Kathmandu, Nepal – Dealing with hundreds of raucous supporters, 35-year-old Balendra Shah lifted his signature black rectangular sun shades, requested his viewers to look him within the eye, and stated: “I really like you.”
It’s a sentiment that thousands and thousands of younger Nepalis seem to reciprocate.
Balen – as he’s popularly recognized – was a no person till 2013, when he virtually in a single day grew to become a rap sensation. Almost a decade later, in Could 2022, he shocked Nepal’s deeply entrenched mainstream political events by successful the submit of mayor of Kathmandu, the nation’s capital, whereas contesting as an impartial.
When the Himalayan nation of 30 million folks erupted in popular protests in opposition to the federal government of then-Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in September 2025, Balen emerged as a high-profile backer of the protesters. He was the primary selection of many Gen Z activists to take over as interim chief after Oli was compelled to resign. However he as an alternative supported former Supreme Court docket Chief Justice Sushila Karki for the submit. It’s now that this was a tactical transfer.
As Nepal heads to its first election for the reason that protests final yr, and Karki’s temporary time period ends, Balen is positioning himself as the long run prime minister the nation wants. And true to fashion, he’s doing it with a bang: He’s contesting the parliamentary elections from Jhapa-5, a seat about 300km (186 miles) southeast of Kathmandu, in opposition to Oli, the person protesters deposed simply 5 months in the past.
On the floor, the chances seem stacked in opposition to him. The area is a stronghold of Oli and the Communist Social gathering of Nepal – Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), which the previous prime minister heads. Balen is contesting as a candidate of the Rastriya Swatantra Social gathering (RSP), a centrist occasion fashioned lower than 4 years in the past, which gained 10 % of the nationwide vote within the final elections in 2022.
Balen’s risky public communication – he has abused mainstream events, India, China and america, and threatened to burn down symbols of energy in Nepal – has sparked criticism and questions over whether or not he’s prepared for prime workplace.
However Balen defied the pundits when he gained the Kathmandu mayoralty. And observers and analysts say that for a lot of Nepalis, he represents a breath of contemporary air in a rustic the place greater than 40 % of the inhabitants is underneath the age of 35, however the place the management of all main events is in its 70s.
“Younger Nepalis see him as a decisive actor, who isn’t beholden to conventional political or enterprise pursuits,” Pranaya Rana, a journalist who writes for the Kalam Weekly e-newsletter, instructed Al Jazeera. “Many admire his macho public persona and his willingness to tackle entrenched political patronage networks.”
The craze
If younger Nepal burned with anger in September, when protesters clashed with safety forces and attacked senior politicians after a crackdown by authorities underneath Oli, Balen was nonetheless seething with rage two months later.
In a midnight submit on Fb in November, he lashed out: “F*** America, F*** India, F*** China, F*** UML, F*** Congress, F*** RSP, F*** RPP, F*** Maobaadi. You Guys all Mixed can do nothing”, venting in opposition to the favored political events and even nations which have shut ties to Nepal. Being the Kathmandu mayor on the time, he deleted the submit lower than half an hour later.
Then in January, he stop as mayor and joined the RSP, one of many events he cursed within the Fb submit. Extra not too long ago, after Oli known as on Fb for a public debate amongst prime ministerial candidates of main events, Balen rejected the suggestion and requested the ex-prime minister to take duty for the handfuls of civilians killed through the Gen Z protests in September. He requested Oli to acknowledge that he was a “terrorist”.
Excessive? To not many Nepalis.
The rapper-turned-politician’s confrontational fashion and rhetoric seem to have solely endeared him to massive sections of the youth. His beard and dandy, all-black clothes fashion – he sometimes wears the standard Newari gown of the ethnic inhabitants of the Kathmandu valley – coupled along with his trademark darkish glasses, have turn out to be vogue symbols.
Kathmandu outlets as soon as ran out of the sort of black rectangular glasses he wears. Many on-line shops, together with Daraz, the preferred vendor in Nepal, nonetheless carry a number of decisions of those shades, calling them “Balen Shah glasses”.
