Editorial
Events overtook a U.S. senator’s comment that the Nepalis had devised their own consensual democracy. This was in course of the Indian blockade in 1990-91 which preceded a movement for multiparty democracy after which the American ambassador Julia Chang Bloch, the first to hold that post of Chinese descent, evolved helped tutelage a movement that brought about a change in the country of continuing significance in the region as well. Still gasping to cope with the liberal overhaul of a change that led to Nepal’s republican dispensation, one thin strand of political continuity embodied in the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party stood to focus this week when its party convention toppled the long time dominant Kamal Thapa from his stewardship and chose instead the party’s only remaining parliamentary member Rajendra Lingden as chairman. By most accounts, this change would have been not only routine but also in consonance with popular demand for youth and ‘excluded’ ethnics in Nepali leadership positions. But what the election has done to the RPP platform for the monarchy, Hindu identity and unified system (as opposed to the prevalent mainstream of republicanism, federalism and secularism) is a backlash from time, long time constitutional monarchist Kamal Thapa alleging a ‘palace’ role in his defeat has added an unhealthy bit of spicy confusion to its very constitutional charter.
Coming as it does after Congress Chairman Sher Bahadur Deuba’s ridiculous challenge for the monarchy to come to elections, Thapa’s charge of royal manipulation has merely underscored the need to blemish the Nepali monarchy in republican politics amidst the rousing demands of monarchical leadership in a system tearing apart at the seams. As with Deuba, Thapa has attracted volumes of social media vituperation coming as it does from what at one time was garnered as the Monarchy’s blue-eyed boy. Indeed, his immediate turncoat political style prompted by a defeat in the party is being termed as illuminative of the strategy of voter suppression that his leadership had adopted to ingratiate himself with the sponsors of the current system, both domestic and external. Signals of the Thapa lash out, the kit is deemed, may reflect on the challenges of a newly united RPP leadership under what has been termed a unification convention. One has only recalled that the unification convention was made possible after the three dominant versions of united RPP chairmen –Pashupati Rana, Prakash Lohani and Kamal Thapa —together swore publicly by the holy Geeta that they would hence on keep the party united.
The RPP, hence, seems far removed from settling down to work amidst an impending Kamal Thapa backlash. With his public promise to hold the monarchy up no more, he may, firstly, stir up trouble for the newly elected Rajendra Lingden and allow this to filter to the public to distance himself from the RPP mainstream. This would mean more difficulty for the new RPP leadership in its espoused task of roping in the growing demands for change and rejuvenation of the monarchy in the country. It would also mean that the Party has opened a whole new Pandora’s Box of possibilities for Lingden to cope with. It is this that has allowed the new party president to garner more sympathies and for Thapa to attract more vituperation.
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