Terms of compromise
If 2011 brought back some hope to the faltering peace process, 2012 should see the peace and constitutional processes come to an end. Traditional parliamentary parties, not least NC and UML on one hand, and UCPN (Maoist) on the other still need to make difficult compromises but the deal is very much there for the taking within the current CA tenure.
Intra-party rift
Not for the first time, Maoist Chairman Prachanda and Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya “Kiran” have presented separate political papers at the party’s Central Committee. Not for the first time, the two papers are at cross-purposes on fundamental issues. To be sure, this is not the first time that Baidya has gone on the offensive against the party establishment. That started as early as 2008 in the Kharipati Plenum.
But Baidya’s (and that of such leaders as Ram Bahadur Thapa “Badal”, CP Gajurel “Gaurav” and Netra Bikram Chand “Biplav”) newfound wrath against Prachanda shows that the hardliners are willing to go farther this time. In private, they go so far as to insist that the party has reached a point where the two groups can no longer stay together and that it’s just a matter of time before they decide to call it quits. The party has never looked closer to a vertical split.
To many, the D-day could be upcoming Falgun 1 (February 13 this year), the day the party marks the anniversary of its “People’s War”, launched in 1996.
For a long time, Prachanda has (very curiously) tried to explain the criticism against him in the party as time-honoured Leninist recourse to democratic-centralism—that there can be differences as long as the dissenters stay within the larger process agreed by the party. This essentially implies that dissenters can’t question the supremacy of the incumbent party leadership, structure and its core ideologies, though they are welcome to voice their reservations against the official party positions—euphemistically put, bicharko birodh garna pahincha, bidhi ko hoina.
It’s still not clear how the Maoist leadership (read Prachanda) will deal with this deeply-entrenched ideological difference on both tactics and strategy. Five years after the peace process officially started with the Maoists and the traditional parliamentary parties signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the Baidya faction still regards Jana Bidhroha (People’s Uprising) fundamental to political transformation of the traditional state.
This faction also regards India, which helped facilitate the 2005 deal between the Maoists and then-parliamentary parties, as the “principal enemy”. Prachanda and Prime Minister Bhattarai, on the other hand, believe that India’s role will continue to remain crucial to complete the ongoing political process. Needless to say, the Baidya faction regards the recent Indo-Nepal trade deal, BIPPA, as treason and Prime Minister Bhattarai a traitor. In his competing paper presented to the CC three days after Prachanda’s, Baidya takes a dim view of the party chairman’s paper, “There’s no concrete proposal on (the need to check) imperialism and expansionism and on (the need to safeguard) national sovereignty. On the contrary, there’s been effort to support BIPPA in a roundabout way.”
Baidya is similarly disillusioned by Prachanda’s position on peace, constitution and government, arguing that for the Maoist chairman peace means
de-militarisation and surrender of PLA; constitution means drafting of a parliamentary constitution, and government means accepting the slavery of old state apparatus. “This is not a compromise; it’s a surrender. Essentially, in adopting Constituent Assembly and democratic republic not as tactic but strategy, people’s revolution and Jana Bidroha have been sacrificed.”
Deep as the differences are, it is still unclear how the dissenters will be treated by the ongoing “decisive” Central Committee and by Prachanda. While the establishment group has a clear majority in the CC, Prachanda seems averse to the idea of taking any difficult decision against the dissenters through a
vote. He still seems to believe that the Baidya faction will come round on the peace and constitution issues and that will give impetus to the other half of the political process—the drafting of the new constitution.
There are two options before Prachanda. Remove the Baidya group from all executive positions or hope that the Baidya group, acknowledging that they have reached a point of no return, resign from the party. In an interview with this correspondent on Sunday, January 1, Pracahanda kept both the options open, including a third one: that the Baidya faction, as in the past, lower their opposition and continue to fall behind the party Chairman because they have no heart for a vertical split.
The Baidya faction reportedly has less than 40 percent support in the Central Committee and less than 30 percent among the party lawmakers—which means that the party’s dissenting lawmakers could lose their position in case of a split. Prachanda however fears that the current power-balance can potentially change if he fails at political management. Hence, perhaps, his go-slow approach.
So there’s always this convenient option. A new political paper will be endorsed by the ongoing CC, which will avoid all contentious issues from both Prachanda’s and Baidya’s papers. And the differences will be believed to have been buried, for now.
The differences between the two factions are nothing new. The reason they have become a public concern now is because the Maoist party has been diverted from the centrality of the peace and constitutional processes in the unfinished transition. Issues of integration and rehabilitation have been pushed to a backburner as the Maoist leaders get engaged in ugly policy debates inside the party and war of words outside.
Quite correctly, Prachanda, after some vacillation, seems to have decided peace and constitution is the only way forward.
After the fall from grace as prime minister in 2009 and failed attempts subsequently at stoking Jana Bidroha, he has steadily moved towards a moderate centre. If during the May Day rallies in the Capital in 2010 he stressed on the party’s rural/peasant base, he now increasingly likes to talk about the need to be a national leader, rather than pandering to a particular base.
Pressed in an interview on Sunday to explain why the change of heart, Prachanda said he has drawn a couple of lessons from history, particularly after his party came aboveground in 2006—one from domestic politics; the other from geopolitical reality. The Maoist party failed to keep its whole-timers (who numbered in tens of thousands) engaged, though it “talked a lot about theories.” And also came the realisation, if belated, that peace and constitution, and in extension long-term prosperity, remains the core desire for most Nepalis. That augurs well for Nepal. And for 2012.
au_nyu@yahoo.com
Posted on: 2012-01-02 09:31
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