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By:

Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Credibility Crisis

For years, Faizal Khan, known across the country by his affectionate moniker of ‘Khan Sir,’ has cultivated the image of an educator fighting a noble battle against an exploitative coaching industry. To millions of students, he is not merely a teacher but a folk hero, someone who is an outsider challenging entrenched interests while offering affordable education to the masses. But the recent episode surrounding the attack on Khan Global Studies in Patna raise uncomfortable questions and casts...

Credibility Crisis

For years, Faizal Khan, known across the country by his affectionate moniker of ‘Khan Sir,’ has cultivated the image of an educator fighting a noble battle against an exploitative coaching industry. To millions of students, he is not merely a teacher but a folk hero, someone who is an outsider challenging entrenched interests while offering affordable education to the masses. But the recent episode surrounding the attack on Khan Global Studies in Patna raise uncomfortable questions and casts a shadow on the educator’s reputation. According to reports, a group of men allegedly vandalised the coaching institute, pelted stones and assaulted a security guard. But the controversy did not end there. Soon after the incident, Khan claimed that seven to ten rounds of firing had taken place outside his institute. The allegation dramatically escalated the seriousness of the episode. His claim generated headlines, social media outrage and a wave of sympathy. Yet police investigations reportedly found no evidence of firing by the attackers. CCTV footage and local inquiries also failed to substantiate the claim. Then came a more troubling development. A video surfaced allegedly showing two security guards associated with Khan Global Studies had fired shots into the air. The guards have since been arrested. While the investigation is still underway, the sequence of events is, at the very least, fishy. If police are ultimately correct that there was no firing by the attackers, then how did such a dramatic narrative emerge? Why were claims of multiple rounds being fired presented with such certainty? Why did the alleged gunfire become the centrepiece of public messaging immediately after the attack? Khan’s rivals have claiming that it was the educator himself who orchestrated the attack to gain sympathy as his fortunes were flagging. While the truth of these allegations have yet to be proved, it is worth noting that the modern coaching industry is not merely an educational enterprise but also a business of branding whose teachers are celebrities. Coaching centres compete for market share, social media attention and student enrolments. Success stories turn into marketing campaigns. And victimhood can sometimes become a marketing campaign too. Indeed, the most striking feature of the episode is not the vandalism itself but the rush to construct a story of persecution before the facts were known. The suggestion that shadowy rivals sought to silence a successful educator fit neatly into an existing public image. It generated precisely the sort of public sympathy that influential personalities often enjoy. Students deserve better. They look to educators not merely for knowledge but for intellectual honesty. A teacher’s first duty is respect for facts. The Patna incident should therefore serve as a reminder that celebrity status cannot become a substitute for credibility. The damage will extend beyond one coaching institute or Khan’s reputation. It will damage trust itself. And for a teacher, there is no greater loss.

The Rapper Who Rattled Kathmandu

Nepal stands at a rare political crossroads. Six months after violent protests shook the Himalayan republic and forced the exit of former prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli, voters have delivered a sweeping mandate to a new generation of leadership. At the centre of that political earthquake is Balendra Shah, the 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician whose Rastriya Swatantra Party secured a commanding majority in the parliamentary elections of March 5.


Few figures better capture the restless mood of modern Nepal. Shah, popularly known as ‘Balen,’ first gained prominence in the country’s fledgling hip-hop scene where his lyrics railed against corruption, political inertia and the hypocrisies of the ruling class. In a political culture dominated for decades by ageing leaders from the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist), the rapper’s blunt rhetoric struck a chord with urban youth frustrated by stagnation and patronage politics.


Hailing from Mahottari district in Nepal’s Madhesh region, Shah possesses a cosmopolitan linguistic repertoire uncommon among the country’s younger politicians. Fluent in Nepali, English and Maithili, he has cultivated a following that stretches beyond Kathmandu’s urban middle class. Yet it is not linguistic bridge-building for which he has attracted the most attention. Rather, it is his willingness to challenge Nepal’s traditional diplomatic caution, particularly towards India.


As mayor of Kathmandu, a position he won in 2022 as a political outsider, Shah built a reputation as an anti-establishment reformer who spoke directly to frustrated voters. But he also repeatedly courted controversy. In June 2023 he ordered a ban on the screening of Indian films in Kathmandu after the Bollywood movie Adipurush included a line suggesting that Janaki, better known as the goddess Sita, was “a daughter of India”. The remark provoked nationalist outrage in Nepal, where Sita is traditionally believed to have been born in Janakpur.


Another symbolic gesture caused diplomatic ripples. Shah displayed a map of ‘Greater Nepal’ in his office, a cartographic vision that includes territories currently administered by India. Such imagery resonates with long-standing nationalist claims in Nepal, especially regarding disputed areas such as Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh - territories claimed by Kathmandu but controlled by New Delhi.


In November 2025, weeks the so-called ‘Gen Z’ protests shook the country, Shah posted a Facebook message laced with insults directed at India, the United States, China and Nepal’s own political parties including the Rastriya Swatantra Party he would later join. The post triggered a political storm and was soon deleted, but it reinforced the impression of a leader comfortable with confrontation and unfiltered rhetoric.


The electoral wave that has now carried Shah to power is remarkable even by Nepal’s turbulent standards. For decades the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML dominated the country’s politics, occasionally challenged by the Maoist movement led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda. The Maoists’ sweeping victory in the 2008 elections, which brought Dahal to the premiership, was once considered the most dramatic upheaval in Nepal’s democratic era. Yet even that upset did not inflict the kind of comprehensive humiliation suffered by the traditional parties in the latest polls.


The four-year-old RSP has achieved what many observers thought impossible under Nepal’s complex dual-election system: a sweeping majority. The result shattered entrenched political structures. In perhaps the most symbolic contest of the campaign, Shah defeated former prime minister Oli in Jhapa-5, a constituency long regarded as a bastion of the veteran leader.


For many voters, Shah’s inexperience is evidence that he is not tainted by the compromises of the old political elite.


His party has capitalised on that sentiment with an ambitious reform agenda. The RSP has promised to investigate the assets of politicians who have held power since the 1990s, nationalise properties obtained illegally and overhaul Nepal’s judiciary by ending political appointments of judges. One proposal even suggests live-streaming court proceedings to enhance transparency.


Still, Shah’s rise raises pressing questions about Nepal’s foreign policy, especially its relationship with India. Since the signing of the India–Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1950, India has been Nepal’s most important economic partner. New Delhi continues to provide substantial development assistance while repeatedly helping Nepal during its many crises.


For Shah, the challenge will be proving that nationalist rhetoric can coexist with pragmatic diplomacy, especially with India. He should realise that rap battles are easy; managing geopolitics is harder.

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