Ideologically, CPN (Maoist Center) and India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are polar opposites. The former is a communist outfit while the latter is a conservative Hindu nationalist.
This ideological difference may have crossed the mind of Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal when he met BJP President J.P. Nadda in the third week of July. The BJP chief, perhaps to break ice, had told Dahal that there was one similarity between the two parties: both worked for the uplift of the oppressed and marginalized communities.
The two leaders agreed to enhance party-to-party relations through exchanges of delegations by putting their ideological differences aside, in what was the first time that the BJP had officially extended an olive branch to the Maoist party.
But Dahal is not the first Nepali politician to be so welcomed by the BJP in recent times. On April 1, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who was in India on an official visit, had also reached the BJP’s office and held talks with Nadda.
“We had fruitful discussions over strengthening and deepening ties between India and Nepal, especially old-age people bond. We also discussed ways to further party-to-party relations,” Nadda said after his meeting with Deuba.
Exchanges between the BJP and the NC, however, had begun before Deuba’s visit. In August 2021, BJP foreign affairs head Vijay Chauthaiwale visited Nepal at the invitation of the Congress. Similarly, in October 2021, BJP invited a delegation of Congress party led by former foreign minister Prakash Sharan Mahat.
Mahat’s visit was aimed at strengthening ties between the Deuba government and India.
Though Dahal during his recent trip also met with Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and other high-level government officials, he was in India at BJP’s invitation.
The Indian ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also sent invitations to other party leaders, including CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli.
Between 2018 and 2021, the two parties had a series of interactions. In December 2020, BJP foreign affairs head Chauthaiwale had visited Nepal at the invitation of UML leader Bishnu Poudel.
Over the past few years, BJP has started reaching out to the political parties of South Asian countries. Political analyst Arun Subedi, who closely tracks BJP’s politics, says the party wants “a strong conservative force in Nepal”.
“BJP is trying to cultivate conservative leaders within the major political forces in order to serve India’s security and strategic interests in Nepal,” adds Subedi.
BJP’s ideological wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is already expanding its presence in Nepal.
Unlike in the past, the BJP’s influence in the foreign policy conduct of Nepal government, especially in neighboring countries, is also increasing.
For instance, BJP foreign affairs head Chauthaiwale played an important role in opening the channel of communication between Nepal and India in 2020. At the time bilateral relations had been strained after the KP Oli government endorsed a new political map of Nepal incorporating areas India claims as its own.
Similarly, NC leaders roped in BJP in order to improve relations with the Indian government after Deuba came back to power.
Of late, the Modi government has been trying to deal with the political forces of neighboring countries with the BJP at the front. To serve its interest, it is adopting a policy of working with whichever party comes to power.
In Nepal, the BJP’s outreach has contributed to the establishment of a channel of communication at the political level, availing Nepali leaders a chance to voice their concerns at the top political level.
Historically, there have been very few interactions between Nepali political parties and the BJP. BJP emerged as a strong political force only after 1990. Traditionally, the NC had cordial ties with the Indian National Congress and another socialist party. Similarly, the communist parties of Nepal were close to India’s leftist forces.
When the BJP came to power with a thumping majority in 2014, Modi renewed India’s neighborhood policy and one of its key components was elevating ties with political leaderships of neighboring countries. That is why during his Nepal visit, Modi met leaders from across the political spectrum.
Nihar R. Nayak, a New Delhi-based researcher, says the BJP started reaching out to Nepali political parties after realizing that there was a gap in communication.
“BJP has already ruled India for 10 years and is planning to do so for another 5-10 years. It thus wants to build ties with all political parties of neighboring countries, irrespective of their ideology,” he says.
Before 2014, India was engaging at the individual leadership level. But since the BJP came to power, “India has started engaging at the institutional level, which is a major departure in its neighborhood policy,” adds Nayak.
However, there are some differences between the BJP-led government and the party itself on some key issues related to neighboring countries. The BJP and its ideological wing RSS stress cultural nationalism and Hindu state in Nepal. But the Modi government steers clear of these issues at the governmental level.
It is not only Nepali politicians who have been meeting the BJP leaders in recent times. In June, the party had invited the ambassadors of BIMSTEC countries, Europe, South Asia, and East Asian countries to the party headquarters—all of which are a part of the ‘Know BJP’ initiative.
Envoys of other countries are also keen to build party-to-party ties between the BJP and political parties of their respective countries.
The BJP aims to interact with the political parties of more than 150 countries. In meetings with their envoys, the party chief has been known to inform the guests about BJP’s ideology, structure, functioning, and the welfare works it has been carrying out.
The BJP claims to be the largest party in the world with around 180 million members, almost double that of the China Communist Party.
The political parties of other countries are as keen to decipher the BJP’s unmatched organization-building formula.
