Makefile meta-package and removal of dependent packages when uninstalling

I have a meta-package Makefile.

Is there a clean way to force the removal of dependent packages when the main package is removed without needing to specify explicitly on the opkg command line to remove dependencies?

All the dependent packages are useless unless everything is installed, so they should ideally be removed in a single atomic operation

I could do this in a postrm method by invoking opkg remove, but that feels clumsy

EDIT: cannot invoke opkg remove in the postrm since it trips /var/lock/opkg.lock