View from America
By M. R. Josse
GAITHERSBURG, MD: Casting the mind’s eye from the near to the far over the past few days and weeks, one cannot but be struck by the weird if coincidental surface similarity between the American and Nepali body politic, slowly twisting and turning in the wind, as it were, in their ‘final days’ throes.
The difference, of course, is that whereas here in the U.S. of A. the Trump administration is most certainly enacting the climactic scenes of a ‘final days’ movie, back home in Nepal it is not a sure thing that the Oli government – or, indeed, the ‘new’ federal, secular Republic itself – is on its last legs, much as very many in Nepal now would fervently hope so, or even pray for.
TRUMP’S FINAL DAYS
Let’s begin with America in the dying days of the Donald J. Trump administration on which the curtain finally comes down at noon, 20 January 2021.
While there is absolutely not a scintilla of doubt that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in at that time and date as President and Vice President of the United States respectively, President Trump obstinately and absurdly continues not only to claim that the election was ‘stolen’ from him by Biden’s Democratic party but he attempted as recently as 5 December – unsuccessfully – to coerce Republican officials in Georgia to overturn the state elections results, which have undergone three recounts!
And although, as per a Washington Post poll, only 26 GOP lawmakers, out of 249 Republicans in the House and Senate, publicly acknowledge Biden’s win, many more have privately conveyed their congratulations, as Biden himself revealed in a CNN joint interview with Harris the other evening.
On the other hand, despite Trump’s final days of rage and denial, there is a steady, tell-tale trickle of senior Trump aides quitting the administration even before 20 January 2021, like rats leaving a sinking ship. According to CNN, attorney general William Barr, who declared in an AP interview that the Justice Department had seen no evidence of electoral fraud, is among those who are now most likely to join that exodus.
Notable, too, is that Trump’s legal team’s blizzard of lawsuits alleging electoral fraud, a campaign led by his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has hit a dead end. Even more so is that Trump’s ‘stop the steal’ campaign has triggered a flood of donations from supporters totaling millions of dollars for future political battles.
Analysts here speculate that those funds will be utilized by Trump to destabilize the Biden administration, underwrite his political activities as he leaves office, and underwrite what’s left of his legal battles.
In the meantime, Trump has not won the admiration of the nation by his widely reported intention to pardon a whole phalanx of relatives and spear-carriers, including his two sons, daughter, son-in-law and Giuliani who, incidentally, has just tested positive for Covid-19 and is hospitalized. Not a few have even reported that Trump is seriously contemplating the possibility of pardoning himself!
As the controversial incumbent American president plummets to his political nadir, some other interesting observations may be in order. Among them, as NPR reported a while back, that Europe’s populist leaders will be sorry to have lost one of their cheerleaders.
In that shortlist are: Prime Minister Janez Janza of Slovenia, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and Hungary’s Premier Victor Orban.
I would wish to add another candidate to that stellar grouping – namely, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who reveled and exulted in his bromance with Trump for four years but is now fast changing tracks, even as his minions hasten to project that the RSS progeny is a huge fan of Biden and Harris, whom he attempts to portray as of solely Indian descent!
At this point it may be germane to point out that Modi’s political fortunes in India are clearly on the decline, even as he attempts to transform India into a one-party state, as the Economist put it, not to mention his rabidly anti-minority and dismal human rights record, including in Kashmir.
Returning to the U.S., it may be in order to note that America is now going, as one commentator put it, from an ‘outsider’ president to the ultimate ‘insider’, one who is the quintessential ‘Washington survivor’ and a ‘creature of the Capitol’.
While Biden steadily continues to name more senior members of his forthcoming administration – mostly reflecting America’s humungous pool of solid talent and fascinating racial diversity – it is becoming increasingly evident that it’s going to be hard for him to please everyone while attempting to bridge the factions that divide the Democratic Party.
OLI’S ‘FINAL DAYS’?
