the ideological evolution of the nepali maoists
TRANSCRIPT
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Studies in Nepali History and Society15(2): 217251 December 2010 Mandala Book Point
THE IDEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OFTHE NEPALI MAOISTS
Aditya Adhikari
Introduction
This attempt to chart the ideological evolution of the Communist Party of
Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) over the past two decades1 begins with a close
look at how the party used Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory to analyze the
nature of Nepali state and society and to identify the political forces that
kept the country subjugated and at a low level of economic development.
It will be shown that the Maoists justified their protracted peoples war by
holding all existing political forces as not merely incapable of solving
Nepals problems but actively responsible for their exacerbation. It was
an inevitable corollary of this analysis that the Nepali people would
escape exploitation and dependency only if the Maoists captured state
power and established a Maoist New Democratic State. The first four
sections of this essay will deal with these matters.
With the realization that a total capture of state power was notpossible through military means, the Maoists declared their openness to a
negotiated settlement to the conflict in 2001. Changes in the Maoists
conception of desirable state institutions began to appear in 2003 when a
party convention adopted a document allowing for somewhat greater
political freedoms than traditionally allowed for in the communist
1 The current Maoist party is descended from the Fourth Convention, whichwas founded in 1974. The core Maoist leadership participated in theCommunist Party of Nepal (Masal), which was formed in 1983, but brokeaway to form a separate faction the CPN (Mashal) in 1985. After the 1990movement, they united with some other communist factions to become theCPN (Unity Centre). The Unity Centre split in 1994. One of its factionsrenamed itself the CPN (Maoist) and went on to start their armed movementagainst the state. In 2009, having entered peaceful politics, the CPN (Maoist)united with a party called the Unity Centre the leadership of which consistedlargely of those who had split from the original Unity Centre in 1994 andrenamed the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M). For thesake of simplicity, the party is referred to as the Maoists throughout this
paper, even when discussing periods when they had different names. For achart detailing the various splits and mergers in the Nepali communistmovement between 1949 and 2002, see Thapa with Sijapati (2007[2003]: 44).
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regimes of the twentieth century. Sections five and six explain these
ideological movements away from the Maoists original goal.
Eventually, the party had abandoned armed struggle, participated in a
popular movement in alliance with the older parliamentary parties against
the monarchy, and entered a peace process. It was then that it began to
pay detailed attention to the precise nature of state institutions that it felt
should be established in Nepal.
Various circumstances the necessity of working together with other
parties, pressure from important international actors and the influence of
the globally hegemonic conception of liberal democracy meant that the
Maoists could no longer aspire to the creation of an authentically New
Democratic State. Rather, they had to commit to basic democratic values,
including regular elections and fundamental freedoms. The acceptance of
liberal democracy, however, was partial.
Although they no longer aspire to the immediate imposition of a New
Democratic State, the new model of state that the Maoists have proposed
in the Constituent Assembly is still meant as a cure to the ills of Nepal as
diagnosed by the party two decades ago. It is thus in a number of respects
closer to models of state of the communist tradition. Importantly, this
model compromises on provisions for separation of powers and insists onthose that will allow the state great autonomy so as to allow it to
overcome political opposition and undertake swift and radical reform.
Tensions, therefore, continue to exist between the Maoist model of state
and that envisioned by the older parliamentary parties. These tensions are,
in turn, reflected in tensions within the Maoist party. The rejection of the
Maoist model of state by the other parties is taken by a section of the
Maoists as an indication that they will never be able to implement their
preferred model as long as they are in an alliance with the other parties.They call, therefore, for a decisive revolt to capture state power. The other
section, on the other hand, rejects such a revolt as unfeasible and insists
that a progressive constitution can be implemented even in a situation
where the Maoists have to work together with the other parties.
The seventh to tenth sections consist primarily of a demonstration of
how the Maoists model of the ideal state involved uneasy negotiation
with older parliamentary parties and the principles of liberal democracy.
It should be mentioned at the outset that a significant component of
the Maoists version of a model state consists of institutional provisions
meant to liberate castes and ethnic groups that have been historically
discriminated against by the state. Originating in a purely Leninist
conception of the liberation of nationalities, its theoretical basis has
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evolved in negotiations with other political groups, particularly those
representing specific ethnic groups. The Maoists proposal for ethnic-
based federalism that they have presented to the Constituent Assembly
represents a culmination of this process. This essay, however, is not
concerned with this aspect of Maoist theory and will refer to it only in
passing.2
The Semi-Feudal Semi-Colony
The Maoists have long regarded the institution of the monarchy and the
Indian state as the primarily responsible for the oppression of the Nepali
people. One stood at the helm of the feudal order, the other had forced
Nepal to become its semi-colony; both exploited and extracted surplus
from the Nepali population and hindered Nepals development from a
feudal to a capitalist society.3
The period of feudalism is considered to have begun during the
Licchavi period. Existing for centuries in a diffuse form, the Gorkha King
Prithvi Narayan Shah was responsible for centralizing the feudal order
through his annexation of territory that is now Nepal and the
establishment of his capital in Kathmandu. The centralization of feudal
power religious, political, economic and military is considered by theMaoists to be a historical necessity and an evolution in the relations of
production. The vast network of the ruling classes that developed over the
next two centuries, however, which had the purpose of extracting surplus
from the population, became increasingly exploitative. The oppression
faced by the Nepali population was on the one hand cultural: the people
were classified into a rigid caste hierarchy and the languages and cultures
of many groups were suppressed (Kiran 2065 v.s.: 5265). At its heart,
however, the exploitation was economic.The tendency by the state elite to distribute land to members of their
own class and other favorites led to the concentration of land ownership
in the hands of the feudal class. This process had ramifications centuries
later: Baburam Bhattarai claimed that in 1997 that, while 70 percent of
poor peasants owned around 25 percent of land, 5 percent of rich
2 For an analysis of Maoist policies towards marginalized ethnic groups, seeTamang (2006). For an overview of the federalism debate post-2006,including a summary of Maoist proposals on federalism, see ICG (2011). Thisis to mentioned at the outset that this article was completed in January 2011.
3 This section is largely drawn from Bhattarai (2003).
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peasants and semi-feudals owned 30 percent. The poor were thus forced
to work the land of the rich under highly exploitative conditions:
The rights of the tenants are not secure, the rate of rent is high and thetenants are often bonded to the landlord through high interest ratescharged on loans and other labour-service conditions, apart from the rentof land (Bhattarai 2003: 137).
In most of Nepal, however, particularly in the hills, the majority
farmed plots of land that were self-owned. Given the tiny sizes of
holdings and the low land productivity, these farmers too were subject to
semi-feudal exploitation as pernicious as those faced by tenants. Primarily
among these was moneylending:
Peasants are usually in need of loan for both production and consumptionpurposes; taking undue advantage of this situation, the feudal usurersprovide credit to the peasants at high interest rates and under oppressiveconditions, and by entrapping them in a vicious cycle of indebtedness theyenforce and reinforce semi-feudal exploitation through the payment ofinterest and through labour-service payments (Bhattarai 2003: 138).
According to the Maoist argument, then, the exploitation that the
peasantry faced has prevented it from investing in agriculture to a degree
that would lead to a capitalist breakthrough. Thus, while Nepal has beenin the stage of transition between feudalism and capitalism for at least a
century (and was hence semi-feudal), the rate of transformation has been
severely inhibited by the continued existence of productive relations from
another era.
