Maoist insurgents, who seemingly have much of Nepal's countryside under their sway, are challenging the power structure in Kathmandu with their own people's governments.
THE 25th death anniversary of Chairman Mao Zedong on September 9 went by quietly. In Nepal, meanwhile, where the ideology and practices of Mao in his Long March days and those of Peru's Sendero Luminoso (Communist Party of Peru) revolutionaries have captured the imagination of the poverty-stricken people living in the hills. Nepal's Maoists have, in six years of 'People's War', swept the countryside and are today challenging the power structure in Kathmandu.
Barely four months ago, on June 1, when Nepal was convulsing following the massacre of its royal family and the Maoists had prematurely moved in to fill the urban political vacuum, Kathmandu's elite scoffed at their adventurist attempts at republicanism and the radicalisation of Nepal's 12-year-old constitutional monarchy. But now, as the government and the Maoists sit down for talks to reshape the country's political destiny, the gross asymmetry in power between the two sides is no longer clear. For example, an editorial in Nepali Times dated September 14-21 contrasts 'an inactive (Sher Bahadur) Deuba, a fire-breathing Prachanda and a hold-your-fire King'. An earlier article had asserted that the rebels' party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) was 'dazzled by the prospect of becoming a legitimate force'; otherwise, it said, it must 'fight (the army) to the finish'.
What had alarmed Kathmandu's elite was the Maoist mobilisation for the September 21 mass meeting in the capital. During the preparations, the Maoist muscle was in full view. The people of Kathmandu came under pressure to provide food, shelter and money for the rally. Defaulters were to be tried in the jana adalats or people's courts which are held under the nose of the Singha Durbar, the seat of government and Nepal's elected Parliament.
Preparations had overshadowed the second round of talks held on September 13-14 in the Bardia National Park resort. About two lakh Maoist supporters from the countryside were to converge at the Tundikhel Open Theatre in the heart of the capital in a symbolic show of strength. Posters of mass-based Maoist organisations, such as the All Nepal Independent National Students Union (Revolutionary) or ANINSU(R), which were to be the co-organisers of the mass meeting, have been openly incendiary, showing pictures of the police fleeing from the people's army. A lower panel on the posters shows people dwarfing the Army. The Defence Ministry condemned the Maoist organisations' action of inciting the Royal Army to join the rebels.
However, ANINSU(R) President Devendra Parajuli insisted that the programme would be peaceful though he equivocated on the rebels carrying arms; he said that they would carry no ammunition. He denied using any coercion although well-known caterer B.L. Sharma was asked to appear before a "people's court", which was as usual held at the ANINSU(R) office, allegedly for refusing to cooperate. The punishment for such offences is flogging. An embarrassed government stepped in to arrest several representatives of the students organisation.
At the Bardia talks, government representatives urged the Maoists to postpone the mass meeting. Earlier in Parliament, Prime Minister Deuba asked the Maoists to halt immediately the "use of force for extortion, mobilisation of people, and forcible use of public space".
But the decision of the Deuba government, on September 15, to ban all public rallies has averted a feared confrontation between the government and the Maoists. The government has banned all mass meetings for a month. Although Maoist leaders had been adamant about holding the meeting during the second round of talks, CPN(M) Chairperson Puspa K. Dahal alias "Comrade Prachanda" confirmed the postponement of the meeting. However, joint raids by Army and police teams on student hostels and campuses in Kathmandu and the arrest of Maoist student activists and sympathisers is putting enormous pressure on the dialogue process. Comrade Prachanda has warned that his militia and cadres will be asked to resume retaliatory activities if the government does not halt its campaign of "nationwide mugging and intimidation". Lack of progress in the talks has further fuelled tension. Meanwhile ANINSU(R) shifted the venue of its 15th national convention, which was to culminate on September 21 in Kathmandu, to Biratnagar.
Much of the goodwill and optimism generated by the ceasefire and the initiation of talks last month has got vitiated with both sides trading charges of bad faith. The Maoist leadership has also had to contend with problems of indiscipline in the organisation which attracts fresh cadre daily from the overground left parties. Allegations of extortion and even rape have been levelled against its members. In the Terai, in Parsa district, tension between the Maoists and a self-styled anti-Maoist vigilante group has taken on a communal colour, and the end-victims are the 'Maoist' hill settlers.
