From Ayodhya to Janakpur: How Indian Hindu nationalism crossed into Nepal

Ayodhya/Kathmandu: On a blistering afternoon in the north Indian town of Ayodhya in early April, Mahant Kamal Nayan Das—a white-robed seer and a spokesperson of the Ram Temple Trust—spoke on the expansion of Hinduism before an audience of saffron-clad devout Hindus.

The articulate 75-year-old preacher at one of Ayodhya’s most prominent temples, Mani Ram Das Ki Chavani, where more than 500 sadhus live, seemed particularly concerned about neighbouring Nepal.

“Christianity is spreading fast in the upper reaches of Nepal and Islam in the lower reaches,” he said. “We need to arrest that and sensitise people about a Hindu Rashtra (polity).”

A month earlier, Das was in Nepal, where he delivered elaborate sermons on reviving Nepal’s Hindu past, particularly political and religious systems based on indigenous thought.

Amid the surge in Hindu nationalism in India, Das and other votaries of majoritarianism are not only campaigning vigorously to reinstate Nepal as a Hindu kingdom but are also finding wide support among local Nepalese.

With India in the middle of election season, calls are also growing in Nepal to bring back its Hindu monarchy 15 years after Kathmandu abolished the centuries-old institution, turning the Himalayan country into a republic.

Buoyed by the rise of Hindutva in India – the political ideology of Hindu nationalism– pro-monarchy forces in Nepal, including the fifth-largest party, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), have launched mass protests and rallies in different cities.

These protests have set the stage for a contentious debate about Nepal’s future.

Propaganda takes to the streets

In early 2024, RPP launched a series of mass protests and rallies across Nepal to mobilise support for its cause after submitting a 40-point list of demands, including restoration of Hindu monarchy, abolition of secularism and dissolution of federalism, to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

In April, protesters demanding the restoration of the Hindu monarchy clashed with the police in Kathmandu. The incensed demonstrators marched to a prohibited area and hurled stones at the police, according to local news reports. In the ensuing chaos, at least 14 protesters were injured, while one died a week after the violent outbreak.

Since Nepal transitioned to a federal republic in 2008, the nation has upheld its inclusive ethos. However, the sway of India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which leverages Hindu-first politics for electoral gains, has emboldened Hindu nationalists in Nepal.

The Nepalese nationalist groups are now mounting pressure on the government to restore the monarchy and using social media to stoke communal tensions.

A December article published by the Global Network on Extremism and Technology says that Muslim women were unreasonably accused of spreading COVID-19 in Janakpur, a Nepalese city southeast of Kathmandu, during the height of the pandemic in April 2020. Social media users in Nepal capitalised on this fear-mongering, while anti-Islam posts targeting Muslim Nepali women went viral.

Last November, ultra-nationalist influencers posted images on social media of a Hindu Rashtra rally in Kathmandu with over 150,000 views, claiming “Revolution has started in Nepal”.

Going back in time

The abolition of the Hindu monarchy followed a series of anti-monarchy mass protests in Nepal after a deal was struck between the Maoist insurgents and parliamentary parties in 2006.

The parliament then voted to make the country a republic in 2008. Still, the Constituent Assembly, elected to promulgate a post-war constitution, failed to make any headway amid bickering and divergent visions for Nepal.

However, in 2015, following a devastating earthquake, politicians came together to hastily promulgate the Constitution, which defined the country as a secular federal republic.

The landmark event was shadowed by what was reportedly perceived in Nepal as India’s highhandedness. S. Jaishankar, then India’s foreign secretary, warned against promulgating the constitution, which was marred by protests from Madhesis, people of the southern plains with close ties to India.

Over the years, like with its other neighbours in South Asia, the Indian government’s relations with Kathmandu have seen lows and highs. One issue, however, has remained constant: the BJP’s preference for a Hindu state in Nepal.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited Nepal five times, an unprecedented number for an Indian leader. During his trips, he has paid obeisance to Hindu deities at all major religious sites to influence Hindu voters back home.

Intrinsic to Nepal’s faith is the Pashupatinath Temple, a sanctuary for Hindus and the abode of Shiva, one of the most popular deities in Nepal. The ancient Hindu epic Ramayana is also popular in Nepal since the town of Janakpur is considered the hometown of Sita, Ram’s divine consort.

