1y ago
        Nepal is probably safe from US meddling (US has no interests there, India and China meddle in Nepal enough). Pakistan/Bangladesh is another manner. The way Imran Khan was ousted...
  - snapcaster 1y ago
    I don't like comments like this, because while you're right that many people think everything happening everywhere is the CIA. The CIA (and US gov) _has_ been involved in an absurd amount of regime changes (that we know about). CIA involvement in something like this shouldn't be dismissed out of hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Mistletoe 1y ago
I’m hoping the one in Indonesia and this one and others catch fire. The people are starting to realize where all the money is going in the world, straight up to the top.
idiomat9000 1y ago
[dead]
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
Nepal has always been somewhat of a basket case. Remember when their prince went nuts and shot the royal family up? Then the whole country went through the wringer in the mid-00s. Shame, it’s one place I really want to visit, but it seems like it will be a bit of a challenge (well, at least not Iran-level challenge, which is another place I want to visit someday and has different but even bigger problems).
- objektif 1y ago
  It is the most fascinating country I have ever been to.

checker659 1y ago

About china/india: Nope. This is objectively false.

Quarrelsome 1y ago
surely needs some sort of citation. Is it not rather obvious that a small nation bordered by two bigger nations would be unduly influenced by them?
- alephnerd 1y ago
  I think what they means is dismissing the student protests as instigated by either India or China is doing a disservice to them. And I agree with them - the ongoing protests are a result of anger against the political establishment's corruption - while thousands of Nepalis go abroad to work in the Gulf and India as menial labor, the political establishment's kids go abroad to America, Canada, and Australia to study, party, and live their best life. My point was orthogonal to that - I'm saying that Chinese and Indian influence on the political establishment has been strongly entrenched. Even Nepali media calls out Sharma's pro-China leanings and Deuba's pro-India leanings, and Prachanda's "paltu Ram" antics.

kogasa240p 1y ago

>WhatsApp is heavily used by Nepalis both domestically and abroad (a large portion of Nepalis work abroad in India, the Gulf, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan as migrant workers) so people are cut off from communicating with each other. People need to start learning XMPP, cutting off of centralized services is only going to get worse.

krior 1y ago
Easier said than done for the tech-illiterate majority of the population.

lenkite 1y ago

> China and India are meddling in this. Nothing in Nepali politics happens without either China or India's hands or implicit blessing Neither China nor India have so far meddled in this. It came as as surprise to both nations. Also, neither China nor India control Nepal's social media. You would have to look at the yanks for that. This is Nepal's self owned problem. Corruption has got entrenched into the system and you need fresh blood and a large number of hard-working politicians to fix these issues and make the government accountable. We had many extensive corruption protests in India before the national BJP took over 15 years ago and Modi made bureaucrats accountable. Sadly, there has been some slacking after the initial years.