What could have got into Nepal’s Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, to have to want to claim earlier this month that Lord Ram was bor...
What could have got into Nepal’s Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, to have to want to claim earlier this month that Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya, the place in question being not in present-day India but in what is today Nepal?
So many questions to try to answer. But to start with the obvious – the claim was considered impolite towards the Hindutva brigade south of the border whose proponents have constructed a political ideology around a mythological character of historical and archaeological uncertainty, though a god. This absence of civility comes from a head of government who should know the potential economic and geopolitical consequences, having led Nepal’s stand against the 2015-’16 Blockade with a Big B.
But Oli went ahead anyway and did it. Why? Mostly, he has begun to like hearing his own voice, and gets carried away when people titter appreciatively at his banter. He engages in baithak guffgaaf even when he knows the cameras are recording. This time, on July 13, it was the birth anniversary of Bhanu Bhakta Acharya, the aadi kabi of the Nepali language and translator of the Balmiki’s epic Ramayan. Oli got carried away and replaced one Ayodhya pop history with another.
‘Organic’ leader
Oli is an “organic” leader if nothing else,...
