Monikers like democrat, progressive and leftist have qualifying antecedents in Nepali politics. All these terms became popular at the height of Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s when "He may be a bastard, but he´s our bastard" doctrine of diplomacy had transformed Kathmandu into a hunting ground of ideological predators looking for young preys. Since education was the only way of upward mobility—apart from military—in Nepali society, progenies of middleclass were lured into competing camps with attractive scholarship offers to study abroad.
The best and brightest from the upper echelons of Nepali society went to the US or Europe for further studies. Many of them stayed back and have since done well in life as Nepali Origin Professionals (NOPs) abroad. Some joined UN services. A few others got into international institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund or Asian Development Bank. They came back home to spend sunset years in the reflected glory of their former employers. Even prominent awardees from their ‘full-bright, half-bright or quarter-bright’ stints abroad thought that they owed a debt to the iconic Statue of Liberty rather than to any political ideals, much less an ideology. Most of them profess to be nominal democrats. However, their democratic beliefs have always been closer to those of US presidents Ronald Reagan and George W Bush than Nepali leaders BP Koirala, Bhim Bahadur Tamang or Ramhari Joshi.
Talent hunters of Soviet Union set their sight a little lower. Beneficiaries of Soviet munificence were a motley lot. There were some truly gifted individuals who could not make it to the countries of Western block due to their limited access in corridors of power in Kathmandu. But a large number of them were ambitious youths determined to succeed in life at all costs. They began to style themselves as progressives. It sounded fashionably modern without being dangerously revolutionary.
The Colombo Plan had opened floodgates of opportunities for academically deserving students irrespective of their family background or upbringing. They flocked to Indian universities and technical institutions where contradictions between socialist aspirations and democratic deficit were too stark to ignore. These scholars came back to Nepal as social democrats.
Meanwhile, a new crop of college graduates in Nepal had been fed with the controlled doses of modified Maoism by their US-trained mentors to keep them off the Soviet contagion from across the border in the south. During the Nixon-era, the Chinese were prospective friends of the West to counter Soviet influence in South Asia. Recipients of royal patronage began to call themselves leftists of Chinese variety.
By the late-1970s, the demarcation line had deepened: Democrats were those opposed to the dictatorial regime of the king while loathing of the leftists for democrats was far more intense than their disagreements with the royal rule. Pragmatic progressives could swing both ways but were more comfortable in the leftist camp. Had it not been for the tacit support of the Marxist, Leninist and Maoist parties, the right-wing Panchayat politics would have received a decent burial in the plebiscite of 1980 itself. Due to the conspiratorial boycott of Marxists and Leninists, the direct rule of the king prevailed over democratic alternative with a narrow margin. Now it was the turn of the democrats to redefine their identity.
The rightward tilt
BP Koirala was deeply suspicious of communist parties of Nepal. For him, democracy and socialism were inseparable, but if a choice became inevitable, he would opt for political pluralism. In his conceptualization, democracy was a necessary, though by no means sufficient, condition to build the edifice of an equitable society. A cultural revolutionary and an economic socialist, BP was a political liberal in the broadest sense of the term and feared totalitarian impulses of proletarian dictatorship. Communalists were abhorrent for they espoused politics of exclusion and hatred, but communists were even more dangerous because they would destroy the ability of society to innovate, experiment and learn from its own mistakes. The finality of communism had no place for doubts and disagreements, much less ideological space for principled dissent. BP refused to build any alliance with communalists or communists unless they agreed to accept fundamental principle of pluralism without debilitating qualifiers or disabling preconditions.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, progressives lost no time in building bridges with Nepali Congress (NC). With BP long gone, there was little ideological resistance in the exhausted leadership of NC to continue fighting on three fronts simultaneously: Against the military-monarchy establishment, against the ‘grand design’ of Indian hegemony and at multiple fronts of struggles against communists of various shades all over the country. Ganeshman Singh inspired and blessed the formation of a Left Front in 1990 and succeeded in luring a large number of leftists into the democratic fold. His successes, however, turned out to be transitory. Emboldened by their newfound strength, leftists turned their ire upon NC and would have devoured it had it not been for cracks in their own ranks.
Meanwhile, returnees from the US and Europe as well as retirees from international agencies had begun to transform the liberalism of NC from the political agenda of social justice through continuous reforms, which would have made violent revolutions unnecessary, to economic determinism of self-regulating markets, free competition and the promise of an illusory development. The US government helped the process by posting a son-in-law of avowed socialist BP as an advisor of economic liberalization in the Finance Ministry of GP Koirala-led NC government. With NC embracing perestroika and glasnost, the political ground was clear for leftist adventurism. Maoists emerged as the main communist party of Nepal as the broad alliance of loose progressives and notional nationalists—the CPN-UML—degenerated into a parody of Panchayat-era politics of cultural conservatisms, political opportunism and economic populism.
Socialist-turned-libertarians of NC and a few communists-turned-communalists of UML have since created an opportunistic alliance to keep Maoists out of power. There is nothing immoral per se with the arrangement—coalition-building in a legislature with fractured mandate of the electorate sometimes necessitates cooperation between unlikely political partners. But an alliance of necessity does not become desirable just by virtue of having been formed in times of crisis. The NC and UML have no complementarities in their political agenda. Whether Maoists share some aspirations with UML is also doubtful, but at least they worship the same gods of the communist pantheon.
Trapeze artistes
The UML shares something else with the Maoists—leaders of both these parties were heavily influenced by Naxal uprising in West Bengal of India in the late-1960s and had begun their careers by ritually killing and maiming their class enemies. Now many of them have joined the ranks of those that they had spent best years of their lives denouncing. Coping with such a somersault is not a job for the unskilled. Maoists have to keep improvising high-sounding theories to justify their position.
The UML politburo is more unabashed. They have long stopped making excuses for contradictions between policies they preach and programs they put in practice. Despite retaining the communist tag, some of them have started calling themselves true democrats. Since snow is steaming hot in vocabulary of modified communism, UML’s fiery rhetoric feels like an icy blast from Panchayat past.
In the art of repartee, Marxist Khadga Prasad Oli can easily give lapsed-monarchist Surya Bahadur Thapa a run for his money. From the way he phrases his expressions, it is clear that it’s not the bearded Karl that has inspired Comrade Oli but mustachioed master of wit Groucho Marx (1890-1977), a noted comedian and film star. “No one is completely unhappy at the failure of his best friend,” so quipped the American Marx once. Premier Jhalanath Khanal must have got the full force of that ‘Marxist’ statement by now.
The UML is so brazenly opportunistic that it would suck the energy out of any government, even its own, pretty soon. Perhaps that’s the reason NC should let it lead the UML-Maoist alliance and keep the flame of freedom burning from opposition benches. But if liberalizers of NC fall for ‘democratic alliance’ with former Panchas, the UML-Maoist coalition would receive a boost in its arms. The tragedy is that NC no longer seems to know what it stands for or where it sits on issues of contestations in political economy of the country.
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