AMONG the sea of supporters welcoming former Nepal king Gyanendra Shah to Kathmandu on Sunday – days after he had made his first direct appeal to the people since his ouster in 2008, seeking “support if they wanted to secure the nation’s future” – one face stood out. That of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
In Nepal’s volatile politics, an Adityanath poster was, unsurprisingly, a lightning rod. The BJP leader is a known supporter of Nepal’s deposed monarchy, and Gyanendra’s Kathmandu rally is being seen as his biggest challenge yet to the increasingly unpopular K P Sharma Oli government, battered by allegations of corruption.
Oli’s supporters described Adityanath’s poster as evidence of “India hand” behind Gyanendra, raising questions over the credibility of Sunday’s rally. The pro-Gyanendra parties shot back alleging that Adityanath’s posters had been “planted”, and calling it a conspiracy by the Oli government. As per the rally’s organisers, the use of Adityanath’s image neither had official sanction nor did they know about it, with the only instruction to participants being to use the national flag and Gyanendra’s portrait.
“We are not so weak as needing to use a foreigner’s photo in our procession,” said Dipak Gyawali, a former minister and pro-monarchist. What about Communists displaying portraits of Marx, Lenin, Mao etc at party offices, he added.
The ties between Nepal’s royal family and the Gorakhnath mutt of Gorakhpur, of which Adityanath is currently the head, run deep and go back ages. Rajendra Lingden, the president of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), which was the main organiser of the Gyanendra rally, pointed to this, saying: “We don’t know about it (the Adityanath poster). But what we know and respect is that King Gyanendra has a deep connection of faith and respect with the Gorakhnath mutt, since the Shah dynasty is believed to have been blessed by Guru Gorakhnath.”
Gorakhnath remains the presiding deity of the Shah dynasty and was also one of Nepal while the country was a monarchy. Gorakhnath mutt heads have long visited mutts and shrines in Nepal.
The UPA government in India (2004-2014) was instrumental in bringing leaders of eight political parties in Nepal, including the Maoists (then spearheading an insurgency), to sign a deal which led to the suspension and then fall of Nepal’s monarchy. It paved the way for the Maoists to gain power in what was till then celebrated as “the world’s only Hindu kingdom”.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.
