E-Kantipur

Nepali Congress youth leader Shiva Poudel beaten by inmates in Chitwan District prison on December 6, 2011 succumbed to the injuries on 17 December. Since then all the quarrelling factions of the NC have put up a united front against the brutal killing of their cadre in government custody, which is a serious matter and the government should certainly be held accountable for that. But what strikes me most is the debate about the values of the NC.

I recall the mammoth Kathmandu band hand peaceful rallies called by the Maoists in the first week of May 2010, which drew some flak. I studied some nuances of the political projections made by the Maoists then. I mixed up with the crowds, joined their street musicals to get fresh ideas about theatre and political dreams and talked to the protesters, some of whom had never come to Kathmandu before. Their common idiom was revolution and change of the entire system or sattaa. They did not protest with anger but with plans; the full form of which was opaque to them. Their share was a dream. When their party called for them to go home, several of them were surprised. I went for the ‘last waltz’ with a group of Maoist cadres from the far- western district in Thamel. They were sad to go empty handed. But what would fill up their hands was not clear, certainly not only the resignation of Madhav Kumar Nepal, the UML prime minister, which was clearly the main demand of the Maoist party.

Curiously, the erstwhile American ambassador James F Moriarty drew flak from the Maoist press, whereas the present twittering American ambassador Scott H De Lisi has drawn ire from Nepali Congress leaders for what they call “teaching them”. I guess the Ambassador was turning the pages of old textbooks, which say:

the Nepali Congress of Nepal espouses democratic non-violent values

and others like the Maoists and other communist parties opt for more violent modus operandi. That may no longer be the case.

The Nepali Congress, all major communist parties and the Madhesi parties have developed some common values. First, their politics has made a shift from people-based politics to cadre-based politics. To draw party attention you have to be a party cadre. The Suffering of people has become invisible. The reality is that the majority of people in any country do not take party membership. People dynamics is what shapes a political system, and if that very fabric is destroyed, democracy becomes a sham. Dictators seek to destroy that very fabric of people power by making them disenfranchised or by rigging and manipulating elections.

In Nepal, the major parties prioritise short-term gains like forming a government under their leadership—be it for a few months—and then induct as many people as possible from support groups, fight for lucrative ministries and upon disagreement on these matters, they create trouble and make people’s lives very difficult. If you take a poll and allow people to vote secretly, hardly 10 percent of the people will vote in favour of strikes and bandas. That is why, cadres and party leaders use coercion, threats and promise of damage for results. The most alarming part of it is that every political party, whatever its methodology—violent or non-violent—has begun to use strikes or bandas. It is difficult to draw a line between parties about this matter. But we should be cautious here I listen to the political leaders’ speeches to make sense of what course history is taking. Sushil Koirala alias Sushilda, president of the NC, swings from reconciliation to confrontation; his party rival Sher Bahadur Deuba keeps the torch of the old “treaty” made to end the “war” between him and the late Girijababu burning to maintain power base in the party. A leader of the disaffected Maoist party, Mohan Vaidya “Kiran,” made two different statements in one week. He said he could start a new Maoist movement from within the party. At another meeting the same week, he said he felt like renouncing it all and taking to a vairagya path. The changing mood of this leader, who is a very fine literary critic and writer, speaks volumes. Likewise, the UML party does good things in out-of-power seasons. That is why they are making great gestures of reconciliation at the moment. Madhesi parties have their own problems of becoming one or many parties.

The questions that the Nepali political transformation has raised are very important. People, politics and representation are discussed here in spaces like parliament, press and academic departments. In Nepal political parties and identity groups have raised questions that remained muted for centuries. The positive side of the change is that people have begun to speak about themselves. But the irony is that the selfsame voices could be muted either under the “crisis in knowledge” or through a process of—as I said earlier—creating a network of urban-based party loyalists who would bring up issues that involve money, gains, power and even loss of life. The times are changing.

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