Gen Dhiraj Seth Nepal visit began on Sunday, with the Chief of the Army Staff leaving for Kathmandu to receive the honorary rank of General of the Nepali Army, an exchange between the two forces that dates to 1950.

It is also his first foreign trip of consequence as chief. The Gen Dhiraj Seth Nepal engagement comes at the invitation of Gen Ashok Sigdel, his Nepali counterpart, and is the first visit to Kathmandu by a senior Indian official since Prime Minister Balendra Shah's government took office on 27 March.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed the full programme a day ahead of it beginning, describing the visit as aimed at strengthening defence cooperation and military to military ties between the two countries.


A visit that lands amid protocol uncertainty in Kathmandu

Whether Gen Seth will call on Shah remains unsettled even hours before his arrival. India's Ministry of External Affairs had sought a meeting between the two, a request passed on to Nepal's Ministry of Defence and Nepali Army headquarters to schedule. The official itinerary names only military and ceremonial engagements, with no prime ministerial call listed, consistent with Kathmandu reporting that any such meeting is still being worked out rather than confirmed either way.

"It is still not confirmed if General Seth will call on the prime minister," an aide to Shah said. "If there is a change in the plan, it will be communicated accordingly."

The uncertainty sits against an earlier postponement. Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had a Kathmandu visit pushed back for protocol related reasons before it could take place, leaving Seth as the first senior figure from New Delhi to test the new government's approach to high level engagement.

Gen Dhiraj Seth Nepal ties draw on a tradition older than either government

The honorary rank exchange between the two armies began in 1950, when Gen KM Cariappa became the first Indian Army chief to hold the Nepali rank. It has continued through successive changes of government on both sides of the border since.

Basnet framed the practice as procedural rather than exceptional.

"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," said Brig Gen Rajaram Basnet, spokesperson for the Nepali Army. The exchange was last completed in the other direction in December 2024, when Gen Sigdel received the honorary rank of General of the Indian Army from President Droupadi Murmu at a ceremony in New Delhi, an event covered at the time by All India Radio's news service.

Three days, laid out by the Ministry of Defence

The programme runs 17 to 19 August. On the first day, the COAS lays a wreath at the Army Pavilion in Tundikhel and receives a Guard of Honour at Nepali Army headquarters, followed by talks with Sigdel and a briefing from the Director General Military Operations, Nepali Army. The Investiture Ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan, where President Ram Chandra Paudel confers the honorary rank, follows on the same day, a Monday.

The second day is academic rather than ceremonial, built around an address to student officers of the Army Command and Staff Course at Shivapuri.

He is also expected to meet senior Nepali dignitaries that day on matters the release does not itemise. The visit closes on 19 August with an Ex-Servicemen Rally at Pokhara, where Seth will felicitate Veer Naris and gallantry awardees and interact with Indian Army veterans settled in Nepal, before returning to India the same day.

Who is travelling to Kathmandu

Seth took over as the 31st Chief of the Army Staff on 30 June, the first Armoured Corps officer to lead the Indian Army since 1997, and has since visited Headquarters Central Command in Lucknow at home before Kathmandu became his first foreign capital as chief.

Sigdel has held the Nepali Army's top post since 2023.

The two chiefs are expected to hold their own bilateral meeting during the visit, separate from any call on the prime minister, with the Ministry of Defence describing the interaction with Nepali Army leadership as covering issues of mutual interest without naming specifics.

The Agniveer question sitting alongside the ceremony

One unresolved issue runs underneath the itinerary, and it shares a city with the visit's final day. Nepal has not permitted its citizens to join the Indian Army's Gorkha regiments under the Agnipath scheme since the four year Agniveer model was introduced in 2022, under which a quarter of recruits are retained beyond the initial term and the rest complete their service and exit with a lump sum.

Former Gorkha soldiers and young job seekers pressed that demand again this month, with rallies in Pokhara calling on Kathmandu to reopen recruitment. Seth's own Pokhara stop on 19 August is a separate, Army organised felicitation for veterans rather than a recruitment event, but the two gatherings will fall in the same city within weeks of each other.

Some Indian reports have suggested the recruitment question could come up in Seth's meetings with Nepali officials, though neither the Ministry of Defence's programme nor Nepali Army officials have indicated it forms part of the formal agenda. The Gorkha relationship, by most measures, is the oldest continuous thread in India Nepal military ties, predating the governments in Kathmandu and New Delhi now navigating both the ceremony and the recruitment question.