The ruling elites did realize, particularly after 1950, that a
transformation in Nepals social and economic structure was required for
modernization and growth. And attempts were made to impose the
required changes from above. But such efforts at reform were toosuperficial to make the required impact. For, modernization requires
fundamental transformations in state and society that will inevitably erode
the elites sources of power. The monarchy and its coterie were not
prepared for this to happen. King Mahendras land reform effort of 1964,
for instance, failed due to resistance by powerful landowners who formed
a central component of the class base of his regime. The implication that
only a revolution from below that sweeps away historically entrenched
privilege is capable of the required transformation is hard to miss.
Following Lenin, the Maoists argued that the world still existed in a
period of semi-colonial oppression. As with radical leftists everywhere,
the center of the imperialist order was considered to be the United States
and the instruments of exploitation of the post-colonial era multilateral
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organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund.
The nature of imperialism, however, is a relatively neglected area of
the Maoists theory. Developed in much greater detail and length, and
commanding a much greater emotional response among the Nepali public,
has been the theory of Nepals semi-colonial exploitation by India. The
biggest direct manifestation of world imperialist oppression and
exploitation in Nepal, wrote Bhattarai,
is Indian expansionism. Expansionism is the process of exploitation andoppression of a smaller and weaker economy by a stronger economy thathas not itself developed to the level of imperialism but derives its strength
from the backing of external imperialist forces and its own state.(Bhattarai 2003: 123)
The Maoists trace the beginnings of Indian expansionism to the
signing of the Sugauli Treaty in 1816. Signed to conclude a short war
between the Nepal government and the British Raj, the treaty mainly
detailed the annexation of lands previously belonging to the Nepali state
to British India. In the subsequent years, patron-client relationship
developed between the British Raj and the Nepali ruling class. The Indian
government imposed various treaties upon Nepal, primarily with a viewtowards using the latter as a captive market for goods. The Nepal-India
trade agreement of 1923, for example, forced Nepal to accept a common
market between the two countries. The 1950 Treaty of Peace and
Friendship, among other provisions, allowed for national treatment of
Indians in Nepal, thus further enabling Indians to dominate the Nepali
economy.
As Indians steadily encroached into Nepali markets, the latters
indigenous industries which, before 1816 were producing goods such ascotton fabrics, copper and brass utensils and military armaments
became unable to compete and gradually declined. New industry was
stifled even before birth modern goods previously unknown to the
Nepali people flooded Nepals markets. Later, in the twentieth century,
the few industries based in Nepal and producing goods for exports
such as woolen carpets and garments tended to be overtly or covertly
controlled by Indian expansionists through their hegemonic control over
raw materials, labour, capital and trade (Bhattarai 2003: 127). Nepal
was thus eventually reduced to near-total economic dependency. Indian
domination was also substantial in other spheres: Indian officialdom
sought to expand political influence in Nepal to promote what it perceived
to be its countrys national interest.
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The Indian state and capitalist class have steadily managed to expand
influence over various sections of the dominant Nepali classes. The
commercial elites of Nepal have been almost entirely co-opted by India to
serve its economic interests. The national industrial bourgeoisie, a class
that according to the Maoist definition promotes the development of
domestic industry and the production of goods for domestic consumption
is almost non-existent. In their place exists a comprador bourgeoisie
with trade and finance as principal occupations. This domestic
commercial class, engaged in the creation of markets for and the supply
of Indian goods, has directly contributed to the erosion and stifling of
domestic industry.
Because of its comprador nature, the fledging Nepali bourgeoisie
cannot, like in Western Europe, contribute to the development of
domestic industry and lead the transition from feudalism to capitalism. In
order for the capitalist revolution to take place, it is necessary for the
communist party representing the proletariat to take over state power,
protect the nation from external economic exploitation and guide and
encourage the national industrial class in its efforts to achieve an
economic breakthrough.
Dictatorship of the Comprador Bourgeoisie
The immediate aftermath of the 1990 Peoples Movement, which replaced
the absolutist monarchical Panchayat regime with a democratic
parliamentary one, was one of great national exuberance. Elected
governments and the freedom to express ones opinions and organize
interest groups were presented as the panacea to all of Nepals ills. On the
fringes of the parliamentary system, however, stood the Maoists at that
time organized under the party the Ekata Kendra (Unity Centre) and itsparliamentary front the Samyukta Janamorcha (United Peoples Front)
(see Maharjan 1993). Members of this group had participated in the 1990
movement as they wished to utilize the opportunity to defy the repressive
Panchayat system and contribute to ending it.4 They also thought that the
4 The dissolution of the Panchayat system was the first of the 10-point list ofdemands put forward during the 1990Jana ndolan by the Samyukta RastriyaJana Andolan (United National Peoples Movement) or SRJA, the front of theradical Maoist parties. This was a demand shared by the Nepali Congress andthe United Left Front. The SRJAs second demand was for the formation of aninterim government, the drafting of an interim constitution and elections to aConstituent Assembly. Here the SRJA differed from the NC and the ULF. The
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parliamentary system that was being demanded by the most important
participants in the movement the Nepali Congress and a group of leftist
parties called the United Left Front (in which, however, the Maoists were
not included) was preferable to the old system as it would allow the
Maoists greater political space to organize and spread propaganda than
had existed previously (CPN-Mashal 2063 v.s.[2046 v.s.]: 4253).
At heart, however, the Nepali Maoists continued to regard
parliamentary democracy a sham. Like Marxists everywhere, they
believed that a system could not be regarded as a democracy simply by
the presence of institutional arrangements such as separation of powers
and regular elections. Rather, all political systems were dictatorships of
particular classes. The parliamentary system was considered the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie; its provisions for elections and various
freedoms merely a faade to camouflage this fact. A political system
could be declared democratic only if it was proletarian in nature; that is, if
it was entirely controlled by the communist party representing the
proletariat. Besides, the establishment of a parliamentary system would
do nothing to address the problems arising from Nepals semi-feudal and
semi-colonial situation.
The Nepali Congress original leadership came from families that,owning land and property, were well off but lacked political power. The
political system they desired was a parliamentary democracy existing
under a constitutional monarchy. The Nepali communist parties,
including the original Communist Party of Nepal formed in 1949,
therefore viewed the Congress as the party representing primarily the
bourgeoisie. While the Nepali Congress was firmly against royal
absolutism, however, according to positions on the left, there was no clear
distinction between bourgeois and feudal, and the Congress representedsections of the latter as well. In addition, a class existed the bureaucratic
capitalists in which the interests of the bourgeoisie and feudals
converged, which too was represented by the Congress. In the Maoist
view, therefore, a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie broadly meant a state
dominated by the Nepali Congress (CPN-Mashal 2063 v.s.[2046 v.s.]).
Political events that confirmed the Maoist contempt of the
parliamentary system began to occur soon after the 1990 movement.
Worried at their inability to control the intense agitations taking place on
the streets of Kathmandu, the Congress rushed to reach an agreement with
latter groups simply demanded restoration of multi-party democracy (seeSRJA 2046 v.s.).
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the monarchy. The Panchayat system was to be abolished, political parties
unbanned and a parliamentary democracy established. A commission
constituted of representatives from the parties and the palace was to draft
a new constitution. The Maoists, like other communist parties, had long
been demanding that a new constitution be drafted through an elected
Constituent Assembly (CA), which, it was assumed would abolish the
monarchy. The Congress agreement on a commission that would restrict
popular participation in the constitution drafting process and allow the
monarchy a significant political role, was perceived by the Maoists and
others on the left as a betrayal and thus widely criticized (Brown
2010[1996]: 151).
