Amidst Chinese president Hu Jintao’s visits to
India and Pakistan, themselves important, we risk
trivialising the far greater, indeed momentous,
change now under way in another South Asian
country: Nepal. This past Tuesday, a guerrilla
movement there did something unprecedented: it
signed a comprehensive peace agreement with the
government, and pledged to disarm itself and join
the democratic mainstream.
The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is now all
set to participate in an interim all-party
government, which will pave the way for the
election of a constituent assembly (CA). This is
likely to inaugurate Nepal’s transition to a new
political order based on radical democracy, which
replaces monarchical rule, strips the king of
privilege and property, and attempts to bring
about a social transformation.
This calls for celebration. It’s not often that a
self-avowed revolutionary movement comes to power
within a democratic framework. While smaller in
scale, the transition Nepal seems poised to make
is no less radical than South Africa’s shift from
apartheid to majority rule.
However, Nepal’s transition won’t be free of
hitches. It could pose problems at each stage:
parliament’s reconstitution to include 73 Maoist
representatives; formation of an interim
government in which the Maoists have five
ministers (of a total of 23), the same as the
Nepali congress and communist party of Nepal
(United Marxist-Leninist); procedure for the
disarmament of the People’s Liberation Army under
United Nations’ supervision; and the 425-member
CA’s election — including 205 members from
existing constituencies, 204 through proportional
representation, and the remaining by government
nomination.
Even trickier is the issue of a referendum,
demanded by the CPN (UML), on abolishing the
monarchy. This is widely seen as contriving at
the king’s backdoor entry into power. All other
parties want the issue settled by a new
constitution. Differences also persist on whether
Nepal should be a full-fledged republic or a
ceremonial monarchy.
Nevertheless, Nepal seems set for great political
change — more fundamental and potentially more
durable than in 1990, when the parliamentary
government was installed thanks to a mass
agitation. That shift was messy, and hemmed in by
a monarch who controlled the army and could
dismiss an elected government. Even this partial
democratisation was cynically reversed with
Gyanendra’s imposition of absolutist rule in
February 2005.
The historic changes under way in Nepal are
attributable to a popular anti-monarchy movement,
which brought the despotic king to his knees last
April. This was preceded by a 12-point agreement
between the seven-party alliance (SPA) and the
Maoists, which pledged to end the ’autocratic
monarchy’ and establish democracy through a
constituent assembly.
The mass movement was without precedent in South
Asia for its scale, sustained energy and powerful
thrust against arbitrary rule. Although catalysed
by the Maoists-SPA, it had an autonomous
political character. Ordinary Nepalis took charge
of it. The agitation didn’t degenerate into
chaos; the people showed exemplary maturity. They
emerged as arbiters of their fate. In the contest
between their will and the monarchy, they won.
The 12-point agreement wouldn’t have happened
without the Maoists’ insistence on a CA. The
Maoists too had to moderate their stand under the
8-point agreement with the SPA last June. They
pledged a "firm commitment to the acceptance of
the multi-party system, fundamental rights...,
human rights, the rule of law and democratic... values... "
It’s tempting to see this as opportunism. But
Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai had formulated
a new thesis even earlier: in the 21st century, a
left-wing strategy cannot be based on armed
struggle alone. Nor can it use revolutionary
violence, which Nepal’s two big neighbours, India
and China, oppose. Nepali socialism must have a
multi-party system.
More recently, CPN(M) chairman Prachanda too said
that "the inherent monopolistic and bureaucratic
tendencies of communist parties in power can be
checked" only through a multi-party system. He
explicitly repudiated Stalinism.
Today, Prachanda seems to be modelling himself
after Nelson Mandela. In Delhi last week, he
didn’t hesitate to meet World Bank officials —
who called on him in recognition of the
inevitability of a Maoist role in future
governments —, but without losing his radical
bearings.
He promised to ’improve on’ the Indian model of
democracy by giving it substantive content
through programmes to abolish poverty and ’all
forms of exploitation’. The Maoists’ domestic
record in fighting rural oppression, casteism and
gender discrimination is encouraging.
One can only hope that Prachanda’s grand vision
is translated into action in abjuring violence,
getting the Maoist militia (organised outside the
PLA) to surrender arms, and in verifiably
stopping tax collection and recruitment of
schoolchildren into the PLA.
This view differs sharply from the cynical
attitude of many hawkish ’strategic analysts’ who
believe the CPN(M) is intent on grabbing power by
violent means to establish a dictatorship; it
must be disarmed first. Such analysts don’t
understand the forces that shape history. The
Maoists must be held down to their commitment to
disarm under international supervision. But they
aren’t bound by any agreement to do so before
joining the interim government.
Maoism arose in Nepal because of entrenched
inequalities, coupled with the palace’s despotism
and blatant misgovernance for two centuries.
Seventy per cent of Nepalis are desperately poor.
The top five per cent own 37 per cent of the
land, while close to half own just 15 per cent.
The Kathmandu Valley’s elite dominates Nepal’s
society. But in recent years, power has devolved
to the periphery and the janajatis (subaltern
ethnic groups) and the landless have become
assertive.
The Maoists represent them. They advocate land
reform and rural empowerment. It’s impossible to
justify their indiscriminate violence. But they
indisputably speak for Nepal’s dispossessed. If
they join the democratic mainstream, they can
make a sterling contribution to Nepal.
The present moment offers a historic chance to
integrate the Maoists into the mainstream. It’d
be disastrous to squander it under the influence
of ideological prejudice or by citing ’threats’
from them to regional, especially Indian,
’security’.
The CPN(M) is far too shrewd not to realise that
destabilising the regional security balance or
threatening India means taking terrible risks.
Prachanda has distanced the Maoists from India’s
Naxalites. He recently pooh-poohed the
’Pashupati-to-Tirupati Red Corridor’ idea. The
claim of an operational Naxal-Maoist link been
repeatedly disproved.
The past Nepal policies of China, India and
Pakistan were all based on uncritical support for
the monarchy on the premise that it’s the best
guarantee of ’stability’ — which it patently
isn’t.
India facilitated the 12-point agreement, but
soon started vacillating. At the peak of the
pro-democracy movement, India, following the
’stability’ premise, sent former maharaja Karan
Singh to Kathmandu to indicate its support for
Gyanendra. This was one of India’s greatest
foreign policy blunders ever. India revised its
stand, but lost popular Nepali goodwill at a
critical juncture.
All of Nepal’s neighbours must resist the
temptation to suggest any role for the monarch in
a future political arrangement. They must respect
the wishes of the Nepali people and distance
themselves from the United States, which has been
trying to buttress the palace and tilt the
political balance against the Maoists through its
arrogant viceregal ambassador James Moriarty.
Nepal’s stability will come not from monarchical
symbols, but from participatory democracy, which
is responsive to the people.