Not like conventional politicians, Balen primarily stays away from mainstream media. As an alternative, he communicates with the broader public via podcasts, tv exhibits the place he’s a decide, or via his favorite platform: social media. His 3.5 million followers on Fb, 1 million on Instagram, 400,000 on X and almost 1 million on YouTube give him a web based viewers unmatched in Nepal.
That is beneficial capital with a technology continually on their telephones.
But Balen first made waves not as a politician, however as an upstart musician who shook Nepal.
Large vehicles, larger songs
The youngest of 4 siblings, Balen was born in 1990 in Kathmandu. Balen’s father, Ram Narayan Shah – who handed away in December – was a authorities practitioner of ayurveda, the traditional Hindu therapeutic system.
In an interview with Al Jazeera in September – three months earlier than his dying – Shah recalled Balen as a “vivid and easy” little one. The daddy’s work took him away from house regularly, however one clear reminiscence from Balen’s childhood caught out for Shah: “He wrote poems. I keep in mind that, as a result of I additionally wrote poems.”
Balen graduated with a civil engineering diploma from Himalayan Whitehouse Worldwide Faculty in Kathmandu and obtained a postgraduate diploma in structural engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological College (VTU) in Karnataka, India.
Then, in 2013, he engineered his first main profession transition. The setting was a preferred rap battle in Nepal, known as Uncooked Barz, by which two contestants face-off reside in opposition to one another. One of many organisers of the competitors, who requested anonymity, instructed Al Jazeera that Yama Buddha, a preferred rapper who has since handed away, beneficial Balen to him.
Balen gained the rap battle, gaining immediate recognition. “Greater than a rapper, he was a poet. He was superb lyrically, and talked about suppressed [people],” the competition organiser recalled.
In 2021, Shah introduced his candidature for the mayoral election and revealed that he had been plotting the run for at the very least two years. He swept the election, successful 61,767 votes, defeating candidates from the key political events, the Nepali Congress and Communist Social gathering of Nepal (UML), who obtained 38,341 and 38,117 votes, respectively.
As mayor, in response to his aide and press coordinator, Surendra Bajgain, Shah would arrive at his workplace on the Kathmandu Metropolitan Metropolis (KMC) at about 10am. He would first meet all of the division heads, undergo information, “search readability” on questions he had, after which signal information, Bajgain instructed Al Jazeera.
He would put on his trademark black jacket and pants, and black shades, daily to the workplace. He would take away his glasses contained in the workplace, Bajgain stated. “However you’ll see him in these glasses when taking footage or in public,” he added.
As a mayor, he lived in government-provided lodging within the coronary heart of Kathmandu along with his spouse and an toddler daughter. A fitness center common, he most well-liked lunch at house, however would sip on countless cups of tea and occasional within the workplace.
To get away from the general public gaze, Balen “likes to go on lengthy rides outdoors the valley, as a result of right here, folks encompass him fairly often in public,” Bajgain stated.
His ardour for vehicles additionally landed him in controversy, broadly circulated on-line, when he was seen driving an costly Land Rover Defender price 40 million Nepali rupees ($275,0000) in January, whereas campaigning in Jhapa 5, his electoral constituency, for the March 5 election.
Given his robust anticorruption picture, the sight of him in a high-end luxurious automobile drew heightened scrutiny. Critics accused him of a scarcity of transparency over the automobile’s possession and use, whereas some identified that, regardless of selling modesty in public workplace, he hardly ever used public transport because the mayor. The automobile, it turned out, had been given to him by a rich businessman to be used throughout his marketing campaign.
Balen is now additionally pursuing a PhD in conventional infrastructure at Kathmandu College. However he’s removed from a reluctant public determine, neither is he an ivory-tower researcher.
Balen’s songs, which mock political events, criticise corruption and speak of the sacrifices of on a regular basis Nepalis, have been the soundtrack to the efforts by Nepal’s Gen Z to reshape the nation’s politics in latest months.