Pro-monarchy rally in the republic Nepal
We are informed that Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli has summoned an all-party meeting for 11 AM, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 – meaning, in fact, a conclave of all parties and their representatives in Parliament – to discuss various topical issues and important political developments, including the sudden epidemic or explosion of public protests and demonstrations calling, among other things, for the restoration of the Monarchy, and having Nepal revert to her status as a Hindu state.
Given that such a clear and growing body of evidence of disenchantment, if not outright disgust, for the fruits of the new Constitution has been advertised to the world from Biratnagar, Janakpur, Hetauda, Birgunj, Butwal, Pokhara, Nepalgunj, Dhangadhi, Chitwan and Jhapa, among others, it is hardly surprising that not a few – in Nepal and abroad – have begun to wonder if the new order of republicanism, federalism and secularism has finally begun to flounder.
Or, are the above visible/audible signs of public dissatisfaction and angst targeted squarely at Oli and his government or, perhaps somewhat more broadly, at the Communist government and the Nepal Communist Party?
Though it is hardly a secret that the miasma of corruption, nepotism and mismanagement has been wafting, strong and long, through the halls or baithaks of power, it would appear that we may now be close to a tipping point. Or, is all this merely smoke and mirrors, no more than a seductive apparition or mirage?
Will the ever-scrapping, apparatchiks and commissars of Nepal’s Communist pantheon come together, patch up their differences in the face of a common threat, and continue to rule the roost according to their sweet will, as they have since the 2017 elections?
Will the Nepali Congress side with Oli and speed up a fracture of the NPC? Would that be enough to satisfy the public outcry for fundamental change – indeed, for a return to the past?
Is there any concerted body or force that is directing and/or coordinating the protests erupting all over the country? Have they really worked out the details or hammered out a detailed programme of action and future political agenda – beyond the rhetoric?
Who – if anyone, group or even external power – is funding these growing protests across such a swathe of Nepali territory? And – not to forget – what, if anything, is known about the desires or intentions of the erstwhile former monarch, in this respect?
Here are some known quantities: it was India and the Western powers, including the United States, that propelled the downfall of the Monarchy and ended Nepal’s Hindu status; it was ‘democratic’ India – not Communist China – that supported, trained and nursed the Maoists; it’s no secret that the European Christian lobby campaigned for scrapping Nepal’s hoary Hindu traditions; while Nepalese monarchs’ close ties with a rising China were considered anathema by all.
Once political changes were instituted via a new constitution written in conditions created by extraneous forces, China in time too went along, perhaps with somewhat less enthusiasm than of the others.
How can such a ‘scrambled egg’ be unscrambled? What organized force is there in Nepal that can neutralize the armed forces of the state? Surely, the wishful thinking of armchair politicians and unproven political strategists will hardly be enough to reverse the tide?
And, finally, what about the well-known fact that the prospect of systemic or chronic instability in Nepal is not only of deep concern to India but also is greatly frowned upon by a China, ever conscious of the geographic fact that Nepal lies along Tibet’s southern flank.
This brings me to Maila Baje’s sharp, recent observations on ‘Nepal’s Foreign Policy, 2077 BS’, just published and released by the government. As per the blogger, the report is “replete with principles that have stood the test of time”, including a reiteration of geopolitical verities associated with Prithivi Narayan Shah.
I share his puzzlement as to the necessity of asserting the obvious – such as the imperative of a non-aligned foreign policy for Nepal – “especially when the streets are screaming for sweeping change?” I also find myself in wholehearted agreement with this acute observation: “Denigrating the successes of the past simply because of their authors has been allowed to paralyze the country for too long.”
Finally, yours truly was somewhat taken aback – but rather flattered – that Maila Baje, in the context of tracing the roots of Nepal’s foreign policy, referred to, among other factors, Nepal’s fierce “quest for survival” amid the regional giants.
I thought it came uncommonly close to the title of my recent book, “Nepal’s Quest for Survival”, in what I described as “a challenging geopolitical setting”!
Be that as it may: We know how the Trump ‘final days’ movie will end; can we say for sure how the Oli version will conclude?
The writer can be reached at: manajosse@gmail.com
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