NEPAL:
Communism's Last Bastion in High Altitudes
Akhilesh Upadhyay
KATHMANDU, Mar 31 (IPS) - In the past nine years, Nepal's Maoist movement has grown so fast
that it has now become a proud citation for revolutionaries round the world. To them, the
Maoists from an impoverished Himalayan kingdom give intellectual sustenance at a time when
the days of communists toppling the state have long gone.
Though communist parties exist in most countries, few patterned on the one that
successfully
led the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 hold state power. That's a huge comedown
for
the communists who until 1980s ruled one-fourth of humanity, including China and the
now-
defunct Soviet Union.
In South-east Asia, not since Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge peasant army toppled the U.S.-
backed
Lon Nol republic in 1975 and over one million people died in utopian restructuring
thereafter
has a peasant movement come close to overwhelming the state. For that reason, the
Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist holds a special place for diehard communist
revolutionaries.
The Maoists control a vast swathe of the countryside, especially in western Nepal where
their
''people's war'' started in 1996 to overthrow the monarchy and establish a kingless
communist
republic. Their strategy: ''surround the cities with liberated villages,'' which is modeled on
the
classic Maoist insurgency theory.
Now, nearly a decade on, Nepal's Maoists stand at a crossroads.
In the words of historian Eric Hobsbawm, the test of a guerilla group comes when it sets
to
overthrow a political regime - not just in some remote corner of a country but over an
entire
national territory.
On Feb. 1 their overarching goal to overthrow the regime took a decisive turn when King
Gyanendra dismissed the government headed Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba,
declared that
successive party-run governments had failed to stave off the menace of a Maoist
insurgency,
and took absolute power.
''What he essentially did was remove the buffer between monarchy and the Maoists, a
space
occupied by the parties,'' says Arjun Bhandari, a journalist who has closely kept tab of
Nepal's
communist movement.
If recent claims made by government officials are anything to go by, the Maoists who
rule
much of the countryside are on the brink of a vertical split themselves.
The story has is that two supreme Maoist leaders, party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal,
aka Prachanda, and party ideologue Baburam Bhattarai have developed irreconcilable
differences.
Bhattarai, who holds a doctorate in engineering and remains the intellectual force behind
one
of the most potent Maoist movements in the world, is said to be unhappy with Prachanda's
alleged megalomania. Followers of the party boss Prachanda believe he has given an
entirely
new meaning to the Maoist revolution and hence his brand of Maoism, Prachanda Path,
puts
him alongside such giants of the international communist movement as Marx, Lenin, Stalin
and
Mao Zedong.
Unconfirmed reports say Bhattarai has been sacked from the CPN-Maoist's all-powerful
politburo and placed in the party's military custody in western Nepal.
Though the Royal Nepal Army hasn't given exact details about Bhattarai's whereabouts,
it says
it has gathered intelligence that proves that the Maoists have placed Bhattarai in military
custody and the party is facing a serious split.
In a high-profile press conference held last week in its headquarters in Kathmandu, the
army
claimed that it had gained strategic success against the Maoists in recent weeks,
essentially
meaning since the king took over on Feb. 1.
Citing its intelligence, the army said that the a large number of Bhattarai supporters
have started fleeing to India and they are disillusioned by party chairman Prachanda's
insistence to continue with the violent people's war''. More than 11,000 Nepalis have died
since the start of the insurgency in 1996.
According to an announcement made in its underground meeting in New Delhi on Mar.
20, says the Nepal Army, CPN-Maoist has relieved Bhattarai of all his executive duties
while his wife Hisila Yami, an influential member in the party herself, has been expelled
from the party altogether. Bhattarai's politburo membership has been transferred to Dev
Gurung, an intellectual lightweight.
''Though Bhattarai has been regarded highly outside the party,'' writes the 'Samaya'
weekly,
''inside the party he is once again seen as a weakling.''
Analysts take Bhattarai's alleged sacking to highlight major shifts in the guerilla
movement.
First, the new government headed by King Gyanendra is most anxious to put the Maoists
on
the defensive and tell the world that he can do what the political parties have failed to do
in the
last nine years.
Second, the CPN-Maoist has of late indulged in extreme atrocities against the civilians
and as
a result seems to have lost much of the moral high ground it enjoyed in the mid-90s. The
Maoists have indiscriminately torched transport vehicles that have defied their shutdowns,
forcibly recruited thousands of children in their ranks as soldiers, and levied parallel tax
from
teachers to businesses, say analysts.
Observers who have recently traveled to the Maoist heartland in the western districts
told IPS
that Maoist workers were aware of the ''differences in the party and actions have been
taken
against the dissidents at various levels''. By all accounts, it will however be some time
before
the exact nature of the alleged split will come to the fore.
For now Chariman Prachanda will do all he can to control the fallout at home.
''Nepal's Maoists know they have come far,'' says journalist Bhandari, just back from a
week-
long tour in western Nepal. ''Prachanda will do all he can at damage control, in the event
that
Bhattarai has actually been expelled from the party.'' (END/2005)
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