It’s June 14, 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 Kathmandu. The monsoon has finally arrived but hasn’t quite reached full strength yet and there is a nasty cold and cough combination that seems to be going around. But besides that, it's good news for this newsletter! I’ve received four new paid subscribers this week. A great big thank you to old friends and supporters Kevin Bubriski and Kumudini Gurung Shrestha, new subscriber Sawal Acharya, and one anonymous donor on eSewa. Please do write to me so I can sign you up for the paid membership on Substack. Thank you to all of you who support me in your different ways!
Now, the news.
Eleven ambassadors recalled
This Sunday, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal was in Delhi for the third swearing-in ceremony of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Dahal was among a handful of regional leaders invited to the ceremony. The others were the Presidents of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the prime ministers of Bangladesh, Mauritius, and Bhutan, and the vice president of Seychelles. Dahal was joined in Delhi by Nepali Ambassador to India Shankar Sharma, who had just been recalled as ambassador a few days earlier. Sharma has four months to get his affairs in order and return to Kathmandu.
The Dahal Cabinet, on Thursday, June 6, recalled 11 ambassadors — Sharma from India, Sridhar Khatri from the United States, Gyan Chandra Acharya from the United Kingdom, Jyoti Pyakurel Bhandari from South Korea, Naresh Bikram Dhakal from Qatar, Nawaraj Subedi from Saudi Arabia, Sharmila Parajuli Dhakal from Spain, Ram Ray Yadav from Denmark, Kanta Rijal from Israel, Dilliraj Poudel from Malaysia and Sanil Nepal from Portugal. Four of the recalled ambassadors — Sharma, Khatri, Acharya, and Bhandari — were appointed under the Nepali Congress quota when Dahal’s Maoists were in a coalition with them. Now that the coalition partner has changed, Dahal felt it necessary to recall envoys appointed by a former partner.
Although it is standard practice to recall ambassadors once there are changes in government, many have found fault with the timing of the decision. Dahal stood beside Sharma at Modi’s swearing-in despite firing him a few days earlier. Foreign Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha was also reportedly against recalling all of these ambassadors, arguing that many of them were performing very well and did not need to be changed. Envoys like Sharma and Khatri were academics and not members of the Nepali Congress party anyway. They would’ve discharged their duties regardless of who appointed them. Minister Shrestha, however, was ignored. Dahal and coalition partner KP Sharma Oli went ahead with the recall.
The consensus appears to be that it was a bad move to recall all 11 ambassadors at the same time. All of these ambassadors went through parliamentary hearings and were endorsed by everyone. As such, they should be allowed to perform their roles without being afraid that they’ll be recalled anytime there is a change in government back home. Foreign policy should not depend on which party is part of the government and ambassadors are a crucial part of discharging that foreign policy. Of course, not all ambassadors work well, especially those appointed under political party quotas, and they should be recalled but if someone is doing a good job, why bring them back and that too, so suddenly? At least Dahal admitted that it was a bad move to recall Sharma right before he left for Dehli.
One chief minister endorsed, one rejected
A change in government at the federal level always necessitates a change in government at the provincial level. And so the seven provinces have been attempting to form governments of their own for the past few months. On Monday, the Nepali Congress’ Surendra Raj Pandey obtained a vote of confidence from the Gandaki Provincial Assembly. In the 60-member assembly, the Congress had 27 members, support from 2 Rastriya Prajantantra Party members, and one independent, totaling 30. They needed one more assembly member to win the vote and their savior came in the form of one Phanindra Devkota, a member of the Nepal Samajbadi Party who had contested the election as a Maoist. Despite the Maoists and UML being in opposition, Devkota rejected the whip and crossed the floor to vote for Pandey. ‘Crossing the floor’ means to endorse a political party other than the one you were elected under. Devkota said that he had done so to provide stability to the province. Pandey will now lead the province as chief minister.
Meanwhile, in Madhesh Province, things are not looking so good. Last week, on Wednesday, June 5, Saroj Kumar Yadav lost the vote of confidence and was ousted as chief minister. Yadav, who is from the Upendra Yadav-led Janata Samajbadi Party, lost his position after 53 members voted against him in the 107-member strong assembly. Now, a new coalition led by CK Raut’s Janamat Party and supported by the Maoists and the UML will attempt to take charge with the support of 54 assembly members. The changes signal a larger wave in Madhesh Province where Upendra Yadav, who has held the Madhesh in a firm grasp for over a decade now, appears to be losing steam in the face of a firm challenge mounted by CK Raut and his Janamat Party. Raut himself defeated Yadav in the 2022 federal elections and has emerged as a significant force in Madhesh Province. With Yadav’s hold loosening, Raut’s party now has a chance to make a mark on its core base.
