A Hindu nationalist from Nepal at a protest against the use of the term ‘secularism’ in the country’s constitution. csi archive image
Nepal has a new government after a relatively new party secured a near supermajority in the March 2026 elections, held after a Gen Z-led uprising brought down the previous administration. The new leadership has generated expectations of better governance, especially among young people. One of the tests this government now faces, both at home and internationally, is whether it will resist the growing influence of Hindu nationalism, which has increasingly targeted the country’s small Christian minority.
The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) secured 182 seats in the March 5 general election. The party’s campaign prominently featured Balendra Shah, a former rapper and then mayor of Kathmandu who became a symbol of a new kind of urban governance. Shah now serves as prime minister. The result marks the first time in decades that a single party has secured a parliamentary majority in Nepal, where rising corruption and nepotism had left much of the population disillusioned with the political class.
The RSP, which emerged from the youth protests that ended former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s government in September 2025, has become the most popular party since Nepal became a secular federal republic in 2008, ending two centuries of Hindu monarchy.
For Nepal’s estimated 600,000 Christians, who account for nearly two percent of the country’s 30 million people, according to the government’s 2021 census, the question is whether that mandate will extend to genuine protection of religious freedom or reproduce the pressures that minority communities have faced under successive governments.
The RSP won the election on a 100-point Citizens’ Covenant pledging reforms in governance, economic growth and social inclusion.
A manifesto with mixed signals
The Citizens’ Covenant commits the RSP to a pluralistic federal democratic republic, individual freedom and the protection of religious and cultural diversity. These commitments align, in principle, with the constitutional guarantees of secularism that Nepal adopted in 2008. The manifesto also pledges equitable inclusiveness and social justice, provisions that, if applied consistently, would extend to religious minorities.
The same manifesto also pledges “respect for Sanatan civilization,” a term referring to the ancient Hindu tradition that some Hindu nationalist groups have used as a framework for asserting Hindu cultural primacy. This pairing of pluralism with Sanatan civilization is not inherently contradictory, but for civil society groups that have watched Hindu nationalist rhetoric gain institutional purchase in Nepal, it introduces an ambiguity that requires monitoring.
What the manifesto does not contain is equally significant. There is no explicit commitment to reforming the anti-conversion law, and no mention of providing burial grounds for Christians who are denied access to land in many municipalities. Nor is there a pledge to end the selective enforcement of laws that have resulted in the prosecution of Christians for peaceful religious activity.
The legal landscape
Nepal’s anti conversion law prohibits any attempt or “abetment” to convert another person, as well as any act that “undermines” or “jeopardises” another person’s religion or belief, provisions that are untenable in international law.
Further, enforcement agencies have interpreted the law to include carrying Bibles, speaking with local families about their faith and organizing prayer meetings. Police have made several arrests for such acts, according to media reports, while foreign Christian visitors have faced deportation.
The authorities have enforced the law asymmetrically, according to CSI’s local sources. Organized reconversion campaigns run by India-based Hindu nationalist organizations, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the World Hindu Council, have proceeded without legal interference, especially in the Madhesh region along Nepal’s southern border with India.
The publication Organiser, which represents the views of India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the RSS or National Volunteer Organization, reported in 2024 that 2,000 people were reconverted to Hinduism through Vedic rituals in Nepal’s Sunsari and Morang districts. That year, four Nepali Christians were arrested and held for 24 days in Bara district for allegedly proselytizing after they were found carrying Bibles and speaking with a local family. No coercion was established. The gap between those two outcomes captures the legal reality that Christians in Nepal say they have navigated for years.
Behind the growth of Hindu nationalism lies India, governed by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, which has apparently sought to expand its political influence in Nepal.
While the selection of the prime minister and members of his cabinet appears geared toward good governance, the past record of some RSP members raises concern.
A record of concern
The RSP’s founder, Rabi Lamichhane, served as home minister from December 2022 to January 2023. He returned to the post in 2024 after re-entering parliament, with that second stint also short and shaped by shifting coalition arrangements.
In that role, he instructed Chief District Officers to stop Christian activities and to refuse permission for the organization of religious meetings and trainings, CSI has learned. He also allegedly required foreign travelers to obtain permission from local district administration offices before entering certain areas of the country, a requirement that in practice restricted the movement of Christian missionaries and relief workers.
Several other RSP members who have won seats in parliament have spoken publicly against Christianity. Some among them have called for amending Nepal’s constitution to restore the country’s identity as a Hindu nation.
Nepal’s Christian minority carries limited electoral leverage, and the party secured its mandate on governance issues rather than on religious freedom. However, the historic marginalization of citizens in Nepal’s Madhesh region and those from indigenous communities, locally known as Janajatis, formed an underlying current in the September 2025 Gen Z uprising, which brought diverse sections of Nepali society together against the old political guard.
This sense of unity is visible in the election results and in the composition of the cabinet. Prime Minister Shah was born in Kathmandu, but his family roots lie in the Madhesh region. Sudan Gurung, a prominent figure in the Gen Z movement who now serves as a minister, comes from an indigenous community.
Moreover, Nepal has international commitments, and tourism, which depends on its global reputation, is one of the country’s main sources of revenue.
International standards
Nepal ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1991. Article 18 of the covenant protects the right of every person to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to change religion and to manifest religion in worship, observance, practice and teaching. Article 27 requires states to protect the rights of religious minorities to practice their religion freely.
Former UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief Asma Jahangir noted in her reporting that anti-conversion legislation, when applied selectively against one religious community while others face no scrutiny, functions as a tool of religious discrimination rather than a neutral regulatory mechanism.
The RSP government’s approach to the existing anti-conversion law will be among the earliest and clearest tests of how seriously it takes Nepal’s international commitments.
Cautious hope, specific demands
Christian leaders in Nepal appear to be cautiously hopeful after the formation of the new government. As part of this change, the community expects equal access to burial grounds, an end to prosecutions under the anti-conversion law for peaceful religious activity, and formal recognition of their right to religious assembly.
For the international community, the new leaders’ first 100 days in office will give an indication of how the RSP will govern on religious freedom. Whether the new government will act on minority rights and the prevailing spirit of unity in diversity without direct electoral pressure is the question to which the international community now awaits an answer.
