Over the tumultuous years of insurgency, he was largely limited to his own room, charting the party’s tactical course, writing political documents, and burying himself in thick tomes. An architect of the People’s War, Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai was weak organizationally, but that did not limit his role in the party. He dragged the Maoist rebels along his political line and successfully landed them in the peace process. Adept at the art of political subterfuge and stratagem, he always posed a challenge to an otherwise undisputed leadership of Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, ‘Prachanda’.
Finally, Bhattarai checkmated the all-powerful chairman in 2011 and became the prime minister of Nepal. To the pleasant surprise of his detractors and the dismay of his admirers, an ambitious Bhattarai soon began to lose his shine and mass appeal. Despite his political will he was limited by circumstances. A ‘fallen man,’ Bhattarai stepped down and went into political hibernation. But that was not to last too long. He has begun to steal the limelight of late again. Not for any ambitious maneuvering for ‘power’, but for his unexpected rhetoric of ‘sacrifice’. [break]
Baburam’s shine
Republica
Bhattarai’s sacrifice of his party position has flummoxed his detractors and admires alike. Of course such episodes are nothing new in the party, but they continue to stir the country’s chattering class and add to the juicy saga of Prachanda-Bhattarai rivalry. Most ‘centrist revolutionaries’ in the Maoist party consider Bhattarai ‘bourgeois’ whose mission is to dilute the party’s ideology with his jargon-laden sophistry—no less than that of ultra-leftist Mohan Baidya ‘Kiran’—and want him to quit the party. But Dahal understands the importance of Bhattarai. The Maoist vice-chairman is the party’s intellectual face and still enjoys significant support among the masses despite some damage to his image. The public has short memory and Bhattarai is still a popular figure. Bhattarai understands Dahal’s attachment to this side of his personality without which the chairman will lose his own shine.
Not only Prachanda, politically overshadowed communist ideologue Mohan Bikram Singh, who laid the foundation of the ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ in Nepal, also used Bhattarai to improve his party’s image. Singh was cautious about Bhattarai’s image and struggled to limit the latter to the post of District Committee Member (DCM). Not surprisingly, Bhattarai, who had long been victimized by Singh, could make it to the leadership position only after he quit Singh’s Mashal and joined Prachanda’s Masal.
A media-savvy Bhattarai poses himself as an intellectual different from other party dogmatists who have little or no sense of the real world politics, and enjoys the support of the middle class outside the party. And this is the reason why some of Bhattarai’s detractors in the party complain: “Baburam runs a party outside the party.” In other words, Bhattarai uses his political knowledge and the support from outside the party as bargaining chip for power in the party. Thus, an organizationally weak Bhattarai empowers himself by threatening Prachanda, who faces a difficult challenge: to use Bhattarai as the party’s intellectual face in the public, but to cut him down to size within the party.
A few historical facts may elucidate the trajectory of Bhattarai’s sacrifice. In 1995, the SLC board topper was removed from the much-coveted post of the chairman of the United People’s Front of Nepal (UPFN), the party’s front organization, and Pampha Bhusal, another party leader close to Kiran, was appointed to the post. The reason: Bhattarai’s intellectual height was overshadowing Prachanda. Dahal used the “pressure from the hardliners” card to change the leadership of the PFN. But Bhusal was no match for Bhattarai, and Dahal realized the cost of sidelining him. Subsequently, Bhattarai was rehabilitated to the post four months later.
By the time the party held it fourth plenum in 1999, Bhattarai, a bearded Marxist intellectual in the public memory, was the real face of the Maoist insurgency, while people questioned Prachanda’s existence in flesh and blood. In order to consolidate the party’s power in his own hand, a jealous Prachanda joined hands with Kiran against Bhattarai. Bhattarai was compelled to endorse every whim of the chairman to improve his relations with Kiran.
Not surprisingly, Bhattarai vociferously supported the proposed ‘Prachanda Path’ philosophy during the party’s second national conference in 2001, much to the chagrin of the Revolutionary International Movement (RIM) that jealously guarded the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (MLM) ideology and dubbed the ‘Prachanda Path’ a deviation from the official MLM line.
Later, Kiran and Prachanda, backed by Ram Bahadur Thapa and Rabindra Shrestha, joined hands to sideline Bhattarai and sought a political settlement with the royal palace after Gyanendra’s half coup in 2002. The episode culminated in the suspension of party membership of Bhattarai and a few of his followers. But Prachanda was forced to seek help of Bhattarai after February 1 royal putsch. Bhattarai was sent to India to arrange for talks with parliamentary parties, and subsequently rehabilitated to the party position during the often-cited Chunwang meeting.
Sacrifice for power?
Before answering the question of whether Bhattarai will withdraw his resignation, it is important to ask: Why should he stay in the party? Bhattarai has himself answered this question a couple of times: “Nobody gets engaged in politics to become a pauper; politics is the path to power.” Bhattarai has already become the prime minister once. After the exit of Kiran faction, Prachanda has almost absolute hold on the party structure and if the party wins the elections, he is going to be the executive head of the government. So Prachanda will run both party and government.
Second, Kiran was second in the party hierarchy and wanted to reverse the party’s current line of parliamentary democracy. So, Bhattarai accepted the position of vice-chairman and put up stiff resistance to the threat from the Kiran faction. After Kiran split the party, Bhattarai is not comfortable sharing the post of vice-chairman with Narayankaji Shrestha and Posta Bahadur Bogati and becoming their equal, leaving Prachanda at the top of the hierarchy unchallenged.
So, is it true that Bhattarai, unlike the past, has really sacrificed his position this time around? Yes, he has, and it is neither an emotional decision as some analysts argue nor a drama to protect his followers as portrayed in the social media. This sacrifice is a well-calculated move for more power. Bhattarai has hit the right bottom at the right time. How can Prachanda go to the election without Bhattarai who is the public face of the party and who is to be the would-be “architect of a New Nepal”? As noted earlier, without Bhattarai, Prachanda also loses his shine. Hence, a shocked Prachanda calls the July 19 plenum which is supposed to settle the issue of power-sharing.
Bhattarai not only wants a clear a message that he is the alternative to Prachanda, but also that Prachanda must share power with him. He wants a senior position different from that of Shrestha or other would-be vice-chairmen, if the party wins the election. Why cannot he become the President if Prachanda becomes the prime minister?
In fact there is virtually no difference between being a central committee member and being the vice-chairman in the Maoist party led by the all-powerful ‘headquarters’ in Prachanda. Bhattarai doesn’t lose much by sacrificing the post of the vice-chairman. Prachanda has almost no option but to address Bhattarai’s demands. Anyway, there is nothing wrong in making sacrifice. It is in our culture to sacrifice at the altar of the powerful deities when we are powerless or want more power. And Bhattarai knows the art of sacrifice very well.
The writer, who has worked for Republica’s
political bureau, is a freelance journalist
post_basnet@hotmail.com
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