The Congress accommodation with the traditional state elite, in the
view of the radical left, only intensified after the compact between the
monarchy and the major political parties was codified in the new
constitution. In the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 1991, for
instance, recognizing the shift in the balance of power, many who
occupied powerful positions in the Panchayat system defected to the
Nepali Congress (Brown 2010[1996]: 156157). The party leadership
welcomed this trend: Panchayat officials were often local notables with a
great degree of power over the inhabitants of their areas; their influencecould be used towards the electoral benefit of the Nepali Congress. For
those on the radical left, it was precisely this class of people landed and
upper-caste that was responsible for the tyranny over the subaltern,
enforced through a combination of traditional legitimacy, economic
power and access to the instruments of the state. In other words, this was
the class that upheld the feudal order and against which social revolution
in the countryside needed to be directed.5 That the leading party of the
new democratic order had chosen to ally with this class ensured, in theMaoist view, that the traditional relations of production would continue
more or less intact.
A broad spectrum of the Nepali left found the actions of the Nepali
Congress government that assumed office after the 1991 election to be
5 For evidence that Panchayat notables at the village level (pradhn pacas)were not universally oppressive but in certain cases worked for the benefit ofthe population and enjoyed popular respect, see Russell (2000). Nonetheless,it cannot be denied that in many areas local notables were considerablyoppressive. For a typical leftist depiction of such a pradhn paca, seeAhutis novelNay Ghar (2064 v.s.[2050 v.s.]). The transfer of an oppressive
pradhn pacas loyalty to the Nepali Congress is depicted in KhagendraSangraulasJnkrko Sagt(2056 v.s.).
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even more objectionable. The Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala,
though professing a strong commitment to democratic values, possessed
an authoritarian streak, was contemptuous of communists (Brown
2010[1996]: 103) and peremptory towards rivals within and outside his
party. The initial years of his prime ministership were marred by
confrontations between the government and left parties, including both
the Maoists and the CPN-UML.6 And during his initial years in power,
Koirala oversaw the steady infiltration of state organs such as the
bureaucracy and the police with Nepali Congress loyalists and the use of
state security forces against political rivals.7 For Marxists, this could be
viewed as a step in the process in the imposition of a bourgeois
dictatorship.
Despite their criticisms of the parliamentary system, the Maoists did
consider the 1990 uprising a blow against the feudal elite. On the other
hand, however, they considered the parliamentary system to have only
further aided the cause of imperialism and Indian expansionism (Mishra
2004: 95). Nepals communists had long considered the Nepali Congress
to be an instrument of Indian foreign policy. This was so, it was thought,
first, because the bourgeoisie in Nepal, which the Congress represented,
was primarily comprador in nature. Then, Congress leaders had spentmany of their years in the political wilderness in India had cultivated
close relationships with many in the Indian ruling class. Further, the
preferred political system of the party was closely modeled on the Indian
parliamentary system. These affinities, it was believed, made the
Congress very susceptible to the influence of the Indians.
Political developments in the 1990s confirmed to many on the radical
left that the parliamentary system Nepal had adopted only enabled the
increase of Indian dominance over Nepal. Despite the arbitrarily despoticnature of the monarchial regime that existed between 1960 and 1990, the
political center possessed a degree of cohesion and was capable of
6 For details of the conflict between the Nepali Congress government and theleft in the early 1990s, see K.C. (2065 v.s.: 512).
7 This was a grievance held by many parties and one that continued to fester. In2001 the UMLs Madhav Kumar Nepal stated that it was very important to
bring an end to the Nepali Congress tendency to unilaterally capture andtake control of state power (Nepal 2064 v.s.[2058 v.s]: 320). A Maoistsupporter in Tansen in 2010 stated that the Congress had taken control of theadministration, the UML had taken control of the NGOs and the Maoists now
planned to take control of the cooperatives (interview with the author, July2010).
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formulating foreign policy goals, implementing them and thus protecting
the national interest. The state was capable of formulating foreign policy
goals and implementing them. While India did possess great influence
over Nepal during this as during other periods, under the leadership of
King Mahendra in particular, the country had succeeded in establishing
diplomatic relations with a range of countries and on occasion was even
successful in using the threat of an alliance with the Chinese as leverage
against the Indians (Muni 2009: 4143).
With the establishment of the multi-party polity after 1990, intense
rivalry between political parties, great factionalism within them, shifting
parliamentary coalitions and the creation and collapse of short-lived
governments became the norm. This enabled the Indian government,
through its embassy in Kathmandu, to expand its influence into political
parties, to play individual leaders and parties off each other. And it was
widely and publicly felt, particularly by those on the left, that the Indians
had been successful in manipulating Nepals political class into accepting
agreements that would benefit them at the expense of the latter. Most
controversial among these was the Mahakali Treaty that, in the Maoist
view, allowed Indian imperialist monopoly over Nepals water
resources (SJM 2063 v.s.[2052 v.s]: 4).8In 1994, having failed to gain a majority in parliament on a vote on
the governments policies and programs, Koirala went to the King to
request the dissolution of the House of Representatives and the holding of
fresh elections (Hoftun et al. 1999: 196). In a response to this event that
was part interpretation of the events of the past few years and part an
invitation to all political actors to join the Maoists in a planned armed
8 It is widely accepted in Nepal that India attempts to manipulate and coercepolitical parties. These efforts usually take place away from the public eye,however, with fragmentary incidents being reported in the press. For anattempt to document the underhanded efforts India employed to get the UMLto support the Mahakali treaty, see K.C. (2065 v.s.: 6875). For a soberanalysis of the treaty and its history, see Gyawali and Dixit (2000: 236304).Mishra (2007: 127) states that the single largest nationalist resistance in
Nepal during the last decade manifested itself against the Tanakpuragreement and the Mahakali treaty signed between the GOI [Government ofIndia] and the GON [Government of Nepal]. Sharad Poudels play Mechi-
Mahakali Express (1997) demonstrates the almost hysterical oppositiontowards the treaty by those on the Nepali left. The play opens to a scene wherea number of people are beating a drum and shouting: Looted! Our country islooted! Mahakali gone! Mechi also gone! Oh, are you all listening? Looted,the dacoits looted the country! Indian dacoits looted our soil!
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revolt, Prachanda accused the Koirala government (and the reactionary
classes at whose behest it functioned) of plundering the nation,
exploiting its inhabitants and causing a social and economic crisis of such
grave proportions that the state could hope to contain the resulting unrest
by the use of highly repressive measures. The decision to abruptly
dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections, Prachanda wrote, was a
conspiracy by Girija Prasad Koirala and the King to perpetuate their
fascist rule. Repression had caused such great polarization in Nepali
society that there was now space only for two political strands: for fascist
reactionaries and armed revolutionaries. Everyone in Nepals political
class had no option but to choose between the two sides (Prachanda 2063
v.s.[2051 v.s.]: 9098).