Pessimism about the success of the talks deepened because of the apparent weakness of the Deuba government in contrast to the hyper-activism of the Maoists. Deuba had, within days of taking over from the beleaguered Girija Prasad Koirala, taken the initiative to announce a ceasefire and a fresh round of talks. But Deuba's efforts to recover the socialist face of the Nepali Congress and co-opt the populist agenda of the Maoists on land reforms, ended up dividing Parliament and also his own party at a time when he needed consensus. Significantly, the dominant leftist Opposition party in Parliament, the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), or CPN(UML) has lent support to Deuba's land reforms and enabled the passing of the Armed Police Act.
After the ceasefire, the Deuba government has watched spell-bound as the Maoists expanded the number of "liberated" districts from eight to 13 in a fortnight's time. Mass meetings were held in 73 of Nepal's 75 districts; in Kiritipur township in Greater Kathmandu, such a meeting was held on the eve of the first round of talks, on August 30.
IF the Maoists have experienced any reverses, it is in their efforts to achieve Left unity. Comrade Prachanda had invited Nepal's splintered Left parties for a meeting in Siliguri, but no consensus could be reached. On his return, CPN(UML) general secretary, Madhav Kumar Nepal reiterated his party's position: "Monarchy is necessary in Nepal. The Maoist demand for a republic, or a constituent assembly and a republic, are all detrimental to the nation." Of all the political parties, the CPN(UML) is the worst hit by the Maoist challenge. In the Left-dominated districts, intense clashes have taken place between the two. M.K. Nepal did more than defend the institution of monarchy as the symbol of Nepal's unity; he also hit back at the Maoists and their republican agenda alleging that they brought a conspiratorial India into the picture. Why was India providing sanctuary to Prachanda and the Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai? Otherwise how could they have met in Siliguri? That the radical Vinode Mishra group facilitated the meeting was ignored. G.P. Koirala also joined in and accused India and the Palace of working in league with the Maoists. Memory is conveniently selective; otherwise Koirala might have recollected that India had provided sanctuary to his family on an earlier occasion.
How the Palace gets mired in this controversy has to do with the 'special understanding' that Bhattarai says King Birendra had for them. The Maoists have since then toned down their attack on King Gyanendra. Is it because he too has been reluctant to encourage a confrontation between the Army and the Maoists, as was evident during the Nuwgaon incident which forced Koirala to resign? A section of Kathmandu's elite has sought comfort in King Gyanendra's assertive statement in a recent interview to Aajko Samacharpatra that unlike his brother he would not be a mute spectator to the processes of national decline. The Indra Jatra ceremonies in September saw a new Kumari, the living goddess, bless the new King and consecrate him as the avatar of Vishnu. But the promise of a more pro-active King - and thus an Army vis-a-vis the Maoist challenge - has once again got mired in controversy over the Palace's (and India's) connection with the Maoists.
Hanging in the balance, therefore, are the talks and the apparent impossibility of a compromise on the three sticking points - an interim government, a constituent assembly and a republic. Can a Prime Minister elected within the framework of Nepal's Constitution go beyond it? Human rights activist Padma Ratna Tuladhar, who is one of the facilitators at the talks, believes that the Maoists could be willing to move away from a maximalist position to a minimalist one. The emphasis during the talks has been on flexibility. The problem is that outside the talks, it is a no-compromise maximalist position which is aired. The Maoists cannot easily abandon the people's war they have been waging, which has claimed 1,800 lives.
At the core is the question - is the Nepalese state so weak, or, put another way, has the CPN(M) miscalculated in assuming the Nepalese state to be weak? The fact is that the state has held back from hitting back militarily at the Maoists, despite their virtual takeover of the countryside and the proliferation of parallel people's governments. Why has the Royal Army remained a bystander while the Maoists wiped out an underarmed and demoralised police force? Is it sympathy for the Maoists within the ruling elite? Is it commitment to democratic values rather than the use of military force which has produced a political consensus for talks? Tuladhar believes it is the fear of a civil war that has restrained the Army from an open confrontation with the rebels. District-level Maoist leaders in Sindhupalchowk district argue that a confrontation would produce a split along class and ethnic lines.
Nepal is no isolated state. Its elite are not without friends. Nepal's strategic location between India and China ensures that its two giant neighbours are unlikely to sit back and watch a radical revolutionary regime take power on the border. Have the Maoists calculated this?
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