Nepal's Maoist on defensive

It’s impossible to predict or envisage what is to be expected in Nepali politics. The following is a current analysis of the on goings which, as it stands can go to any direction in the next week.


The exuberant display of the May Day rally, the human-chain around Ring Road and Thursday’s centralized rally to the city center should have been enough for the comfy Kathmanduites to understand that there is some momentum for the Maoist party. However, the Maoists lacked serious homework.[break] While there are quite a few denizens who feel for the Maoists, most are too scared and a whole lot aggravated for undue discomfort.



The Friday morning anti-banda protest probably will see some of these annoyed valley residents (which isn’t necessarily a support for the incumbent government).




The reason why the Maoists don’t have larger support from the urbanites is because they are scared that the Maoists are here to take away their comfort. The capital has, always, kept itself distant from the rest of the country. This movement has proven how self-centered the people of Kathmandu are. And when the Kathmandu comfort bubble burst, a spree of annoyance spread amongst them towards the Maoists. And Maoists did nothing to bridge their gap between them and valley-dwellers.



This was a peaceful movement; well until yesterday and any strike (forceful or otherwise) has hardly been this peaceful in the past. And again, should not have been seen as support for this government. The Birgunj incident by the Hindu vigilantes did not have the popular support of people there. Other political parties, who are in government, have started rallying against the Maoist, of course for their own personal vested interests. The retaliations seen since yesterday are merely a reason to provoke the Maoists. This will put the Maoist between rock and hard place: if they retaliate, this will make them a violent party, proving the anti-Maoists right. If they take the bandh back, it will put the Maoists in the most disgraceful position just as their skeptics wanted, not to mention a whole lot of criticism inside and outside the party.



However, the Maoists have tried to garner support with their door-to-door campaign and other activities. One can see how Maoist mobilization has worked from the Satungal incident. On Tuesday, a few cadres were attacked by “a self-initiated retaliation”. The next day, the party organized a big mass meeting with at least 10,000 people that were addressed by senior Maoist leaders and locals voicing dissent against the retaliation calling anti-Maoist protestors as “hired goons who don’t represent the locals.” It was a sheer victory on the Maoist’s part.



For most skeptics that represent the Kathmandu middle class, the elite and the media that lug their sentiments, there is popular support for Maoists, both in the city and outside. The cadres were able to organize a solid show-of-strength, which Kathmandu experienced on May Day, on May 3rd during the 28-kilometer human-chain rally called the Laal Ghera (Red Circle-In) and Thursday’s centralized protest - the Red Rally, in the inner city. Even though they have serious abhorrence for Madhav Nepal (because he is a most rambling gutless status-quo-ist), they dare not trust the Maoists because they fear they will lose out on a lot of things.




As for the government, they have chosen a path to keep silent and let the people fight themselves. The government believes if they keep under radar for long enough, the people themselves will get tired of the Maoist’s banda and retaliate.



It’s a big failure on the Maoists part that they did not succeed in captivating the hearts of the Kathmandu crowd as much as they should have. When Netra Bikram Chand “Viplob” trained the Maoist cadres in October-November last year, he said the party needed to move towards the urban middle class and listen to their voice. He was right. The party just didn’t give themselves enough time. Instead, by March, they had already started prepping for a final revolt. They forgot Prachanda was elected a prime minister by votes in parliament, not through any form of street uprising.



They also forgot that this government was not formed with a domestic base. Hence, it does not care about the street protests or how many people participated in it. They have been able to fracture CPN-UML. Even the Nepali Congress regional leaders in the tarai are for the demands of the Maoist, and pro the resignation of the incumbent government.



The Maoists, here, planned to make the revolution, instead of waiting for the revolution to happen. So, now the Maoist party sees immense the possibilities of victory, but at the same time a serious danger of defeat (into oblivion). The victory would mean the Maoist would go onto form a national unity government, take the peace process to an appropriate conclusion, integrate the PLA and go on to promulgate the new constitution. Defeat would mean they lose popular momentum, cadre’s trust in leadership and any given benefit of doubt from different fronts of Nepali society. So, this has put the party in the defensive now. For the fight for their existence, the party will have to take serious measures. “The party will be over if we do not fight this,” a senior Maoist leader confided. “Even the cadres won’t trust their leaders.”



DEFECTIVE GROUND WORK AND LIMITED HOMEWORK



The new idea for the popular movement against the Madhav Nepal government (and the whole lot in the government) derives from four basic understandings:



1) The old political force is deteriorating. With the death of Girija Prasad Koirala, specifically, the old force is in crisis now. There is no way the old political force will be able to conduct statecraft the old style. And they are not ready to shift to newer things. Hence, their extinction is inevitable.



