Military cantonments across the country with the fearsome Gorkha troops are littered with bold hoardings exhorting “Banda Kafir Honu Marnu Raamro” (it’s better to die than to become a coward or infidel). While the word “kafir” has Arabic roots, which literally means a person who covers the truth and is thus a “non-believer”, it has entered the sub-continental lexicon through the ravages and intermingling of civilisations. It has a natural resonance in the martial traditions of the soldierly Gorkha (Nepali) context to imply someone who has betrayed their own values, is dishonourable, or one that has failed to act on his sacred word. It is symptomatic of the stereotypical Gorkha spirit and ethos, that conjures powerful images of a simple but hardy people, who don’t take to personal slights very well. There is a popular belief that Nepal, which has never been subjugated or occupied by any foreign power, has a powerful sense of independence.
Today, Nepal is in the midst of a bizarre situation where the country’s political leadership has seemingly failed its own, and is paying the inevitable price for attempting to suppress a proud and unforgiving race. Surreal pictures of rioting mobs attacking and vandalising government buildings, Parliament (Singha Darbar complex) and the residences of once-powerful politicians, are suggestive of vigilante justice from some Arab sheikhdom which has imploded, with people uprooting their dictators, except that in Nepal this mood was raging against its own democratically-elected politicians. In the mayhem that followed, no one was too powerful to escape the popular fury as unconfirmed reports of the wife of the former Prime Minister, Jhalanath Khanal, succumbing to burns in her fire-engulfed house, or images of the foreign minister (also the wife of five-time Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba), Arzu Deuba, getting violently assaulted, emerged. Despite the longstanding years of political turmoil and instability with 14 governments in 17 years (no government has successfully completed its five-year tenure), as a post-monarchist republic — yet the current levels of chaos and violence, are unprecedented in their intensity, scale and implications.
Called the “Gen Z” uprising for the composition and genesis of the unrest, it remains unorganised but essentially organic, as it derives its force from pent-up frustrations against the political class. With its immediate trigger supposedly being the social media ban, on popular online platforms, amidst the long-standing anger over political corruption, it soon assumed the momentum of the “Arab Spring” protests, with the K.P. Sharma Oli government ultimately throwing in the towel, with sheer lawlessness and the fierceness of angst. The last-minute bid to reverse the social media ban was seen as too little, too late, as the protesters sensed their chance of uprooting the entitled political class once and for all.
That the ruling establishment of the day represented a broad (if very unlikely) coalition of the extreme-left faction of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) or CPN-UML, and the more centrist Nepal Congress, is reflective of the anger against all political parties. With convergence of personal interests overcoming ideological differences and the wounded history between the two factions, added to the wide perceptions of overentitlement — such as the campaign against the so-called “Nepo Kids”, which focused on the corruption and lifestyles of children from political families. This protest appeared to be beyond the usual political rhetoric of “anti” or “pro” agendas of “Delhi” or “Beijing” interfering with the internal affairs of Nepal. The irate youth are tired of the rote and binary narratives and are seeking transformational governance that goes beyond the existing partisan landscape. The simplistic deduction of assuming the longing for the return of the monarchy in some limited quarters of society should not lull the commentators into believing that the overwhelming lot of the “Gen Z” protesters are enthusiastic about the return of former King Gyanendra (or his even more discredited son, Prince Paras Shah).
The problem is that the organic and spontaneous protest can regress into anarchy, given the lack of coordination and organisation. In a deeply divided society (from various prisms like ideology, castes, regions, ethnicities or even religion), the protests will always struggle to have a united face. Those on the streets seemed to have found their own version of Bangladesh’s “Muhammad Yunus” in former Chief Justice of Nepal Sushila Karki to lead the new interim government as Prime Minister, along with three other ministers.
However, the man who calls the essential shots and is pivotal to the restoration of law and order is Nepal’s Army Chief, Gen. Ashok Raj Sigdel. The all-powerful general is the key to hold the protests from running amok — he has been trained in military academies in both India and China, and hence would have a good perspective of their thinking. He would know the perils of “tilting” towards either, beyond a point.
New Delhi should tread very cautiously by maintaining a clear distance from the running of the new Nepal government, as it cannot allow the old ghosts of the supposed “India hand” to return. Typically, for the angry young people who are protesting for more freedom, the choice of punting on China doesn’t seem to be very logical or attractive — whereas, despite the conspiracy theories about the “Big Brother Syndrome” that afflicts “Delhi”, there is still a lot more psychological, traditional and emotional connect with Delhi, rather than Beijing. New Delhi’s old bets across Nepal’s partisan divide remain ineffectual as the students dream of a “New Nepal”, shorn of the old. But it must not be allowed to regress, like Bangladesh.