EDITORIAL · A silent prime minister, a war in the Gulf and an emptying granary: a letter from a Nepali abroad.
I am one of the millions of Nepalis who work abroad and send money home. On February 28, the United States and Israel struck Iran, and Iran answered with missiles and drones across the Gulf. Our families in Nepal watched the videos and called us at midnight. More than 82,100 Nepalis registered with the government to come home. One Nepali was killed in Dubai.
In all those months, one voice was missing: our prime minister's.
A prime minister who does not speak
This is not a feeling. It is a record. Since becoming mayor in 2022, Balendra Shah has not held a single press conference or given an interview to the national media. Information flows one way, through his personal social media. He walked out of the House half an hour into the President's reading of his own government's policies. He has sent the finance minister to answer MPs in his place. His office now keeps even his domestic travel secret; one chief district officer learned of his visit from the news.
His supporters say he works instead of talking, and that past prime ministers talked for hours and delivered nothing. That is a fair complaint about the past. It is not a defence of the present. In a parliamentary democracy, speaking is part of the work. It is how citizens check whether the work is being done.
The questions his silence creates
A prime minister who never explains himself does not stop people from asking. He only guarantees that they will answer for him. From tea shops in Nepal to labour camps in the Gulf, I hear three theories. I cannot prove any of them. But he has done nothing to disprove them.
Is he answering to someone outside Nepal? Our history gives citizens reason to ask; Nepali governments have been made and unmade with foreign hands nearby. This prime minister keeps his meetings secret and holds Defence, Commerce and Labour himself. He has visited neither India nor China, while his own party chair was warmly received in New Delhi. When the most powerful man in the country hides whom he meets, people will wonder whom he serves.
Does he care at all, even about himself? He behaves less like a politician than like a man who needs no one's approval: not Parliament's, not the press's, not even that of the voters who will judge him next time. A politician guards his career. Why doesn't he?
Was he chosen, or placed? He joined his party barely three months before the election and went from mayor to prime minister in four years. Many Nepalis feel he was put in place rather than produced by our politics. Who benefits from a prime minister who never speaks?
Online, darker stories circulate, some reaching back to the death of a beloved Nepali artist years ago. There is no evidence for them, and I do not repeat them as fact. But I record that they exist, because they are the clearest measure of how badly this silence has damaged public trust.
Rumours are what a nation produces when its leader stops talking. A puppet has a master; a free leader has a voice. Prime Minister, if no one is pulling your strings, publish your foreign meetings, answer Parliament and speak to us. Only you can end these questions.
The workers abroad: a plan on paper
The government says it is ready to rescue us. The facts are thinner. In August, the foreign minister said money for rescue and repatriation had been allocated, but the rules for spending it were still waiting for Finance Ministry approval. Workers trapped in Kuwait paid about 400 dinars, roughly Rs 175,000, to come home through Saudi Arabia. New labour approvals for the Gulf have fallen 52 percent since the war began, and some of us are being sent home on unpaid leave.
About three-quarters of Nepali migrant workers are in the Gulf. A plan to evacuate a few thousand is not a plan for over a million. Where are the charter agreements, the transit routes, the reception centres at home, the jobs for those who return? In 1990, India airlifted its citizens out of Kuwait in one of the largest civilian evacuations in history. Nepal's prime minister has not even addressed the nation.
Empty fields, full import bills
The danger is not only in the Gulf. Nepal's food import bill has climbed to $2.83 billion, as farmland, farm labour and productivity all shrink. The young who should be in the fields are abroad. I am one of them. This year, farmers in Salyan and Banke could not plant paddy because the rain failed.
We have been here before. In 2008, when India banned rice exports, Nepal suffered real hardship. Today our granary depends on two foreign pillars: Indian rice and Gulf wages. If both wobble at once, Nepal has no plan B. Has the prime minister told farmers how the state will help? Has he told consumers how to prepare? He has told them nothing.
What I ask
- Address the nation on the Gulf war and the food situation.
- Publish a full evacuation plan: capacity, flights, routes and who pays.
- Present a food-security plan: grain reserves, fertiliser, irrigation and support for farmers.
- Answer Parliament in person, as the rules require.
We abroad send home more than a third of Nepal's GDP. We have built your reserves with our labour. We have earned the right to hear your voice. Whoever holds the strings, the stage belongs to the people.
Sources
- No press conference or national interview (Newslaundry)
- Walkout during President's address (Kalam Weekly)
- PM's secretariat keeps trips under wraps (Onlinekhabar)
- Missing from Parliament, busy on the ground (The Kathmandu Post)
- PM Balen vs party chief Lamichhane (ThePrint)
- Balen at six months (The Himalayan Times)
- Escalating Gulf crisis: 82,100 registered to return (NIMJN)
- Nepali migrant workers face uncertainty (The Kathmandu Post)
- Rescue procedures await Finance Ministry approval (Kantipur)
- Gulf job opportunities narrowing (The Kathmandu Post)
- Food is now Nepal's next biggest dependency (Asia News Network)
- Rainfall and fertiliser shortages (The Kathmandu Post)
- Nepal food security outlook (FEWS NET)
- Remittances at 35.8% of GDP (ShareSansar)
