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by air3y
944 days ago
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Linking the nepal-india issues which led to a blockade by India, with state elections in India is a stretch. It was over disagreements over the then newly framed constituition of Nepal. The people in the plains viewd it unbalanced with regards to provinces and favoring the elites who were the people from the hills. They protested and Indian govt appears to have agreedwith them, probably influenced by them being related to the people in the neighbouring Indian region. This led to the fracas between the nepal govt and indian govt. With just around 4% muslim population, and no dark history of invasions, destructions and occupation that is associated with islam in India, and also not being subject to present day islamic terrorism, the religous divisions in Nepal is minor relative to India. |
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The former CM of Bihar Lalu Prasad Yadav of the RJD heavily lobbied for the Madhesh Movement after the 2015 Bihar elections [0]. It doesn't hurt that a number of the Madhesh Movement leaders are Yadav as well. They even used the same flag as former CMs of UP Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party flag, as all these groups across eastern UP, Bihar, and the Nepali Terai were influenced by the Lohia movement at Patna University back in the day.
> religous divisions in Nepal is minor relative to India
Imo a divide exists but it's different.
In the Terai it's the same Hindu-Muslim divide you'd see across the border in Araria Zila or Lakhimpur Kheri Zila as the Terai region is Awadhi and Maithili speaking. For example, Nepalgunj is 3x closer to Lucknow than Kathmandu Valley, Janakpur is 2x closer to Darbhanga than Kathmandu Valley, and Dharan is 3x closer to Darjeeling than Kathmandu Valley.
I've heard of some Hindu-Christian divide occuring around Kirat/Limbu areas like Dharan, but this also seems to be impacted by politics in neighboring Sikkim [1], as the former CM Pawan Kumar Chamling was enabled by support from Gopal Gurung of the MNO, and most "Christianization" appears to be more like Limbu/Kirati ethnonationalism. The related Gorkhaland Movement in Northern WB seems to be tangentially related based on some of the speeches I've perused.
Like every other social issue in India, religion is a facade around ethnic or caste relations. Doesn't matter if it's Sunni-Shia conflicts in Parachinar or Ladakh, Khalistan in the 80s, the Muzzafarnagar Riots in 2016, Tamil Nationalism during the Sri Lankan Civil War, or Manipur as we speak. Indian foreign policy is heavily impacted by state level politics, and this has been noted in Academia [2].
For example, a big reason for the resurgence of support for monarchism in Nepal is because of CM Yogi Adityanath's Gorakhnath Math lobbying for a Dharm Rashtra as the Shah dynasty (like other Pahari dynasties from Nepal to Jammu) was a major devotee of the Nath movement.
If you understand Hindi and Khas Nepali I can link speeches/darahans from the Madhesh Morcha, MNO+Sikkim Democratic Front, and the Gorakhnath Math from that time period specifically using religion as a wrapper around caste or ethnicity.
[0] - https://www.deccanherald.com/india/nepal-madhesis-leaders-se...
[1] - https://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/bot/...
[2] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/05/india-foreign-policy-dr...