{"id":2738,"date":"2021-07-13T13:41:06","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T07:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/?p=2738"},"modified":"2021-07-13T13:41:06","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T07:56:06","slug":"when-nepal-has-its-own-version-of-glorious-keshavanand-bharti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/when-nepal-has-its-own-version-of-glorious-keshavanand-bharti.html","title":{"rendered":"When Nepal has its own version of glorious Keshavanand Bharti."},"content":{"rendered":"

When the executives collude to subserve democracy to their own cynical agenda of personal power play, the judiciary, the last recourse to save the sinking democracy, can neither be the mute spectator to the ongoing theatrics, nor could it, for the sake of larger public interest, shy away from setting the precedent, even though it might prima facie appear to be out stepping its jurisdiction, in order to put the full stop to the process of democracy being hijacked by an individual, and direct the restoration of sanity into the system. No wonder the direction by the Supreme Court to appoint Sher Bahadur Deuba as the next Prime Minister of Nepal, tantamounts to Nepal’s own triumphant moments of Keshavanand Bharti resurrecting yet again, abeit in its different form and different place to retrieve democracy from the jaws of individual whims and fancy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Vivekanand Jha, Ranch<\/strong>. The latest landmark judgement of the Supreme Court of Nepal, reinstating its House of Representatives and directing the President Bhandari to appoint Sher Bahadur Deuba as the next Prime Minister of Nepal, has already proved to be an epoch making. Significantly, the judgment, coming as it did, in the wake of an individual seeking to hijack the democracy, arbitrarily subordinating the system to his individual whims and fancy, amounted to an imprecation on the efficacy of democracy being a foolproof system of governance which genuinely represented the aspirations of the people it was mandated to govern. That K. P. Oli, the Prime Minister till the House of Representatives was dissolved, and subsequently as the caretaker Prime Minister, was almost wreaking havoc on the entire nation. Worse still, the President Vidya Bhandari, too, in flagrant violation of her sacred constitutional responsibility, was playing ball with the Prime Minister Oli, had whimsically dissolved the House of Representatives twice. Whereas Bhandari, the highest constitutional functionary of the country, without least being concerned, of her complicity with the scheming Prime Minister, blew the last vestiges of constitutional sanctity into smithereens. Consequently, the entire nation stood as a puppet in the game of political chessboard, when K. P. Oli, adept in political manoeuvring, kept both India and China succumbing to his political gamesmanship on the one hand, while the people of Nepal gasping for their breathes, anticipating what next? on the other.<\/p>\n

K. P. Oli, over a period of time, had developed the wholesome skills to keep both China as well as India, awaiting his favour. While he perfected the art of playing both against each other-while he won the election in 2015 on anti-India plank, he showed no hesitation in courting China, while keeping India tense; again, when it strategically suited him, he drew closer to India, posing himself as a nationalist, equivalent to Modi, before his own people. Surprisingly, China and its ambassador Hou Yanqui, who had swayed Oli all the while, suddenly lost much of her influence upon him, especially when China spelt its policy of indifference in the matter of who becomes the Prime Minister. This stand, China was compelled to take, when Prachanda had sought to depose Oli and replace him by himself. This started a mad power frenzy between Oli and Prachanda, which necessitated the fresh diplomatic leverages for India to hook itself to Oli’s bandwagon. No wonder Oli, emboldened by New Delhi’s support, began dominating Nepal’s political landscape yet again, even though he had lost majority in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

Significantly, the political gameplan of K. P. Oli which facilitated his remaining in power through the backdoor, by recommending dissolution of the House of Representatives, was seriously challenged by several groups, including the opposition. The judgment which is dubbed as unprecedented by the full bench of five judges, including the Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana, is indeed historic: The House of Representatives stand reinstated, with the Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba appointed as the next Prime Minister of Nepal. The President Bhandari’s recommendation to dissolve the House of Representatives, stands annulled. Expectedly, as the judgment raises several eyebrows, even hushed criticisms from Oli’s cohorts, it brings the curtain down on the political turmoil for several months together. Nepal’s democracy, which was caged by the complicity of the Prime Minister and the President, stand insulated from their grip, with this historic verdict, restores the people’s confidence and faith in democracy.<\/p>\n

The landmark judgement of Keshavanand Bharti versus State of Kerala, which was heard by 13 judges bench in India, almost had the strikingly nuanced outcome: It strengthened the roots of India’s democracy for all time to come; the verdict forbade the amendment of the Basic Structure of Indian Constitution, which was held sacrosanct. Much alike Keshavanand Bharti case, the latest verdict of the Supreme Court of Nepal, strives to preserve its own constitutional democracy from the severe assault from its own custodians. Unequivocally, whether the Supreme Court of Nepal, in fact, possessed the constitutional right to appoint some executive to the highest office or not, is a matter of opinion, yet the fact too cannot be glossed over that, the Supreme Court, rising to the stupendous dilemma and monumental challenge, endeavoured to set right the wrong to hijack the precious democracy which was sought to be hijacked by the Prime Minister in complicity with the President. Hence in this backdrop, the landmark judgement, as delivered by the Nepal’s Supreme Court, is the moment of relishing and celebrating their own version of Keshavanand Bharti, for both judgements basic objective was to protect their democracies from eventual degeneration.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Vivekanand Jha, author of Delhi Beckons: RaGa for NaMo, 56 Inches and The Making of Narendra Modi, Unmaking of Jawaharlal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vivekanand Jha,
\nHe is the National Spokesperson of Rashtriya Lokneeti Party and a member of its National Core Committee.<\/p>\n

He is also an author, academician and a Public Intellectual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the executives collude to subserve democracy to their own cynical agenda of personal power play, the judiciary, the last recourse to save the sinking democracy, can neither be the mute spectator to the ongoing theatrics, nor could it, for the sake of larger public interest, shy away from setting the precedent, even though it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-madhesh-politics-news","category-top-stories-of-madhesh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Deuwa-Choledra.jpg?fit=1394%2C991&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paS11m-Ia","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}