Balen Shah: The India-educated leader who took hard positions on India

Nepal’s new Prime Minister Balendra Shah has often taken sharp positions against India

Transcript

00:00Just look at this map right behind the new Prime Minister of Nepal.

00:03It's an old photo that will now flash across multiple news channels in India.

00:07But is Balinshah anti-India?

00:10The story is not that simple because India has quietly shaped parts of Balinshah's journey.

00:15Watch this video till the end to find out more.

00:17Born in Kathmandu in 1990, raised in Naradevi, his family came from Madhes,

00:22the same Tarai plains that blur into Bihar.

00:27His mother tongue is methly.

00:29His people share gods, weddings and rivers with the people of North Bihar.

00:33He chose to study engineering in Karnataka and got his EmTech Instructional Engineering

00:37on a persons of Indian origin quota.

00:39And yet, he became the most aggressively anti-India politician Nepal has seen in years.

00:44In 2023, India unveiled a mural of Akhand Bharat in the new parliament building.

00:48S.J. Shankar later, of course, explained that the mural only showed the spread of the Ashoka Empire.

00:52But Balin, who was then the mayor of Kathmandu, did not just protest.

00:56He installed a map of Greater Nepal in his office.

00:58One that swallows UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Sikkim whole.

01:02He later banned a Bollywood movie too.

01:04Why?

01:04A dialogue in Adipurush said Sita was India's daughter.

01:08Nepal considers Janakpur, Sita's Janabhumi, as its own.

01:11So when quotes stopped his ban, he went on Facebook and accused the judiciary of being,

01:15and I quote, Indian slaves.

01:17Then last November, in a post he deleted within 30 minutes, but not before 34,000 reactions,

01:22he typed out what many in Nepal feel, but few say out loud.

01:26F**k India, F**k China, F**k the US.

01:29Ek tam seeda baat.

01:30Here's the irony that New Delhi should sit with.

01:32The man saying all this, his roots are in the very land that borders Bihar.

01:36He studied here, ate here, lived here, and he's about to lead a country that India cannot afford to lose.

01:44I'm Anish Yodhikari. Thank you for watching. First things first.

01:46Long.