But the most important Indian figure in the campaign to revive the Hindu monarchy in Nepal has been Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, a state which shares an open border with Nepal.

Deep religious ties underpin Adityanath’s relations with Nepal’s Shah monarchy. Both have links to Gorakhnath Temple in Gorakhpur, a border town along the banks of the Rapti River in India. Adityanath was a mahant (chief priest) of the temple there before he became the chief minister. The Shah monarchs revere Gorakhnath, the Hindu monastic movement in the Himalayan region.

“We believe this shared heritage strengthens Nepal's claim as Hinduism's central point,” said Asmita Bhandari, the acting president of the World Hindu Federation (WHF), a Kathmandu-based organisation that champions the cause of Hinduism globally. She told TRT World that Adityanath had been a vocal proponent of the Hindu monarchy’s revival in Nepal.

Bhandari’s organisation is among dozens advocating for a Hindu monarchy, including the Hindu Swamksevak Sangh, an offshoot of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological fountainhead. Another group at the forefront is the Hindu Nation Self Respect Awareness Campaign, which was launched in August 2021 by a former Nepal Army chief.

Bhandari accused Western missionaries of undermining their campaign for Hindu monarchy and lashed out against Nepal’s 2021 national census, which, she said, undercounted Hindus by classifying them as Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain and Nature worshippers. According to the census, the Hindu population is 81.3 percent whereas Muslims are 4.4 percent. The indigenous Kiratis 3 percent and Christains 1.4 percent.

RPP spokesman Mohan Kumar Shrestha also said his party was pushing for the restoration of a Hindu monarchy because “the current political system is flawed, and the leadership has completely failed to justify its existence”. He presented an alternative to the current political system and argued that the king would serve as its guardian.

“It will be a Constitutional monarchy and the Parliament will decide who succeeds the monarch,” he said. We call for a Hindu kingdom that guarantees religious freedom for all.”

Bizay Sonkar Shastri, a national spokesperson of the BJP government in India, said a country might be a geographical construct, but a nation can’t be secular, in that Hindutva was the best formula for both Nepal and India.

A bloody history

Nepal’s Shah kings have, however, enacted authoritarian rules in the country. In 1990, Nepal ended a 30-year rule under Birendra Shah after popular protests in Kathmandu forced him to cede power and reduced him to a ceremonial head.

In 2001, Crown Prince Diprendra, reportedly under the influence of drugs and alcohol, massacred his family and five other royal members because his mother had denied his marriage request. He then shot himself.

The crown passed to his uncle Gyanendra who had a brief stint in power after staging a military-backed, bloodless coup in early 2005. A year later, parliamentary parties and Maoists joined forces to overthrow the king.

In recent years, the former king and the RPP, its staunch supporter, have both campaigned for his return to power and capitalised on people’s frustrations about the current political system.

The RPP’s Shrestha accused the current political leadership of the country's growing unemployment, out-migration, and sluggish economy.

“The changes (of 2006) haven't delivered on promises of peace, stability, and economic prosperity,” he said. “Hinduism forms Nepal's core identity, and we feel it is essential to revive it for the sake of peace and harmony,” he said.

However, some analysts believe the noise over Hindu Rashtra and calls to revert to a monarchy is a mere distraction since these “could plunge the country into acute instability.”

SD Muni, professor emeritus at the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said, “If Narendra Modi is re-elected as prime minister of India, the demand for Hindu Rashtra might gain strength in Nepal, but sections in Nepal’s society don’t want the state to have an overt religious identity.”

Nepal’s diversity, with over 100 ethnicities and more than 120 languages, makes Hinduisation challenging.

CK Lal, a columnist and political commentator based in Nepal, said in an interview with the Kathmandu Post last December that unless there’s a major uprising, geopolitics goes haywire, or Hindutva forces from India are allowed to have a free hand in Nepal, the possibility of a Hindu polity seems less than likely.

Still, the country retains elements of Hinduism, including bans on religious conversion and beef consumption, even after being declared a secular society.

“India and Nepal are bound by the same threads of yoga, dharma and spiritual knowledge,” said Mahant Kamal Nayan Das. “That’s why we want the whole region to be a Hindu Rashtra.”