The New Democratic Revolution
As representatives of the sarvahr (a word that though in Marxistdiscussions sometimes specifically refers to the proletariat, is more often
used in a more diffuse sense to mean something like the dispossessed),
the Maoists claimed it was their responsibility to stage a revolution in
Nepal and capture state power so as to free the nation from the clutches of
bourgeois parliamentarism, feudalism, imperialism and expansionism. ANew Democratic State would then be established under the aegis of the
revolutionary party. As the goal of this state would be to complete the
capitalist revolution, a necessary step before making the transition to
socialism, the national industrial class would be encouraged and allowed
to flourish.9 The New Democratic State was therefore not entirely
socialist, but it was not bourgeois democratic either. It was clear that a
bourgeois state would not be able to achieve a capitalist breakthrough in a
nation like Nepal where almost the entire bourgeoisie was comprador innature and thus stifled the development of capitalism. The New
Democratic State would be controlled by the proletariat and would curtail
the activities of the comprador and bureaucratic capitalists. When the
productive base had been developed to an adequate level, steps would be
taken to move towards socialism and gradually communism (Prachanda
2063 v.s.[2044 v.s.]: 1115).10
9 The Maoists believed that the following classes would act as the motivatingforces of the armed struggle: the proletariat, the peasantry (poor, medium andrich), the petty bourgeoisie and national industrialists (CPNM 2051 v.s.: 78).
10 On the New Democratic Revolution Mao wrote: In an era in which the worldcapitalist front has collapsed in one corner of the globeand has fullyrevealed its decadence everywhere else, in an era in which the remaining
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Whereas the communists in Russia had captured state power through
an urban insurrection and had immediately moved onto the establishment
of a socialist society, this was not possible in highly underdeveloped,
semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries like Nepal. The exceedingly
small capitalist industrial base meant that the size of the urban proletariat
was tiny and their organization weak. The state, protected by
expansionists and imperialists, was vastly more powerful than any
revolutionary party. Any attempt by communists to mobilize the
proletariat with the objective of overthrowing the state was therefore
bound to fail. The strategy to be followed then, had to be borrowed from
Mao, who had created and demonstrated the efficacy of the strategy of
protracted peoples war. As in China, the Nepali revolutionary party
needed to establish control over rural areas, mobilize the peasantry,
engage the state in guerilla warfare, gradually built the revolutionary
army to a level capable of conventional warfare, encircle the cities and
capture them (CPNM 2063 v.s.[2051 v.s.]; CPN-UC 2004[1991];
Prachanda 2063 v.s.[2044 v.s.]: 1115;).
Revisionisms of Various Kinds
There were, of course, other communist factions in Nepal that claimedtheir goal to be the establishment of a New Democratic State. They
differed from the Maoists, however, in their views regarding the
immediate steps necessary to attain their goal. It was therefore necessary
for the Maoists, intent on protracted peoples war, to justify their position
capitalist portions cannot survive without relying more than ever on thecolonies and semi-coloniesin such an era, a revolution in any colony orsemi-colony that is directed against imperialismno longer comes within theold category of the bourgeois-democratic world revolution, but within the newcategory. Although during its first stage or first step, such a revolution in acolonial and semi-colonial country is still fundamentally bourgeois-democratic in its social character, and although its objective demand is stillfundamentally to clear the path for the development of capitalism, it is nolonger a revolution of the old type, led entirely by the bourgeoisie, with theaim of establishing a capitalist society and a state under bourgeoisdictatorship. It is rather a revolution of the new type, with the participation ofthe proletariat in the leadership, or led by the proletariat, and having as itsaim, in the first stage, the establishment of a new-democratic society and astate under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes (quoted inSchram 1989: 7778, emphasis in the original).
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as the correct one and those of the others as tainted by compromise, the
adoption of the wrong ideology and political strategy.
One faction that was vehemently criticized by the Maoists was of
course the one that, going through various permutations, became in 1991
the CPN-UML. It had originally been militantly Maoist: in 1972,
influenced by Indian Naxalites, its members had murdered a number of
local landlords in Jhapa as part of a campaign of class annihilation
(K.C. 2064 v.s.: 107). The Maoists, going on to start an armed movement
against the state of their own, have acknowledged this movement as an
inspiration (Gaurav 2064 v.s.[2053 v.s.]). The 1972 movement, however,
was very quickly suppressed by the state. This setback forced to group to
reevaluate their strategy. They moved to the cities and focused their
activity around organizing students and laborers (Brown 2010[2006]:
100). After 1980 it began to focus on uniting with other communist
factions and forming front organizations (Hachhethu 2002: 4950). After
Mao died in China and with the ascent of Deng, these communists
gradually abandoned hardline Maoism. The collapse of communism in
Russia and the Eastern European countries in the later 1980s convinced
them that orthodox communism had failed as a system (Maskey 2002:
274).In the early 1990s, the party revised its policy towards bourgeois
parliamentarism. Instead of viewing it as a system that the communist
party should participate in simply to expose it from within, it committed
itself wholeheartedly to the competitive multi-party system and all of the
values associated with liberal democracy. From the perspective of
orthodox Marxism, of course, this was a revisionist move, and the
Maoists adopted the polemics Lenin directed against the arch-
revisionist Carl Bernstein to describe the UML: like Bernstein, theMaoists maintained, the UML had abandoned basic Marxist tenets such as
the belief that the state, regardless of its institutional arrangements, is
always a dictatorship of the class that controls it (Bhattarai 2063 v.s.[2054
v.s.]; Prachanda 2063 v.s.[2049 v.s.]). Participation in the parliamentary
process meant, according to the Maoists, that the UML was gradually
becoming similar to the Nepali Congress.
The increase in the degree of revisionism can only lead to a
dissolution into naked reaction, wrote Prachanda (2063 v.s.[2050 v.s.]:
18). The UML is the prime example of this trend in Nepal. They say
that the goal is a New Democratic State, but their tactics always lead to
the full adoption of capitalism [and] into the embrace of feudals and
imperialists.
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230 Aditya Adhikari
The Maoists also spent much of their energy in polemics against
individuals and groups who were very close to them in ideology and with
whom the former had participated in various factions and fronts over the
years (including in the United National Peoples Movement of the 1990
uprising). The most vitriolic of polemics were directed against the
Communist Party of Nepal (Masal) and its leader Mohan Bikram Singh.
For much of the 1960s and 1970s, Singh was regarded as the most radical
of the Nepali Maoists. By the time the leaders of what was to become the
Maoist party became politically aware in their late teens and early
twenties, Singh was already an established figure, and it was his faction
that they were attracted to. Once having joined the party and learned
Marxist doctrine from Singh, however, many including top Maoist
leaders Prachanda and Kiran grew disillusioned with Masal and its
leadership and left to form their own group. This was partially due to
unhappiness with what was perceived to be Singhs tendency to treat the
party as his personal fiefdom, to peremptorily issue orders while entirely
ignoring the views of other people in the party (see, for example,
Bhattarai 2063 v.s.[2047 v.s.]).
The polemics exchanged between Singh and the Maoists, published in
the Nepali leftist press, span decades and involve abstruse points ofcommunist doctrine and history. By 1994, there were two ideological
strands on the radical left, the first represented by what was then a faction
of the Unity Centre (which was to become the Maoist party) and the
second by a conglomeration of groups that included Singhs Masal and
the other section of the Unity Centre which later united with Singhs
faction to form CPN (Unity Centre-Masal) (Nepali Times 20002001).
