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The months-long dispute between CPN-UML chair KP Sharma Oli and senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal is far from being resolved. Each camp has upped its ante against the other through verbal attacks, demonstrations, and revival of militant-like groups such as the Youth Force and the People’s Volunteer.

A couple of weeks ago, Oli revived the party’s Youth Force, which was set up in 2008 to counter the Maoists’ Young Communist League (YCL). It was dissolved a year later by the party’s eighth general convention. Following Oli’s revival of the Youth Force now, the Nepal faction has also revived the People’s Volunteer (PV) group, which was also dissolved by the same party convention, for the same reason that its hooliganism, just like Youth Force’s, was tarnishing the party’s public image.

Now, the two groups are doing their bit to get the attention of their leadership and to take the rivalry to the streets. The Youth Force has already organized big rallies, by openly flouting Covid-19 social distancing and mask guidelines. The People’s Volunteer are following suit.

Defending the mass demonstrations his group has been organizing, Kshitij Thebe, commander of Youth Force, says: “The present political turmoil is more unbearable for the common folks than the impact of Covid-19.”

Shiva Kumar Shrestha, head of People’s Volunteer, says his group will retaliate if the Youth Force gets involved in any unruly behavior. “We will not remain silent if anyone besieges our leaders’ residence [as the Youth Force did a week earlier].”

However, both camps claim that the youth groups have been revived, not to intimidate one another, but to deploy volunteers at vaccine centers, assist in rescue programs during natural calamities, advocate for justice, and hold those in power to account.

But their actions suggest otherwise. The Youth Force recently formed a 1,101-member valley command under Pushpa Raj Shrestha, who in 2008 claimed to have brought the YCL “under control”.

“Nepal is now being controlled by international agents and we will expose them,” says Shrestha who, however, sees the midnight meeting between Oli and the head of RAW as no more than an innocuous diplomatic get-together.

Meanwhile, public health experts are worried that crowded clashes between the two groups could trigger a third wave of Covid-19 infections in Kathmandu, just as demonstrations against the dissolution of parliament coincided with the second wave.

Kiran Poudel, chairperson of National Youth Federation Nepal, the mother association of Youth Force, says most of their volunteers are vaccinated so the rallies won’t spread the virus. “The media only blames us, but turns a blind eye to protests by other groups,” he adds. Likewise, Shrestha from PV says his group organizes rallies only when prohibitory orders are relaxed.

Some UML leaders such as Yogesh Bhattarai have called on the groups to end hostilities and lobby with party leadership to keep UML intact. “Leaders of the two groups must dissolve their respective youth forces at the earliest,” says Bhattarai, who was earlier in the Nepal camp. He urges both Oli and Nepal to work towards party unity and get the party back on track before rival forces take advantage of their disunity.

I recall a year-old conversation with a reporter with a Nepali daily who covers security issues. He had just come back from the National Investigation Department under the Prime Minister’s Office. There, as I was told, an official of his acquaintance sat him down and after a few taps on his computer keyboard proceeded to tell the astounded reporter about his personal life, things like his education qualifications, the details of his immediate relatives, the location of his residence, his work history, and all his phone numbers. Had they also recorded his calls? That, he was not told.

Back at our meeting place, the exasperated reporter asked: “Imagine the kind of details they must have on VIPs and VVIPs if an ordinary reporter like me is so closely tracked!”

I was reminded of the conversation by the latest scandal around Pegasus, the Israeli spyware that can be surreptitiously installed in cell phones. Its Israeli developer, NSO Group, had apparently sold the software to many governments, including Narendra Modi’s. Among the Modi government’s targets were resident ambassadors in New Delhi, from China, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia—and Nepal.

The spyware’s presence on the cell phone of Nilambar Acharya, the Nepali envoy to India, indicates the mistrust that has developed between the two countries since the promulgation of the constitution in 2015. This mistrust reached new heights when then-Prime Minister KP Oli in May 2020 issued a new map incorporating the disputed territories of Kalapani. Although the relationship was beginning to thaw in the latter stages of Oli’s premiership, things are far from hunky-dory, as the Indian prime minister still refuses to accept the final Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) report.

The Pegasus revelations also make me wonder, again in light of the above conversation with the security reporter, about the extent of phone tapping in Nepal.

Big Kathmandu-based embassies—the US, China and India—are widely suspected to be running their own intelligence programs to keep tabs on vital Nepali actors. All three embassies closely monitor the press—who writes and says what—and send detailed reports back to their capitals. Each has a list of people working for and against their interests, often prepared on flimsy grounds. As the geopolitical rivalry between them heats up, it wouldn’t at all be surprising if they have also upped their spy games in Nepal.

The best evidence of the US surveillance mechanism are perhaps the detailed cables the American embassy routinely sends to Washington, many of which are now publicly available on Wikileaks. The Indian Embassy has time and again released compromising audio recordings of Nepali communist leaders, most famously of Maoist leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara asking for money from his Chinese contact to ‘buy Nepali MPs’.

Before that, Prachanda had found himself in trouble over the Shaktikhor tapes (again courtesy the Indian Embassy) where he can be heard boasting about hoodwinking UNMIN. It would also be surprising if the Chinese, the world leaders in 5G, didn’t snoop around in Kathmandu, to keep Uncle Sam honest, if nothing else. Others may be in it too.

A new parliamentary bill aims to legalize tapping of phones under the garb of ‘national interest’. But phones of Nepali VVIPs have long been snooped on. The cat came out of the bag during the tenure of Lokman Singh Karki as the CIAA chief, when he started brazenly tapping the phones of his critics.

