Baluwatar area, the official residence of Prime Minister of Nepal, was virtually captured by Maoists. In the bizarre twists of events, it seems that Maoists not the SPA is in the helm of Kathmandu.
By Deepak Adhikari
Talks can’t break! No Monarchy! reads the placard on the girl’s chest.
Seeing is believing, they say. This turned out to be reminder for me when I visited the crowded summit talk venue of Baluwatar. As photojournalist Shailendra and I drove towards PM residence, an aggressive Maoist cadre blocked our way. We told him that we were journalists. Another one came and said that journalists should understand that the milieu is crowded and should not venture past. We nevertheless moved ahead.
Milling and cooing through the hordes of people in October afternoon, the hoarse sounds of sloganeering that demanded republic Nepal, declaration of date for constituent assembly election etc pierced through my ears. I was amazed at this unsolicited pressure coming from Maoists themselves, the party involved in dialogue to reach a peaceful resolution.
Maoist cadres make a human chain for the security of the talk venue.
It was as clear as mid day’s sun that most of the people gathered there were the comrades themselves, albeit in the guise of different organizations. That the whole nation is keenly awaiting an agreement to hold the election of CA is crystal clear. But, the comrades are hell bent on taking laws in their hands, directing people while the state’s security mechanism was just a reluctant observer–why do you bother when someone else does your job?
Not only women in unprecedented numbers, but also the school children were there to warn readers. They even didn’t know why they were there. So, Maoists are adept at using the innocents, be it in war or in compaign like this. Few militia-looking girls were reading slogans from pamphlets. Similarly, Rastriya Madhesi Mukti Morcha was there with the chirpy slogans of inclusiveness and equal rights.
Bishnu Giri shouts for help outside the talk venue after he was denied an entry.
But, the poignant part was the Maoists’ victims. They staged protests just outside the gate of PM residence. A wheelchair bound man who claimed that he was injured in a foreign country was also there to claim his share of cake. From this event, it is clerar that all and sundry were there.
At around, 3:30 pm, the Maoist coterie comprising the talk team and the chairman Prachanda made it to the venue. Like earlier, journalists were not permitted inside; they were seen hovering outside the talk venue. Now this is height of lack of transparency at a time when we talk of loktantra, civil rights and guarantee of press freedom.
Civilians pass through the talk venue after Moist cadres make a human chain for the security of the talk venue.
Nepal’s politics is very unpredictable. It’s hard to speculate on the outcomes of today’s talk. Going by the things, it is unlikely that the long awaited breakthrough will ring true.
All Photo by Sailendra Kharel. Visit his blog at pjsailendra.da.ru
United We Blog 
Comments
164 responses to “Summit Talks in Snail’s Pace in Nepal”
Prof. you think just because the name Royal was dropped from the Army that they have magically been transformed into a professional and skilled fighting force? Don’t be so naive.
“The SPA should sacrifice the king in exchange for arms management of the PLA”
thats it.. that proves kirat is a dumbo
what makes u think the maoists are gona put down their dear weapon ??
keep on dreaming u half wit moron
Harkee dai,
I’m getting allergic to you. I don’t want to see another post by you here, ever. You’re stupid beyond words. Leave. Get the hell outta here.
harkee,
talai maharaj le bolai bakseko cha darbarma, maharaj ko geda chilayo re, kanai dinu paryo re, blog ma maharaj ko prachar prachar pachi garnu re, ahile jattai darbarma aijare!
harkee, you have no valid arguments other than spew your acerbic vitriol.
all of your likes have only one argument, since jungali maobadi is going to pop some caps up your a**, king should be there on the throne.
you come here with pseudo names like harkee, pyare, pundit, aire, gaire vaire etc. just drop your last name, and that would be all apparent why you guys are more scared then anyone else in the country.
harkee, darbar jada ‘darsan dhunga’ leeyi janu, maharaj ko geda ghasna!!
continue my rant…..
vada mazne falame jhus vaya pani huncha re!
pundit ra pyare!!!
timi haru chai, tori ko tel liyee janu darbarma, maharaj ko gullo ghasna!!!
maobadi jati daka, hatyara hun, timra rajpariwar pani tetinai daka ra hatyara hun.
ke raja ka bhai haru le abaid dhanda garaka birsau? murti chore ka birsau? soon gaza afim vitrayako birsau? nasa ko sur ma manche mathi jeep chadayako birsau? sansar ma kun chai raj tantra le afnai pariwar lai goli hani mareko cha tyo pani, afim ko nasama?
testo raj tantrako baduwa garna laz pani lagdaina? ani janta ko valo ko lagi rajtantra chahiyo vanne.
geda pani chaniyena!!!!
ho ma mandachu bahas garne yo savya tarika hoina, tara mera goru ko barai takka vane sanga ke lagcha.
angrejee ma phat phat gardai, rato nilo hunna, vaisee seto hunna.
pet vari tato bhat gaama khayera, nayano lugo lagera, angreji ma sabaila gali garnu sarai sajilo cha mitra ho!
maobadi jati daka, hatyara hun, timra rajpariwar pani tetinai daka ra hatyara hun.
ke raja ka bhai haru le abaid dhanda garaka birsau? murti chore ka birsau? soon gaza afim vitrayako birsau? nasa ko sur ma manche mathi jeep chadayako birsau? sansar ma kun chai raj tantra le afnai pariwar lai goli hani mareko cha tyo pani, afim ko nasama?
testo raj tantrako baduwa garna laz pani lagdaina? ani janta ko valo ko lagi rajtantra chahiyo vanne.
Shree Shrestha,
Maoists have not killed any Royal Family Members (or even Royal Staff) of Nepal, which I suspect might be part of some agreement.
They have however killed and shot many cadres of Nepali Congress, and especially Nepali Congress (Democratic).
Sher Bahadur Deuba was attacked while he was in Western Region. Radheshyam Jonchhye, District President of Nepali Contress (Democratic) Bhaktapur was shot and Critically wounded by Maoists. Devendra Raj Kandel, (ex Home State Minister in Deuba’s Cabinet) was shot as well.
In Kathmandu, local leader Prem Lama of Nepali Congress (Democratic) was killed by Maoists. In Kirtipur, Sanjay Maharjan of Nepali Congress was killed by Maoists.
Well the list goes on……….Maoists have made every attempt to kill democratic cadres.
It is however very suspicious why they have never even touched a single hair or Royal Family Members or even any of their staff.