The sum of their disagreements was encapsulated in the rival doctrines of
Maoism and Mao-thought respectively. While it is easy for the initiatedreader to get lost in the esoteric polemics exchanged between proponents
of the rival doctrines, the basic outlines of the disagreements are not
difficult to delineate. By terming their doctrine Maoism, the Nepali
Maoists asserted that Maos theoretical work was equivalent in stature
and profundity to those of Marx and Lenin. Maoism, just as Marxism and
Leninism in the past, was the scientific interpretation of society and
provided the correct guide to action for communists in semi-feudal and
semi-colonial countries. This being the case, a Mao-style protracted
peoples war was absolutely necessary if Nepali society was to be
liberated and move towards socialism (for an explication of this
argument, see RIM 2009[1998]).
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232 Aditya Adhikari
great concentration of political and economic power and importantly of
state security forces in Kathmandu meant that the decisive military
strike on the city would likely fail even if all the countryside was
brought under Maoist control. What was required was therefore the
adoption of a Leninist-style insurrection into the strategy of protracted
peoples war (CPNM 2004[2001]: 63). This meant that the Maoists
needed to instigate a mass uprising in the capital similar to the one that
led to the overthrow of the Panchayat system in 1990. Towards this end,
greater efforts had to be put into tasks that had been considered secondary
during the early years of the armed struggle: propaganda campaigns in
urban areas, for example, or the use of fraternal organizations to organize
strikes and demonstrations (ICG 2005: 23).
Second, the Maoist leadership decided to put greater effort into
seeking a negotiated settlement to the armed conflict. The Maoists
decided at the Second National Conference that the
party needs to advance in a planned way the issues like organizing aconference of all political parties and peoples organizations of thecountry, conducting the election for an interim government by theconference and guaranteeing the formation of constitution by the people
under the leadership of this elected interim government (CPNM2004[2001]: 118).
The Maoists had been pushing for elements of this proposal, like the
demand for a new constitution through an elected body, as early as the
mass uprising of 1990 (see SRJA 2063 v.s.[2046 v.s.]), but this was the
first time since the beginning of the war that they openly announced that
they were open to negotiations.
Many politicians and analysts welcomed the Maoists new focus on a
negotiated, political resolution to the conflict (Nepal 2064 v.s.[2058 v.s.];Roka 2064 v.s.[2057 v.s.]). Some thought that it indicated that the armed
movement was failing and that the Maoists wanted a safe landing into
mainstream politics. The Maoists, however, had greater ambitions. They
envisaged negotiations as an instrument to create divisions between
enemy forces and to achieve a greater degree of political penetration
into Kathmandu (by, for instance, taking advantage of the open political
environment during ceasefire periods to organize various political events
in the city). At least a section of the Maoist leadership considered
negotiations as a tactical step towards the goal of fomenting an armed
insurrection. It was left unclear with which political forces the Maoists
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The Ideological Evolution of the Nepali Maoists 233
wished to negotiate. 11 Only time would tell how precisely the mainstream
political forces would become polarized and which of them would
become open to dealings with the Maoists.
Learning from Stalin
Although the two tactical modifications made at the Second National
Conference of 2001 were to have profound ramifications for the evolution
of the Maoist party, they did not represent any ideological departure from
its prior convictions regarding the ideal model for party, state and society.
There was one area, however, where this conference did mark the
beginning of an ideological modification in the direction of a somewhat
greater political freedom. As the doctrine of the Nepali Maoists regarded
Maoism the most profound development of revolutionary thought and the
Chinese Cultural Revolution (the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in
Maoist jargon) the greatest revolutionary exercise in history, it was in
aspects of these that the roots of the ideological departure were sought.
The starting point was Maos analysis of Stalins mistakes. According
to Maos well-known dictum, Stalin was 70 percent correct and 30
percent wrong. Among the mistakes that Stalin made and the Nepali
Maoists had to learn from regarded his handling of the party organization.Mao stated that Stalin did not apply proletarian democratic centralism
and, to some extent, violated it (CPNM 2004[2001]: 55). This meant that
Stalin, instead of following Leninist principles of party organization and
allowing for open debate on matters of policy until a resolution was
reached (at which point of course the entire party would have to strictly
adhere to the decision), considered the communist party a monolithic
body that should always remain subservient to his command. Dissent was
treated harshly. Stalins was a model of extreme bureaucratic centralism.The proper exercise of democratic centralism, according to Mao, should
11 As Madhav Nepal (2064 v.s.[2058 v.s.]: 319320) stated at the time:It is necessary for them [the Maoists] to clarify a number of issues. What isthe meaning of a conference of all political parties and peoplesorganizations? What will be the role of the King and the Nepali Congress inthat conference? What will be the situation of the 70 other parties in the
parliament and registered at the election commission? Which of them can beallowed to participate in the conference?.Will it be the King or the PrimeMinister who convenes the gathering? If differences arise at the conferencewhat mechanisms will there be to resolve them? How many people will beincluded in the [interim] government?. According to which clause and sub-clause of the current constitution will the interim government be grantedlegitimacy?
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The Ideological Evolution of the Nepali Maoists 235
whereas the systems created by true proletarian democrats gained a
reputation for being brutal and oppressive dictatorships? And how should
the socialist party of the twentieth century structure the state under its
control so as to avoid these pitfalls?
The answer that the Nepali Maoists found enshrined in the party
document The Development of Democracy (janavd) in the Twenty-First Century (CPNM 2004[2003]: 129149) was that the communist
parties of the twentieth century found themselves entirely unopposed once
they came into power and became unreceptive to the needs of the wider
population. In the absence of political competition that would have
motivated them to stay connected with the people, the parties turned
mechanistic and bureaucratic and granted themselves special
privileges. Similarly, the masses became a victim of formal democracy
and gradually their limitless energy, creativity and dynamism got sapped
(CPNM 2004[2003]: 148149)
A number of modifications, the Nepali Maoists argued, to the
structure of the party, the army and the state would enable the new
socialist party to remain committed and receptive to the needs of the
people. First, it should be ensured that while a section of the party was
involved in running the state machinery, another section should beinvolved in mass work so that close ties with the general population
were maintained. At regular intervals, the responsibilities between the two
should be switched, so that party members had continuous experience of
both governing and of working amongst the people. This, it was thought,
would keep party leaders and cadres sensitive to the needs of the
population and encourage them to continue living, as according to
communist principles, in an austere fashion.
Second, it was argued, the revolutionary army should not be confinedto barracks after the capture of state power but should continue its work
as a torch-bearer of revolution engaged in the militarization of the
masses and in the service of the masses (CPNM 2004[2003]: 146147).
Third, the revolutionary party would compete with other parties
politically, including in elections. The relations between the parties would
not be like those prevailing in China, where the smaller parties simply
mechanistically cooperate with the communist party. All parties would
be allowed significant freedom and autonomy. This measure would keep
the revolutionary party responsive to the population. However, as would
be mentioned in the constitution, only anti-feudal and anti-imperialist
forces would be allowed to compete in this state.
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The Ideological Evolution of the Nepali Maoists 237
indication that the two political models were fundamentally
irreconcilable.
New Constraints
King Gyanendras takeover of 2005 made it possible for the Maoists, who
had been seeking an entry into nonviolent politics, to form an alliance
with the traditional parliamentary parties against the monarchy (CPNM
2063 v.s.[2062 v.s.]: 292309). Although most of the Maoists continued
to regard the parliamentary parties the Nepali Congress in particular, but
also sections of the UML as representatives of the comprador
bourgeoisie that needed to be eliminated for the greater good of Nepal, it
was possible to justify an alliance with them ideologically. Mao, himself,
after all had on some occasions formed a united front against the Japanese
with his staunch enemy Chiang-Kai Shek. And the Nepali Maoists had
themselves consistently believed that the genuine communist policy is
one whichtactically, concentrates the struggle against the one [either
the monarchy or parliamentary parties] which has seized state-power and
has been directly exploiting and suppressing the people (CPNM
2004[2001]: 71).
