Almost a people's betrayal

 

With the king’s ambitions quashed and the rebels promising to reform, a people cheated by history was ready to make up for lost time. Now Nepal would hold its head high in the international arena, participatory development would resume with massive momentum, the stifled economy would release like a spring, and a massive peace dividend would arrive to pay for reconstruction and rehabilitation.

 

It has not quite worked out that way. There was other business at hand, unfulfilled expectations of the communities and the Madhesi Movement which emerged as a supplement to the People’s Movement. But the Maoist waywardness has dashed hopes with the party lacking in both vision and statecraft. Everyone underestimated the distance that the rebels were required to travel from their revolutionary path to the democratic boulevard while overestimating their intellectual and institutional readiness for the task.

 

The people and the political parties did not welcome the guerrillas in from the jungle because they believed in the justifications provided for the ‘people’s war’. They did so because it was important to stop the killing, which had made our country one of the most dangerous places on earth. In doing so, one had of course hoped that the Maoists had the philosophical base in order to convince the cadre with the logic of humanism and realpolitik.

 

It turned out they did not. Beyond the agenda of socio-economic progress that no one would quarrel with, Prachanda Path was based on little more than having a gun, and the willingness and proven ability to take a life. The Maoists abandoned their ‘people’s war’ because geopolitics and stalemate came in the way, but they would try every trick to maintain the illusion of victory in the journey to open society.

 

And so, on the foundation of what has been termed a general desire for change, they used demagoguery, violence, misrepresentation, cynical campaigning, and threat of a return to the jungle to emerge as by-far the largest party in the Constituent Assembly (CA). Once in power, they have shown none of the magnanimity that the other parties showered on them, and seem to know to keep the flock together only with incendiary language and incitements.

 

Apparently it is one thing to be legitimised by elections, and quite another thing to turn democratic. The Maoists have a long way to go before they publicly abandon violence as a political tool, concede that the ‘people’s war’ was essentially a means to get what they as a fringe party failed to, and finally apologize for having introduced bone-chilling violence into Nepali politics. With the turning of the wheel of time, all of this will happen if the Maoists plan for a future.

 

There are many layers of cross-cutting crises in this country, from deep distress in the mid-eastern Tarai to rampant impunity, the unfolding culture of silence which hits at the core of free society and development, to the near-total absence of state administration. The state is challenged by a myriad marginalised communities, and note sharing has not even begun in the CA. The resolution of each and every one of these challenges is today predicated on the conversion of the Maoists into a peaceful, democratic party.

 

Given their country-wide spread and control of percentages in the CA, there can be no advance without the UCPN (Maoists). And therein lies the crux; the Maoist will not begin a credible process of conversion, nor do it as fast as the people require them to, unless they are challenged and critiqued. Their democratisation can only be accelerated if we dare to argue on principle for pluralism and human rights, even at the cost of getting hit over the head. For most Maoists leaders are still at that point where all critics are enemies.

 

The UCPN (Maoists) would prefer to run a one-party state like Vietnam, if they could. Alternatively, they would like to rule uninterrupted for 30 years like the Left Front in West Bengal. But even to try to do that and also gain national and international support, the violent ways will have to be formally abandoned. As that happens, interesting permutations will begin to take place on the political landscape of the left. Indeed, there is no other way for the UCPN (Maoists) to go other than up the democratic path, hemmed in as they are by geopolitics and Nepali desires, but the question is how long do the people have to wait for them.

 

The hopes of the People’s Movement are, three years later, hostage to the Maoist transformation. Only when that happens will a democratic, inclusive constitution be written, and federalism be implemented without abandoning rule of law, building on our past achievements. Indeed, one cannot imagine any progress without the Maoists being transformed, evolved or co-opted, whatever it takes for them to accept the pluralist state. That will be the day when the Maoists stop claiming it is only they who speak for the people, whose patience, experience and values they underestimate; when they bring a level of ethics and consistency into their pronouncements and actions; when they do not seek to overwhelm all others with harsh words and bodily assaults.

 

Baburam Bhattarai has written that calibrated chaos is necessary to shake up the society, but the fact is sometimes the Maoist self-confidence can get ahead of their abilities. See how they let the form of ethnicity-based federalism out of the bottle for the sake of electoral victory, and how they seek desperately to stuff it back in, and it refuses. See how they refuse to listen to sage advise from fellow-citizens, to backtrack (be it on Pashupatinath or Gen Katawal) only when a growl is heard from the direction of New Delhi.

 

The Maoists may not know it, but the anarchy they are trying to introduce into society, by attacking national institutions including the presidency, judiciary, press, army and bureaucracy, can only lead to extreme and unmanageable polarisation. The build-up of frustrations will trigger an extreme right flank emerging in response to Maoist radicalism. And that will be the day when the hopes of the People’s Movement will finally be lost, and the social democratic state that Bishweshar Prasad Koirala envisioned.