Indian Army chief General Dhiraj Seth arrives in Kathmandu today for official Nepal visit

New Delhi: The Indian Army chief, General Dhiraj Seth, arrives in Kathmandu today for a five-day official visit to Nepal. It is his first trip to the country since taking charge as India’s 31st chief of the Army staff on June 30, and comes at the invitation of Nepali Army chief General Ashok Raj Sigdel. During the visit, Nepal’s president, Ramchandra Paudel, is scheduled to confer on Gen Seth the honorary rank of general of the Nepali Army on Monday.

The conferment continues a tradition between the two armies that dates back to 1950, when the then Indian Army chief, General KM Cariappa, became the first Indian officer to receive the honorary rank of General of the Nepali Army. 

The exchange is reciprocal. In December 2024, the president, Droupadi Murmu, conferred the honorary rank of General of the Indian Army on Gen Sigdel at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Gen Seth’s predecessor, General Upendra Dwivedi, received the same honour during a five-day Nepal visit in November 2024. Gen Dwivedi met Gen Sigdel at Nepali Army headquarters and called on then prime minister, KP Sharma Oli and Nepal’s defence minister.

“Whenever a new army chief assumes office in either country, there is a tradition of exchanging high-level visits during which both chiefs are conferred with the honorary rank of General,” Nepali Army spokesman, Brigadier General Rajaram Basnet told the Kathmandu Post.

Whether Gen Seth will meet Nepal’s prime minister, Balendra Shah, remains unconfirmed. An aide to Shah told the Kathmandu Post that it had not yet been confirmed whether the army chief would call on the prime minister.

Gen Seth’s trip is the first visit to Nepal by a senior Indian official since Shah’s government took office on March 27. Shah has only recently begun holding one-on-one meetings with foreign envoys, meeting the Indian and Chinese ambassadors separately on August 10. The Indian ambassador, Naveen Srivastava, said it was his first such meeting with the new prime minister.

The visit also follows a separate round of India-Nepal border talks. Survey officials from both countries met in Lucknow from August 12 to 14 and agreed to a three-year deadline to map disputed cross-border land occupation along the 1,880-km boundary using drone technology.

Against this backdrop, the issue of Gorkha recruitment has drawn renewed attention in Nepal. Former Gorkha soldiers under the banner of the Indian ex-servicemen Gorkha Brigade Nepal Pokhara organized a protest on August 12, submitting a memorandum to the district administration calling for the recruitment freeze to be lifted.

Recruitment of Nepali citizens into the Indian Army was disrupted during the Covid-19 pandemic and did not resume after India introduced the Agnipath scheme in 2022. Some reports have suggested the issue could come up during Gen Seth’s meetings in Nepal, though neither side has confirmed it is on the agenda.

Beyond the ceremony, the two armies maintain an active operational relationship.

The annual Exercise Surya Kiran alternates between India and Nepal. Its 19th edition was held in Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand, from November 25 to December 8, 2025. Some 334 personnel from each army took part, training together in jungle warfare, counter-terrorism and disaster response.

Nepali Army officers also train at Indian institutions, including the Defence Services Staff College, the National Defence College and the Indian Military Academy.

The Nepal visit comes just seven weeks into Gen Seth’s tenure as army chief. Since taking charge on June 30, he has set out modernization and jointness among his priorities under a five-point framework he calls “VIJAY” ­– vigilance and readiness, innovation and transformation, jointness and integration, Atmanirbharta, and a soldier-first focus.

He has also reviewed operational preparedness in two commands so far. In July, he visited forward areas along the line of control under the Northern Command. The following week, he assessed readiness in the northeast under the Eastern Command.