I am therefore very doubtful that these blood thirsty violent promoting terrorists will allow peace to be restored easily in Nepal, unless they get a lot of money from Governments Funds, the money that is supposed to be for peoples progress and money of Nepalese people. They basically all want money thats all.
Free Money !!!
Thats why its called Communist Party of Nepal (M)
“M stands for Money not Maoism.”
Look Harkee: please don’t mistake me for a Royalist and please don’t put me in the same boat as Pyre – who has some extream views which I don’t endorse.
My position has simply been that the King is now out of the picture and we should move on to deal with more important issues like how to tame the Maoists, how to reintegrate all these Moaists into mainstream society etc. Hence, I expressed my frustration when I keep seeing these articles and comments where the King is attacked but people don’t seem to care about the fact that the average rural Nepali is worse off. It doesn’t mean I am a Royalist it just means I am trying to direct peopl’s attention to where it should be.
My comment on Blogdai is a reasonable comment I think. I know Blogdau sympathizes with the King, but he is not advocating an absolute monarchy. His position is that a country like Nepal may need a neutral institution… Besides I think his articles and prespective are far better then Mr. Wagle’s!
Kirat,
I didnt knew that you didnt had basic knowledge of Nepal’s politics.
There were many Maoist leaders arrested, I’ll just name few topmost leaders arrested:
Matrika Yadav ( released this year after SPA came to power)
Suresh Ale Magar (released once on 23 December 1999 on the orders of Supreme Court and then later this year after SPA came to power)
Pawan Shrestha ( released on order of Supreme Court)
On May 25, 2006, 467 Maoists were released by SPA government.
SPA government has kept up thier promise and freed Maoists, but only time will tell whether those who are freed ……will continue their destructive path or not.
pundit,
i am not interested in what you said in what blog, but you do sure appear to be here as a pro- monarchy, no problem at all with that too, as long as you have a good argument that monarchy is going to do any good.
you seem to be dishing people for dragging monarchy in the debate, and constantly try to make a point that monarchy is no more in the political picture, and we should move on, fine.
but what makes you think that royalists have conceded their defeat so easily, and they won’t be trouble maker. why do you think they would give away their status quo which they enjoyed for last 250 years, would just let it go, since few thousand ‘janata’ demanded so in April.
you are as naive as i am to think that royals would go silenlty and me to think that prachade would suddenly give away his guns.
if you think royals are a part of the problem, so they are part of solution too, if getting rid of them altogether is a part of solution, what’s a big deal, let’s deal with one problem at a time, and royal problem seems to at it’s final stage and solvable right now,
my question is why not? even if they go constitutional or abolished they would still enjoy better life than any other nepali, so what is all this crying about, unless you have something to lose along them.
monarchy is huge part all this problem, and sure is the part of solution too, you can dig your head into the ground and think otherwise, be my guest.
they haven’t gone anywhere, just the spot light has shifted for now,
but don’t come around advocating for sympathy for royals, they don’t deserve it.
live with kings all these times haven’t been easy, and it’s not going to be any easier without him, so don’t worry we will not miss him, beside his shills and stooges!!!
Trading king for maoist arms mgt is next to impossible – 1. because SPA doesnt have the “geda”, 2. even if they had, they wudn’t do it (else who’ll save theirs later)
In a situation like this, I have always believed, that SPA must show balls to humble Maoists with help of all the international support they have. They must turn the tables and start negotiating from a strong side. This is possible, just needs a lot of trust and unity within SPA (my argument may sound naive since this has always proved to be an impossibility too, but atleast its the best chance we have and which can be done).
The civil society should also stop being silent on Maoist atrocious activities just coz they been vouching for a role for them in the interim const. This is a strategy to bring CS on their side, which seems to have worked.
Overall its the SPAs weakness to deal with Maoists. They have screwed everything right from the beginning. As for monarchy, let it go to referendum – there seems to be no other way.
beside comparing wagle with blogdai, i don’t much about blog dai, but i have read few of his blogs entries, but, no matter how silly wagle appears to be at a time, we know how he is? if not personally,
he is Dinesh wagle, works in kantipur publication, went to some average school in ktm, from a middle class family.
but, what do you know about this shadow character–blogdai, who is he? what do you know about him? advocating so much about palace, why so scared to divulge his identity?
well he writes better english than wagle, western educated, more sohisticated that’s all.
my friend they come from diffent school altoghere and different class (i am taking about social and economical).
“do not jugdge people, they might not have had same advantage as you did in life.”
The Great Gatsby
harkee:
i am not advocating sympathy for the royals. if you go through my posts i don’t think you will be able to find evidence for that either.
what makes me think the royals have been defeated? well let’s see… the king is no longer the head of the army, he has to pay tax, he is no longer the head of the state, his personal property has been disclosed etc. what can the royalist even do? maybe i am being naive but i really think they have conceeded! the king’s biggest and most power backer was the army. now with the new army chief behind the government there is very little the king can do. in fact if the king has some grey matter he will try embrace these changes to clam the republian sentiments.
so i maybe i am being naive but that’s the way i see it.
i still this we should really focus the attention on solving the maoist issue. Given the current trend of the moaists increasing their influence and activities it only strengtens the right wing’s support base. don’t you agree? i am very disspointed and suspicious of the maoists. mahara, baburam and prachanda are smiling for cameras and saying they are committed to peace, while their cadres continue exthoriting money and kidpanning people.
Solving the monarchy in an any other way is utopian, why would they want to be traded for anything. Harkee – monarchy is indeed part of the big problem and part of the solution too but it is upto the SPA to mobilze it in the right direction, lets not forget that.
karkee
i don’t care for blogdai or wagle’s personal life. i just come to the blog to read and discuss their articles… i don’t think blogdai’s article are that bad… he leans to the right but again we have wagle who leans very much to the left.
by the way i have never critisized wagle on his writing. i think his writing is just fine – what i have an issue is with the content!
Some heated discussion there … I believe the King is still a huge threat, thts why the peace process swears by it. I also strongly believe the focus has to shift towards Maoists with the intent to humble them.
And in the background, the SPA must work together and gain the respect of the people. The onus is with SPA, lets not deviate from that. If they can command trust and respect of the people, King and Maoists will have reasons to fear. Because right now the way they see SPA is a bunch of suckers who just got lucky when events thrust them to parliament. And this has been reflecting in their insecure behaviour ever since.
We focus too much on Maoists and the King and how to neutralise these threats, but we do not put the right focus and pressure on SPA who is supposed to represent us and do the job out there.
Patriot: I could not have said that better myself!
