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| Biplab Deb (left) and Amit Shah |
Come on. From the news footage, it’s clear that Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb bantered away that bit to rile up his base and butter up Amit Shah in the process. We may be less certain about the mood and motive of Shah, who now is federal home minister. Still, a second-hand slur is hardly tantamount to more than slander.
For Nepalis, the matter is more than something to laugh off – but not that much more. Aren’t some of our own parties already acting as if they are wholly owned subsidiaries of the likes of the BJP and the Indian National Congress?
And let’s not forget that our own Nepali Congress and original Communist Party were born in India. Moreover, don’t our major political parties have allied organizations in Indian cities?
Shah made the comment in 2018 as BJP president, when we had just elected a communist government close to enjoying a two-thirds majority. Opinion in India – political and public – evidently saw that as an advantage for China, largely because of the narrative New Delhi had promoted. The more militant sections of the ruling BJP were probably irate that the Indian National Congress and its buddies on the left had been responsible for the mess.
As it had just lost power, the BJP couldn’t do anything in 2005-2006. But surely it could certainly do something now, the rank and file probably wondered. Maybe Shah thought he had come up with the best response.
Two years later, did Chief Minister Deb just think of sharing that inside story? Not quite. In fact, the BJP may have strategically leaked the news to put some pressure on Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli’s government.
After all, we’ve heard how Oli set aside a more right-wing draft while addressing supporters in front of Narayanhity Palace earlier this month. If true, that move came after US Ambassador Randy Berry’s whirlwind briefings on the new American administration’s Nepal policy (something President Joe Biden probably still doesn’t know he has).
New Delhi expected Biden to be more assertive on human rights issues in India and wasn’t disappointed. Confronting the star power of the world’s Gretas, Rihannas and Mias in defense of India’s agitating farmers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government may have detected a less tenuous link to the new US vice-president’s niece.
The change of guards in Washington DC has resulted in steps toward disengagement along the India-China border, which many Nepalis expect to have a salutary effect here.
Suppose the BJP deliberately leaked this news as a warning to the Oli government to be mindful of Nepal’s immediate neighbors. In that case, our prime minister is certainly not thick-skinned enough these days to have let it pass. (And who has time for more than one Biplab at a time?)
But a formal protest? And we’re still wondering why Modi refused to meet Pradip Gyawali.
