It has been nearly a year since the Gen Z movement, and seems like we are back to square one. And it is not only the return of Sher Bahadur Deuba or KP Sharma Oli’s steadfast refusal to brook any dissent in the CPN–UML that is responsible for this sense of déjà vu. Look around you—much of it looks and also feels the same.

For instance, not to take things lying down just because they are out of power in Kathmandu, the older political parties are back to their usual selves of pulling down governments and cobbling together new ones. Every provincial government, barring Gandaki’s, has faced a crisis since the disruptions of last September. Oli and his bête noire-cum-best friend, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the ‘coordinator’ of the Nepali Communist Party (NCP), have joined forces to rejig some provincial coalitions. One does feel for Oli’s true bête noire, Madhav Kumar Nepal, the ‘co-coordinator’ of the same NCP, who could but whimper in protest against Dahal’s machinations.

In contrast, the Nepali Congress under Gagan Thapa has taken a principled position: it will not form alliances that leave legislative bodies without a meaningful opposition. But that is not likely to prevent others from toppling Congress governments. One of only two such Congress worthies, the chief minister of Madhesh, Krishna Prasad Yadav, took office in December last year at the head of a seven-party bloc, consisting of the Congress plus the JSP, the JP, the LSP and the NUP along with the Maoists and the CPN-S. With the latter two having merged as the Dahal-led NCP and the Oli-Dahal juggernaut on the roll, it may soon be only a matter of time before the Congress chief minister in Madhesh finds himself booted out.

If all these party acronyms are head-spinning, consider this septet: the JSP, the JP, the NUP, the PLP, the NSP(NSP), the AJP and the BEP, which have come together as yet another seven-party alliance, and at whose pleasure the Congress chief minister in Madhesh stays in office even if the seven-headed leadership has not broached the idea of government change. I have not even bothered to spell out the names of these parties in full as that is quite immaterial. Not only because most are bit players in the political firmament but also because the acronyms can change with each gust blowing the party supremos (a standing all seven have in common) hither or thither, and keeping track of every new development is a bother not worth taking.

Rocking horse rhythm

While the behaviour of the oldies is becoming progressively more depressing, what of the new messiah, i.e., Balendra Shah? Nothing, actually, since we know barely anything of his goings and comings or of his doings, apart from brief cameos on social media occasionally. Where no one could get Oli to shut up, the entire might of Nepal’s sovereign parliament has not been able to get a word out of Shah, barring that one disastrous performance during his impromptu Q&A.

Since Shah has finally been convinced that, as the country’s chief executive, isolation from the world is not wholly advisable, he has begun occasional parleys. One does wonder, though, what he manages to actually say in private, particularly in meetings with foreign officials. I certainly would have loved to peek into the briefs sent by the Indian and Chinese ambassadors back home on their impressions of our prime minister, a political novice if there was one. If the American embassy cables available thanks to WikiLeaks are any guide, the ambassadorial reports are likely to have had much to say, like the one describing Sher Bahadur Deuba as “affable” with a “non-confrontational demeanor” but also with “an apparent speech impediment [that] makes Deuba difficult to understand in any language”.

I would also have liked to look at the ambassadors’ assessments of the current state of affairs in the country. Consider the following US embassy report from March 1974, entitled ‘Birendra’s First Two Years’, which resonates somewhat uncannily with what is going on. “Bureaucrats, intelligentsia and urban elites have begun to weary of constant exhortation from the palace in the face of shortages, inflation and overall stagnation of the economy. Two years ago, these same groups, unrealistically taking the king's statements at face value, hoped for rapid and dramatic accomplishments from Birendra’s reign…Birendra has retained around him the same relatively inexperienced group of palace advisors with which he began…Politicians remain powerless and ineffective; the civil service is increasingly removed from the seat of power, and the palace secretariat is now the centre for all major decisions”.

Despite the initial flurry, it turns out the Balendra Shah government has been all movement and little action. There are decisions galore waiting to be taken but seemingly not within the priority of the prime minister and members of his cabinet. An earlier prime minister in a similar situation had done the country wrong through similar inaction. I am referring to an equally strong Oli at the head of a parliamentary supermajority. Not much action and all talk. Spending hours on end pontificating on everything under the sun during the day and scrolling through social media in the evening, Oli spent less time governing and more time conspiring to stay in power and spewing nonsense on the side. The result has been a federalisation process that remains incomplete more than a decade since the drafting of our new constitution and constant changes of governments in the centre and the provinces.

I have written in the past that there is little to choose between KP Sharma Oli and Balendra Shah. I was referring to their respective authoritarian style, complete lack of self-awareness, and absence of any humility. I did not realise that disinterest in governing was also something they had in common. For, like Oli and his penchant for social media, our current prime minister apparently spends his evenings playing video games. One understands everyone needs some downtime, but a country facing multiple crises can scarcely afford a head of government who tunes out every evening.

Baba Deuba

Going by his return to politics the moment he stepped back into Nepal, I wonder if Deuba really believes that he has a chance at electoral redemption. Time may not be on his side, but that has not stopped him from engaging in a gambit he should know very well is a dangerous one—that of championing the majority religion. Although the discovery of his religious self does not appear to be any new stance of his, having come out so openly and so strongly in favour of an intolerant form of Hinduism, he has shown himself more interested in his own political survival than the good of the country.

If, as they say, politics is the last refuge of scoundrels, I wonder what would best describe those who practice its most heinous form—the politics of religion. Find the term and apply that to Deuba.