In the most recent assembly elections, India’s ruling party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) consolidated its hold in five states including in the most populous Uttar Pradesh. This has increased BJP’s prospects of winning national elections for a third consecutive time in 2024. With the exception of Punjab, the BJP also gained in Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand.
This suggests the BJP has wooed the masses with its ‘Hindu nationalist’ agenda. Over the past 70 years, Uttar Pradesh has had 21 chief ministers but none could do what Yogi Adityanath has: return to power for a second time after completing a full five-year term.
Adityanath is emerging as a powerful BJP leader, and a section of the party projects him as a future prime minister. As he leads a populous 204m-strong state that shares a border with Nepal, Nepali politicians and experts are also gauging his victory’s possible implications for Nepal.
Adityanath is a vocal supporter for the reinstatement of Nepal’s Hindu state. Sharat Pradhan and Atul Chandra document his remarks on secularism in Nepal in their recent book, ‘Yogi Adityanath: Religion, Politics, and Power, The Untold Story’.
“That secularism is not his cup of tea has been expressed quite explicitly by Adityanath in his article penned under the headline, ‘Antar-raashtreey saazishon ke jaal me phansta Himalayee Rashtra Nepal’ (“The Himalayan state of Nepal has been caught in international conspiracies”).
Describing 18 May 2006 as a ‘Black Day’, when the country’s kangaroo parliament passed an ‘unfortunate and unexpected ‘resolution declaring Nepal a secular state, Adityanath blames Maoists, Islamic militants, and Christians for the ‘unconstitutional’ decision,” the article says.
Asmita Bhandari, Acting President, World Hindu Federation International Committee, for her part says Adityanath’s emergence is good news for Nepal. “He has a special relationship with Nepal. He is not only the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh but also the head priest of Gorakhnath temple,” Bhandari says. “He wants to see Nepal as a Hindu state.”
In meetings with Nepali politicians, BJP leaders are becoming more vocal on the Hindu agenda. Dhananjay Tripathi, assistant professor, department of international relations, South Asian University, says the BJP won’t directly support the Hindu-state agenda but some Hindu front organizations could lend their support to their pro-Hindu counterparts in Nepal.
“As Hindu forces become influential in India, they will try to push and prod like-minded forces in Nepal,” says Tripathi. He, however, does not believe the agenda will much influence Nepali voters. “The kind of appeal the BJP has in India is hard to replicate for any of Nepal’s political parties,” he says.
The two countries have distinct domestic politics, Tripathi says. Unlike in India, there are no entrenched religious divisions or polarized debates among Hindus, Muslims and those of other faiths. Over the past couple of decades, communist parties have become dominant in Nepal, adds Tripathi, which also distinguishes the country from India.
Tripathi argues that political debates here are centered more on monarchy, democracy and republic than on religion. In Nepal, there are strong Hindu sentiments in major parties but their top leaderships remain committed to the secular state.
Civil society member Hari Sharma says the BJP’s victory in India could encourage Nepal’s anti-secularists and influence its liberal forces. “Take Nepali Congress. Last September, a Congress delegation under Prakash Sharan Mahat visited India. They did not hold fraternity talks with other political parties there, except with the BJP,” says Sharma. “Instead, after New Delhi, they went straight to Uttar Pradesh and met Yogi Aditayanath.”
He speaks of the need to maintain good rapport with all of India’s important political parties. As Hinduism is a populist agenda, Sharma adds, Nepali parties may be thinking it could increase their votes too. “They may also want to appease Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But appeasing Modi would not serve our national interest,” he says.
In line with what Sharma says, a group in the ruling Nepali Congress, with Central Working Committee member Shankar Bhandari at its lead, is pressing party leadership to stand in favor of the Hindu state.
Bhandari says he takes India’s recent electoral outcomes in a positive light but he thinks the Nepali campaign for Hindu state won’t be much influenced by the BJP.
“We want to declare Nepal a Hindu state as the majority of Nepalis are in its favor. Our politicians have betrayed people by embracing secularism, an agenda pushed by foreign powers,” Bhandari says. He says Nepali parties cannot entirely shun the Hindu agenda; nor can they fully support it.
Inside CPN-UML, the main opposition party, there is no organized group in favor of the Hindu state. But in recent times its Chairman KP Sharma Oli has been trying to appeal to the Hindu constituency. Most recently, Oli renewed his statement about Lord Ram being born in Nepal.
Political analyst Lokraj Baral does not think Oli will achieve much by invoking Ram, as he does not speak based on facts. “But he may nonetheless get some public support for his pro-Hindu line,” Baral says.
The backers of Hindu state are buoyed by India’s recent electoral outcome.
Dhawal Shumsher Rana, General Secretary of Rastriya Prajatantra Party, a pro-Hindu party, says BJP’s victory will have “some but not significant impact on Nepal. Till date, our party has had no formal collaboration with the BJP. But we also can’t rule it out,” he says.
Baral says BJP’s emergence in India has not brought a significant Hindu wave in Nepal. Even though Nepali politics is tough to predict, “it is hard to believe that the BJP wave in India will significantly affect Nepal. It has been nearly a decade since the BJP came to power in India and Hindutwa’s impact on Nepal has been minimal.”
Asmita Bhandari says big political parties can learn from India that the Hindu religion as a political issue has some appeal. “You may now find that our major parties are ready to take up the Hindu state agenda,” she says.
