SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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Trying to understand the situation in Nepal,
Friday 3 December 2005

One thing is striking about the political situation in the country. There is no panic! All people we met looked at the ‘siege of Kathmandu’ and the Maoist domination of the countryside with anxiety but were not terrified..
True, the tourists are taxed by the Maoist. For going to Mount Everest a ‘toll’ of something between 3-500 rupees is charged. Members of he local elite are also taxed. Sometimes Maoists force people to feed them. We heard a story about how they ‘kidnapped’ teachers and students for a shorter period to teach them about the real situation in Nepal and the need for a new school curriculum. Researchers and officers going for work in the rural areas would take caution, and try to establish contacts with the local insurgents and negotiate a safe way to do their work. Those we met and who had worked in rural areas, said that they had been able to talk their way out by convincing the Maoists about the importance of their work for the rural areas. Few of them had been taxed and they had not felt threatened to their life.

At the same time, there is also the expectation among many intellectuals that the insurgency will have a strong impact on the political development in Nepal by placing the real issues on the agenda (see report from meeting with Hari Sharma at Social Science Baha).
The most common interpretation among the researchers we met is that the Maoists have used the opportunity of the rapid transition from a feudal to a modern capitalist society and the feeble attempts at democratisation of a political system from the nineteenth centre emphasising hierarchy and procedural forms, rather than effective government for development; a characteristic also pertaining to many public institutions including the universities.
The rapid transition to a commercial economy in an era of globalisation is perhaps more felt here than in other parts of South Asia, with the large tourist industry, the many Nepali migrant labourers spread out over South Asia and the massive inflow of global consumer goods. It is an uneven development, creating wealth at one end and widespread poverty and unemployment at the other and thus a strong feeling of relative deprivation among large groups. The Nepali governments that have replaced each other during the last 15 years have hardly been able to effectively counter these growing cleavages in society in order to give some hope to the common man of a better tomorrow.

In their mobilisation of the rural and urban poor, the Maoists ‘use’ a well established socialist rhetoric from the Chinese revolution: land to the tillers, equal opportunities for all, social justice … No new pamphlets have to be written on this. Poor people of Nepal have little knowledge of why real existing communism in Soviet Union and elsewhere failed. ‘The diagnosis is right, the prescription is wrong!’ as someone commented, and the fact is that they have also attracted many educated middle class persons. So far the Maoists have not needed to deliver an alternative development practice and the question is if they really mean business with a communist society at this stage.

The situation is prone to conspiracy theories of the ‘secret hand’ of the King, the elite, the Indians … but the fact is that a strong mobilisation has taken place under the banner of what was thought as an outmoded socialist ideology, obviously giving some direction to the aspirations among the rural and urban poor and their intellectual companions.
With the recent negotiations in New Delhi between the Maoists and the seven opposition parties, there are now signs that the first priority of the Maoists is to create a stable and working democracy. ‘Only bourgeois democracy opens the path to people’s democracy’ (as expressed by its leader Baburam Bhattarai, quoted by an Indian newspaper) For this to be a peaceful process, they have to be recognised as an important player in future negations. It may take time though, most people here seem to think, and be far from a straightforward progression.

Chairman Prachanda. Photo: Narayan Wagle

Staffan Lindberg

PS: An exclusive interview with Chairman Prachanda, supreme leader of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), has been published by Kantipur.com 8 February 2006. The interview was made by Prateek Pradhan, editor of The Kathmandu Post, and Narayan Wagle, editor of Kantipur. Prachanda speaks about his party's current situation, insurgency, and the ways ahead to resolve the conflict, and proclaims that the Maoists want an end to blodshed in Nepal.
Read the article.