Mainali is a split personality constantly torn between idealism and opportunism. While his decisions whether to join the royal cabinet during 2005/06 or the recent one to join the UCPN (Maoist) were/are acts of opportunism, his jump to rebellion back in the 70s was an undertaking in idealism, albeit a misguided one. As a young revolutionary, Mainali was magnetically drawn toward the Naxalite communist movement that found its way to Jhapa from the neighboring Naxalbadi in India during those days. Kick-starting the rebellion he, along with his younger brother C P Mainali, first tore tamasuks (deeds of debts) – obtained from poor tillers by their landlord forefathers – to ‘liberate’ them from the bonds of servitude and repayment with exorbitant interests. The early form of Maoist insurgency and one of the five components that constituted CPN-ML (now CPN-UML) Jhapa rebellion was based on the brutal killings of landlords termed as ‘class enemies’ by the communists in rural areas. Its activists, majority of whom came from the poor, downtrodden and indigenous communities unlike the Mainali brothers, were killed or arrested when the movement was crushed later. The younger Mainali broke the jail in 1976 and ran away while the elder one served 13 years of prison sentence before being released in 1986.
As acting chairman of United Left Front – the joint front of communists formed to steer people’s uprising in association with Nepali Congress (NC) – Mainali took part in negotiations which took place between leaders that included the likes of K P Bhattarai and G P Koirala and the then king in 1990. But after the success of the uprising, although he became minister whenever his party was in power, his role and clout in the party diminished swiftly. Basically a sojho manchhe (simple, innocent human being) with political ambitions hardly matched by his skills, Mainali was steadily sidelined by colleagues and even superseded by juniors in the organization. Marginalized, humiliated and frustrated, he began to criticize and challenge the party leadership. On the other hand, everything from his decision to enter into bridal alliance with a family having NC affiliations to offers from NC quarters to become Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament aroused suspicion and dislike among some party men as his party CPN-UML adopted a zero-sum hostile approach toward its main opponent NC during those days.
Radha Krishan Mainali is a split personality constantly torn between idealism and opportunism. While his decisions whether to join the royal cabinet during 2005/06 or the recent one to join the UCPN (Maoist) were/are acts of opportunism, his jump to rebellion back in the 70s was an undertaking in idealism, albeit a misguided one.
The continued suspicion and negligence paradoxically pushed him to side with the breakaway group (NCP-ML) – the illiberal one – when the party split into two in 1998. When it was reunited in 2002, he returned to the party mainstream while many in the breakaway faction never came back or defected to the underground Maoists. Although a permanent committee member of CPN-UML, thereafter he was never happy and comfortable in the party he founded and nurtured. First, he was suspended and then expelled from the party for criticizing its leadership and for advocating for rapprochements with monarchy ‘in the interests of nationalism’. In the ensuing developments, he was appointed Minister for Education when ex-king Gyanendra took power into his hands in February 2005.
Mainali’s straightforwardness became a liability for his career. His open-mindedness is anathema for traditional communists. He, who chose the path of hardships, self-denial and rebellion for the cause of the rural poor, now lives in the comforts of a lavish house in Kathmandu and possesses a four-wheeler, a luxury by Nepali standards and a sin by the communist one. While his fellow comrades in CPN-UML shyly admit that Jhapa rebellion was an ugra-bampanthi bhadkau (ultra-left deviation), his younger brother and comrade-in-arms in revolution– still a communist, albeit a moderate one, and fierce opponent of Maoists – accepts that the doctrine of communism is flawed. And here comes the Mainali to join the ultra-left Maoists, straight from the ultra-right royalist camp.
Mainali’s life, works and beliefs are thus full of inconsistencies and contradictions. Although he lacked the cunning, he possessed the conviction, albeit not anymore. How he will perform in or contribute to his new-found haven is uncertain. Yes, it may be argued that if the most conservative hardliners of monarchial Panchayat system who have contributed nothing to the communist cause can maintain a high and active profile as Maoist Constituent Assembly members, why not Mainali, a stalwart communist before he lost track? Well, those people helped Maoists with valuable insights of the royal regime during the last days of the latter while Mainali supposedly did the opposite; he helped the regime in its fight against Maoists around the same time. Similarly, those people have potentials to draw people to the party fold – however few they might be – in the name of nationalistic alliance through their contacts in the royalist camp; Mainali hasn’t any. Maoist supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal is no fool to welcome fanatic ex-monarchists and third-grade film artists into his party without strategic reasons; so far he hasn’t given green signal even to CPN-UML leader Bam Dev Gautam who is desperate to join Maoist ranks along with some followers, and he has done so with certain calculations in his mind. So, naturally Dahal must have calculated how and when Mainali, a confused and unstable person devoid of any following, will or will not be useful to him or his party.
Mainali believes/hopes that the ‘God’ named communism is still capable of delivering goods to mankind; besides delivering dividends to men of his kind. Sad he can’t see dialectical Marxism the opposite way, the way more enlightened former communists like Arthur Koestler saw, as darkness at noon. He is unable even to learn from the fates of others such as Gyanendra to G P Koirala to his own younger brother – all used at one point of time and discarded at another by his new-found God. He has become impressed and optimistic by their gains only, which are not triumphs of their ideology. They are the outcome of people’s frantic wishes to give peace a chance and to bid farewell to a decade-long war and violence, which the Maoists thrust on the nation. They are also the bonus earned from the weaknesses and mistakes of their opponents, especially the NC.
Moreover, Maoist successes are the result of their tactics of using different forces and persons at different times, mostly against one another, a strategy that has ceased to work now because of overuse.
Therefore, let us pray for Mainali that he won’t have to repent for his decision once again, that he won’t find his abode of old-age unrewarding or unwelcome and that he will have a smooth and long-lasting stay in his new home (read Temple)!
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