Why and how is Balen government rattling the old guard

In the Nepali society, people and leaders alike are unable to accept someone considerably younger than oneself as a leader, and belittle them with the attitude of ‘what could they possibly know'.

Only seven weeks have passed since the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) formed the Balendra Shah-led government. Whether it was the first democratic government of the Nepali Congress after overthrowing 30 years of the Panchayat system, the Maoists who came to power in 2008 after leading a ‘revolution’ or the KP Oli government of 2018 that made many misguided souls think the leftist dream was finally being realised—I cannot recall any government since 1991 that began working at the pace of the current one. Amid such a beginning—whether the matter of bringing numerous ordinances at once, or not following ‘tradition’ in the appointment of the Chief Justice, or debates ranging from why the Prime Minister wore white shoes to Parliament to why he arrived late—the established ‘old’ intellectual society in Nepal's public sphere is scrambling, barely keeping up with its rush to criticise Shah. The possible reasons behind this ‘overreaction’ and why certain decisions and the style of this government deserve to be seen from a different perspective will be the central theme of this article.