By Manjiri Joshi,News18,Rohini Swamy

Copyright news18

There is a Karnataka connection to Kathmandu — Balendra Shah, a civil engineer-rapper-turned-politician.
Shah, who is now being pitched to become Prime Minister of Nepal, studied civil and structural engineering at the Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, where he pursued his MTech in structural engineering. He completed his postgraduate course between 2016 and 2018.
Amid the pressure of deadly student-led ‘Gen Z protests’ and the resignation of Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, all eyes are now on Shah.

One of the traits of a good leader would always be measured by their guides and teachers, said his mentors, and Shah’s teachers back in India are bursting with pride. “He was a brilliant student and was part of three Nepali students who were studying structural engineering and their records were very good,” said Dr Shreyas AV, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering, who was also Shah’s teacher.
“Shah and his colleagues would score 9 CGPA plus, which was good. They completed their course with good results and he was good in mathematics. Their project was on earthquake engineering, a concept that was closer to what happens back in Nepal,” recalled Dr Shreyas.
His teachers said that there was no indication that Shah would find his calling in politics, nor did he display that openly. “We followed his work when he left the institute. That’s when we saw he turned into a popular rapper. He then went into construction, and when he was elected mayor, we were pleasantly surprised. He was as normal as any other student was. Nepali students would come to study as part of the AICTE programme. Balen and other Nepali students came for admission in India under this programme,” said Shreyas to News18.
Dr Sudheer Reddy, the dean of Nitte, spoke to News18 and, having taught Shah in the field of mechanical engineering, spoke highly of his educational tenure in the institution. “He was very good in academics, and we observed good leadership qualities. In fact, he had a desire to do something, to contribute to society through political life even at the time he spent with us,” observed Dr Reddy.
After the completion of his post-graduation, he had gone back to Kathmandu, but back in Karnataka his teachers keenly watched him progress from being an engineering student to working towards becoming a rapper — a sudden shift, they thought — and then his rise as a politician.
His rise as a rapper was unconventional as well. Shah turned his music into a megaphone for Nepal’s ills, highlighting poverty, underdevelopment, and political corruption. His track Balidan (Sacrifice), which has racked up over seven million views on YouTube, struck a chord with a generation fed up with stagnant politics. “We were quite excited and also taken aback with his sudden rise. He won his election as an independent candidate, basing his entire campaign on social media like the Gen Zs do, and that was nothing short of marvellous,” said one of his lecturers.
His teachers call him a thorough gentleman and one who would always show social concern. “He had a political streak in him, and he carried the same raw authenticity. We saw that strain of being a good politician in him here itself, with respect to the student community or otherwise the public,” said Reddy.

Dr S Vidyashankar, the Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), under which Nitte Institute of Technology comes, also had a word of appreciation for Shah. “We have nearly 200–300 students from Nepal who come to Karnataka every year. The fact that Shah has shone so bright is really remarkable and a matter of pride for us,” he told News18.
Before politics, Shah made his mark in Nepal’s underground hip-hop scene, using rap to call out corruption and inequality. Popularly known as ‘Balen’, the 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician has been serving as the capital’s 15th mayor since May 2022. Rising without party backing, as an independent candidate who based his entire campaign on social media and the young generation of Nepal, he made history as the first independent to win the post of mayor — and now online campaigns and young Gen Zs are already pitching him as Nepal’s next leader to become the Prime Minister.