In fact, the entire political process of late 2005 and 2006 could be seenas a concrete outcome of what the Maoists had envisaged in 2001. The
success of the April 2006 mass uprising against the monarchy was
perceived as the success of the Maoist decision to incorporate the
strategies of armed insurrection into the protracted peoples war
(CPNM 2004[2001]: 63). And the writing of the Interim Constitution, the
formation of an elected government and the holding of elections to a
Constituent Assembly could be perceived as the outcome of a Maoist plan
charted in the political report of the 2001 National Convention. TheMaoists felt further vindicated when the parties jointly agreed to declare
Nepal secular, agreed to their demand for a forward-looking
restructuring of the state to resolve the problems related to class, caste,
gender, region and so on (SPA and CPNM 2005) and, later in 2008,
when the elected Constituent Assembly (CA) voted to abolish the
institution of the monarchy.
In order for the parliamentary parties to take the Maoists on as
partners, of course, the latter had to commit to democratic norms and
values such as competitive multiparty system of governance, civil
liberties, fundamental rights, human rights the principle of the rule of law
etc. (SPA and CPNM 2005). This meant that, with a view towards the
creation of a stable peace, the Maoists would, most immediately, cease
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238 Aditya Adhikari
attacking members of other parties and would let them engage in political
activity in peace. In the longer term, the other parties expected that the
Maoists, separated from their instruments of coercion, would become
acculturated to the norms of liberal democracy.
For the Maoists, however, such an acculturation would mean that their
party had accepted the cardinal sin of class conciliation and thus had
degenerated into revisionism. Privately, therefore, the Maoists
continued to view the peace process negotiations, not as a process of
compromise at all cost, but rather as another front to fight against the
enemy (CPNM 2004[2003]: 137). In other words, this entry into
competitive peaceful politics was but a stage in a process that would lead
to the achievement of the Maoist partys ultimate goals.
The nature of these goals was, however, by no means unambiguous.
The more doctrinaire of Maoists, led by Mohan Baidya Kiran, believed
that the entire peace process had to be viewed merely tactically. There
was no question of committing wholeheartedly to the commitments made
in the peace agreements. In fact, as he argued, the longer the Maoists
stayed in the peace process, the more they would become corrupted by the
privileges of power and lose their revolutionary edge. A continuation of
the alliance with the older parliamentary parties was impossible; theirideology was irreconcilable with that of the Maoists. The other parties
would in no circumstances agree to the promulgation of a constitution
acceptable to the Maoists. Therefore, now that the monarchy had been
abolished, it was time for the party to focus their struggles against the
parliamentary parties, in particular on the organization of an armed urban
insurrection that would enable the party to capture entire state power
(Kiran 2065 v.s., 2067 v.s.).12
A violent seizure of state power, however, remained, under prevailingcircumstances, impossible. For, the institutions of state in Kathmandu
remained too powerful for the Maoists to take over by force, the party
lacked the mass support required for an urban insurrection and there was
no possibility that major foreign powers would accept an entirely Maoist-
dominated state. Besides, the Maoists had to a great extent become locked
into the political process outlined in the political agreements of 2005 and
12 Kiran has a substantial base among the Maoists and the party leadership hasfound it difficult to disregard his line. There have been occasions when, in anattempt to placate him and his followers, the party chairman has had toincorporate aspects of these demands into party policy documents (seeUCPNM 2008). This is one reason why the party leadership often seems tomake contradictory statements from one day to the next.
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The Ideological Evolution of the Nepali Maoists 239
2006. Whatever their theoretical objectives, on a day-to-day basis they
had to identify challenges and formulate tactics within the framework of
multi-party competition.
Participation in the peace process necessitated Maoist participation in
elections to a Constituent Assembly. And after they emerged as the party
with the most number of seats in that body, pragmatism dictated that they
should participate in deliberations within that body regarding the details
of the constitution that was to be drafted.
In their vision of the state system that Nepal should adopt that they
presented in the CA, the Maoists were of course first and primarily
influenced by their Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology. But 24 other
parties were present in the CA, and none of them would agree to a
traditional dictatorship of the proletariat. In particular, in consonance
with the peace agreements, the older parliamentary parties insisted that
the Maoists accept without reservations the inclusion of all political
freedoms that form the cornerstone of liberal democracy in the new
constitution. This was one factor that conditioned the content of the
proposals that the Maoists brought to the CA. Although the other political
parties continued to find many of their proposals objectionable, the
Maoists from the very beginning agreed to include the bare minimum ofpolitical rights and freedoms in the new constitution: regular elections, the
freedoms of expression and organization.
Participation in a constitution building exercise with parties that the
Maoists regarded as enemies required a strong ideological justification.
And it was Baburam Bhattarai who provided the arguments regarding the
historical necessity of Maoist participation in the CA and was chiefly
responsible for the production of the Maoist draft constitution, titled
Janatko Saghiya Gaatantra Neplko Sabidhn 2067 (UCPNM2067 v.s.).Bhattarai had for years believed that the Maoists, once having gained
control over the state, needed to allow for much greater political freedoms
than had existed in the communist regimes of the twentieth century. Now
that the Maoists were in fact participating in an open political
environment, Bhattarai argued that the peace process should not be
viewed merely as a tactical stage that the Maoists should break out of
once the appropriate conditions for eliminating the other political parties
arose. Rather, it should be recognized that the Peoples War and the 2006
Jana ndolan had led to major gains in the transformation of the Nepalipolity.
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240 Aditya Adhikari
So far, Bhattarai argued, through the declaration of secularism and the
abolition of the monarchy, there had been some movement toward
eliminating Hindu chauvinism and feudalism. It was now necessary to
draft a constitution that permanently protected and institutionalized these
gains. In addition, efforts needed to be made to restructure the state so
that Nepals various oppressed castes and communities were offered
conditions of emancipation such as affirmative action and political
autonomy in their historical homelands. Over a period of time, the
remnants of feudalism would gradually be eroded through land reform
and other measures, economic growth would take place and Nepal would
become liberated from the chains of dependency. But for the nation to
move in this direction, it was essential that the alliance between the
Maoists and the older parliamentary parties remain intact and the letter of
the peace agreements followed (Bhattarai 2067 v.s.).
Bhattarai, in an attempt to fit his vision to his partys ideological
mould, claimed that the state system he envisaged would be transitional
in the path to the attainment of a full New Democratic State, then of
socialism and eventually, of course, of communism. This was dubious to
the more ideologically inclined sections of the party, accustomed as they
were to thinking of any prolonged cooperation with the parliamentaryparties as revisionist. And Bhattarai did come under repeated attack
from others in the party during the years of the peace process on specifics
of his political line. In the absence of any real political alternative,
however, many of the more pragmatic among the Maoists adopted to a
large extent Bhattarais analysis of the Maoist partys historical role and
responsibilities.