And right now I think the SPA has alot more leverage with the Maoists then they realize.
sucks,
this website very well represents what nepal is. the leaders, cadres and oppositions are well represented here. anyone with a little careful thought could visualize nepal right here.
cant see any hope for pitiful nepal …………..
pundit,
i don’t usually discourse at this level, but, i can’t help it today, you suggested, go read blogdai, so i did.
i did get your point, fine you are not a royalist, but a pragmatic pro monarchy with cause.
but what’s with this comment:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
At 7:44 AM, October 15, 2006 , Bhudai Pundit said…
Blogdai:
As you know I am not a Royalists. But the retards at blog.com.np are getting out of control. You should consider visting and saying a few words.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ah! that reminds me of my school days brawl, whenever we would get bashed up, we would run to Milan Chakre for help. and you know he was the ‘dada’ of kathmandu, and would come to our rescue, i am not joking (i am from chakrapath, maharajgunj).
common pundit, what happened to your pandityai, you had to holler up for your saviour the blogdai.
you don’t have your confidence in your intelligence, dialectic qualities, that you always give a fine example of, at this blog.
that all the differing opinions to yours at this blog are ‘retards’.
you do fine, my friend, you do fine, you don’t need blogdai your charkre milan to beat the retards (us) for you. he just seems sophisticated that’s all, under that thin veil of sohistication he is just another insecure royalist.
step up, stop being the minion, to blog dai, and mystic hacker at samudaya.org
be original, have your own thought, that’s what matters, if my fine qualities of polemics make you believe that red is green, you are no more than follower, you always need people like blog dai to lead you.
sorry for all this, nothing personal.
harkee:
let me explain that post.
if people debated and discussed like you I would have no problems.
However, I posted that comment on blogdai when I was out numbered here by people who were soo busy accusing me of being a royalist and posting nonsenseical comments one after the other. You see most people here get all emotional and the moment you don’t chant republic slogans they immediately pounce on you for being a royalist! I just visited blogdai because I thought blogdai would offer another prespective to bloster my point. It certainly wasn’t a run for help. I don’t think I am blogdai’s minon because I frequently disagree with him. I don’t agree with him in everything, but I do like to read his comments and articles and respect him for his analysis -which is very cynical but it’s still worth reading.
Mystichacker, is another person I have tremendous respect for. I know he has left leaning sentiments but he comes up with some smart arguments.
To conclude: I certainly wasn’t refering to you and other senisble people here who actually put forth arguments as retards. It was a spur of the moment posting and I take it back.
I hope we can put that behind us and continue with bedating the issues.
debating i mean…
pundit
no hard feelings, i find your thoughts always sensible and interesting too. let’s keep our gaurds down and discourse in civilized manner,
i apologize for the harsh words.
What a sight it must have been! As many as 80,000 soldiers backed the communists under Mao when the Long March began. A rag-tag band…walking along…feared and reviled almost everywhere they went. And in the midst of it all went the litters carrying the people’s top honchos and the wives of the people’s top honchos. By the time the wandering was over – Mao didn’t especially want to arrive anywhere – he had managed to reduce his own ranks to only 10,000. The rest died along the way…were killed in pointless battles…or ran off, as soon as they got the opportunity.
In reading about the life of Mao, the dominant emotion the reader experiences is neither contempt nor outrage, but rather puzzlement. He wonders how the big Chinaman got away with so much. How was it possible that a nation of so many millions couldn’t manage to figure out that their leader was an incompetent, self-interested fraud? Or find one person who would put an end to him?
Didn’t Mao’s early career as a bloody crime boss signal what was coming next?
When he brought out his first torturers…and his policies of mass starvation and working the peasants to death…
…or his proto-purges…his early assassinations…
…or when he got his hands on a little bit of ground where he could set up his model society, and it turned out to be a miserable prison for everybody but its bosses…
…wasn’t it clear where he would take the nation? An earnest communist from Sweden later visited one part of the country – Yenan – and wondered why it was so poor. After all, it was the cradle of the people’s paradise.
It was such an important part of Marxist traditions. “What went wrong?” he wanted to know.
“Ah traditions…traditions…” Mao laughed heartily. He couldn’t believe the Swede was so naïve.
Mao cared nothing for traditions…neither real Chinese traditions nor instant Communist ones. What he cared for was power, and he exercised it ruthlessly, pitilessly, recklessly and absurdly.
What’s troubling about Mao’s life was not Mao himself, but the rest of us (he was merely a talented cutthroat, and a lucky slob). What’s wrong with us? Normal, decent human beings repeatedly buckled under Mao…they let him get away…or couldn’t get organized to oppose him. When they were ordered to persecute each other, they took up the task readily…even knowing that their own necks could be next. When they were told to take up a new agricultural policy, for example – which every peasant knew in his bones was lunatic – they nevertheless put their backs to it. When they were summoned to carry Mao on their shoulders…or procure women for him…or embark on some suicidal military campaign…or build him another luxury villa…did any one of them raise a serious objection? Some did; but the rest went along, usually taking the objector out to execute him.
Mao worried about being murdered all his life. He took exaggerated precautions to make sure no stranger could get close enough to put a bullet in his brain. Cronies, henchmen and servants were kept under surveillance and in a state of terror. Those who appeared likely to cross Mao were eliminated. Mao encouraged periodic purges…denunciations and confessions. Even his most trusted and loyal bagmen – such as Chou En Lai
– were required to humiliate themselves from time to time for the chairmen.
Still, only one person was known to have tried to assassinate Mao – Marshal Lin Biao’s son, ‘Tiger,’ in 1971. The plot quickly thickened…then dissolved altogether. Tiger and his wife died in an airplane crash in Mongolia as they were making their getaway.
There must have been a hundred million people in China who would liked to have seen Mao dead, and hundreds of millions more if they had known what was going on. But Mao controlled the press, and had created such an aura of fear that people dared not talk, even to friends or relatives.
In the late ’30s and early ’40s, while Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces fought the Japanese, Mao focused on killing and purging his own troops, and supporting his strange kingdom by selling drugs. Even this, Mao could not do well. Opium production soon expanded beyond what the market would take up. By the time the first American officials arrived on the scene, Mao had filled his coffers with cash and was ready to suppress the trade. (The Russians estimated his opium sales at $640 million in today’s money).
Mao also experimented with central banking during this period. He printed his own currency, the bianbi. This too went in the predictable way.
Neither communists nor capitalists seemed able to resist the lure of easy money for very long. By 1944, the reds had printed so many bianbi that the price of matches was 25,000 times greater than its price in 1937.
