Maoists have an empty field for laying down the foundations for future prosperity, democratic rule and an equal access to opportunities. However, it is their method of achieving these very worthy and sensible goals that is disputed and even feared.
Maoist leaders can learn much from this incident as to why they failed in their row with the Nepal Army (NA) and had to leave office suddenly and unceremoniously, not knowing what went wrong and what should have been their next move. They should have known that, despite the departure of the king, NA remains intact and powerful and, at no occasion during its confrontation with Maoist forces during ten years of insurgency, it made—or was allowed to make—full use of its strength to defeat them on the battlefield. It is unclear why the army did not come out in full gear to face up to its Maoist adversary but, according to many experts who monitored the insurgency at close range, they give two main reasons.
First, that the king was too compassionate towards his citizens, Maoists or not, and would not allow his army to engage in bloodbath with the insurgents. And, second, the palace had always maintained—without acknowledging publicly—that political parties posed a larger threat to its supremacy than the Maoist militants and, it fact, many people hold the view that the palace itself had encouraged the insurgency to counter the influence of political parties. In fact, I expressed a similar view—based on my own assessment of the then emerging situation—in an article I wrote for The Viewpoint Weekly in 1998, titled: Maoist Aim is to Destroy Democracy, not Monarchy.
LOSING THE BATTLE
Making use of the hindsight, it appears that the Maoists misunderstood the army as much as the palace misunderstood the Maoists, assuming, of course, that the palace’s softness towards the Maoists was, to some extent, self-serving and to seek self-protection. Looking back at Maoist-army row, which so engrossed the nation during the early months of this year, it looks that this confrontation was unnecessary, uncalled for, lacked good judgment, and reflected suicidal tendencies on the part of the Maoist leadership. By accident or design, a real catastrophe was averted—street warfare between Maoist cadres and army units that could have killed hundreds, perhaps thousands.
The fact is that in such a confrontation, the army wouldn’t have had the restraint it had during the king’s reign on how to handle the Maoist problem. Additionally, international and public opinion would have favored the army to finish off the Maoists, making use of all resources under its command.
However, the catastrophe was averted with some degree of luck and, most likely, a change of heart among the Maoist leadership—its decision not to go into street battle with the army. It gathered a large number of volunteers, from within the valley as well as the adjoining districts, carried out huge demonstrations, made fiery speeches to mammoth throngs and, on radio and television, denounced the president’s “unconstitutional move” in reinstating the army chief. Beyond such peaceful show of strength and verbal militancy, Maoist stalwarts were careful not to launch a frontal attack on the army, which, after sensing the emergence of a fearfully-tense situation following Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s resignation on May 4, did not seem that far-fetched.
FUTURE MOVES
No consensus has emerged yet as to why the Maoists initiated the row with the army when there was no evidence—real or imaginary—that the army was interfering in state affairs or putting pressures on the Maoist government to change course. In fact, by not backing up the king—its hereditary patron—the army had established an extreme level of credibility of its claim of political neutrality and its acceptance of the new political order—loktantra or peoples’ democracy. Further, at no point since the de facto end of monarchy in April 2006 had the army favored restoration of monarchy or advocated a military rule in the country. In fact, such ideas were floated by some prominent politicians, which the army quickly rejected while asserting its allegiance to democratic rule and people’s sovereignty.
Why did the Maoists then confront with the army under the guise of ‘people’s sovereignty’? The best explanation I have come across—shared by many intellectuals, right-leaning politicians, and politically-neutral professionals—is that of the Maoists’ intention of gaining political supremacy and making the country a pseudo-democracy, preferably a one-party state. It is all too obvious that after the end of monarchy, the army is the only institution holding the fort—separating democracy and the rule of law on the one side and Maoists’ full control of the country on the other. With the army out of the way—so the argument went—the next target would have been to do away with political parties (political pluralism has never been a part of communist ideology); judiciary would have been next to go, followed by the control of other state apparatus (bureaucracy, security forces), press and civil society.
During an informal meeting with one prominent democratic leader—well-respected for his honesty and neutrality—I observed that with the army coming under Maoist control, there was a chance for Nepal to become like Cambodia under Pot Pol in the 1970s. He said that the Maoists would have made Nepal into something like North Korea—last of the Stalinist States left in the world today!
I do not personally believe that Maoists have that sort of intention—for absolutism and authoritarianism—which, anyway, would be impossible to achieve given Nepal’s geo-political realities, its openness to the world, and, despite their extreme poverty, people’s fear of losing democratic gains, which they have made over the past 50 years of struggle. What Maoists truly wish for Nepal and its people is change—real and substantial—that would help do away with the vestiges of feudalism, accord equal opportunities to everyone, end exploitation of the downtrodden, create conditions for rapid economic growth and bestow some measure of economic prosperity to the largest number of the country’s impoverished masses.
Very few would dispute such intentions and, in fact, with the background of repeated failures of past governments to bring about any measure of real change to the economy and prepare the ground for stable democracy, Maoists have virtually an empty field for laying down the foundations for future prosperity, democratic rule and an equal access to opportunities. However, it is their method of achieving these very worthy and sensible goals that is disputed and even feared. The primary fear is that the Maoists would “force’ harsh measures upon an unwilling and uninformed population, especially targeting those who are not yet impoverished, hoping that the benefits from their impoverishment would somehow trickle down to those at the bottom. However, such an approach to bringing economic prosperity and ensuring political fairness hasn’t worked anywhere in the world and holds no promise that it will work differently in Nepal.
The sensible course of action on the part of Maoists—out of power or when in government—will be to avoid the use of force to change things; rather, they should address easier issues of public concerns at first and take up more serious challenges later on.
Looking at options that the Maoist-led government had during their nine months in office, the best approach would have been to consolidate power and win public support placing issues that had harassed people over many generations as their prime agenda. If, for example, instead of wasting time and energy going after ideological rubbish such as civilian supremacy, federalism and ethnic states, imagine what level of public goodwill the Maoist government would have amassed had it chosen to perform some simple but extremely worthy acts of benevolence: Cleaning-up the Bagmati; regularizing traffic flow, ensuring proper trash collection and better sewer management.
However, the Maoist government became incapable—probably indifferent—to solving these basic problems of governance. Indeed, in matters like nepotism, Maoist leaders excelled even the Nepali Congress and Panchayat-era corruption with no less than a dozen of Dahal’s close relatives appointed to key government positions without meeting requirements while his deputy Dr Baburam Bhattarai too was not far behind in such dynastic formation.
Maoist leaders should learn a lesson or two from its latest debacle and prepare themselves to act more sensibly to gain a second chance which, most assuredly, would come to them much sooner than is expected. Such optimism about Maoists’ second chance is based on the undeserved rule of the country by harua parties, principally the fact that the standard bearers of this government—prime minister and foreign minister—have been rejected by the people in a landslide.
sshah1983@hotmail.com
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