Oped»
Man in a hurry
- STATE OF FLUX
AUG 23 -
More than any other politician in Nepal’s political landscape, Prachanda’s primary instinct is the drive for unbridled power. Matters of ideology or long-term policy are relevant to him only insofar as they provide justifications for a course of action geared towards sidelining (or destroying) his rivals and propelling him into the centre-stage. In his own mind, of course, his actions may not appear so cynical. He has participated in Nepal’s communist movement for decades, deeply imbibed its ideology and become a master at the use of its rhetoric. At every juncture, therefore, particularly when he feels embattled or trapped, he is able to present the course of action that will benefit him personally as being in accordance with the will of the people, the needs of his party and communist ideology.
Most recently, he has presented his drive to become prime minister, or at least to prevent rivals from within the party from assuming leadership of the government, as a struggle for autonomy for both the Maoist party and the country. For, runs his logic, it is the expansionist India that is most opposed to
his leadership and which seeks to
create rifts within the party. That if the Maoists continue to demand his leadership and continue to denounce Indian interference, this will be a struggle for national autonomy, a stage in the struggle for extricating Nepal from a semi-colonial situation.
In a politically complex country like Nepal with multiple power centres, it is never possible for a single party or leader to constantly have his way. Within this context, Prachanda’s style of politics demands extreme aggression and constant invocation of antagonists: feudals, bureaucratic capitalists, brokers of expansionists and other parasites and traitors. The ideology and politics of the extreme left, with its willingness to engage in aggressive tactics ranging from outrageous polemics to the use of violence, thus suits Prachanda’s needs precisely. He has been able, over much of his long career in politics, to use these tactics successfully. A major reason why the Maoists were able to consolidate such a tremendous hold over Nepal’s population during the insurgency and to fight the state to a military stalemate was because of Prachanda’s power to inspire rage and a deep sense of resentment against the system among members of his party and simultaneously to command a deep sense of personal loyalty as the supreme commander, with whom the aspirations of the movement supposedly perfectly coincided.
Inspiring the will to fight and maintaining strong loyalty and discipline were supremely important during most of the war, but other political strengths became more so as the Maoists began recognising that the military struggle against the state had reached its limits and a negotiated settlement was now desirable. Prachanda was astute enough to recognise that the political virtues of conciliation and compromise were essential, not as ends in themselves but as tactical steps that would open up some desired space for the Maoists, to recuperate and reanalyse tactics before undertaking another aggressive assault—this time perhaps through pure politics rather than
violence—against the party’s (and his) enemies. And during such moments, notably in the period beginning
with the 12-point agreement and continuing to the signing of the CPA and Interim Constitution, Prachanda was quite willing to make use of the strengths of his party colleagues who were better than he was at the detailed and protracted negotiation.
If this meant that other leaders
in the party were allowed to enjoy greater prominence and accrue greater prestige, this was a problem that Prachanda could temporarily accept. He recognised that the environment created by these agreements were in his benefit: as the supreme leader of the party and by lending his full weight to the agreements, he could claim credit for these accomplishments. In any case, he was shrewd enough to recognise when a rival leader needed to be cut down to size through either direct assaults upon his position and reputation or by cultivating other leaders who maintained grievances against him. As the Maoists became increasingly immersed in open, competitive politics after 2006, this strategy was applied not just against party rivals but against those from other parties.
The need to use and dispose of real and potential rivals as the situation demands lies at the root of Prachanda’s wholly ad hoc approach towards tactics and strategy. Towards his immediate ends, he continues to make use of the hoary communist concept regarding the contradiction between nationalism and democracy. For the sake of promoting democracy, the theory goes, it
will be necessary to ally with the parliamentary parties and their patron
(in Maoist belief) India against the monarchy and Kathmandu’s feudal elite. For the sake of promoting nationalism, it will be necessary to ally with royalist and feudal elements against the parliamentary parties and India. These concepts in the Maoists thinking have been theorised, particularly in the writings of Baburam Bhattarai, with extensive reference to Nepal’s political economy and geo-political situation. The approach demanded here is long-term - it requires sustained engagement with the forces which the party decides to ally with at any given time and required the implementation of social and economic policy.
In Prachanda’s mind, however, free as it is of any deep reflections on the nature of Nepali society and the concrete ways in which Maoist goals can be institutionalised, the concepts of nationalism and democracy and the antagonism between them are only ciphers that are useful to increase his power and that of the party. At the current juncture, it is also meant to weaken leaders within his party whom he has labelled as “democratic” and thus close to India. The utility of these concepts lies in providing the Maoists ideological justification of sometimes allying with the monarchists, sometimes with the parliamentary parties and India, always making use of the antagonisms that prevail between them. The decision with who to ally at any given time depends totally, in Prachanda’s mind, in which of the two is causing him greater problems. As there is no deeper rationale, it is easy for him to easily switch between the two.
Throughout 2004 and 2005 he was in negotiations with the King to sideline the political parties and achieve some important position in the state apparatus. There appears to have been no reflection on how such an unnatural alliance could be stable or help the Maoists. There was an immediate switch in alliances when the King took over in February 2005. And now that the Maoists are facing difficulties in their negotiations with the other parties and India, Prachanda has once again been advocating an alliance with royalist forces against the “expansionist” one with the objective of “intensifying the polarisation of leftist, republican and nationalist forces on one side and status quoists on the other.” No consideration appears to have been paid to the instabilities that will arise if this strategy is followed. No attention seems to have been paid to the fact that this will lead to a reversal of the gains in Nepali politics (by reestablishing the monarch and his clique in Nepali politics), arouse the intense ire of India and perhaps lead to the total collapse of the peace and constitution drafting processes as envisaged four or five years ago.
Aditya Adhikari aditya.adhikari@gmail.com
Posted on: 2010-08-24 09:53
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