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Nepal jitters over foreign media
investment
By Dhruba Adhikary
KATHMANDU - People associated with The Himalayan
Times, an English daily, appeared exhilarated when its
management decided to celebrate the newspaper's first
anniversary late last year by organizing a "mega bash"
on the lawns of a luxury hotel. Addressing the media
crowd assembled to share the occasion, a
confident-looking managing director, Ravin Lama, proudly
announced, "With the completion of one year, the paper
has proved wrong Nepali media pundits who predicted THT
would not be able to survive."
As the events in
subsequent weeks have shown, though, Lama has been
proved wrong. His belief that initial noise against
foreign investment in the print media would disappear
over time was not a realistic reading of trends. In
fact, it turned out to be a preposterous calculation,
especially in the context of continuing media reports
that Lama worked as a conduit for an Indian media giant,
Asia Pacific Communication Associates (APCA), to provide
finances to the newly-launched English daily. Through an
advertisement in Outlook, an Indian news magazine in
December 2001, APCA said that it was setting its foot in
Nepal "to redefine its media industry".
Worse
still, less than three weeks after the newspaper
celebrated its first anniversary, its publisher, Ujjwal
Sharma, dissociated himself from the paper. He publicly
disclosed that the newspaper was being run through
"covert Indian investment". Sharma, a Nepali national,
issued a public apology for being irrational in the
beginning. Authorities are now investigating the issue,
and Lama is separately facing a legal enquiry on charges
of obtaining Nepali citizenship on the basis of false
information and documentation. The District
Administration Office in Kathmandu, where the newspaper
was formally registered, has initiated procedures to
de-register it.
Sharma's revelations attracted
attractive headlines in several Kathmandu newspapers.
"India makes inroads into Nepali media," read the banner
headline in the People's Review, an influential English
weekly. Saanghu, a Nepali language newspaper, published
a detailed story to tell its readers that those behind
APCA had begun approaching "power centers" to protect
their illegal investments.
Such words imply the
palace of King Gyanendra, who dismissed the elected
prime minister and assumed all executive powers on
October 4 last year. Prabhakar Rana, who used to look
after Gyanendra's business interests before he became
the king in the aftermath of the royal carnage of June
1, 2001, is being frequently mentioned in the media as
the person through whom APCA is trying to find a way out
to remain in Nepal.
Whether the power centers
will be impressed by this newspaper's controversial
attempt to project King Gyanendra as the "Personality of
the Year" (2002) is a matter of conjecture. Similarly,
it also remains a matter of speculation whether the
frequent visits to Nepal of Dileep Padgaonkar, an Indian
journalist associated with APCA, will have any effect on
the ongoing official probe. Padgaonkar's recent
write-ups in The Times of India have focused on Nepal,
some of which are based on his audience with King
Gyanendra.
Nepal's laws and long-term official
policy on media do not permit foreign investment in the
print media. That, perhaps, was the reason why APCA
investment came through the back door, to put it in the
words of Jaya Prakash Gupta, the then minister in charge
of the Information and Communications Ministry. Gupta is
not a minister any longer and is currently facing
corruption charges from an anti-graft agency.
The Himalayan Times, which operates from APCA
House, is mainly run by journalists "imported" from
India, although the top editorial posts have been
offered to men with Nepali-sounding names. Its accounts
and activities have not been transparent, leaving room
for doubts about the entire project, although it
recently added a Nepali language daily to its fold.
Nepal's literacy percentage is low. Only one
half of the country's 23 million people can read and
write.
Both The Himalayan Times and the
recently-acquired Nepali-language Annapurna Post,
printed on broadsheet paper and containing 12 color
pages, are sold at a throwaway price - two Nepali rupees
a copy. This is not a price, agree media market people,
that can bring in any profit. And space occupied by
advertisements is visibly limited. What, then, could be
the reason for publishing these newspapers in Nepal?
Hindu Saptahik is one of the newspapers to
suspect that the Times and the Post are both financed
through funds supplied by India's external intelligence
agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). But the
Indian embassy in Kathmandu has refrained from issuing
any reaction to these reports to date.
"Investment to launch a newspaper can't be
compared with investment made on a soap factory," says
Pushkar Lal Shrestha, editor-cum-publisher of Nepal
Samacharpatra, a Nepali daily, which is among the
leading critics of foreign investment in the Nepali
media, both print and electronic. "Media is related to a
market of ideas, including political ones," he
elaborates to justify his point. "Media owners'
decisions can affect the national agenda; hence
foreigners should not be allowed to own our media."