During this whole time, Chiang had threatened to wipe out the communists several times…but he relented; Chiang’s only son was being held captive in Moscow. Stalin told him that if he ever wanted to see his son again, he would have to ease up on Mao’s troops.
Then, after the Japanese were defeated, Mao found another protector – the United States. Once again, Chiang was going after Mao, and by this time the Nationalist forces were seasoned fighters – they’d been engaged in serious fighting with the Japanese for years, while the Reds had been doing nothing but preventing each other from escaping. When the two forces clashed, the outcome was inevitable – Mao’s men were run off. Chiang was about to go after them and crush them completely when George Marshal intervened, pressuring Chiang to lay off.
Which just goes to show why U.S. public officials have no business meddling in foreign affairs. When the first Americans arrived at Mao’s headquarters, the communists put on a show designed to win them over. With an apparently straight face, Chou told Marshal that Mao preferred America to Russia…and Mao let it be known that he was even considering dropping the word ‘communist’ from their party name! Marshal must have fallen for it. Because Chiang was pulled off the chase…and the commies got away to Manchuria.
The mistake proved fatal to the Nationalists. Out in the northwest, the Reds linked up with the turncoat Chinese “Manchukuos” who had supported the Japanese during the war…and were also closer to their supply lines from Russia. With these supports, not to mention a clandestine campaign against poor Chiang, they were able to boot the Nationalists out of the country and turn the whole place into the largest Auschwitz in history.
I say that not to exaggerate. It is not merely an analog guess but a digital comparison. In the Nazi concentration camp, inmates received between 1,300 and 1,700 calories per day, as they were worked to death. In the famine Mao forced on China in the late 50s and early ’60s, the average calorie intake was only about 1,200. Mao, of course, thought the peasants had too much to eat. He was determined to squeeze the grain out of them so it could be shipped overseas, to help pay for his crackpot modernization programs. His agents went about their work with the same zeal they has shown in his earlier famines and purges. Chang and Halliday report, in their book, “Mao”:
“The cadres’ job was to stop the peasants ‘stealing’ their own harvest.
Horrific punishments were widespread; some people were buried alive, others strangled with ropes, others had their noses cut off. In one village four terrorized young children were saved from being buried alive for taking some food only when the earth was at their waists, after a desperate plea from their parents. In another village, a child had four fingers chopped off for trying to steal a scrap of unripe food; in another, two children who tried to steal food had wires run through their ears, and were then hung up by the wire from a wall….”
People starved to death by the millions.
One of the lessons we take from these stories is that the people who want to force their ideas on you, are always the same people whose ideas are idiotic. Mao had more than his share of them. He had peasants digging up the soil by hand, down to a depth of half a meter. Then, he figured that planting seeds closer could enhance crop yields…while actually reducing the amount of fertilizer applied. He had the whole country launched on a goofy program of making steel in backyard furnaces. And then, he decided that sparrows were eating too much of the nation’s harvest…so he got the peasants to shoo away the birds and kill them. As the sparrows disappeared, along came the bugs and insects that they had kept under control, in such numbers that they soon threatened the entire harvest.
Secretly, the Chinese government finally had to ask the Russians for aid:
please send sparrows, in the name of socialist internationalism!
Yes, there are funny parts to the Mao story. So eager were the Maoists to industrialize that they completely neglected quality control. Chinese planes couldn’t fly. Tanks couldn’t drive in a straight line (on one occasion, a Chinese made tank swerved around and charged at a group of VIPs, say the “Mao” authors). Chinese ships were more of a danger to their crews than to the enemy. And when a Chinese helicopter was presented to Ho Chi Minh, the manufacturers detained it at the border because they were afraid it might crash.
But mostly, the Mao story raises question marks about our whole race.
Western readers may be appalled by the murders, betrayals (Mao would set up his own troops, in the thousands, to be killed by the enemy…just to give himself an excuse to break an agreement or avoid following orders), famines, and tortures. But they will surely find Mao’s attitudes to sex reprehensible too. The modern citizen of a western democracy feels he is entitled to sex, above all else. At least, that is the idea you get from reading the press or watching TV.
But Mao was a humbug on sex, as on everything. Workers were expected to follow orders and put the party and its rules above all else. There was little privacy…and, with people dressed in those tawdry, gray Mao outfits, and crowded into tiny, charm-less tenements, there was neither the time, the energy nor the place for romance – or sexual congress.
Couples were often posted to different cities…and allowed to see each other only 12 days per year. The rest of the time they were not allowed any outlet for sexual feelings – if they had any. Even masturbation was outlawed.
Meanwhile, Mao himself lived it up in his luxurious villas – dozens of them spread all over the country – complete with in-door swimming pools.
He ate like a pig and had his agents scour the countryside to find young women – ‘imperial concubines’ for the Chairman. Singers, dancers, nurses, house staff – they were all available to Mao as he pleased.
But Mao was fat and repulsive. He never bathed in 27 years, according to reports. And his teeth, which he never brushed, went black. How did he get women to sleep with him? Ah, dear reader, that is just another mystery of our race; people seem willing and able to do just about anything.
Just to clarify some things :-
a. When I meant the SPA to trade the king in return for arms management of the Maoists/PLA I meant the SPA to agree to their demand for referendum on the king. This is what the Maoists have been insisting on, right? However the SPA should agree to this referendum only on the condition that a least a couple of months before the referendum the arms management of the Maoists is completed. A proper referendum cannot take place without their arms being managed. I know it is easier to write these words than to actually accomplish this deal but it does point a way out on the crucial points that the talks have stalled on.
b. Helicopter-I, you accuse me on not having the basic knowledge of Nepali policitcs. But I cannot be impressed with yours when both Matrika Yadav and Suresh Ale Magar were actually caught by the Indian police in India and then handed over to the Nepal govt. You cannot claim those arrests as an achievement of our security forces.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
NEPAL: From Maosim to Fascism in the Himalayas?
(Courtesy: Dr. Thomas A. Marks)
It is an October replete with irony. The most definitive treatment to date on Mao Tse-tung’s final crime against humanity, his “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” is out to solid reviews. Peru, in confirming the life sentence of Marxism’s self-proclaimed “Fourth Sword,” Comrade Guzman, has ensured that the country would not have on its streets a “democratic politician” whose only tangible achievement was to unleash the Maoist nightmare that left 60,000 of his countrymen dead. In Thailand, amidst the buffeting of democracy, the 14 October anniversary passed with hardly a thought. It was on that date, in 1973, that the authoritarian state crumbled, beginning the process whereby democracy defeated Maoism. And in Nepal, the Maoists, sensing power just ahead, again issued a slew of statements denying that their Maoism and the catastrophe it has brought to the country has anything to do with the bloody 20th Century crimes of Marxist-Leninism.
