Dashain, the most extensively celebrated festival in Nepal, has just ended. This is also a festival that reasserts traditional social protocols and hierarchy. The custom of taking blessings from elders during tika, which should be a strictly private, familial, or religious affair, has been politically exploited for long by dictatorial regimes. The Ranas since the latter half of the 19th century, and then the Shahs in the latter half of the 20th century used it to test the loyalty of their supporters, sycophants and henchmen. Unfortunately, though, the rulers of democratic-republican Nepal, acting as if they were superior beings, continue to ‘bless’ the commoners. What’s more, there are takers of the ‘blessing’ who see the act as an opportunity to prove allegiance to the president, prime minister or head of an institution. The practice of subservience of receiving tika from bosses (who may not necessarily be elders) now has extended to even the head of a small bureaucracy or security apparatus unit.

This Dashain, Nepali royalists who dream of restoring the monarchy deposed 16 years ago compared the queue-length of the people vying to receive tika from former King Gyanendra Shah and President Ram Chandra Poudel. They not only interpreted the larger turnout at Shah's residence as the growing popularity of the former King but also extrapolated the political possibility of restoration of the monarchy as the alternative to widespread governance failure under the current federal republican system.

Governance failure

Lately, irrespective of the tika barometer, political discourse with apparent right-tilted traction has intensified in different shades and manifestations. Narratives surrounding bad governance, anti-federalism, pro-Hindu rashtra, and the new politics of ‘independents’ are converging to establish the rationale of rightist politics. The symbol of monarchy is certainly at the centre of gravity of right-wing politics.

Regardless of whether the repetition of a Francisco Franco episode in Nepal is a real possibility or not, pervasive and ever-growing hopelessness among the masses due to the inability of the current dispensation to deliver governance is forcing them to consider alternatives to the current set of ruling political elites. Public disenchantment has only risen due to incidents of large-scale corruption, high-level policy derailments only to serve the vested interests of influential public figures, and government inaction even during disasters and emergencies.

The youths, who were only 10 years old during the political change of 1990 and are now 45, are less impressed by or interested in the long saga of political struggle and imprisonment of the leaders who still rule the roost. Rather, they judge the government based on its efficiency in providing public services, ensuring employment and kindling hope for future generations. The ailing economy doesn’t seem to concern the ruling parties and leaders. As the rulers and often-changing governments have only disappointed them in each of these aspects, the frustration thus runs deep, forcing the youths to lean on a rotten pillar, however rotten it might be. Given the long history of monarchical rule in Nepal and still active remnants of it to eulogise, it is natural for some sections of the population to bank their expectations on the institution.

All blame on federalism

For rightists, the federal system is one of the tangible culprits for the nation’s current pathetic state. An oversold political argument is that the Panchayat era under the king’s direct rule was a utopia and that the federal system has proven too costly for our impoverished nation. Due to a lack of research and data, these claims are difficult to verify. The government should have encouraged evidence-based endeavours. However, even the basics of the information are enough to counter this anti-federalism tirade.

The Panchayat system divided the country into five ‘development’ regions. In addition, there were 14 zones as active units headed by the zonal commissioner directly appointed by the king. There were 75 district administrative offices and nearly 4,000 municipal and village panchayats as local politico-administrative units. The zonal structure has been liquidated, much of the functions of the district offices have been devolved to local governments, and the number of municipalities/rural municipalities has now been reduced to seven hundred and fifty-three. Therefore, the prognosis of an exorbitant rise in public expenditure just because of the transition from unitary to federal polity is not immediately evident. A comparative cost-benefit analysis in public service delivery warrants a systematic evaluation before resorting to sweeping political conclusions.

The fundamental premise of the rightists’ argument that a unitary system of governance led by an absolute monarch is better than the federal system with extensive power of public functions devolved to the local levels is preposterous. Whether we call it a federal, devolved or decentralised system, the importance of extending the arms of the state closer to the beneficiaries of public services can hardly be overemphasised.

'Hindu' politics

Hindu state (rashtra) and Hindu kingdom are not the same politically. But Nepali royalists interpret the campaign to revert the constitutional provision of secularism—a campaign which also has the participation of many republican-minded politicians—as also the movement for restoring the Hindu monarch. Buoyed by the Bharatiya Janata Party's agenda of making India a Hindu-rashtra, Nepal's monarchists pushing beyond a step or two are keen to customise this Hindutva politics to suit their interest of reinstating the king.

Though not very explicit, the overall tilt of new political forces like the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and 'independent' politicians like Balendra (Balen) Shah (mayor of Kathmandu metropolis) and Harka Sampang Rai (mayor of Dharan sub-metropolitan city) is essentially rightist and, therefore, regressive.

The RSP is vocally against the federal constitution. Balen's politics of cultural resurrection echoes the noises about the necessity of the Hindu-rashtra, and his diatribe against federalism only consolidates the political stream led by the pro-monarchist forces like the Rastriya Prajatantra Party of former panchas. All of them are on the same page in denigrating ideology-based political pluralism.

Whether the emboldened enthusiasm for the rights would be able to fundamentally alter the political landscape of Nepal anytime soon is still a far-fetched idea. However, the current regime of federalists, democrats, and republicans must be able to govern the nation according to public expectations to contain the regressive ambition.