The Chair of the Nepali Congress Sher Bahadur Deuba and the CPN (Maoist Centre) supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal met Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli at his official residence in Baluwatar last week. The trio decided to work unitedly for the protection of the existing political system in the country. Over decades of tumultuous career in politics, Deuba had been the prime minister once during the era of constitutional monarchy. He loyally served King Gyanendra but was sacked for being incompetent. His “reinstatement” was in fact an ad hoc appointment by an extra-constitutional and imperious regime.

When chosen to be the chief henchman of the king in Singha Durbar, premier Deuba had thanked his benefactor with a string of adulatory expressions—the “wide chest of the king”, the “justice of the Gorkhali ruler” and the “greatness of the monarch”. He was made a sacrificial goat and dismissed when King Gyanendra decided to be the Chairman of an autocratic government. Soon afterwards, he was arrested on corruption charges. Deuba has also been a republican premier twice. Bereft of ideological fidelity, he has served everyone from monarchists to Maoists with equal loyalty.

Dahal made his way into Baluwatar when the decade-long armed conflict ended in a stalemate. The 12-Point Understanding between the Seven Political Parties and Nepal Communist Party (Maoists) paved the way for an interim constitution, and he emerged as the leader of the party with the biggest mandate in the election of the first Constituent Assembly. He squandered away the opportunity when he agreed for the formation of an extra-constitutional government under the chairmanship of the serving Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to conduct fresh elections.

Dahal has managed to be prime minister twice since the “non-political” arrangement of 2013—but only after denouncing his past and accepting a supportive role in the post-2015 ‘Oliogocal’ order, which is “neither logical, nor illogical”, but based merely upon ethnocentric machismo of a chieftain that is circulated as courageous stand by the Oliars of the intelligentsia and palanquin-bearers of the supremo in the media.

Politically unstable, Dahal has the habit of passionately swearing by an ideology and then dumping it at the very first opportunity when its utility is over. He has been a hardcore Maoist, an ardent believer in the supremacy of the Parliament, a keen follower of Xi Jinping Thought, a committed secularist, an adherent of the Sanatan tradition and a constitutionalist among various other things. It seems he looks into mirror in the morning and then decides what is going to be his ideological position for the day.

Triumphant chieftain

Among the ruling trio, Sharma Oli has been the biggest beneficiary of the existing order. He adroitly used the calamity of the Gorkha Earthquake to work behind the scenes and helped all Khas-Arya dominated parties bring on board for the 16-point conspiracy and the rest is history: Regardless of who occupied Baluwatar, the reins of governance has remained firmly in his hands since June 2015. The Chair of Madheshi Janadhikar Forum (Loktantrik) Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar was lured into offering dual legitimacy of Madheshis and Janjatis to what was essentially an ethnonational compact to give continuity to the stranglehold of Khas-Arya community over the state and society.

His usefulness over, Gachhadar has since been dumped into the dustbin of politics by losing a parliamentary seat that he had continuously held for over three decades. The strength of Sharma Oli lies in his ability to manufacture a political cloak that often appears like an ideology and then use it to win over public support with the help of the palanquin press.

Dahal lacks the internal strength—he received 63 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives when faced with a no confidence motion—or external backing to oust Sharma Oli. Deuba fears losing control over his party and needs the continuity of the status quo until he can secure the future of his family in the political economy. He has given abhaydan—assurance of fearlessness that a superior gives to a supplicant in the Sanatan tradition—to Sharma Oli for now.

With no clear challenger, Premier Sharma Oli appears invincible. But his strength is now merely numerical. The political ideology that he had formulated—I had named it “Oli-ology” that consisted of “Oli-garchy” in politics, “Oli-gopolies” in economy, “Oli-fication” of culture, “Oli-faction” in society and “Oli-titter” in personal behaviour—has begun to weaken. With the Oliogocal train of xenophobia, chauvinism, communalism and ethnonationalism losing steam, it will not take long for the progenitor of proto-fascist movement of 2015 to fade away into political oblivion.

Discredited ideology

Even when prioritising material conditions and the mode of production, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels correctly diagnosed that the function of an ideology is to legitimise the forces of hegemony through the “production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness”. The ruling ideas of a given epoch are indeed those of the ruling class.

Even though winners get the history written and rewritten to glorify themselves, there is little doubt that the king of Gorkha principality was an ambitious, brutal and cunning warrior who managed to enlarge his fiefdom and then shifted its capital to the “natural fort” that was Nepal valley. Several ideological apologies such as the devoted builder of an “Asal Hindustan”, the tireless driver of the “unification campaign” or the wise deliverer of Divyopadesh were conveniently “discovered” after the Shah Restoration in 1951. In Marxian terms, it has become the ideology of the ruling class and hence the ruling ideology called Nepalipan.

Analogous to the Sanatan belief of “Veer Bhogya Vasundhara”, roughly meaning that the brave shall inherit and enjoy the earth, the Chinese concept of “Mandate of Heaven” justifies the transfer of legitimacy to rule from ancestry to daring. After the Kot Massacre, the crafty fighter JB Kunwar used the excuse of fait accompli to legitimate his power grab. He relegated the descendants of PN Shah into a ceremonial role, eliminated the competing elite of the Gorkhali court and loyally served an external power—in his case, the East India Company—to obtain a guarantor of his regime.

Since the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 that the Indians call their First War of Independence, every ruler of the Shah-Rana family has used the PN-JB template of religiosity, nationalism, xenophobia and ethnonational chauvinism to entrench themselves in power. For hereditary Rana Prime Ministers, the Shah monarch was a figurehead. The Shah kings between 1951 and 1990 treated their prime ministers as mere courtiers. When G Shah tried to replicate the same format between 2002 and 2006, he was unceremoniously dethroned. The external guarantor of Ranas were the British; for the Shahs it was Americans.

Ideologies outlive their originators, but it seems the dictum will be reversed in case of Sharma Oli and the doctrine of Oliology. Letters in the name of the country were sometimes expanded as “Never Ending Peace And Love”. He transformed it into “Nepotism, Entitlement, Paternalism And Lordliness” of rulers. May Sharma Oli live long to repent about the damage he had inflicted upon the country in 2015—in his hurry to constitutionally become the prime minister.