2) Nepali people are fed up with the old geezers. They are tired of petty politics and the number count of parliamentary seats. They want to see rapid change in their lives, politics, economy and society. They are so tired of nothing happening; they will come down on to the streets to make substantive changes this time round, again. The Maoist party will have to make the people understand.




3) The people have some faith and a whole lot of hope from the Maoist party. Also, since they cannot hope for anything from other parties, the people have no option but to give the Maoist one last chance.



4) The party is the strongest ever. The cadres are pumped up. They will what’s necessary according to the need of the hour. And they have been given clear instructions as to what next.



The MRP victory, for the Maoist, looked beneficial and appropriate for an immediate action. They sent a long solid message to India, specifically to New Delhi. They do not want anybody else to make deals in Nepal on behalf of India. The ambassador won’t work. This is also a message to Delhi to treat them right, take them seriously and that the Maoist party is simply not the same as other political parties in Nepal. As Prachanda has said time and again: new arrangements, on a new basis.



Even with the current crisis, the constitution in the making is still a viable option. May 28 is out of the question, but the Maoist party has not totally ruled out the new constitution. They are not against constitution writing. But what kind of constitution, now that is another question.



Obviously, the party hopes to make it as much “people-focused” as possible. The idea is to push for acts that will give them the credit of having drafted something as close to a “people’s constitution” as is possible. This will benefit the party on the internal front: the cadres will be debriefed on the new constitution as the “Jana Sambidhan” they fought for, or something close enough to it. A Nepali Congress CA member confided recently that the new constitution is quite progressive (and the Maoists will take credit for most of it).



There will also be strong lobbies for (some-ethnic mixed based) federal structure in accordance to their prescription, to have an executive president (or at least directly elected prime minister with immense power and less than a celebratory president), some control over the judiciary, the introduction of land reform, etc. These activities will be pushed for even after they form the government. This will justify the demands of many and keep the skeptics quiet about their will to fulfill the reasons for why they waged a decade–long war. The cadres, now on the streets of Kathmandu, have been briefed accordingly.



This movement has meant that the cadres are active, which has multiple benefits. They will not be disgruntled with the Maoist leadership, as they were in the past during the tenure of the Maoists in government. They will not be discouraged and disillusioned. Many Maoist cadres were completely disappointed with their leaders and cynical of their acts in the past.



However, time is running out for the party. And the present scenario is not looking favorable for the Maoists to make any demands.




INSIDE THE PARTY: WHY WE ARE HERE



The “People’s Government” and “Base Areas” in the farflung district during the “People’s War” are gone. But the “New People’s Government” that the Maoists fought for has not as of yet been established, which was envisaged during the “People’s War.”



The stickler in the party Mohan Vaidya and his likes sees that sticking with the old tactics would be “status-quoits and revisionist” since a federal democratic republic has been established and constituent assembly held (For him, it’s is not important whether the CA does it’s duty because the constitution this CA will promulgate, in any case, would not be “people’s constitution”). Hence, he sees the need for new plan and program, which is a popular revolt for the People’s Federal Republic. For which, he wants the party to keep the option open for a new “people’s federal republic constitution” if to be promulgated on time. Otherwise, to make ready all fronts on the streets and in parliament for an active “revolt”. To be okay with the federal democratic republic alone instead of people’s federal republic and a constitution which matches the former is to fall victim to the parliamentary process, which is not the idea of any communist party.



The hardliners wanted to go head-on-head for a long time against the “expansionist India” for “the protection of sovereignty, nationalism, restitution of civilian supremacy and for peace and making of people’s constitution.” In his idea, there should be no working relations with Indian leaders, which would be surrendering on a national level (read Communist Outlook, Falgun and Chaitra, 2066).



One school of thought that floats inside the Maoist party opines that the Lenin doctrine of handing over of the power to the bourgeois before the proletariat take over has benefited the party in Nepal. Some believe it is now time for the proletariat to come into being, while others believe not quite yet. This argument still finds its place in the standing committee.



One of the important attributes of the new Maoists is that the rank who led the “People’s War” are now almost a minority. The case for “Revolt”, thus, takes a different meaning. A former Maoist central committee member recently said that the Maoists are no longer Red, but rather Pink. The idea of bringing the Unity Center into the party foray was to make the hardliner Maoists, less hardliner. But, the majority still is on a lookout for a better revolutionary tag, rather than pragmatist approach to the current realization.