It is striking how much similarity there is structurally between the Thai and Nepali cases, with the profound exception that the monarchy proved a bastion of strength in Thailand, a source of weakness in Nepal. If one includes in a comparison other Maoist people’s wars, such as those in the Philippines, Sri Lanka (the JVP twice tried to carry out armed struggle), and Peru, we see the same structural patterns play themselves out but with the Maoists on the losing side. What is fundamentally different in the Nepali scenario has been the crucial role played by the clueless united front allies of the Maoists, especially groups that bill themselves as “civil society” or even as “nonaligned.” They have lent critical strength to what otherwise would be a political movement in much the position of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) prior to its participation in the peace process, when its front Sinn Fein at peak garnered less than a fifth of the electorate.
What remains ill understood is that the Maoists are not using even the same vocabulary, much less the same game plan, as the present political system. They continue to see themselves as a people’s war on the offensive. They simply are proceeding along an avenue of approach complementary to armed actions. Violence and non-violence are but two facets of a unified struggle, very much as, in boxing, feints and movement of the body are as necessary as punches thrown.
A Strategy of Armed Politics
People’s war is a strategy for armed politics. The mistake is to think it is merely “war,” by which we normally mean action between armed forces. To the contrary, people’s war is like any parliamentary campaign – except violence is used to make sure the vote comes out in your favor. Significantly, sub-state rebels such as the Maoists claim they are merely doing what the state itself has been doing all along. In Nepal, they claim there never has been “non-violent politics.” Rather, they assert, echoing Lenin, that democratic politics practiced by the “old-order” – ancien regime – is but a façade for oppression, oppression that is carried out using the violence of the state through its armed component, the security forces, as well as the “structural violence” of poverty and injustice.
Thus the Maoists see themselves as engaged in a struggle for liberation, of self-defense even. Such a struggle will proceed along different but orchestrated lines of operation. There will be many campaigns carried out in myriad ways. Use of violence, now “in support,” was but one line of operation. Within that line of operation, there were many forms of violence, from assassinations – such as that of APF head Mohan Shrestha in 2003 – to main force attacks – the large actions that seek to overrun district capitals. These forms of violence, in turn, were “bundled” into campaigns. We can speak, for instance, of the campaign of terror that the Maoists used to eliminate all who opposed them in local areas, whether individuals or police. The family of Muktinath Adjikari, for instance, the teacher hanging in the best known image after he was assassinated in early 2002, has recently surfaced to demand justice.
Yet such terror occurred for a reason: to clear the space for political action, to eliminate competitors. This is why UML activists were such particular targets. They advanced a competing program which had won a majority of seats in Nepal’s 3,913 VDCs, or Village Development Committees. They had to be driven out so that the Maoist cadres would have uncontested access to the electorate. Only in this way could the Maoists mobilize a mass base using their own electoral platform, if we may call it that – they call it their “mass line.”
Of course, such methods are anathema, even as certain portions of their (Maoist) party platform are attractive. It is for this reason that the Maoists have sponsored a multitude of front organizations, the wide variety, for instance, of ethnic and community rights organizations. On the surface, they are not Maoist, but in reality they are controlled by the Maoists. The student and labor organizations are especially prominent in this respect. The important thing about fronts is that they can present themselves as independent, even as they are being used to enhance Maoist strength. Lenin called those who unwittingly join such fronts, thinking they are acting on their own, “useful idiots.”
Even as this goes on inside the country, the Maoists work outside. States tend to focus upon the tangible links, such as the Maoist presence in India. Much more important is their information campaign, designed to present their movement as almost benign. As states make mistakes, such as seen in instances of indiscipline when military units are deployed, these are exploited to claim the state itself is the problem, terror as but a natural component of the solution. As you have seen in the Nepal case, the sheer level of terror inflicted by the Maoists has been quite forgotten in the rush to attack the army, the APF (Armed Police Force), and the hapless police (who, recall, at one point in the conflict, had actually suffered a majority of all dead when considered as a proportion of the total victims).
Power as the Goal
For a Maoist movement, the goal is always power. This has been stated quite openly by all major Maoist figures. They must have power, because their “end-state” is to refashion society. They are not seeking reintegration. That would be to accept the structure that exists and to play by that structure’s rules. Quite vocally, they reject the legitimacy of that structure and its rules. That is why they are adamant that there must be a constitutional convention. They see themselves as in the driver’s seat. They are like any political machine in a rough neighborhood – they can “deliver” the vote. It is what occurs in many areas of India during parliamentary elections but carries the jostling to an extreme. It is “boss politics” played by “big boy rules” — the film, “The Gangs of New York,” provides useful visualization.
In seeking “peace” and holding that they are “not for violence,” what the Maoists mean is that they would much rather the state delivered to them (the Maoists) power rather than making them (the Maoists) fight for it. They are not fools. They are not interested in dying. They are interested in building a new world. Yet they hold that violence has been the indispensable tool for creating a new correlation of forces, a new electoral map, if you will. That is why they will not give up their weapons (alternatively, they say all forces must lock up their weapons, but this does not include their local forces, their “militia”). They have run the opposing parties out of the neighborhood, and now they are demanding a vote. They do not see this as hypocrisy – they see it as doing precisely what the state has been doing in years past. But they hold that their motives are superior, because they aim to revolutionize society, to make Nepal a “true” or “authentic” democracy, because they are carrying out the will of history, “of the people.”
Have they worked out the details of what this new democracy will look like? No, aside from vague notions of “sectoral” representation. They have stated, as Prachanda recently did, that they oppose “parliamentary republicanism,” by which they mean democracy as Nepal had but with the parliament sovereign. But they have not laid out what their “real democracy” alternative will be. That is the beauty of being the political challenger. Today’s realities are opposed with tomorrow’s promises. This is what politicians always do, even those who run “on my record.” The danger of left-wing ideologues, such as the Maoists, is that their worldview dramatically constrains their view of possibilities.
They tend to think of fantasies, such as “self-reliance” and “independence,” as ends that can be achieved if only “will” is harnessed. It was just such fantasies, implemented through violence, that gave us the astonishing crimes of the past century – crimes, it must be noted, the Maoists deny occurred. Yet there is no doubt what went on under Lenin, Stalin, and Mao (photos of all these individuals are used as veritable deities by the Maoists), any more than there is any question as to what occurred under Hitler or Pol Pot. What they shared was a worldview startlingly similar to that held by the Maoists.