One strong argument against foreign investment
in the media is based on constitutional provisions.
Freedom of expression - and by extension the right to
information and publication - are granted to citizens of
the countries concerned. "Clearly, the rights granted to
Nepali citizens cannot be conferred to citizens of India
or any other country for that matter," says former
attorney general Badri Bahadur Karki, a constitutional
expert. "It is so obvious that it hardly begs any other
interpretation or argument."
The long-term
communication policy of the government is comparatively
liberal for the electronic media, where foreign
investment of up to 25 percent is permitted. "Electronic
media should not have been made an exception," contends
P Kharel a seasoned mediaman who once served as the
editor of The Rising Nepal, an English daily. Grounds
for manipulations remain extremely high, Kharel says,
when authorities are allowed to retain discretionary
powers.
Critics of the government policy think
it unsuitable in this age of globalization. Free media
associations that advocate for the free movement of
media persons and media products also find the idea of
regulating investment in the media somewhat foolish.
According to them, restrictive measures automatically
discourage investment useful to create gainful
employment opportunities, and broaden the base of tax
revenue. Investment should also be invited from
countries in Asia, Europe and America as this will help
institutionalize political plurality in Nepal, they
argue.
"When the issue of the fourth estate
comes up for debate, political considerations are bound
to overtake economic advantages," says Tirtha Koirala,
editor of the fortnightly "Nepal" news magazine, owned
by the publishers of The Kathmandu Post daily. When a
larger democratic country like India has not allowed
unrestricted investment in the media, how can a smaller
- and relatively inexperienced - Nepal accept to absorb
pressures that enter Nepal along with the investor? This
view of editor Koirala is shared by other professionals.
Lack of transparency in business deals and transactions
is the main reason for their concern. India, after a
protracted debate spanning over two years, decided in
June 2002 to allow 26 percent foreign direct investment
in news and current affairs publications. There is an
additional condition that Indian nationals should be
given the editorial control of such publications.
Up until that time, India's prohibitive policy
was based on a cabinet resolution of 1955 which
stipulated that "no foreign-owned newspapers or
periodicals should, in future, be permitted to be
published in India". It was this cabinet decision that
provided Indian newspaper barons with ammunition to
attack potential foreign investors. The Times of India
was one of the newspapers to fiercely oppose FDI in the
print media, and its editor, Dileep Padgaonkar, acted as
one of the crusaders. His concerns over "ideological
domination and political interference" gained wide
publicity in the Indian press. "This country has paid a
heavy price for turning a blind eye to foreign funds,"
Padgaonkar was quoted as saying.
Ironically, it
is the same Padgaonkar whose APCA is now being accused
of trying to do the opposite in Nepal. "This is yet
another instance of double standard India practices in
South Asia," says Madhav Kumar Rimal, editor of the
Spotlight weekly. "If external money in media is harmful
to India, how can the Indian money bring in goodness to
Nepal?" he wonders.
People outside of the media
industry, too, think it rational to take legal measures
aimed at protecting the interests of the country and its
society. "National media is inherently related with the
nation's security," says Karna Thapa, managing director
of Kanchanjangha Security. "If the media loses its
national character, the country's security is bound to
be at a stake," adds Thapa, a retired army major.
"Should a powerful tool like media be allowed to
be owned by foreigners, Nepal's security and national
interests are bound to be in jeopardy," says Krishna B
Bhattachan, professor at Tribhuwan University.
Educated people in Nepal do understand that
government actions taken in the larger public interest
are tolerated, even in highly developed countries such
as the UK and the US. Stung by criticism over Richard
Desmond's purchase of the Daily Express in 2000, the
British government subsequently added a clause in the
relevant law to block takeovers of newspapers by
"undesirables" such as porn barons.
Nepalis
agree that it is essentially an issue that requires
adequate attention and courage on the part of the
establishment.
"What we in the Nepali media are
presently doing is to give the authorities a nudge so
that they open their eyes before it is too late,"
explains Kapil Kafley, deputy editor of Nepal
Samacharpatra. "Needless to repeat, this country won't
have a future unless mistakes of the past are
rectified."
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