The idea is to take the advantage of May 28. There will be a political and constitutional crisis when the CA will not be able to promulgate the constitution on the given date. It would be ideal for the party if the Maoists were in government. They can do the necessary as they see the necessity and need. The party was testing the waters for new ideas. A faction inside the party says the time has come to give up the tactical move of “federal democratic republic” envisioned in the Chunbang Meet in 2005. The party has started becoming revisionist instead of revolutionary. This new movement will bring the party back into the revolutionary fold of things. As Anil Sharma, a Maoist leader, wrote for a left journal that the party need to go on the offensive or else it faces the severe danger of extinction.



However, this time, they miscalculated and now are seriously on the defensive.




COMEDY OF MISCALCULATION: AGAIN AND AGAIN



During the CA election, the Maoists miscalculated their own influence and thus their performance. Their CA numbers came as a surprise to them which brought them to surface as the single largest party. But they had sincerely underestimated their influence and their popularity. They also overestimated the working ability of other political parties.



And since the “historic” victory in the CA elections, the Maoists have continued to make miscalculations, and adding to this list is the ongoing indefinite strike.



First they misjudged other political parties and the political maneuvering they are capable of. They became overtly obnoxious of people’s support, which even the senior leaders have affirmed to. They tried to cater to both the core supporters and the city bourgeois. It took them a good four months to form the government. Then they took the results of the CA quite literally; they miscalculated the mandate and their influence in the CA and the coalition government. They also overestimated their popularity. So, with a fractured mandate, they acted as though they had an overwhelming mandate, which was not true both in terms of CA numbers and the raw number of votes. As a result, due to their prudish unilateral ways (and their staunch “revolutionary” rhetoric), they were booted out of the government. (The resignation of the government however, can not be generalized in this simple way.)



Now, five days into the general strike, with fractures appearing among the demonstrators, the government refusing to bow down to somewhat rigid and valid blackmailing, and the residents slowly finding a voice of dissent, the Maoists perhaps did not see the flailing miscalculation of their impact on the mass movement. It has turned out to be more about the party’s dissent against the government than anything else. Thus, the overestimation of influence and their push to convince the masses.



Dr Baburam Bhattarai had four priorities before embarking on this path. He knew that if this movement was to backfire, they would be on a weak defensive. The four priorities were: a) people’s popular support, b) internal preparation and organization c) divided security forces, especially the army and d) the international community, with India in mind.



Notice how the government, bureaucracy and the other political parties including the next two largest parties the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML did not matter. And they still do not. Prachanda in his May Day speech wanted to cater to these priorities. His message on that day was to the Nepal Army, Kathmandu middle class, media and the international community.



Out of the four, the Maoists were ready with only one: internal preparation and organization. The Maoists have solid organization, even now and this is reflected in the daily management of events and people. They have been highly disciplined and largely peaceful. The party is ready even for low-intensity violence, in case the state instigates an assault.




On the other three fronts, they have had very little success. The security force is contained, but only because the government does not want to be the first to charge the baton. The Nepal Army is still intact and wants to deal with the Maoists on one accord. The press statement by the public relations directorate should be warning enough for the Maoists in which the Army strongly put forth not to test it’s patience (don’t mistake the patience of the Army as the weakness, to be exact). The international community heeds no priority to the incumbent government. The attempt by the prime minister on Thursday was a weak performance to try and garner international support. However, they also have not accepted Prachanda’s movement as the one for peace and constitution.



India is clearly on tough turf. They are in no position to make peace with Prachanda. However, they also know that the Maoists are going to be the strongest and most stable partner, if they want to make an acceptable deal. Prachanda wants the Americans to bridge the gap between him and the Indians. But while such an arrangement is likely, certainly not in the near foreseeable future. For now, they want the Maoist to be in such a difficult position that will either a) “expose” them or b) “weaken” them, or both at the same time.



This movement has cost the Maoists. Even if they succeed, they will have short-term gains, but in the long run, they will have bigger losses (which the party can salvage as well). First their traditional support base will be alienated to a larger extent. Second, many people have been muted to submission due to Maoist intimidation. Alongside this, there are growing voices of dissent. The mute so far, once they find their voice, will become very strong antagonists when they realize they are not alone and that the Maoists are also fallible. With elections due once the constitution is finally written, although not in the foreseeable future, the Maoists might see themselves again on the defensive.



However, at this moment, the Maoists have very limited options in front of them. There is a possibility of taking “a step back with bravery” to avoid possible confrontation. But, this means an end to their legitimacy. So, they will opt out…and stay put. The cadres are ready for their fight to existence, the country may not be. And this means, we are heading for a solid confrontation (with some low-intensity violence).