New Institutions for Old ProblemsThe Maoist diagnosis of Nepals ills and the nature of the social and
economic transformation necessary to overcome them remained
consistent from the period before beginning their armed movement to the
time when they were engaged in debates on the new state system to adopt
in the CA. In their most comprehensive version of a draft constitution to
date, the section on the Directive Principles of State identifies the
liberation of Nepal from the clutches of semi-feudalism and semi-
colonialism as the chief tasks of the state. By undertaking wide-scale land
reform (a process in which the state should not, according to the Maoists,
have to recompense those from whom land is being confiscated a
proposal that the Nepali Congress and UML vehemently oppose
(CACDNRFRR 2066 v.s.: 4246)), the current feudal production system
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The Ideological Evolution of the Nepali Maoists 241
is to be brought to an end, and the right and control of farmers and other
labourers over natural resources ensured. Bureaucratic capital is to be
controlled and eliminated and national industrial capital encouraged so
as to lead to the establishment of a self-reliant, socialist-oriented national
economy (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 54).
The nature of the state that is to implement these goals, however, has
changed. Private capital is to largely be allowed to continue to flourish, as
are electoral and other kinds of competition between rival parties. It is
clear, however, that the accomplishment of the goals above will require a
significant intervention by the central state. It will be necessary to
overcome significant opposition from powerful sections of society to
redistribute land and stop the comprador class from, say, opening up
Nepali markets to foreign goods. Similarly, the state will require immense
bureaucratic capacity to properly implement the land reform effort and to,
say, provide support to fledging industry meant to supply domestic
markets.
Thus, while accepting basic liberal democratic principles, the system
that the Maoists propose also includes provisions that they believe will
enable the accomplishment of the partys socio-economic goals. In a
number of respects, these provisions differ substantially from thoseprovided for in the 1990 constitution.
First, the Maoists propose that Nepal adopt a presidential system,
where the president will occupy the positions of both head of state and of
government. The president is to be directly elected and select a council of
ministers from all parties according to the proportion of seats they hold in
the legislature (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 72, 73, 74, 82).
The argument here is that the parliamentary system that has existed in
Nepal for the past two decades is directly responsible for politicalinstability and for the fact that no government has been able to act as an
agent of change and to implement long-term policy. For most of Nepals
recent history, no single party has commanded a majority in parliament
and all governments, being elected through the legislature, have required
coalitions of a number of parties. Rapidly shifting political alignments
have meant that these coalitions last for very short periods of time.
Government turnover is thus extraordinarily high. As a result, those who
gain positions of power, understanding that their tenure in office is likely
to be short, have spent most of their efforts on remaining in power for as
long as possible and on enriching themselves.
Further, the provision for separate heads of state and of government in
a parliamentary system, by allowing for a division of supreme authority
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242 Aditya Adhikari
over the state, is also, according to the Maoists, problematic. For, in such
a situation, the head of state is provided with the opportunity to expand
his or her power over that of the elected government. This was seen very
clearly when the monarch, constitutionally the head of state, exploited
ambiguous provisions in the 1990 constitution to first dissolve parliament
in 2002 and later directly take over executive power in 2005.
In contrast, in a system where the president is liberated from the direct
control of the legislature (though still accountable to it) and is instead
directly elected from the population, it will not be easy to get rid of
governments as easily as when the head of government is under the
control of the legislature. The Maoists argue that this will bring an end to
the instability that has existed so far, enable governments to undertake
significant structural reform and, when needed, overcome political
opposition. And by investing the president with the authority of both the
head of state and of government, it will be possible to avoid problems
arising from a division of supreme state authority.
Second, the Maoists insist that the constitution mention that the
legislature will be unicameral. In their opinion, a House of
Representatives (HoR) should be allowed to draft and pass legislation
unhindered as, consisting of directly elected lawmakers, it represents thewill of the people. An upper house, which is expected in most
democracies to moderate the more extreme urges of the lower house, in
the Maoist view presumably can only act as an impediment in efforts to
implement swift and rapid change. And, in the Maoist opinion, it is
necessary to ensure that decisions are taken through consensus to avoid
the partisan conflict that has plagued Nepali democracy and made it
impossible for the government to take decisive action. Therefore, they
maintain that there should be no provision for an opposition in thelegislature. Rather, all parties should be represented in government in
proportion to the number of seats they occupy in that body (UCPNM
2067 v.s.: Art. 82,112, 113).
Third, the Maoists argue that so far in Nepals history, the judiciary
has failed to provide justice and has been wholly unaccountable to the
wider population. It is thus necessary to subject it to greater public control
and scrutiny. For this purpose, they have recommended the formation of a
Special Judicial Committee consisting of members of the legislature
that will recommend appointments to positions of the chief justice and
other judges of the Supreme Court (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 155). After
the legislature approves the recommendation, the president is to ratify it.
Further, the Special Judicial Committee is also to have the ultimate power
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The Ideological Evolution of the Nepali Maoists 243
in interpreting the constitution and federal laws on matters of national
importance, those directly concerning political issues, and in cases where
the law contradicts the constitution (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 172(2)(a)).
Fourth, in order to liberate the various marginalized caste, cultural,
lingual, regional and ethnic groups of Nepal, the Maoists maintain, Nepal
should be restructured along federal lines. As Lenin argued with reference
to the countries in early twentieth-century Eastern Europe, the Maoists
once believed that for a period of time all such oppressed groups (which
they refer to as nationalities) need to be granted full autonomy,
including the right to self-determination (Tamang 2006). The partys
current position on federalism is a direct outgrowth of the Leninist
position. As oppression historically took place along ethnic and cultural
lines, it is argued, federalism is necessary to grant oppressed groups the
rights they have not been allowed to exercise so far (UCPNM 2067 v.s.:
Art. 60, 61, 62). These groups should be allowed certain preferential
rights over others so that, for example, the top political leadership of the
province will be afforded to members of the dominant ethnic/caste group
in that area for the first 10 years after the constitution comes into
operation (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 70). And each province should be
granted the right to self-determination (according to the Maoists,however, in Nepal, this right will not include the right to secession)
(UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 69).
The Expansion of Power
The Maoists continue to believe in the validity of their original analysis
and diagnosis of the ills of the Nepali state and society and perceive
themselves to be the party of the revolutionary vanguard, the only one
capable of leading the socio-economic transformation necessary in Nepal.In their view, therefore, there would be no point if the system they have
devised comes into existence if their party will not lead it for a significant
amount of time. One of the partys objectives thus is to gain a majority in
elections held in the foreseeable future. In fact, when hardliners complain
that their party is stuck in the parliamentary trap and a violent revolt is
necessary in order to extricate itself, more pragmatic leaders such as
Maoist Chairman Prachanda have argued that the revolt meant to
capture all state power should be held after the Maoists have managed
to accumulate a great deal of power through winning a majority in the
general election that will take place after the constitution is drafted
(Prachanda 2067 v.s.).
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244 Aditya Adhikari
In fact, significant changes have been made in the Maoist party
organization since the end of the conflict in 2006 in line with its self-
conception and ideology. During the war, ideological fervor and
discipline were valued highly, as befitting a party mostly concentrated on
waging a guerilla war against the state. During the years of the peace
process, the objective became to recruit large numbers of people and thus
rapidly expand the party organization. There were drawbacks to this
effort: party leaders repeatedly expressed concern that many lumpen
elements, young men with low levels ideological and political training,
concerned only to gain some power and influence, were joining the
partys Young Communist League (YCL). The process of rapid
recruitment could not be stopped, however, for, no matter the quality of
cadres, a significant increase in their quantity could only help the Maoist
party consolidate power over all sections of society and help them, among
other things, to win elections.
