The ripples of the Trump administration's decision to freeze USAID under the pretext of misuse and abuse have caused turmoil across the world. As US government officials proclaimed on multiple occasions, “USAID funded an atheism expansion project in Nepal,” narratives colored with religious conversion and secularism are snowballing across Nepal. There is extraordinarily more to the funding debacle than meets the eye.
Originally for religious freedom
In 2021, the United States Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for ‘DRL FY20 IRF Promoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing, and Non-Affiliated Individuals’. The amount of $500,000 would be awarded to projects that support religious freedom in two or three countries in the regions of South/Central Asia and the Middle East/North Africa. An overview of expected outcomes from the projects: increased availability of mechanisms for atheists and nonbelievers; increased capacity among members of atheists; increased awareness of religious pluralism. In principle, DRL presupposes these groups experience discrimination, abuses and harassment.
Because it was an open competition award, any country from the two specified regions was entitled to apply. Perusal of the NOFO details as spelled out by the State Department does not suggest “expansion” of atheism per se. Linda Qiu ingeniously called out the misleading statement by speaker Mike Johnson, “$100m on initiatives like expanding atheism in Nepal”. It was Brian Mast (Republican Congressman) who first brought Nepal’s issue to Congress hearing in March 2024 and February 2025, subsequently in an interview, and repeatedly framed the ‘religious freedom’ grant along the lines of ‘promotion or expansion of atheism’. In this particular context, authority bias was apparent—because high-ranking officials said it, it must be true. Qiu has debunked it with fact-checking; the half a million dollars in funding was the initiative of the State Department, not the USAID.
Misplaced funding
The Humanist International (HI) group secured the award of $500,000 and in the documents obtained by lawmakers in the US, it was discovered that the group intended to use the funding in Sri Lanka and Nepal. Michael T McCaul (chairman of the US Foreign Affairs) has expressed deep concern and dissatisfaction over the funding, as it is against the US Constitution to promote any religious ideology overseas. It is profoundly insulting for him that the State Department decided to entrust HI, whose CEO pushes for anti-Catholic agendas—an organization with anti-religious objectives. Whereas McCaul accuses the department of exercising their creativity in the name of religious freedom and criticizes one key project implementer for keeping details a secret, the department blames the HI for being untruthful.
Of course, the atheism project that Hl designed to implement in Nepal is at odds with the religious freedom project that the State Department envisioned to fund. To be sure, such a discrepancy is a result of the department’s failure to do due diligence. Was this a case of organizational corruption or what MaCaul calls a blatant favoritism on the part of the department? In any case, the State Department should be accountable, more than anyone else, for the administrative lapses and its impractically misplaced project. Because of such a laxity, the already-present preconceived notion or Hindutva propaganda is being reinforced: behind the introduction of secularism in Nepal was international development aid from the US and other Western powers.
Anti-secularists unleashed
The USAID fiasco and atheism grant have activated anti-secular forces in Nepal. Despite the assurance of Dean R Thomson, US ambassador to Nepal, last March 2024, the chairman of Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), Rajendra Lingden, harped on the ‘atheism funding’ issue in one of the latest parliament sessions in February 2025. He unabashedly misled the parliament by conflating atheism, religious conversion and secularism. It was indisputably a well-colluded or calculated move to obscure the issue and undermine secularism. Not surprisingly, another member of RPP, Gyanendra Shahi, in one press meet, echoed the claims of Lingden verbatim, as all the pro-Hindu kingdom forces are predisposed to.
The end of the Hindu kingdom must have been such a huge blow to the RPP and its supporters that it has severely or interminably affected their ears. Any debate, utterances or conversations on secularism fell in their impaired ears, it is translated into religious conversion; hard of hearing, lately they translated atheism into secularism and religious conversion. It is high time the rankled anti-secularists learn that atheism, secularism and religious conversion are conceptually disparate regardless of religion being an overlapping element in them.
Neither the State Department NOFO document nor US officials (Brian Mast, Mike Johnson, and others) spelled out the term ‘secularism’ or ‘religious conversion.’ Seeking to prove that external powers (USA) funded religious conversion and secularism is an expedient method at anti-secularists’ disposal to weaken the legitimacy of secularism in Nepal. Little do they realize that this project of atheism was part of the Biden administration (2020-2024), and Nepal cemented its secular identity in 2007 and subsequently in 2015. To reinvigorate the preexisting narrative, the atheism grant example is being invoked or exploited so that the national sentiments against secularism are fueled. Social media platforms are rife with conversations or comments that attempt to render objectivity to such misleading narratives.
On social media platforms, the legendary comedians, the duo of Madan Krishna Shrestha and Hari Bansha Acharya, have been subjected to witch-hunting over atheism allegations, especially by anti-secularists. Because of recourse to a retroactive judgment mode, telefilms or plays they produced decades ago are under scrutiny as if USAID funded them for religion or atheism projects. Fueled by misleading information, some critics, keyboard warriors and social media mobs have ganged up against the duo by blatantly ignoring the nuances of USAID’s grant provided to the few projects throughout their careers. In addition to the duo comedians, Krishna Dharabasi, Kunda Dixit, Amar Neupane and Khagendra Sangraula, among others, are not only facing backlash with vitriolic comments—ad hominem attacks—from cyber warriors, but they are also on the verge of becoming victims of what is called the ‘cancel culture’.
Atheism deserves protection
McCaul laments and criticizes the State Department for not funding any project that tackles persecution of Christian and Muslim minorities in South Asia while spending taxpayers’ money for atheist/humanist programs inconsistent with US law. If a project that ensures freedom of atheists translates into an ideologically charged endeavor, how do supporting Christians and Muslims transcend the similar allegations? Ample evidence from countries has emerged where atheists are targeted; non-religious people are ostracized in India, Colombia, and the Philippines, while atheists and non-believers are imposed death penalties in Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan and the UAE. Thus, should Nepali atheists in the future be victims of such mistreatment, then it definitely calls for intervention in terms of funding from USAID, the State Department or other agencies.