Ruling and opposition parties united against Sumana Shrestha
Education Minister Sumana Shrestha is once again in the crosshairs of the mainstream political parties. After years of being policed for her clothes and questioned over her citizenship, Shrestha is now being criticized in Parliament over her decisions regarding the school sector. Shrestha has been going after public school teachers who are members of the political parties in contravention of the Political Parties Act 2017. Clause 14 (2) (c) of the Act states that no teachers, professors, or employees receiving salaries or benefits from the state can be a member of a political party. Despite this clause, thousands of teachers from around the country are members of all the major mainstream parties. They are vital vote banks for the parties, which is why the parties are hellbent on protecting them and opposing Minister Shrestha’s attempts to implement the law. She has angered the UML further by publicizing a report that the UML government had kept under wraps. The report has recommended that all private schools be converted into non-profit ‘trusts’ within the next 10 years, something that private school operators are vehemently against.
The parties and their teachers’ unions have united against Shrestha. They are not just formally criticizing her in Parliament, senior politicians like KP Sharma Oli have resorted to below-the-belt attacks about her citizenship and marriage. Two weeks ago, Oli remarked that Shrestha had only come to Nepal to visit her ‘maita’ (maternal home) and ended up becoming a minister. Numerous other politicians have raised questions over her citizenship because she is married to a foreigner. When these men have no legitimate ground to criticize, they stoop to ad hominem attacks on her person. But one thing seems clear. If both the opposition and the ruling parties have united to oppose Shrestha, she must be doing right.
Bangladesh to purchase electricity from Nepal
On Wednesday, the Bangladesh government decided, in principle, to purchase 40MW of electricity from Nepal for about 9.30 Nepali rupees a unit. In June last year, the governments of Nepal and Bangladesh agreed to a 25-year power sale agreement for 40MW of electricity. Since Nepal and Bangladesh do not share a border, electricity will be transmitted via Indian transmission lines and so far, India has only allowed 40MW citing the limited spare capacity of its high transmission lines. India itself imports around 450MW of electricity from Nepal.
Bangladesh, however, needs more electricity to power its surging economy and Nepal is looking to diversify its electricity market beyond India. In March of this year, Bangladesh State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid proposed a dedicated transmission line between Nepal and Bangladesh via India. Bangladesh hopes to import 9000MW of electricity from neighboring countries and Nepal hopes to sell 10,000MW to India and 5,000MW to Bangladesh by 2035. These are not unrealistic numbers but heavily depend on whether India will allow it.
So far, India is Nepal’s only customer for electricity and India has strict conditions on how it will buy power. India refuses to purchase electricity generated from power plants with Chinese investment and given that so many hydro plants are being constructed by the Chinese or with Chinese money, who will Nepal sell this excess electricity to? Bangladesh could be it but India will have to give up some of its land to allow the construction of dedicated high-voltage transmission lines. Will it be willing to do this for electricity with Chinese characteristics? I’m not so sure.
And with that, let’s move on to this week’s deep dive.
The deep dive: What plagues the Nepali film industry?
Image generated by Microsoft’s AI Image Creator
Last Saturday I had the privilege of attending a conference organized by filmmakers. Led by producer Ram Krishna Pokharel and writer-director Manoj Pandit, around 50 professionals from the film industry — directors, producers, actors, writers, cinematographers, sound designers — gathered at the Walnut Bistro in Pani Pokhari to talk about the challenges that the film industry is facing. The organizers believed it useful to talk about film as the current leadership of the Film Development Board is on its way out and a new leadership will soon be assuming position. They wanted to gather everyone together, identify issues and problems, and submit them in writing to the new leadership and other authorities. I learned a lot about how the film industry operates and its myriad problems, which is why I thought I’d dedicate this newsletter to talking about film.
First, the Film Development Board, responsible for overseeing and promoting Nepal’s film industry, is an official body under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. This makes it answerable to the Communications Minister and all films are regulated as part of the communications sector. Filmmakers, however, believe that the Ministry of Culture should regulate the film industry since films are cultural products. Films showcase the identity, values, traditions, and ideals of the society that they are made in, which is why films are often crucial to understanding modern societies. For instance, the film Oppenheimer presents a portrait of the deeply paranoid and anti-communist America of the 40s and 50s. Similarly, the recently released Nepali film, Road to a Village, shows the changes wrought upon a pastoral society by its connection to the rest of the country by a road. Films are a great soft power tool; one only has to witness how pervasive Hollywood is to realize the widespread cultural impact of films.
This categorization is worse because it effectively places all films under the ‘media’ bracket and the Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act 2019 explicitly forbids foreign investment in “mass communication media and motion picture of national language”. Films cost a lot of money to make. A whole host of creative personnel and technicians need to be paid, not to forget the pre-production, logistics, post-production, and marketing costs. So when producers put up millions of rupees in funding, they expect at least a moderate return. This means that more unorthodox artistic films are less likely to find funding since they are not likely to make a lot of money at the box office. What gets funded are crowd-pleasing slapstick comedies and the next iteration of Nai Na Bhannu La and Chhakka Panja. Risk-taking filmmakers are thus forced to look out of the country, applying for grants at film festivals and from foreign governments. These are currently legal since the state sees them as ‘donations’ and not investments. But a foreign company wants to invest in a Nepali production because they see the potential that Nepali investors don’t, that’s not allowed. This is preventing Nepali films from being co-produced by companies in various countries and thus cutting them off from crucial funding that will instead go to films from countries with more liberal foreign investment policies.
