KP Oli: Ultra-Leftist Turned Ultra-Nationalist

WITH ALL EYES now trained at the border in Ladakh, it is easy to forget that something very unusual occurred just some days before that, along India’s eastern border in a small border town in Bihar. Nepali forces shot at a group of Indian civilians, killing one and injuring two more. It comes at a time when the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated to probably its lowest point. Around this point, Nepal’s lower house passed a new Bill that incorporates three regions in Uttarakhand as part of Nepal’s updated map. The architect of this current impasse is, of course, Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Oli. Despite the famed ‘special relationship’ the two countries share, Nepal has had a hot and cold affair with India for several decades. But even factoring this in, there has been bellicosity against Delhi of late under Oli, unheard of in the past. Not only has Oli redrawn his country’s map, he blamed India for Nepal’s rising Covid-19 cases, and recently, even mocked the national emblem.

Even in this current impasse, it had appeared that Oli might favour dialogue with India before bringing the Bill to parliament. According to some reports, New Delhi had even offered talks at the foreign secretary level. But Kathmandu went ahead and did it anyway.

Oli was not always this anti-India in his politics. In fact, in the early part of his national career, he was seen as someone who was close to the Indian establishment. Some say that in 2008 when Pushpa Kamal Dahal (widely known as Prachanda) became the prime minister, Oli used New Delhi’s help to have Prachanda removed.

But by the 2010s, this once ultra-leftist who participated in a peasant uprising movement against landowners and spent over 14 years in prison, had turned into an ultra-nationalist.

He rode the backlash against India’s alleged interference in Nepal’s constitution-making to his first stint as prime minister in 2015. He had put up a strong nationalist pitch back then. When he ratcheted up the rhetoric during the economic blockade of the country, which many widely believe India was behind, he was perceived as someone standing up to a bully.

India has always occupied an odd position in Nepal. New Delhi may commonly speak of the ‘special relationship’ it shares with Kathmandu, but very often the latter has witnessed the blunt end of this diplomacy. The strategic affairs expert C Raja Mohan wrote some years ago how Delhi continues to inherit from the Raj a sense of paramountcy over the subcontinent even when the region’s circumstances have altered. For good or bad, a strong mass sentiment against a perceived bullying India has grown, and politicians have fomented and used this as they have grown closer to China.

Walking around in Kathmandu’s streets, it is easy to spot the country’s growing nearness to Beijing. The many large Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, the rebuilding of heritage structures destroyed by the earthquake, and the growing number of Chinese tourists and business owners show that.

Earlier this year, Oli’s second term as prime minister was being seen as a failure. He was unable to get Delhi to sit for talks despite his promises of renegotiating all ‘unequal’ treaties signed with India; some of his ministers were accused of corruption; and protests against his handling of the pandemic had been breaking out across the country. There has also been a growing feeling online of him as someone given to blunder. Sometime ago when he retweeted Sonia Gandhi’s complaints against Narendra Modi over CAA and NRC, his spokesperson claimed his password had been stolen. Of late, he has been dispensing suggestions to prevent Covid-19 by drinking or washing hands with warm water and avoiding ice-cream.

His grip over his own party also looked tenuous with one half apparently supporting him and the other half gravitating towards Prachanda.

With this new border, he is repainting himself as an ultra-nationalist again. In the process, he is pushing Nepal away from India and closer to China than any of his predecessors ever did.

India-Nepal borderKP OliNarendra ModiUttarakhand