View from the Himalayas | Nepal is a Hindu country but embracing Hindutva is not on its political agenda
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a third term in office, how do Nepalis view the elections?
Many in India ask, how closely are Nepalis following Indian elections and who are they supporting? And, inevitably, how are Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-revivalist party Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) regarded in Nepal? Natural curiosities. After all, India and Nepal are the only two Hindu-majority countries in the world, with the share of their Hindu population standing close to 80%; 81.19% in Nepal’s case according to the 2021 census.
A simple answer: The Nepali response to the Indian elections, as Modi seeks a third straight term, ranges from cool indifference to passionate expositions. Many Nepalis do regard Modi with a certain degree of warmth, and for good reason.
In 2014 when he first visited Nepal as Prime Minister, Modi was the first Indian head of the government to do so in 17 years. To date, he has visited Nepal five times - as many times as he has visited China and Russia, and only less than five countries - Germany (six times); France, Japan and UAE (all seven times); and the United States (eight times). UAE may not enjoy the global heft of others in the list, but of over 9 million people living in the Emirates, 3.5 million are estimated to be Indians, the largest national group, outnumbering even the Emiratis.
Notably, three of Modi’s Nepal visits also included paying obeisance to the holiest places of worship outside Kathmandu - Janakpur, the birthplace of Goddess Sita; Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha; and Muktinath, a Vishnu temple situated on the lap of the Himalayas at an altitude of 3,710 meters.
At Muktinath, which has become a popular destination for Indian pilgrims since the visitors are pleasantly surprised to find both Hindu priests and Buddhist nuns in the sanctum sanctorum — an exemplar of Nepal’s deeply syncretic religious traditions. These are all important indicators of the emphasis on cultural and civilisational ties as the cornerstone of Modi’s unique diplomatic outreach in Nepal.
Nepal, Modi and the BJP
Indeed, it’s not surprising that many Nepalis do feel a strong kinship towards the BJP and Modi, but such a connection could be characterised as cultural rather than political. This is perhaps where Nepal’s Hindu voters and India’s Hidutava-charged Indian electorate are fundamentally different. Unless, of course, they happened to be the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) type, Nepal’s only political party whose clarion call is the restoration of Hinduism as the state religion and revival of the monarchy.
To put things in perspective, RPP is only the fifth-largest party in parliament, though it met the 3% electoral threshold in the 2002 general election to be recognised as a national party. However, none of the four leading parties – the centrist Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist, the CPN-UML, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) and the Rastriya Swatantra Party, or the RSP, the newest of them all – have supported the agenda of reviving the monarchy and Hinduism as our state religion. Not yet.
Here is a case in point. On April 28, amid the Indian elections, Nepal also held by-elections in two constituencies. In the eastern district of Ilam, which borders West Bengal, the RPP candidate got a mere 404 votes. In the western district of Bajhang in Sudurpaschim province, which borders Uttarakhand, RPP’s showing was as dismal - 242 votes. Clearly, none of the Hindutva clamour of Devbhumi, the first Indian state to implement a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), and the Sangh Parivar’s ideological agenda seems to have made any impact across the open border in Nepal’s mountains.
Political commentators were quick to point out that the election results – though only in two constituencies - was a serious jolt to RPP’s Hindu revivalist agenda. After falling flat in numerous previous elections, the party made some political inroads in the 2022 general election. Many of its leaders, alongside some observers, read that as an inflection point, and that the needle would begin to swing rightward, arguing that the Hindutva juggernaut’s influence on Nepal’s electoral politics is unavoidable.
Religion and politics in Nepal
Therefore, there are obvious questions from the Nepali side, too: How will BJP and its parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), treat Nepal if Modi were to get a third term? Will they try to muscle the Hindu revivalist agenda in Nepal, too? And if they do, how will Nepalis respond?
It’s important to note that Nepal, as a nation-state, was not founded on a religious plank, unlike India (or ‘Hindustan’) where Partition has remained a touchstone in framing the idea of India (or ‘Bharat’), with interpretations of Hindu-Muslim relations ever writ large in the political background, more so in recent elections.
Nepali national psyche, on the other hand, is unaware of the ugly history of partition; it doesn’t carry the baggage of deep religious acrimony and violence in its national imagination. It’s therefore very hard to demonise a community and attain electoral success at a scale and that too, across the nation. This doesn’t mean that Nepal hasn’t seen its share of religious strife in certain pockets - as shown in recent clashes between Hindu and Muslim groups in the Terai district of Sunsari, bordering eastern Bihar.
But such disturbances have remained confined to small areas and never spread across the country. And it’s not Islam but Buddhism that is the second most followed religion (with 8% of the population); followers of Islam make up 5% of the population.
Second, though an overwhelming majority of Nepalis identify themselves as Hindus, it remains a country of minorities, with ethnic groups increasingly asserting their identities in national politics and public life. The two dominant Hindu caste groups, Hill-Brahmin and Chhetris, together make up less than 30% of the population.
In the recent Ilam election, an independent candidate championing identity-based politics garnered a sizeable 11,457 votes, and the CPN-UML candidate, Suhang Nembang, who won the election also belongs to the same indigenous community (Limbu) just as the identity (‘pahichan’) candidate. Yes, Modi remains a popular figure in Nepal. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Nepalis are ready to embrace Hindutva. To date, Nepal’s major political parties have kept religion out of electoral politics and the next general election is still three and a half years away.
Akhilesh Upadhyay is former Editor-in-Chief of The Kathmandu Post and a Senior Fellow at IIDS, a Kathmandu-based think tank. Views expressed are personal.
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