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Maoism in Nepal
APR 22 -
Could Nepal ever have become a successful test case for a Maoist state? Perhaps never. The radical communists of Nepal who followed the Maoist line of revolution have attempted and failed twice to launch a violent revolution following the Maoist doctrines and strategies with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the state. Judging from the standpoint of Nepal’s internal and external situation, the period of the 1960s and 1970s was perhaps better suited for their success.
Internally, from the Marxian analysis of the existing social class and class structures, the predominantly agrarian economy which bore the features of a semi-feudal mode of production presented the possibility for a peasant-led uprising. In the 1960s and the 1970s Nepal’s predominantly subsistent agricultural economy was characterised by an extreme form of inequality in land distribution between large landowners and the peasantry. This inequality was significant in terms of both the agricultural surpluses and the social relations of production. Exploitation and exclusion in Nepal’s socio-economy was rampant. Poverty, unemployment and inequality were distinctly marked by class and caste divisions. As many rural parts of Nepal were untouched by modern means of transport and communication and administrative logistics of the government, it would have been easier for the Maoist party to mobilise the peasantry for a revolt. Since political parties were banned the Maoist rebels would have confronted no significant opposition. If Maoist adventurism was to be tried out in Nepal, although its success as in China depended on a number of factors, the then existing socio-cultural and economic conditions of Nepal were more conducive than in later years.
Externally, the growing influence of China under Mao Zedong in Nepal was quite powerful. Although Indian influence was no less significant, its position vis-à-vis the Chinese was merely defensive. The US was also actively present in Nepal as it was the height of the Cold War but it would not have assumed another confrontational politics with China. As China was under the leadership of Chairman Mao himself, Nepal’s Maoists would have possibly received every support in their endeavour to turn Nepal into a one-party communist state.
Nepal’s Maoists must know that as early as 1939 Mao had claimed that Nepal was one of China’s five fingers that was taken away by the colonial power, England. However, Mao withdrew his mythical statement after China and Nepal established diplomatic relations in 1956. With the launching of the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966, Nepal became one of the foreign outposts for China for exporting Maoism. By the late sixties, Chinese communist literature including the little Red Book were distributed freely. At public meetings, Mao’s huge portrait was hung, sometimes higher than the then king’s. The construction of the Kodari highway was used as an instrument for indoctrinating Maoism amongst the Nepali labourers and people who were made to believe that Chairman Mao was the leader of the toiling masses. The innocent labourers were made to wear a badge embossed with Mao’s countenance. The Chinese diplomats also lent moral and other support to the pro-Chinese student faction.
Internationally, communist movement led by the pro-Chinese communist faction was gaining momentum in the late 1960s in South Asia, East Asia and elsewhere. A violent peasants’ uprisings was organised in India by the CPI(M) following Mao’s people’s war, in Naxalbari area, which was hailed by the Peking Daily of July 5, 1967 as “a peal of spring thunder (that) has crashed over the land of India”. It was the geographical proximity and the old links between the communists of Nepal and India that inspired some young communists with petty bourgeoisie background to tread on Maoist revolutionary path. Strategically this revolutionary extremism known as the Jhapa bidroha adventured by the Nepali communists of the landowning middle class was miscalculated in terms of both time and space. By 1971 the peasants’ uprisings was much weakened by India’s ruthless suppression and it was also well exposed by the media and the intelligence networks. Organisationally and strategically it was an ill-prepared adventure. The Nepali government was fully aware of the Jhapa movement. Hence, after a short spell of left extremism the Jhapa movement met the same fate as their gurus in India. With the end of the Jhapa bidroha the pro-Chinese communists adhering to the doctrines of Maoism lost a historical opportunity for pushing their revolution to the deterministic stage once and for all.
In the sinister shadow of the Jhapa mishap the NCP (Maoist) tried two and half decades later to reverse the course of history but were forced to reconcile with the antonyms of Maoism. Born out of a schismatic syndrome of communist parties in Nepal, the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist), a motley of a few communist parties united under the banner of Mao, launched its violent movement in 1996. However, unlike the Jhapa bidroha, the NCP (Maoist) insurgency achieved meteoric success demystifying the myths and breaking all the conventional political theories, at least in experimenting with the first phase of Mao’s revolutionary path, i.e., from penetrating into the peasantry for creating a base area to persisting in protracted armed struggle. But it got itself entrapped in the middle i.e., between the stage of rural confined armed struggle and the stage of encircling the cities for a final assault for seizing power. However, the author would like to make three assertions about this temporary success without examining the successes or failures of the UNCP (Maoist) in the post 2006 Jana Andolan period. First, the success up to the middle stage is precisely the point of maximum ascendancy the UNCP (Maoist) could scale with Maoist orthodoxy. The revolutionary doctrines of Chairman Mao the anarcho-militarist Maoists of Nepal have tried out is a poor copy and a “cut and paste” version borrowed heavily from the Peru’s Shinning-Path and its rebel leader Guzman and other sources without acknowledging the Nepali reality. One would be amused by cheap imitation of not only the “ism” advocated by Guzman but also of the way his portrait is being put just below the five international communist leaders.
Second, the successful ascendancy to the mid point is only partially due to the revolutionary indoctrination, strategy and application. Only a fraction of the UNCP (Maoist) cadres are diehard Maoists, the majority are young goons working for money, status and fun. The Maoists’ partial success is by and large due to the stupidity of the formal king, the then leadership of the Nepali Congress and the Nepali Congress (D) and the dwindling position of the UML. However, it is true that the NCP (Maoist) successfully exploited the political contradictions existing in the power politics of these three groups. The third and most important assertion is that Maoism is an ideology buried by the tides of history in its vile pages.
The global wave of revolution for democracy and human rights of the late 20th century, the growing integration of the global economy, technology and society and the massive economic transformation of the Chinese economy through a capitalist economy have turned the tides against one-party communist dictatorship. Politically, if Indian interests in Nepal have become more entrenched, the Chinese interest has not been as counteractively influential. The active presence of the international powers also does not permit any Maoist style takeover of state power. Nepal’s Maoist ideologues must understand the dialectics, i.e., the theory of international communist revolution also works for the theory of international cooperation for counter moves. Self-evident must be the fact that the Indian prime minister has labelled the Maoists of India as the greatest security threat. The UCPN (Maoist) carries significant weight in influencing the course of Nepal, it is however, not in its interest or the nation or its people to seize power by mere brute force. It will only end in civil war which in turn will bring catastrophic consequences for our independence and self-pride. It is therefore, in the UCPN (Maoist)’s long term interest and the country to transform itself into a democratic party by abjuring violence and respecting freedom and human rights without too much abnegating its socio-economic platform. With democracy the UCPN (Maoist) is in a Hobson’ choice situation. History can be on its side if it realises the irreversible course of time and tide.
(Khadka is Nepali Congress CWC member)
Posted on: 2010-04-23 08:14
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