Fighting a straw man

Prime Minister Dahal, as always, is on the lookout for a non-existent class enemy.

One constant about Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the current prime minister, in his over 17 years of public life is his perpetual search for a “reactionary”. He looks for the reactionary figure among the crowd of his supporters, among his top partymen (there are hardly any women anyway), among his coalition partners, and even among his Cabinet members. It seems it is important for him to seek out that reactionary—this mysterious figure lurking around, conspiring to topple the government, attack the leadership, or break the nation apart. The search for this reactionary figure has become all the more critical as Dahal and his party do not have a barga shatru , or class enemy, anymore, thanks to their almost uninterrupted spell in power since they became mainstream. The realisation that they are now the new barga shatru of the unemancipated must be too difficult for them to stomach.