In line with their desire to become the hegemonic communist party in
the country, the Maoists also encouraged small communist factions to
merge into the party. In January 2009 the faction calling itself the Unity
Centre consisting largely of individuals who had split away from the
Maoists in 1994 in opposition to their plan to start an armed movement decided to rejoin their former colleagues. During the process of
negotiation that preceded the merger, there were discussions regarding
what official ideology the party should adopt. In a reprise of the intense
ideological disputes of the early 1990s, the Unity Centre insisted that the
united partys ideology be Marxism, Leninism and Mao-thought. The
Maoists argued that the ideology remain Marxism, Leninism, Maoism.
Times had changed, however. Disagreements that had once provoked
such deep rancor and had seemed essential to the development of theNepali communist movement had become irrelevant. And so, the two
groups, now a single party with the name of the Unified Communist Party
of Nepal (Maoist), did something that would have been inconceivable two
decades ago: they decided that their official ideology would hence on be
Marxism, Leninism, Maoism andMao-thought.
A Peoples Democracy
As the political system the Nepali Maoists have envisioned in their draft
constitution has been designed in a manner that will, it is hoped, enable
the party to realize its original goals, it is but natural that it bears
structural similarities to the model of state that the party had held ideal
before acknowledging the need for political freedoms. According to Mao
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The Ideological Evolution of the Nepali Maoists 245
himself, grass-roots participatory democracy was desirable and necessary,
but only within the context of a strong and centralized state (Schram
1989: 93). The Nepali Maoists too believe this: while they have been
strong proponents of ethnic-based federalism, they envisage that the
federal provinces will be kept under the control of the center.13
There are thus provisions for central control over provinces in their
draft constitution. Most notably, each province is to have a provincial
chief appointed by the president in consultation with the provincial chief
minister. Most of the powers of the provincial chief are limited to
performing tasks at the recommendation of the provincial council of
ministers. In this, the range of their powers approximates those of state
governors in India, who are mandated at the provincial level with tasks
that at the center are the responsibility of the president (at least in political
systems where the president is head of state and the prime minister is
head of government, as in India or in Nepal during the currently-ongoing
transitional period following the abolition of the monarchy).
In India, governors of states have the discretionary power to
recommend to the president that the center should take over the direct
administration of the province in cases of severe misgovernance or other
crises. The Nepali Maoists, however, seem to take a broader view of theprovincial chiefs powers. A clause in their draft constitution mentions
that: Notwithstanding anything contained in Clause (2) [which states that
the provincial chief will exercise powers at the advice or consent of the
Provincial Council of Ministers], the advice or consent of the Provincial
Council of Ministers shall not be required while exercising powers on the
recommendation of any other body or authority as allowed for by the
constitution or laws (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 95(3)). The ambiguity here
regarding the bodies or authorities that can exercise control over theprovincial chief is perhaps indicative of the Maoist desire for greater
central control over the provinces than in India.
More importantly, there is also a tendency in the Maoist draft
constitution to collectivize and universalize political participation in the
manner of groups everywhere that have come to power after a violent
revolt and are intent on radical change. The president, being directly
elected, is taken to represent the will of the entire people. So is the
13 According to a Maoist supporter interviewed by the International Crisis Group(ICG 2011: 10), It must be clear that under any form of government, thecentre would command the nation as a whole. That is true in many otherexamples. The father rules the family, the principle the school.
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246 Aditya Adhikari
legislature: the absence of any opposition and the provision that all
decisions will be taken in consensus seems to assume the existence of a
singular peoples will. In the absence of an upper house that in liberal
democracies is tasked with the sober reconsideration of legislation passed
by the lower, there will be few checks on attempts by the dominant
faction in the legislature to implement the various aspects of their vision
of rapid socio-economic transformation, even as the rights of certain
minorities may be abrogated. Even the judiciary is to be brought under the
control of the legislature, that body representing the collective will of the
people.
There are, of course, other measures in the draft constitution that, by
allowing for various political freedoms, inhibit the dominant party from
establishing total control over state and society as in Russian and Chinese
communist regimes. However, it is clear that the provisions that seek to
allow unhindered implementation of the collective peoples will, do so
at the cost of the erosion of checks and balances that are accorded such
importance in liberal democratic regimes. The model of the Nepali
Maoists, if implemented, could well lead to majoritarian tyranny.
But majoritarian tyranny, of course, is a not a problem that the
Maoists really recognize. Their adoption of some political freedoms andelectoral competition does not mean that they have come around to the
liberal democratic belief that a political system is democratic if includes a
specific set of institutional arrangements (the separation of powers, for
example). Rather, as indicated by the continued insistence that a
distinction be made between parliamentary democracy and a peoples
democracy (the phrase used to describe their political system in the
Maoist draft constitution is Peoples Federal Republic), the Maoists
continue to hold on to the original Marxist notion that all state systems aredictatorships of particular classes. The only true democracy is one where
the proletariat is in control of the state, for, goes the official Marxist point
of view, only such a state can lead the transformations necessary for the
establishment of a classless society. The new system that the Maoists
envisage, in which the party of the majority will exercise hegemonic
control, can be regarded thus as a version of the dictatorship of the
proletariat (or a true proletarian democracy), for a time when liberal
democracy is in a position of global supremacy, and accommodation with
it is thus necessary.
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The Ideological Evolution of the Nepali Maoists 247
Conclusion
There is almost no possibility that the Maoist draft constitution will be
adopted as the law of the land anytime in the foreseeable future. The
Nepali Congress and the UML, prepared only to make a few
modifications to the existing parliamentary system, believe that the
Maoist model of state is fundamentally undemocratic and has been put
forward with the objective of easing the path towards the imposition of a
one-party state. Supported by the Indian establishment, they have thus
opposed almost all of the provisions described above regarding the nature
of the executive, judiciary and legislature, leading Baburam Bhattarai to
state that the razing[sic] struggle between bourgeois democracy and
proletarian democracy has been sharply manifested while drafting a new
constitution (Bhattarai 2011).
The parties have managed to resolve a number of differences.
Notably, the Maoists withdrew their insistence on their provision that
only anti-feudal and anti-imperialist forces would be allowed to
politically compete in the face of vehement opposition by other political
parties. By and large, however, the differences that have been resolved
consist mostly of the more peripheral issues. The core disputes over the
nature of state institutions remain unresolved. Indeed, it is difficult to seehow they will be unless the Maoists are prepared to accept, among other
things, more checks and balances and a weaker executive.
There is a high possibility that Nepals Constituent Assembly will not
be able to deliver a constitution by the scheduled deadline of May 28,
2011. There is some talk that the parties will produce a partial constitution
and then extend the term of the CA to allow more time to discuss
unresolved issues. Many maintain that agreement on the form and
structure of government, which includes many of the issues referred toabove, is imminent, that it is only over the nature of federalism that major
differences persist. This, however, is too complacent a view: a closer look
at the differences between the Maoists and non-Maoists regarding forms
of governance are as in fact major.
The debate will continue for some time. As it does, the precise nature
of the institutions the Maoists envisage as ideal may well continue to
evolve. And, at the heart of this evolution will continue to lie the
negotiation between models of state that place primary value on immense
authority and the capacity for radical reform on the one hand and the
rights of and protections for individuals on the other.
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248 Aditya Adhikari
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