Editorial»
What others say
DEC 16 - Since the cease-fire broke down on August 27, over 1100 Maoist insurgents (of the total 1400) have been killed in the fighting. But the authenticity of this figure is questionable. And no one can ever come with the actual figure so long as the war propaganda remains the state policy to suppress the Maoist insurgency.
Secondly, this figure monitored by Delhi-based South Asia Intelligence Review is far from authoritative as the present estimates are drawn from official sources and reports in the English language press.
I say this is a one-sided figure provided by the Nepali government. No one knows the actual number of Maoists killed in skirmishes with security forces. But one thing is true that the number of innocent civilians either caught in the cross-fire or deliberately killed by the army personnel is increasing every day.
The figure of Maoists killed by the security forces also tells that the government has been successfully countering the insurgency, even if the encounters between the Maoists and the army personnel indicate otherwise.
Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute of Conflict Management, Delhi, writes: “The killing rates in Nepal, since the insurgency attack on the army camp at Dang on November 23, 2001, have averaged far more than the combined average of fatalities in all the terrorist and insurgent movements across India - including Jammu & Kashmir,’ supposedly the most dangerous place on earth.”
Incidents since August 27 show that Nepal has virtually become a killing field. Secondly, the truce agreed twice between the ruling establishment and the Maoists, and that subsequently breakdown, brings to the fore that both parties were not committed to holding the cease-fire for long.
Violence has ever been the chief means to either seize power or remain in power. Looking at the way the poor struggled for years under the autocratic Shah and Rana regimes, the Maoist insurgency does not look like coming to a logical conclusion, so long as poverty and ignorance continue to reign supreme, and the establishment continues to provoke the rebels.
One need not go as far as Europe to learn lessons. India offers us enough insights into how the ruling dynasties came to an end and new power emerged. It is also a historical fact that no dynasty lasted longer as the rulers expected. All empires crumbled when the people revolted against the emperors. Whenever people revolted against the establishment, the decline of the ruling dynasty began— be it in Europe or in India.
The Murya dynasty, for example, came and began to decline in less than two hundred years. Emperor Babar, who invaded India in 1526 and established the Mughal empire that ruled India for about two hundred years, too, ended soon after the death of Aurangazeb in 1707.
Similarly, the Marathas came as new rulers, and the Peshwas — the successors of Maratha — even conquered parts of Western Asia. The last Peshwa Nanashaheb took shelter in Kathmandu after the 1857 Sepoy mutiny. The British succeeded the Marathas and ruled India until 1947.
Rulers may lie and deceive if it is in the interests of state, said Machiavelli, when he saw the declining Medici dynasty. “To betray friends or be without faith and mercy would lead to power and glory”. But who has betrayed whom before our truce broke down in August remains to be seen.
The threat to Nepali rulers has always come from India. And one must admit the fact that attempts made so far since 1950 have never been to overthrow the monarchy. Founding leader of the Nepali Congress B P Koirala wanted justice for the people. Unfortunately, King Mahendra saw an authoritarian regime as the way of dispensing justice to his people. He introduced a system that bred more poverty, frustration and mass resentment.
The Maoist insurgency would not have thrived so horizontally in a vertical society had the state policy ever been people-oriented. The fault lies in the rulers who continue to deceive and lie the people. The establishment must realize the fact that the current Maoist revolt is not unnatural but a radical force, a product of a defective system, which seeks justice and equity for Nepalis. And any ruler who is not a democrat by upbringing, temperament or practice will find it hard to suppress.
(The writer can be reached at <vista24p@hotmail.com>)Posted on: 2003-12-16 03:46
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