Even PM Oli, during his latest stint, dropped hints that he was privy to the phone conversations of his political opponents. At a time when Google knows more about us than we know about ourselves, perhaps we can all stop pretending that we can lead neatly siloed private lives anymore. 

Sher Bahadur Deuba as a five-time prime minister brings to the office his vast governing and electioneering experience. It was under his leadership that the three tiers of elections were completed in 2017. These elections were a sort of redemption for the veteran politician, who in 2001 had been dismissed from office by King Gyanendra as ‘incompetent’ after failing to hold elections scheduled that year. It is now once again up to Deuba to ensure timely elections and to forestall another constitutional crisis.

But that’s for later. First, he has to get the unlikely 136 votes in the federal lower house to continue in office beyond the 30 days he gets before the floor test. The Nepal-Khanal faction of the CPN-UML, with their 23 MPs, had backed Deuba’s claim to premiership. But if they vote for Deuba during his floor test, the UML will all but split, and this is something both the party factions seem determined to avoid.

If Deuba falls short of the magic number, his government will automatically turn into a caretaker one whose sole responsibility will be to hold elections within the next six months. If elections cannot be held by this time, there could be a grave constitutional crisis. As he tendered his resignation on July 13, Prime Minister KP Oli knew this well, and he seems determined to have it both ways.

If Deuba loses the floor test, KP Oli will be vindicated in his conclusion that there was no alternative to his government, further strengthening his hold on UML. If, on the other hand, Deuba gets the vote of confidence, he will take the country into the constitutionally mandated November 2022 elections. For this unlikely event to happen, the Nepal-Khanal faction will have to vote in Deuba’s favor by abandoning the mother UML ship. In that case, there won’t be a challenger to Oli’s party leadership and he will go into the elections and the next UML general convention in high spirits. 

The big danger is of a power vacuum if Deuba loses the vote of confidence and fails to conduct elections on time—and this is a real possibility. Multiple factors are at play. The BJP government in India has never been happy with the Nepali constitution and would gleefully see it bite the dust, which in turn will clear the way for the restoration of the Hindu state. Oli, who has of late switched his allegiance back to New Delhi, would help India in this effort as he looks to cash in on Nepal’s Hindu vote bank to get back to power. (His UML stalwart Mahesh Basnet is already calling for a review of the country’s federal and secular status.) 

If Deuba fails, a new ‘apolitical’ electoral government, like the one under Khil Raj Regmi in 2013, can’t be ruled out. Even back then, India had twisted many arms to get Regmi appointed as prime minister. Something like that could happen again. The Covid-19 pandemic and the Election Commission’s lack of preparations make it even more likely. The best case would thus be for Deuba to win the floor test and take the country into the 2022 November election.

Unfortunately, that is the least likely outcome, unless, of course, our political leaders can pull out another rabbit from their bag of tricks. But betting on Oli to support Deuba’s premiership and thereby diluting his electoral appeal will be asking for a lot. Those wishing for the failure of the current political dispensation are licking their lips.  

It is strange to hear some of the ‘pro-democracy’ arguments in the new ‘BRI v B3W’ debate. BRI’s critics say it is propagated by a one-party dictatorship determined to bend the world to its will through its opaque and elitist business dealings. The B3W, on the other hand, is a democratic initiative with accountability and transparency at its heart, they argue.

It is naïve to believe that sovereign nation-states consider anything but their core interests while dealing with the outside world. And seldom do these interests have anything to do with democratic norms and values. 

BRI was China’s way of prolonging its economic development by financing projects abroad, in the expectation of juicy returns. While dispensing loans under the BRI, China didn’t bother about the recipient countries’ human rights and governance records. And it would be strange if China, a rising global power, were not looking to secure its interests, geopolitical or otherwise, through those business deals.

The same applies to the US. The new ‘Build Back Better World’ initiative it has pushed, at its heart, hopes to find new markets for American products and clients for international institutions it has traditionally financed. Plus, yes, it also aims to contain China’s economic and military rise. 

But aren’t Western democracies more concerned about human rights and liberal values? It depends. Whatever they do at home, abroad, these are only cloaks to hide their competitive Hobbesian instincts. If the Americans were so concerned about democracy and human rights, why are they abandoning Afghanistan now? Only the American soldiers stand between the Taliban and the seat of government in Kabul. Soon as the Americans are out, the Taliban will impose sharia law, ban girls from attending schools, and outlaw all forms of entertainment. 

Even in Nepal, the Americans backed the party-less regime of King Mahendra after he let the CIA use Mustang to wage a guerrilla war in Tibet. After 9/11, the US administration unequivocally supported King Gyanendra’s ‘war on terror’, with money and guns, helping him add fuel to the Maoist conflict. While our erstwhile Panchayat-era kings got ticker-tape parades in the US capitol, none of our democratic leaders have received similar welcomes there.

The B3W initiative hopes to curb the further expansion of Chinese powers and forestall the loss of American clout in the Asia-Pacific, the new global power hub. Countries such as Nepal will be under increasing pressure in the future to pick between the ‘autocratic BRI’ and the ‘democratic B3W’. So expect more acrimonious debates like the one surrounding the MCC compact. Strangely, the Americans say the compact money could go to some other country if Nepal continues to dither. Yet they keep pushing Kathmandu to gulp it down, no questions asked.  

Am I saying Nepal should pick BRI over B3W? Not at all. Why do we need to choose? Let the two initiatives compete to win our trust, and to help us on our terms. The Americans entered Nepal in the late 1940s to safeguard their interests, but we wanted them here to secure our own interests: the involvement of a strong third actor like the US had become vital as India and China threatened to settle Nepal’s fate between them. Nepal is destined to continue with this delicate balancing act if it is to continue to preserve its independence.