Just read Professor Bishnu Sapkota’s powerful piece in Kantipur debunking three Nepali myths that desperately need challenging. His analysis resonates deeply with arguments I’ve been making about Nepal’s political landscape.
Speaking of myths: watching my Facebook friends celebrate the Rabi Lamichhane-Balen Shah unity as if it’s Nepal’s salvation feels like déjà vu. Remember the Gen Z movement excitement? Within months, we saw it was largely destruction of national heritage and property—not the transformation everyone promised.
This Lamichhane-Balen alliance is just another fleeting “blinker of hope” Nepalis have witnessed repeatedly in recent history. We get excited, we believe, we’re disappointed—rinse and repeat.
But here’s what nobody’s asking: What exactly IS this unity? Is it a formal political party merger? An electoral alliance? A friendship photo-op? More critically—has anyone heard their vision for actually running the country? What policies will they implement? How will they address corruption differently than their predecessors? What’s their economic plan? Their foreign policy? Their strategy for federal restructuring?
We have two popular personalities joining forces, but popularity is not policy. Social media following is not governance capacity. Photo opportunities are not reform agendas.
Will this alliance dismantle the myths Professor Sapkota identifies? Will they do anything substantial that future generations will remember as their contribution to breaking Nepal’s political deadlock? Or is this just another example of what I describe in my recent article—political entrepreneurship where personalities replace principles, and brand management substitutes for serious governance?
As I argue in my piece, these new formations represent populist moments, not sustainable movements. Without ideological foundations, institutional capacity, or history of genuine sacrifice, they’re political entrepreneurs treating democracy as business opportunity. The Lamichhane-Balen union seems to follow this exact pattern: high on publicity, silent on policy.
Professor Sapkota dismantles the myths keeping Nepal stuck. We need this intellectual honesty—and we need to demand more than charisma and popularity from our political leaders. We need answers: How will you govern? What will you change? Why should we believe you’ll succeed where others failed?
Until these questions are answered with substance rather than slogans, this is just another momentary distraction from the hard work of genuine political reform.
Introduction: The Delight of Linguistic Discovery I never expected my playful observation about a political sign would spark such controversy. There it was—a conservative leader’s campaign board reading “Axe the Tax on Homes,” its words awkwardly divided across two lines. To my linguist’s eye, the accidental double meaning was irresistible: “Stop Sales / Tax Homes!!” The irony was perfect—a tax-cutting slogan that, through clumsy design, could be read as advocating precisely what it opposed. I shared this humorous linguistic discovery online, anticipating fellow word enthusiasts might enjoy the joke. Instead, I witnessed how quickly language play collides with political tribalism, and how our capacity for humor evaporates when ideology enters the conversation.
The Battle Over Meaning The responses fell into distinct camps. The first commenter, a linguistically-inclined friend, set the tone with measured analysis: “When the given sentence is divided into two sentences, then you are right! Otherwise, I do not agree.” His distinction was crucial – he acknowledged the design’s ambiguity without dismissing the intended policy. My reply – “They divided it (for a reason), not I!” – highlighted how the sign’s formatting created the double meaning. His follow-up (“This is design, not a divide”) further clarified his view.
Then another participant offered a diplomatic perspective: “Yes, both of you are correct. It’s a very ambiguous sentence.” This comment was a quiet masterstroke, validating both perspectives while modeling how to depoliticize language.
The Spectrum of Reactions The literalists analyzed the sign as a communication failure. One noted: “It should read ‘Axe the sales tax on new homes,'” pointing out how line breaks create unintended meanings. The defenders reacted as if I’d launched a political attack rather than a grammatical observation. “You’re misleading people!” insisted one particularly vocal participant, who later escalated: “It was deliberately made misleading by you… Someone like you shouldn’t do this seriously.” This revealed a deeper pattern – for some, any interpretation diverging from party orthodoxy wasn’t just wrong, but malicious.
The Psychology Behind the Responses What fascinated me wasn’t the disagreement, but how predictably it followed documented psychological patterns. One defender shifted the conversation completely: “Nepali people never change, even in Canada! If you don’t understand English, try French!” Where some saw typography, others saw ideology.
Another participant’s evolving position was particularly telling. They first dismissed the conversation as “AI-generated info,” but later conceded it was simply “a design problem.” This reversal mirrored the classic pattern of conspiracy thinking – initial defensive outrage giving way to reluctant acknowledgment of facts.
The Conversation Spirals: Defensiveness and Distortions The discussion took revealing turns when certain participants:
Framed sarcastic remarks as honoring cultural heritage
Made striking accusations completely absent from the original post
Sought validation from respected community figures
One observer’s graceful refusal to be drawn in – “Don’t drag me into the dirt” – and another’s probing questions – “Where were Indigenous people defamed?” – underscored how far the conversation had diverged. The most insightful commentary came from those who understood political language operates on multiple levels: “Are we looking at formal or lexical semantics?”
Language as a Political Weapon The campaign sign wasn’t just policy – it was a rhetorical Rorschach test. Supporters saw their preferred meaning, critics saw the clumsy messaging, and the campaign benefited from the engagement either way. This phenomenon isn’t unique to Canadian politics; similar vague, feel-good phrasing appears in slogans worldwide.
A Mirror for Our Digital Age This micro-drama reflects our broader information crisis. When participants accused me of “deliberately misleading,” they weren’t engaging with the post – they were reacting to perceived threats to their political identity. We’ve become so accustomed to political warfare that even playful analysis gets weaponized.
Conclusion: Playfulness as Political Mirror This entire episode began with what should have been an uncontroversial truth: language is inherently playful, and design choices create unintended meanings. My amusement at the sign’s ambiguity wasn’t just about the words themselves, but about how they revealed the fragility of political messaging.
The most telling response wasn’t the disagreement—it was the complete inability of some participants to even recognize the linguistic playfulness. Their insistence that “no competent English speaker could misunderstand the sign” ironically demonstrated their own constrained perception. In policing my observation, they revealed how political allegiance can literally narrow what we’re able to see in plain language.
Three crucial lessons emerge:
Humor is ideological – What one person finds amusing, another perceives as attack
Design has politics – Even accidental ambiguities reveal messaging vulnerabilities
Playfulness is power – The ability to see multiple meanings resists political framing
Perhaps the healthiest democratic practice would be embracing—rather than attacking—those who point out clumsy messaging. After all, if we can’t laugh at awkward phrasing, how will we ever confront substantive policy differences? The sign’s true revelation wasn’t its policy position, but how fiercely we’ll defend our team’s sloppy design—and how angrily we’ll attack those who notice it.