The next major issue is that a hopelessly outdated law regulates the film industry. The Motion Picture (Production, Exhibition and Distribution) Act was promulgated in 1969 and has received five minor amendments. However, the Act remains moored in the 60s and policymakers have made no attempts to either amend the Act further or to introduce a completely new policy to replace the old Act. According to filmmakers, the existing Act does not account for new innovations in the film industry, such as digital dissemination methods and new mediums such as short films and music videos. The Ministry of Communications is reportedly working on a new draft bill but officials have not reached out to the industry for consultation.
This outdated law has meant that many new mediums of film have to operate in the margins. For instance, the law and the authorities at the Film Development Board do not recognize feature-length documentaries, according to filmmakers. Documentaries are expected to be short and are thus categorized as ‘short films’. Even over an hour-long, feature-length documentaries are categorized as short films. Things have gotten so farcical that such lengthy documentaries have even been showcased under the short film section at Nepali festivals and put up for short film awards. Documentaries, already largely neglected in the commercial film industry, are ignominiously resigned to a category that they don’t even belong to.
Then, there are also the exorbitant taxes that are levied on films. Films are required to pay 5% local tax and 13% Value Added Tax. Foreign films are required to pay another 15% development tax, adding up to 33% tax on foreign productions. For films with large budgets, these taxes add up to millions of rupees. The problem is that the Nepal government still sees films as a ‘luxury’ and taxes them on the same level as tobacco or liquor. Films are entertainment and art and are just as necessary to a fulfilling life as clean air and green open spaces.
Not only does this tax burden discourage a wider variety of Nepali films, it will also affect the Nepal government’s plans to brand Nepal as a ‘film destination’ and work to bring more foreign productions here. Kathmandu recently applied to become a part of UNESCO’s creative cities for film and plans to bring in foreign productions to shoot in Nepal. No foreign film is going to shoot in Nepal if the taxes alone amount to millions of dollars. After Doctor Strange, no major Hollywood film production has been shot in Nepal because they realized that it is cheaper to build a replica somewhere else than shoot in Nepal. Earlier this year, production crew for the film Ice Road 2: Road to the Sky starring Liam Neeson converted an Australian hotel into a replica Nepali town instead of shooting Nepal. Meanwhile, countries around the world — Ireland, Colombia, Romania, Australia, Hungary, the Czech Republic — are offering tax credits between 30-35% for international productions.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is the issue of abuse and exploitation — emotional, financial, and sexual. Contracts are often not honored with actors and technical professionals left out in the lurch. In many cases, there aren’t even contracts as the industry operates largely on professional networks and quid pro quo. This leaves younger and more inexperienced individuals at the mercy of more ruthless industry veterans.
The casting couch too is still very much prevalent in the Nepali film industry. Young actors often face harassment, abuse, and outright assault at the hands of more established filmmakers. In 2002, actor Shrisha Karki died by suicide after a tabloid newspaper published a nude photo of her, a photo where she was being abused and exploited by members of the film industry. In 2020, actor Samragyee Shah posted a video on Instagram (now deleted) detailing her experiences with a veteran film actor. She accused him of acting inappropriately with her and attempting to kiss her. Shah never named the perpetrator in her video but a day later, actor Bhuwan KC filed a defamation case against her, saying she had denigrated him on social media. The case was eventually thrown out by the courts. But guess who went to lead the Film Development Board and is currently its executive chairperson? Bhuwan KC.
There were numerous other issues that the filmmakers brought up — single-screen theaters going out of business; problems with copyright and intellectual property; a lack of film literacy among the general public; technical issues with exhibiting films in theaters; a lack of acceptance for films not shot in the Nepali language; and a lack of funding for filmmakers. It is not possible to discuss all of these issues at length so I’ll have to conclude here. At the end of the meeting, the filmmakers drafted a declaration of problems and proposed solutions, chief among which was the demand to turn the Film Development Board into a Film Commission that would not be beholden to any ministry and could act independently. The declaration also urged the authorities to look into developing a ‘film bank’ that can help finance films.
But the authorities have different priorities. The Film Development Board and its associated professional organizations have been busy mulling over a new name for the local film industry. Kollywood didn’t cut it anymore, they decided, since it could also refer to the Tamil film industry, which is centered around the city of Kodambakkam in Chennai. They wanted something new, something fresh, something that could announce to the world that the Nepali film industry has arrived on the international stage. And so, the Nepali film industry will now be called — ‘Cinemandu’.
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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