The Maoists’ way of dealing with this is, first, to deny reality (just as the leader of Iran seeks to deny the Holocaust); second, to claim that Nepal will be different (which is easily claimed, since there is a startling lack of knowledge in Nepal of what has gone on globally in similar previous situations to that of Nepal now); and, finally, when all else fails, to claim that the critic has no right to speak. This is a favored tactic of my activist internet correspondents, who purport to find all Americans responsible for everything from US foreign policy to the decimation of the American Indian tribes. None of three ways, it bears reiterating, addresses the issue: the Maoists really have no answers to the challenges facing Nepal. They simply claim that they will do better than the bumbling (and bloody, they claim) incompetents who have preceded them.
The Maoists have used the monarchy as their foil, as a surrogate for what they claim is its role in the old-order. If the “feudal monarchy” is swept away, they endlessly repeat, all will be right with Nepal. In this, they certainly have been assisted by the tragic circumstances which placed the incumbent, Gyanendra, on the throne. Similarly, they have been assisted by his mistakes in maneuvering through the maze of Nepali politics. However, having forced the monarch to a position most claim he should occupy, that of a ceremonial monarch in a parliamentary democracy, the Maoists are still left with the fundamental issue: what to do about Nepal? They see structural issues that can be addressed by “will.” Most of us see a population that has exceeded the carrying capacity of the land.
Though marginal in an objective sense, Nepal and its troubles have implications for the region and beyond. The decimation of a democracy, the turning over of a people to the same tired solutions that have led to tragedy after tragedy, is of concern enough. Just as serious are the regional implications of allowing an armed, radical movement to force its way to power through terror.
Role of India
India is the ultimate arbiter in Nepali affairs for reasons of geostrategic interest and Nepal’s geo-fiscal realities.. From Nepal’s standpoint, this has not always worked out well. From India’s standpoint, it has worked out reasonably enough. Nepal has steered clear of engaging in behavior that threatens India’s interests, and Nepalis have proved a valuable component of the Indian labor pool (especially militarily, where Nepalis apparently comprise one-eighth of the manpower of India’s infantry battalions). India’s interest in the current situation is in having a stable neighbor, especially one that does not contribute to India’s own growing Maoist problem. To achieve this goal, New Delhi desires in Nepal a functioning democracy committed to addressing the needs of its people. How to balance the elements of this general prescription just related has long been the challenge of Indian regional foreign policy and, apart from Nepal, has led to some real flies-in-the-ointment at times. Sri Lanka leaps to mind.
Irony again surfaces, because it is India (not the Maoists) that has seen its policy of the past decade go awry. Hence it finds itself in bed with Maoist insurgents and in search of a “soft landing.” New Delhi’s strategy is to get one by facilitating in Nepal creation of a “West Bengal” or a “Kerala” – states where the tamed Indian left challenges and even rules, where it continues with its nasty verbiage and bizarre worldview, but where it must respond to the realities of power and hence stays within the lanes on the national political highway. What New Delhi has overlooked is that such realities occur in India only because of the capacity of the national state to force compliance. Subtract the Indian military, paramilitary, and police forces from the equation, and India would be anarchy. Not surprisingly, that is the very term being used by many to describe the situation in Nepal.
As has been discussed previously by any number of sources, it is difficult to tell precisely where “our Indian friends,” as Prachanda has taken to calling them, fit in. A number of elements figured into New Delhi’s calculations. First, as the hegemonic power in an unstable subcontinent, India wants restoration of order. This is necessary for precisely the reasons stability is desired in Sri Lanka. Disorder produces refugees, unleashes intra-Indian passions, transfers elements of the conflict to Indian soil, and sucks New Delhi into foreign policy nastiness. Second, having opted for order, India has played a hand well known to its smaller neighbors: intervention. The only question has been how to intervene.
Here, there are several schools of thought. My past work in Sri Lanka has led to my being less than charitable as to Indian official motives. In the Sri Lankan case, New Delhi was into everything from supporting terrorism to running covert ops in a friendly, neighboring democracy. Only when the Frankenstein it helped to create, LTTE, turned on its former benefactor did logic and morality reassert themselves in New Delhi’s policy. In this case, in Nepal, it is perhaps too early to speak in such terms. What we know at the moment is that is that the weak position of the coalition government in New Delhi, combined with its normal “Great Game” psychology and the eagerness of certain Indian personalities, especially on the left, to expand their own role and spheres of involvement, led to a policy shift that supported SPAM (the Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists). It seems equally clear that India, as it did previously in Sri Lanka, went into the present endeavor quite misinformed by its alleged experts, not to mention its intelligence organs, and that it is quite ignorant as to the actual nature of the Maoists – no matter the efforts of those same personalities just mentioned to claim how wise, thoughtful, and caring Prachanda and other members of the Maoists leadership are.
In once again misreading the situation in a neighboring state, India was virtually pushed by nationalism of the king. Whatever else he is, the monarch is a Nepali who does not think it is for India to dictate Nepali realities. Ironically, this is a position also held by the Maoists. They have simply realized, of late, that it is a position best relegated to the shadows. Better to rail against the old bugaboos of Indian politics, especially in unison with those who think the Cold War is still going on, “America and world imperialism.”
As the US Ambassador has made quite clear – and the cases of Hamas and Hezbollah illustrate well – there are consequences connected with actions that seek to talk peaceful politics but engage in behavior labeled terrorist by virtually the entire world. It is noteworthy that in their quest to carve out an identity as “independent” actors, the Maoists claim to see exemplars in very unsavory types – Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, North Korea. One can understand why these odious regimes are “picked” – on the surface, they stand for a divorce from the present world-order, which Maoist dogma holds responsible, in league with the Nepali local representatives of world-capitalism (that is, anyone who owns anything and makes a decent living), for the lack of development that is present-day Nepali reality. In reality, Cuba and North Korea have long been economic basket-cases noted for their political repression, while Venezuela and Iran are political basket-cases determined to remain such by exploiting a single resource, oil, something Nepal certainly does not have. Cases such as Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia also offer a certain fascination for the Maoists, since these states claim to be “socialist.” Each, though, has particulars not relevant to Nepal. Indeed, the most apt comparison for Nepal would seem to be to the Albania of the Cold War, when its lack of resources and close affinity with Maoist ideology reduced it to a complete backwater.
