International
Whither the Maoists?
By Thomas A. Marks, SAIR 24/3/08
Mar 24, 2008 - 11:45:07 AM

Leading Maoist figures have stated publicly that if the vote does not favor them, they will launch a "people’s rebellion." The situation engendered by Young Communist League ( YCL) intimidation, extortion, physical violence, and even murder has been bad enough. Evidence now indicates Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist ( CPN-M) agents in the Tarai have been meeting secretly with Indian arms dealers in the black market.

Regardless of outcome, the Maoists intend that there will be a reckoning.

Even before most recent events, the security situation was tenuous. The continued internal deterioration – and inability or unwillingness of the state to provide a secure environment (or even regular basic services) – has demoralized the citizenry and increasingly led to ‘no go’ areas being created by YCL terror. Inhabitants have been warned that retribution will come if the vote does not favor the Maoists. Election fever runs high in urban areas, but few expect the polls to come off as planned. One Madheshi candidate stated that his party had instructed him not to commit his funds until April 2.

Ironically, the longer ‘peace’ prevails, the more chaotic the situation becomes and the more dangerous for those who oppose terror. In their approach, the Maoists are not using even the same vocabulary, much less the same game plan, as supporters of parliamentary democracy. They are not looking for re-incorporation or reconciliation, as democrats understand the words. To the contrary, they are on the offensive. They simply are proceeding along an avenue of approach complementary to armed actions. To them, violence and non-violence are just two facets of a unified struggle, very much as, in boxing, feints and movement of the body are as necessary as punches thrown.

Thus the Maoists see themselves as engaged in a struggle for liberation, and use of violence is just one line of operation. The Seven Party Alliance (SPA) has proved so fearful of a return to general violence that it is willing to accept the lower level of menace and targeted violence that is ongoing. Extortion (and even armed robbery in broad daylight in the capital) has become so common that there is an increasing outflow of businessmen, who are simply shutting down establishments and taking a ‘wait and see’ attitude. The quality of life for the bulk of the population has deteriorated dramatically; ironically, this, too, though it is a result of continued thuggish actions by the Maoists, helps them in their propaganda against ‘the old feudal order’.

All CPN-M actions currently being undertaken are designed simply to bring the Maoists to power. When called to account by their CCOMPOSA (Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia) compatriots for having abandoned the revolutionary struggle, the Nepali Maoists succeeded in placating their critics by outlining just what they planned. Put in so many words: our way will deliver power by emphasizing the ‘non-violent’ aspects of people’s war – and using violence to give them salience. As the CPN-M put this explicitly, in its report to the June 2007 CCOMPOSA meeting held in India:

Prachanda explained this further to a Central Committee meeting held at the end of July 2007 before the 5th Plenum of the CPN-M, itself held in early August 2007, using an ‘expanded meeting’ format that brought together 2,174 delegates. In his working paper, he maintained that the present transition period has seen ‘republic democracy’ seized by reactionaries within the SPA, who are trying to ‘change it’ to ‘parliamentary democracy’. In contrast, the will of the Party and the people is ‘new republic democracy’, Maoist shorthand for ‘people’s republic’. The correct manner to achieve this is by burrowing into the system, gaining experience, preserving revolutionary power, and developing further the counter-state (party infrastructure).

Such an approach is necessary in a global situation where socialism has not prevailed anywhere, continued Prachanda. The reinforcement of the Nepali reactionaries by the USA, India, and Hindu extremists has forced the revolutionaries onto the defensive in some areas, but overall their strength is swelling. Thus the correct course of action is to stay the protracted war course using low-level terror as the form of violence, united front building, and political warfare.

This ‘reaffirmist' line was attacked by the ‘rejectionists’, led by Maoist combatant leader, Ram Bahadur Thapa aka Badal. Ironically, he was joined by key figures Vaidya and Biplav, both of whom had been in Indian custody, but had been released for reasons that remain under discussion. Optimists claim the release was to facilitate incorporation of the Maoists into the political mainstream. Cynics claim it was to cause division within the Party. Regardless, the rejectionist faction saw no point to the ‘go slow’ approach of the reaffirmists and advocated violent street actions in the only strongholds remaining to the state, the urban areas. Though they found themselves overruled, they remain a powerful voice fueling the present spiral of violence.

This leaves the key external player, India, in a quandary. Jettisoning the ‘two pillars’ approach to Nepal – backing parliamentary forces and the monarchy – which had long informed Indian strategy, has backfired badly. Bringing the Maoists into the parliamentary mainstream has proved impossible for the simplest of reasons: the Maoists never had any intention of following this script. Only the hubris of South Block could have missed this fact, stated by the Maoists repeatedly both publicly and in their inner circles.

Now, with the monarchy sidelined and Maoist-induced chaos endangering even the parliamentary forces, New Delhi is displaying growing anxiety at the possibility of a huge radical safe-haven emerging at the very moment that India’s own indigenous Maoists are expanding. All sources in Nepal cite direct Indian intervention in the Tarai as decisive in pulling the Madheshi into the CA vote. Yet New Delhi’s influence has proved of much less consequence in Kathmandu and the hill areas. This creates a nail-biting geostrategic situation.

A second irony, sources indicate, is that the Maoists themselves would prefer this, the third attempt at holding CA elections, to be scuttled, since they, too, are unclear as to the outcome. Numbers alone place them at a disadvantage, with the hostile Tarai holding more than half the Nepali population.

Further, though they speak of inevitable victory, the Maoists are unsure just how far YCL threats and violence will carry the Party in an election monitored by outsiders (such as the Carter Center), which has developed an unpredictable momentum of its own. Where, previously, the Maoists saw their ability to exclude SPA campaigning from the rural areas as decisive, particularly as sympathetic figures in some NGOs and embassies continued to attack the state in the urban centers, the CPN-M now faces a more problematic reality.

What the Maoists – and SPA – seek to avoid at all costs is being blamed for a third CA postponement. Yet the Maoists hold the cards. Despite the efforts of some sources (notably left-wing NGOs) to strike a pose of moral equivalence, blaming both the state and the Maoists for ‘violations’, it is the Maoists and their YCL who are driving the violence that endangers the polls.

Nepali vernacular media quote Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to the effect that if the run-up to the CA election has not been completely disrupted by the Maoists as of March 28, the process will go forward as scheduled. Odds are a vote of sorts will indeed occur – but that it will be an ‘election’ only in the same sense that the Maoists have renounced ‘violence’ to ‘join the system’.