The purpose of the first message is unmistakable. It is intended to intimidate those Madhesi members of Constituent Assembly (CA) who are contemplating to break the political deadlock and help Maoists form a majority government. The SMS couldn’t have meant to dissuade CA members from voting for Ramchandra Paudel—with UML maintaining its neutrality, even if the entire Madhesi front lined up behind him, he would still be way short of majority. Considering the state of law and order in the country, the threat is impossible to ignore.
The second message is an expression of impotent rage. The originator probably does not know that there is no escaping the abominable politician in any organized society. Hereditary rulers are politician with plumes; religious heads are governors with the Book; military dictators are legislators in uniform; and the less said about corporate politicos pulling their strings, the better. Love them or hate them, live without politicians one cannot. Ironically, the politically inclined individuals often display their disenchantment with politics in most abhorrent terms. Even among them, the denouncement of democratic procedures coming from UML cadres and sympathizers are often most vehement. They have a reason to be disillusioned with policies of their party.
POLITICS WITHOUT PRINCIPLES
Even though UML was instrumental in drafting and promulgation the Constitution of Kingdom of Nepal, 1990, it subverted the supreme law from within—first from the opposition benches of the parliament and then as leaders and partners in government. Public memory is proverbially short, but not so short as to forget the shenanigans of UML during the 1990s as it used all its might to discredit parliamentary system and derail democracy.
The UML is a bastion of petty bourgeoisie and believes that it can serve their interests best only by remaining in government. For a partnership in state power, it served the royal regime, participated in the Maoist government and led the anti-Maoist coalition with equal zeal.
The UML was the first major political party of the country to give legitimacy to the 2002 power grab of the then king, Gyanendra, when its paramount leader queued up in front of the Narayanhiti Palace and begged to be nominated the prime minister of the country. It later agreed to be a junior partner in the royal-military government arguing that the ‘regression’ had been ‘half-corrected’. Once Chairman Gyanendra dismissed them, loyalists of the crown became hardcore republicans overnight and transformed themselves into vocal apologists of the Maoists. The strategy served UML well until CA elections when its leaders suddenly found that they had no political plank to stand. That it still has over 100 seats in a house of 601 is a testimony of the strength of petty bourgeoisie in Nepali society.
While forming the first elected government of republican Nepal, Maoists were generous in giving plum ministries to UML. The Balkhu Palace used the opportunity of being junior partner in the Maoist government to entrench itself further with the permanent establishment of the country. When Premier Pushpa Kamal Dahal had to resign under military pressure, UML became the favorite choice of the anti-Maoist coalition.
In all above decisions, the only thing lacking is even a vague commitment to any political ideology or an adherence to principles of democratic politics. The party does not seem to have changed its track. Its equivocal stand during the process of forming a government shows that the party values pragmatism above all else. There is nothing wrong with politics of pragmatism per se, but when it is couched in high theory, unexpected complications begin to arise.
According to constitutional provisions and directives of the president, the CA is required to elect its leader by a majority vote. Leaders of the UML know the arithmetic of the house and probably realize that their insistence upon illusive consensus is merely a ruse to sabotage the process of election. The UML is back to its subversive tactics of the Referendum of the 1980s and unparliamentary exercises of1990s—weaken the system when you do not see any chance of manipulating it to your advantage and then allow it to crumble.
Sadly, the fault does not lie with leaders of the UML but its class base. The UML is a bastion of petty bourgeoisie and believes that it can serve their interests best only by remaining in government. For a partnership in state power, it served the royal regime, participated in the Maoist government and led the anti-Maoist coalition with equal zeal. If the opportunity arose, will they hesitate from ushering in a fascist regime? Unnerving as it may sound, the answer to that question is not very reassuring.
BASE & SUPERSTRUCTURE
Hetauda emerged as a township when Americans chose it as their official base for road-building and logging activities in the sixties. Mechanisation coupled with connectivity transformed the sleepy settlement into powerhouse of economic activity. The industrial estate and the cement factory energized it further. People displaced from the Kulekhani reservoir in the seventies used their compensation money to further commercialize the trading and trucking town. Over the years, it has become a potent magnet for migrants. During the Madhes Uprising, many Pahadis from the Tarai plains shifted their residence to Hetauda. Most of them have to depend upon their savings, skills and labor to make a living.
It is said that every second person you bump into on the Main Road of Hetauda is a UML cadre; the other possibly left it sometime ago. The reason is simple: Ambiguous politics of UML appeals to the new middle class who wants to be politically active without taking undue risks. The small artisans, shopkeepers, the petty officials, the lower employees, the skilled technicians, the intelligentsia and the displaced peasantry find that they can be revolutionaries without paying the price of being one in the UML. Unfortunately, they will as easily be drawn towards Kamal Thapa if he promised them the possibility of a powerful counter-revolution. “The main army of fascism…” wrote Leon Trotsky, “consists of the petty bourgeoisie.”
Italian theorist Giovanni Zibordi explains the reason behind fascistic proclivities of petty bourgeoisie; he says that it is a class that ‘eyes the workers with envy and hatred’. Antonio Gramsci is equally emphatic in decrying the dubious role of the socio-economic strata that hates those below it but fears everyone above strongly enough to fall behind whoever is likely to prevail. Considering the base from which it draws its sustenance, it is impossible to be definitive about the future course of UML politics. However, if it falls apart now, there is little doubt that most of its cadres will be attracted toward rightwing extremism. Progressives left UML long time ago; if they are not with the Maoists, they are probably running lucrative NGOs.
A fracture in the UML may offer short-term benefits to the Maoists; over a longer period, it would sound death knell for democratic politics. That is the tragedy of contemporary political reality: Maoists and Nepali Congress must help save UML from itself. They need to join hands to form a government that keeps powerful UML politicos comfortably ensconced at Pulchowk ministerial quarters. Only such a combination can keep the originators of anti-democracy SMS texts at bay for now.
cklal@hotmail.com
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