The Yami-Bhattarai couple had matured into coveted DISK (Double income, single kid) level and had begun to be accepted into the high society. In time, they could have easily blended into the bourgeois routine: Lemon tea with honey, cereal and fruit breakfast, leisurely commute to office, meetings over coffee, power lunch, afternoon papers, gym in the evening, and cocktail parties before being driven back for a late night movie in the home theatre. Within a few years, they could have easily lived the BoBo (Bourgeois income, Bohemian lifestyle) life within the boundary of leftist convictions and rightist conventions. Baburam had bigger ambitions.[break]
The generation that lives through a conflict is ill equipped to write its history. Wounds have to heal and nightmares have to fade away to be able to recount stories of murder, mayhem, sufferings and destruction. Human senses numbed by the exhilaration of blood flowing on the battlefield, whether those of one’s own or that of “enemies”, take decades to come back to life. However, facts stand outside of subjective realities. Nearly 20,000 – numbers seldom succeed in revealing the scale of the tragedy – were killed. Most of victims fell to the bullets of state’s security forces. But political entrepreneurs that organized the rebellion, Baburam-Hisila among them, have to take full responsibility for the consequences of an insurgency that was fated to be stillborn. Consequently, its successes are also theirs.
When Baburam-Hisila arrived in Kathmandu after the restoration of Pratinidhi Sabha, they had two more laurels in their cardboard crowns: legitimacy of the gun that had checkmated the supremacy of the army and credibility of having joined the peace process. Outcome of the ballot box would add one more glory. Though still fearful, the Kathmandu elite welcomed the prodigal family back into its fold. Pushpa Kamal Dahal was the organization man and the wheeler-dealer. Without Baburam by his side, it’s doubtful if the peace process would have remained on track despite attempts of disgruntled elements on both sides to sabotage it from within. Dahal took all the flak while Baburam-Hisila quietly worked upon forces that would propel them into Baluwatar.
Baburam did everything under his control to gain back the confidence of the Kathmandu glitterati. The Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) may not have succeeded in bringing a paisa of Indian investment, but it gave out an indication that the bourgeoisification of the Maoist ideologue had begun. Widening of Kathmandu streets, relocation of shanty-dwellers of Thapathali and other symbolic gestures were intended to reaffirm the message that revolutionary zeal has been exchanged with ‘realistic’ schemes: Here at last was a premier with whom businesses could do business. Perhaps that’s what alarmed Dahal. In electoral politics, ballot boxes move on the wheels of money. That’s the essence of bourgeois politics. But internal politics and conflict of interests within the Maoist party is a different story. The dread of the bourgeoisie that had badly wanted to ‘mainstream’ its deviant member is perhaps even more revealing.
Fallen masks
Being a bourgeois had never been easy. Titles could be inherited or received. Money could be earned or amassed. Even great learning was possible through personal effort. Success could be achieved through persistence. But how did one become a bourgeois – a gentleman or a woman of substance? The process is so complex that it exasperates the nobility. Moneybags shake their heads in bewilderment. In an apocryphal tale, a humble aspirant once requested King James the First that her son be made a gentleman. The mighty king is said to have expressed his helplessness, “I can make him a Lord, but I cannot make him a gentleman.”
Professions offer a fast track towards destination gentility. The white coat of a doctor denotes status as well as control. The respectability of the black coat is on the wane, but its influence upon body politic remains strong. The blue coat of engineers hangs outside the corridors of power, but it too emits authority. Journalists no longer “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” and have become more or less “stenographers of power”. However, in a country where the printed word is considered sacred and radio is believed to relay the voice of gods, the reach and reliability of the press is remarkable. The glowing jacket of a media person is not exactly a coat – journalists even in major media houses remain unpaid for unbelievably long periods – but then the airs of bourgeoisie can also be faked. University teachers seldom don their gray coats these days, but they are organized and can claim a place on the high table.
Multinational and national NGOs put a professional on the escalator to bourgeois status. These assignments are more remunerative than the profit sector and less disreputable than government jobs. There was a time when people interested in traveling were advised to join the tourism business or airlines. These days, more frequent fliers can be found among NGO-tsars than in any other business. Then there’re bankers that handle other’s money but make quite a neat packet in the process. The colors of their coats vary with the season and occasion and even the material could be wool, linen or a combination. But silk denotes the style of operators of the NGO and finance businesses better.
The coated cohort – the white coats, the black coats, the blue coats, the glow jackets, the gray coats, and the silk coats – is a fearful lot. It’s easy to dismiss Madheshis as “outsiders”, being manipulated from elsewhere, which would fade away on its own. Janjati activists have not been able to offer even a token challenge to the status quo. Dalits have yet to assert their dignity. The agenda of gender rights remain within the family. But Maoists are nowhere but everywhere. Their appearance and rhetoric is too close to the CPN (UML) of 1990s with the added advantage that leaders like Baburam-Hisila are even more familiar with galleries that connect power centers than the lumpenbourgeoisie at the helms of Balkhu Palace ever were. This seems to frighten the coated cohort – the White Shirts – no end.
Red faces
The White Shirts know how to handle the likes of Mohan Baidya or CP Gajurel—“leave them to burn in their own bile” – but coping with “reformed” communists is a daunting task. The bourgeois cannot fight BIPPA, cannot go against the development industry and finds no ground to oppose an agenda of political economy that looks surprisingly like their own down to the unfettered freedom of the profit sector. With the monarchy gone and Maoists reformed, what will the bleeding hearts behind White Shirts do? The perplexity is understandable because professionals in coats of different colors have lost their traditional allure. They need a role outside of their jobs to calm their agitated conscience.
It used to be a curse to wish court cases upon someone: “May you be forced to make rounds of adda-adalats!” Doctors were once considered bigger miracle men than shamans. Professors commanded respect. After commercialization of education and health, gray and white coats have begun to resemble any other specialist engaged in the profit sector. Blue coats have been stained with patches of white crimes. Stenographers of power need no further introduction and the silk coats hold no appeal outside a very narrow circle of upwardly mobile urban youngsters of certain caste, community and background. The bourgeoisie is at a loss and doesn’t seem to know how to claim its respectability back and maintain monopoly over symbolic power. Consequently, it’s angry; very very angry, but with nobody in particular.
The fashionable French philosopher Bernard-Henry Levy is talking about his country when he says that the contemporary mood is “not just the despair of the have-nots but the despair of the hope-nots”. Its trajectory remains to be mapped. “There’ll be some revolutions, at least some riots,” warns Professor Levy. Wherever the bourgeoisie is itching to claim its privileges back, the prognosis holds.
Lal contributes to The Week with his biweekly column Reflections. He is one of the widely read poliitical analysts in Nepal.
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