E-Kantipur

Two views of the new Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai appear to be prevalent. Many of his middle-class supporters view him as an entirely “democratic” leader, committed to that class’ fixations on the free market and individual freedoms. His detractors, on the other hand argue that under his liberal façade lies an unreconstructed hardline Maoist, still committed to the capture of the state and the imposition of an agenda or radical reform. The reality, however, lies somewhere in between. It is true that his views have evolved over time and that for the past decade he has been advocating for greater democratic reform within the party and in their conception of the ideal state structure. But although his views regarding the socio-economic reform that Nepal requires has evolved over the past three decades, the categories that he uses to explain the nature of society and its ills continues to be resolutely Marxist.

In his PhD dissertation and in subsequent writings on political economy, Bhattarai has consistently maintained that Nepal’s underdevelopment is a result of two pernicious influences: that of domestic feudalism and Indian expansionism. Nepal’s feudal class, at whose head stood the monarchy, exploited the peasantry so severely that the latter were unable to accumulate the resources and technology necessary for a capitalist breakthrough in agriculture. Similarly, the influence of a commercial class that promoted the interests of foreign — primarily Indian — capital meant the forcible flooding of Nepal’s economy with foreign goods. This led to the devastation of whatever industry in Nepal existed prior to the eighteenth century and the inhibition of the growth of a “national-industrialist” class that would produce goods within the country for the sake of the consumption of its inhabitants.

Bhattarai’s middle-class supporters largely view the Maoist People’s War as a period of senseless violence, which the new prime minister thankfully forsook in favour of peaceful politics. In Bhattarai’s view, however, the Maoist rebellion has played an important role in eliminating feudalism in the countryside. By destroying the capacity of the landowning class to exploit the peasantry, the Maoist movement set the ground for a future breakthrough in capitalist development. With the right policies and a more stable government, conditions can be created to harness the entrepreneurial energies unleashed by the destruction of feudal relations of production.

Although keenly aware of the increasingly interconnected nature of the world, and the fact that Nepal is too dependent to remain isolated from broader currents, Bhattarai

continues to believe that Nepal cannot develop through the unbridled penetration of global market forces into its economy. In order for a “national industrialist” class to emerge, some degree of economic protectionism is required. Viewed in Marxist terms, this would mean resistance to “expansionist” and “imperialist” forces.

Given current geo-political circumstances, a total withdrawal into a communist-style autarkic economy is not possible. And nor does Bhattarai think that the state should be granted primary control over the economy; the private sector needs to play an important role in development. However, in his view, it is possible for the state to formulate policies that, while taking advantage of globalisation, protect the economy from too great an encroachment by foreign capital. In addition to this protecting the national-industrialist class, Bhattarai envisages the state as playing an active role in supporting it by granting it various incentives and resources.

In his views regarding the most suitable economic policies for Nepal, therefore, Bhattarai’s views come remarkably close to those adopted by the East Asian economies in the period after the Second World War. In

countries like South Korea and Taiwan, the power of the landed aristocracy

was effectively eliminated during the 1950s, radical land reform was undertaken and in subsequent decades the state restricted imports and worked closely with the domestic capitalist class to create goods for internal consumption and for export.

In recent years, in fact, Bhattarai has approvingly studied the rise of the East Asian powers. When he was finance minister in 2009, he was influenced by the work of the Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang who argued that countries at a low level of development cannot grow without deep economic intervention by the state, including the imposition of protectionist policies. Ha-Joon Chang claims that even the advanced Western economies began their growth trajectory with the help of such measures but later “kicked away the ladder” for the poor countries by forbidding them to use similar policies.

There are those among Kathmandu’s liberals who have urged Bhattarai to become a Deng Xiao Ping. The economic policies that Bhattarai envisages, however, are not those of the simplistic and ideology-driven idea of Deng that liberals hold so dear: the communist leader who supposedly abandoned orthodox Marxism in favour of a wholehearted embrace of free-market capitalism. But they are remarkably similar to the policies of the real historical Deng Xiao Ping: a man who built upon the radical restructuring of relations of production undertaken by his predecessors, who used all the capacities of the strong Leninist state in the service of the growth of indigenous capitalism, protecting it from foreign encroachment and ensuring that it worked closely with the state.

Given the conditions of political instability currently prevalent in Nepal, it will be a long time, if ever, before the conditions emerge where it will be possible to adopt such policies. Those who invest in Baburam Bhattarai great hope should be aware, however, of the views he has developed over previous decades. Not a committed liberal, nor an unreconstructed Maoist, his economic views, although Marxist at root, are of a complex nature. They can be unpalatable to both those within his party who continue to dream of the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” as well as to Kathmandu’s liberal middle-class who dream of gaining access to the technology and riches of the world through unbridled participation in the global economy.

aditya.adhikari@gmail.com

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