One tune, Nepal Haseko (Nepal Smiling), grew to become an anthem throughout final yr’s protests, and already has greater than 10 million views on YouTube. Within the tune, kids sing within the refrain: “I wish to see Nepal smiling; I wish to see Nepalis dwelling fortunately.”
One other tune, Balidan (Sacrifice) has 14 million views on YouTube. It talks about impunity and corruption. On the Discord server “Youth In opposition to Corruption”, the place Gen Z protesters picked the nation’s interim chief after Oli’s resignation in September, the identify “Balen” was talked about 16,328 instances — excess of anybody else’s.
However Balen additionally has his critics.
‘Set on hearth’
In 2023, when Balen was mayor, his spouse was in his official automobile when a visitors policeman stopped it. Balen was not within the automobile. The federal government-plated automobile was getting used on a public vacation, which provides visitors personnel the correct to ask the aim of the automobile use and whether or not the driving force has a allow for it.
On social media, Balen blew up concerning the incident: “If any of our KMC automobiles are stopped by the federal government from tomorrow, I’ll set the Singha Durbar on hearth. Bear in mind, you thief authorities”. Singha Durbar homes many administrative places of work together with the Prime Minister’s Workplace.
The Oli authorities initially needed to cost him for the incendiary assertion, however backed off – Balen’s touch upon social media had drawn assist. It was an indication of issues to come back. Throughout the Gen Z rebellion in September, Singha Durbar was severely broken after being set on hearth.
In one other occasion, in 2023, after India put in a mural of “Akhand Bharat” (a Higher India) – encompassing lots of its neighbours – Shah hung a “Higher Nepal” map in his workplace, together with territories that after belonged to Nepal however now lie inside India’s borders.
The transfer immediately escalated right into a diplomatic hurdle. Shah was accused of going past his mandate as a municipal chief and stoking nationalist sentiment for political good points. His supporters, nonetheless, hailed his transfer as an assertive counter to international dominance.
In 2023, Balen additionally banned the screening of Indian movies in Kathmandu, alleging that an Indian film had urged that Sita, one in all Hinduism’s most revered goddesses, was born in India. The truth is, she was born in present-day Nepal in response to Hindu scriptures.
As Kathmandu mayor, Balen bulldozed unlawful constructions and ordered garbage to be dumped outdoors authorities places of work. He quickly halted waste assortment from Singha Durbar. The transfer was a riposte to what he argued was the central authorities’s failure to coordinate with town to deal with Kathmandu’s power waste administration disaster.
But to many belonging to the technology most hungry for change in Nepal, Balen has an attract nobody else seems to have.
‘Shake up the established order’
Aayal Sah, a 20-year-old first-time voter, is a resident of Janakpur – the place Sita, the Hindu Goddess, is believed to have been born. He took three of his pals to see Balen’s first public look after becoming a member of the RSP. “I can’t instantly vote for Balen as he isn’t contesting from our space, however I’ll certainly vote for his occasion,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
Rana, the journalist at Kalam Weekly, stated that for a lot of, Balen “embodies the outsider spirit that many younger Nepalis are in search of to shake up the established order”.
But, Rana acknowledged, questions over Balen’s potential to steer Nepal linger because the nation heads to elections. “A main concern for many critics is Balen’s immaturity and his refusal to have interaction with the general public. Throughout his time as mayor, he gave no interviews to native media and didn’t reply any questions,” Rana instructed Al Jazeera.
After Oli stop workplace, when Gen Z protesters voted most for Balen to take over as interim leader on Discord, the then-mayor was not out there on the telephone when the youth motion’s leaders tried to succeed in him to see if he would take cost of the nation.
That, say analysts, was yet one more instance of Balen’s communication fashion: It’s at all times a technique, at his time and place of selecting.
However for a lot of younger Nepalis like Sah, the Janakpur resident, none of those chinks in Balen’s public life matter. “It’s the belief he has gained among the many younger folks,” Sah stated.
“He’s the one one who can take the nation ahead.”
