The greatest tragedy in Nepal’s recent political history was that the rollout of federalism was helmed by the one person who arguably stood against everything this exercise in power devolution exemplified but who also had the power to undermine it—KP Sharma Oli. Anyone still harbouring any illusions about the UML supremo on that score would have had them dispelled by the sordid drama recently of a new chief minister in Madhesh being surreptitiously installed at dawn. The swearing in of the province’s executive head in a hotel without the knowledge of anyone outside a small coterie has rocked Madhesh, while a Supreme Court interim order has already rendered the incumbent a lame duck.

The subterfuge indulged in by the UML and its agent, former provincial chief Sumitra Subedi Bhandari (now perhaps back in her role as a UML cadre), was worthy of a third-rate thriller and should put to shame the entire political class. Since there is absolutely no way Bhandari would have engaged in such cheap trickery without Oli’s active connivance, it only proves yet again what the latter thinks of federalism. Fortunately for Oli—although certainly not for the country—he has diehard acolytes who manage to justify his every move, howsoever abhorrent. In the recent instance, it fell upon Pradeep Gyawali, a Deputy General Secretary of the UML, to claim nonchalantly that the ceremony in a hotel was simply a ‘technical matter’, whatever that means.

All the same

One would have expected that the upheaval caused by the Gen Z movement a couple of months ago to have resulted in some deep introspection among the political parties. But after the initial shock was over and following the perfunctory but necessary acknowledgement of the youth rage that rocked the country, the politicians appear to be slowly but surely reverting to business as usual.

The reason the Madhesh episode rankled even more was that just days earlier, the Provincial Assembly there had seen a unique protest whereby Maoist lawmaker Rahbar Ansari—kudos to him—had blackened his face in a symbolic gesture of shame on behalf of everyone in the assembly. Ansari’s grouse was that the now-former chief minister had been appointed through political machinations in Kathmandu and that he and his fellow assembly members reduced to rubber-stamping decisions made by leaders in the capital.

That had been the practice nationwide ever since the first provincial assemblies had been elected in 2017 and Oli found himself in control of the centre and six provinces and promptly asserted control over all of them. Where the UML led, the other parties followed. So strong has been the hold of the central high commands over the subnational entities that the making and breaking of provincial governments has faithfully reflected developments at the centre. Either it was due to the latent energy from the Gen Z movement, or he had simply grown tired of being instructed by Kathmandu to vote this way or the other, Ansari refused to play ball. As a result, the chief minister could not muster the required numbers for a confidence vote and he quit. While that should have been an occasion for salutary reflection among all the parties, Oli and the UML instead saw yet another opportunity for dirty politics and muddied further what was left of their reputation, and, by extension, federalism itself.

Promises to keep

Oli has begun to entrench himself further at the head of his party with barely a demur either from other leaders or the rank and file. The few apologetic squeaks from some UML politicians heard in the immediate aftermath of the Gen Z Movement have now gone mute. The UML’s erstwhile partner, the Nepali Congress, seems to be stuck in an eddy. It is unclear if the push for radical transformation sought by the party’s (not-so) Young Turks will amount to anything or if the old guard will come roaring back and to claim status quo ante.

Despite protestations to the contrary, we are quite aware that public opinion has never mattered much to our parties. Not that they are unaware of how Nepalis have grown tired of their shenanigans. They knew it 20 years ago when like at present they were out of power. The Nepali Congress and the UML were both part of the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) against the king that produced the grand-sounding ‘Declaration of Common Agreement and Commitment to Resolve the National Crisis’. Among the resolutions were the commitment to ‘ensure good governance, complete transparency in fiscal administration, effective control of corruption…’. To me, that sounds uncannily similar to the voice of the recent movement. The SPA repeated that pledge in spirit a few months later during the 12-point understanding and for good measure also bound the Maoists to it.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ was one of the signatories of that famous agreement. Dahal has been in power almost continuously since then and has practically nothing to show for it. Still, he has the temerity to suggest that his teaming up with a host of other similarly advantaged-but-failed politicians is going to result in an outfit that would dramatically alter the direction of the country. Burdened with three former prime ministers (and their massive egos), the portents do not look all too promising for the Nepali Communist Party.

As is routine, the party duly issued a 23-point ‘commitment’, a meaningless document similar to the hundreds we have seen over time. Take the 18th point of the said commitment, which states that the Nepali Communist Party is committed to addressing the issues and aspirations of the Gen Z generation. How can they not be? But did it never occur to Dahal and his political consorts that Gen Z rose up for the same reasons that earlier generations did in 1990, in 1996 and in 2006? The issues that animate the young ones today have remained unchanged over the decades, as they themselves noted in those unfulfilled promises made two decades ago and which they repeat at each election cycle or when they find themselves out of power.

Dahal believes he is rather astute in the game of politics although it was that same cocksureness that led to his last downfall and set the stage for the anger to boil over and consume the nation. It is that false sense of omniscience, a la his former comrade, Oli, which prevents him from understanding the concept of generational cohorts. Hence, he can, in all seriousness, declare that 90 percent of ‘our comrades’ during the Maoist insurgency ‘were Gen Z’. “That is why the biggest Gen Z revolt is the ‘People’s War’.” Someone should tell him that the oldest of the Gen Zs had not even been conceived when the fighting began.