Nepal and its communist government in the first half of 2020 has soured its relations with India like never before. Prime Minister KP Oli, heavily inebriated under the stupor of Chinese influence has been taking one hara-kiri step after another. In the long list of such brain-fade moments, another bright idea has been passed along by the KP Oli’s communist government. According to multiple news sources, Kathmandu has banned all Indian news channels except the state broadcaster Doordarshan starting today evening.
The move from the Himalayan country comes hours after former Deputy Prime Minister and spokesperson of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Narayan Kaji Shrestha said that “baseless propaganda by Indian media against the Nepal government and our PM” should stop.
According to The Himalayan Times, the move was triggered after some Indian TV channels indulged in “defamatory” reportage about Nepal’s prime minister KP Sharma Oli and the Chinese envoy to Nepal Hou Yanqi.
Reported earlier by TFI, Hou Yanqi has allegedly been the architect and brain behind Nepal’s revised political map and imaginary border disputes with India.
According to intelligence sources in New Delhi, she is a frequent guest at Nepal PM KP Sharma Oli’s office and official residence. Nepal is her first Ambassador-level assignment and earlier she was stationed as a diplomat in Pakistan.
Over the past few months, Hou has met, Oli, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda”, President Bidya Bhandari, and key NCP leaders. She has even met former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who heads the foreign relations department of NCP, on July 5.
Read: Nepal leaders are non-stop fighting and making Hou Yanqi run door to door to save China’s interests
In nutshell, she has become an overwhelming influence in Nepal- deciding the internal affairs of the ruling Nepal Communist Party, influencing Kathmandu’s foreign relations and gagging leading Nepalese media outlets.
A foreign diplomat chairing lengthy meetings with the opposition and the party in power and the former leaders is bound to arise more than few eyebrows and therefore the Indian media has been incessant in its reporting of the wolf-warrior of China which apparently has the number of every Nepali leader.
The Hyper-active news channels of India sometimes cross the line but most of the time, these channels have informed the Nepalese people of Chinese interference in their political affairs.
Truth is often a bitter pill to swallow and the moment Indian media went on about unraveling the role of Hou Yanqi in the Nepalese government, alarm bells went ringing.
The Nepalese media and the Nepalese people, who were quiet for months, have all started raising eyebrows over Nepalese leaders’ submission to the Chinese ambassador. The Nepalese people have started asking the tough questions and in order to cull those voices, Kathmandu has learned from its Chinese master the art of censoring things.
Nepali newspaper The Himalayan has a picture of protests against Chinese envoy in Nepal @PRCAmbNepal over Beijing's involvement in the country. The pictures show Chinese envoy's face marked with another poster saying,"Keep in the embassy, not in our leader's house" pic.twitter.com/51casHRJUJ
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) July 8, 2020
Kathmandu Post, Kantipur times also talk about Chinese envoy's role in the country's internal politics. Kathmandu post talks about Nepal PM's failure on foreign policy. https://t.co/8qzyDC6BCO pic.twitter.com/NlzDmHj5dp
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) July 8, 2020
Although, the Communist Party has not formally dictated this decision but it is clear as a day that this decision has been passed on to the cable operators from the back-doors.
Indian TV channels have high popularity in Nepal and hence it is difficult to presume that the cable TV operators took this decision all on their own.
For the better part of the last two months, the 68-year old has been ratcheting irredentism against India. He even blamed India for spreading the Wuhan virus in Nepal and also got his police personnel to fire upon unarmed Indian citizens.
And when his political play with his puppet master Hou Yanqi were discovered, Comrade Oli did what communists do best. Whitewash the facts by entirely censoring them.