What now looms for India in Nepal is what Israel has faced with Hamas and Hezbollah. Whether events play themselves out as we are seeing even now in the Middle East depends quite upon what the Maoists are actually up to. Hamas and Hezbollah, for example, thought they could be both respectable and disrespectable, that they could be both in government and carry our terrorist actions. Their fellow citizens have paid a terrible price for such folly. Hamas is particularly tragic, because the Palestinians thought they could elect a group that both wanted to defy world norms and be supported by its money. The similarity to the Nepali case is compelling. Hamas and Hezbollah, one could argue, have behaved as the Nepali Maoists seem determined to behave, to participate in “the system” only to use it for their own ends. Those “ends,” obviously, have now made life even worse for the Palestinian and Lebanese populations.
PIRA in Northern Ireland, to the contrary, has reintegrated, worked to move beyond what it was and to build a better Ulster. Ulster today is an improvement upon the Ulster that existed when the civil rights movement erupted in the late 1960s over ill-treatment of the Catholic minority. In the Nepal case, it was disappointing and tragic that the SPA and the Palace could not have a meeting of minds. Parliamentary democracy should have been the ultimate bulwark against the Maoist challenge, but the very nature of Nepali parliamentary democracy, with its corruption and ineptitude, led to its marginalization. The increasingly bitter split between SPA and the king became all but inevitable in such circumstances, but personalities also played a central role, as they do in all that occurs in Nepal. It was the nastiness between Congress personalities, for instance, that incapacitated government at the moment when focus and response were most needed to insurgent challenge. India has sought to alter this reality long after the fact, by coming down squarely on the side of “democracy.” Yet, as happened in Sri Lanka, New Delhi’s political class seems to have seriously miscalculated.
Though certain Indian commentators hold there are no connections between the two forces, this has never been the case. Indeed, the two sides discussed openly their linkages, and individuals from the two movements were apprehended or killed in operations “on the wrong side of the border.” Only with a move to exploit the nonviolent line of operation did the Nepali Maoists stop claiming to be integrally linked not only with South Asian Maoism, through CCOMPOSA, but also with global Maoist forces through RIM. Of course, these were never “command” relationships, only liaison and, in the case of the Indian groups, some presence. It is naïve to claim the radical wing of a radical Maoist movement will simply salute and call it a day, even if the leadership decides reigning in the combatants is the best tactical course of action. Further, it is inevitable that any Maoist government would encourage the usual flocking of left-wing groupies that we see – and have seen – in every other case of a radical government. Indeed, there already are here in Nepal the usual international activists supplying information to the Nepali left-wing press and even to the Maoists themselves.
The Future
On the one hand, there is hope for the Nepalese future. What is happening now politically should have been the response to the Maoists, with the security forces providing the shield. Though a plan was in fact drawn up, it was mechanical, devoid of substance, precisely because the mobilization that occurred in April of this year was not used by Nepali democracy as its weapon. That is the irony of Nepali parliamentary democracy – it proved incapable of using mobilization of democratic capacity to defend itself. It did not do what the Thai, the Filipinos, the Peruvians, and the Sri Lankans (against the JVP, twice) did to defeat their Maoists. They brought reform to imperfect systems and made them better. They are still imperfect, but so are all systems. And they are not man-eating systems as desired by the left-wing, of which the Maoists are the premier representatives.
It should be obvious that the claim that there is “no military solution” to insurgency is simply a canard. One heard it endlessly in Nepal, most often from “the foreigners who would be gods,” as one acquaintance was apt to put it. Armed capacity enables the campaign of reform, because armed capacity is what enables the challenge to the old-order. In circumstances such as Nepal, no army can be committed simply to defend the status quo. It must be committed to defend transformation. That transformation, though, must look rather more like what can be seen in India and a lot less like that witnessed in Mao’s China.
If Nepal wishes to move forward, it has all the pieces right before it on the table. This has been said before. What separates the sides is the Maoist notion that revolutionary transformation will now be delivered by surrender when force of arms could not take it. “The people have spoken,” goes their claim. In reality, the people have spoken, but they have not at all supported what the Maoists have in mind, precisely because the Maoists have worked so hard not to let their vision and plans get out into the open. What Nepal needs now, more than ever, is equitable representation and good governance. What the Maoists keep demanding is retribution and marginalization of all who do not see a solution in their terms.. There seems to be the idea that one can simply one day announce a decision has been reached, which will include a declaration that, in effect, a significant slice of the Nepalese old-order should present itself at the chopping block. To say that will not “just happen” is not to be a pessimist or even a realist, only to reiterate a point I have made previously in this publication: hope in not a method.
For reconciliation, all elements of society need to be engaged. At the moment, the Maoists and some misguided elements of SPA are proceeding in much the same fashion as did the government of Sri Lanka when it marginalized its Tamil population. Half of all Nepalis, in recent polls, said they would be content with a ceremonial monarchy. The security forces number more than 160,000 individuals in intact units. Yet there has been little effort to involve the forces represented by those statistics. For Nepal to move forward, to use a constitutional assembly as a basis for more equitable new arrangements, is a laudable goal. To think a socialist reshuffling of Nepal’s demographic and physical pieces will produce a panacea is a pipe dream. To the contrary, in advancing their “triumph of the will” solution, the Maoists seem quite unawares that they have fixed upon, as course of action, the very title of Hitler’s most powerful fascist propaganda film.
harke-ko-ba: you did right thing by posting pandit’s posting. it exposes his hypocricy. earlier i was also telling him the same thing that by posting such a comment at blogdai he’s become a sham. he is true pandit, he doesn’t have a confidence to standby himself.
we use to listen that crap blogdai (how fool we were!) about development democracy. his big, big ideas, you know. but we didn’t know his darker side. he’s true chheparo. we know now–that s-o-b.
Maoist Guzman A Threat To Peace
By Kamala Sarup
Guzman is a Maoist and a threat to peace, says Dr Tom Marks, who covered Shining Path extensively for a number of publications, “What made Sendero so ruthless was its dogmatism, its absolute conviction that it had found THE answer to the challenges faced by Peru. The irony, of course, is that Sendero declared its people’s war just as Peruvian democracy was again functioning, with the left controlling approximately one-third of Congress.”
I would like to mention about President Chavez. He is also a threat to peace. Ultimately, given that he’s a dictator, he will cross the US and get his country invaded. He works actively with Iran to give it nuclear weapons; he sings the praises of North Korea; he goes anywhere that a government is “rogue” and determined to foment conflict. He visited Iraq and sang Saddam’s praises before the most recent war.
“Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman, whose messianic communist vision inspired a 12-year rebellion that cost nearly 70,000 lives, was found guilty of aggravated terrorism by a civilian court and sentenced to life in prison. According to the news throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Guzman was known to his followers as “Presidente Gonzalo,” inspiring a cultlike obedience among a Maoist guerrilla insurgency that grew to 10,000 armed fighters. Guzman did not flinch as the court clerk declared him guilty of “aggravated terrorism” against the Peruvian state, following a more than six-hour recitation of the trial evidence.
The Shining Path bombed electrical towers, bridges and factories, assassinated mayors and massacred villagers, including 69 peasants in Lucanamarca, where nearly two dozen children were among those shot and hacked to death in retaliation for the killings of several rebels. (Source:Taipai News.)
It is also true, regrettably, this is the same philosophy espoused by the Maoists in Nepal and even economically booming India.
The Shining Path Maoist organization was formed in the early 1960s. It spent nearly two decades organizing for violence, then staggered Peru in the 1980s and early 1990s with horrifying violence in the form of terrorist attacks across Peru.
However this organisation crumbled after Maoist leader Guzman’s capture in September 1992, even as another significant operations captured the master computer disks of the movement.
Another scholar Dr Naritoma cannot remember how many dozens of people have died at the hands of Maoist violence, but the 60,000-plus figure is the result of an extensive effort to actually count the victims. Significantly, it doubled earlier tabulations.
Now, all the leaders of that terrorist organization are in prison, with Guzman’s life sentence just reaffirmed in a retrial ordered by the muddled thinking of the previous government. If ever there was irony, it is that Guzman’s sentence has been reaffirmed when Peru’s president is again Alan Garcia, the president during the years when Shining Path inflicted the bulk of its damage.
The Maoists’ barbarism must be stopped immediately [around the] world,” she said.
Hard as it is to imagine, Maoist groups such as those in Nepal and India claim that Guzman is a hero! Their documents have even copied sections from his terrible thinking.
In Peru, after a series of bloody attacks in rural areas, Shining Path brought its terrorism directly to the the capital Lima. By the early 1990s the situation was very serious. Yet former Peruvian President Fujimori, whatever the flaws of his administration, waged an aggressive and highly successful campaign against the Shining Path and its rival Marxist terrorist group, MRTA. By the time the internal problems of his own administration led to his ouster, he had crushed the insurgent groups, and terrorism had declined sharply. Terrorism has not been a problem since then in Peru, despite occasional attacks by radical remnants.
Jaime Antesana, who works with victims of violence, recently said, “The Shining Path left a culture of violence. One sees that in the increasing street crime throughout Peru,”
Fatima stresses: “The Maoists carried out a campaign of sabotage, bombings, and murders that damaged $22 billion worth of property in Peru.”
By 1994, Shining Path had lost much of their strength, and more than 80,000 of the displaced refugees were able to return home. Between 1995 and 2000, Shining Path violence was minimal in most areas, with the exception of Peru’s Amazon region, where remaining Shining Path guerrillas continued to harass the indigenous population and displace some civilians.
Nepali Journalist and Story Writer Kamala Sarup is specialising in in-depth reporting and writing on Peace, Anti War, Women, Terrorism, Democracy, and Development. Some of her publications are: Women’s Empowerment (Booklet). Prevention of trafficking in women through media,(Book) Efforts to Prevent Trafficking in for Media Activism (Media research). Two Stories collections. Her interests include international conflict resolution, cross-cultural communication, philosophy, feminism, political, socio-economic and literature. Her current plans are to move on to humanitarian work in conflict areas in the near future. She also is experienced in organizational and
Maobadiko hathle desh dubaundai chha
“Baluwatar area, the official residence of Prime Minister of Nepal, was virtually captured by Maoists. In the bizarre twists of events, it seems that Maoists not the SPA is in the helm of Kathmandu.”
It’s astonishing that it has taken UWB to realise this after 6 months! People like myself have been saying this all along. Talk about being brainwashed. If the press is not in the moment and realise things so damned late while complaining of the “slow pace of the peace process” – slow for whome I wonder- the entire world with any experience with such processes have always been saying the fastest elections can be held given the complications is about 2 years!- then we are sunk.
raja, rajmukut ra rajtantra prati samarpit..
others can go to hell…
btw harkee ko baa.. whoever u are.. ur mama was scratching my “gedas” yesterday..
and manan..u are a maoist
Yahoo,(your comment 46)
Because you are always involved in geda molo of India, that is why you know better in this business. But my point of view is that if we Nepalese are capable, except the likes of YAHOO who always thinks of Indians geda,, we can solve our problems ourselves.But we must have courage and will to stand against the Indian hegemonism.Recent events clearly indicate Maoists also came to prominenece because of “moling” Indians’ Geda.
Kirat,
You jack-of-all! What does being “professional and skilled” got to do with being RNA or NA? The army can be “professional and skilled” whether they are loyal to the crown,Prachanda clown or Girija Baun. Comprehende?
Mr. CEO, an insider of travel-trade industry, who do you think you are, JOY Dewan?
Just like a previous article-does the monarchy have any relevance in Nepal in the present day? If yes what is that relevance? If not why not get rid of it?
Bombastic-sure an army can be professional or skilled wherever their loyalties lie. I’m talking about our army i.e. the Nepal Army or previously Royal Nepal Army. And any fool who calls this army professional and skilled needs their heads examined.
Nope I ain’t Joy Dewan and I’d never want to be.
The relevance of the monarchy is already apparent. If you have’nt noticed the structure of this country is breaking down with factionism, factions within factions and so on. Just because you don’t like a certain man does not mean the monarchy as an institution has to be abolished. The institution is not personal, it belongs to the nation, it is based on a very old tradition beginning with the founding of the nation by Prithvi Narayan Shah. It is very much up to the people to make sure, through democratic processes that any King or Queeen for that matter does not go beyond their role as an institution of unity, a symbol to show that through it all there is a firm foundation, through it all there is an institution that is above petty politics and the petty ambitions of any individual or individuals in any form whether it be a wayward King, facists dictator, military autocrat or even a party strongman. This is the institution of monarchy, not the person as King or Queen. An institution that must be respected by one and all especially the King himself. And Nepal is where we need it most, not the U.K. or Japan where their systems are strong. Such an institution is more so required today when there is an apparent lawlessness and divide within the nation, one which could end Nepal forever.
What is the relevance? None if you don’t care whether we remain one nation or not and All if you give a damn.
kp – dont waste space and just get out of here. have you forgotten history or even the latest andolan where the message was clear and loud – away with monarchy! Instead of coming up with sensible alternatives, your theory of monarchy as the only saviour is utter crap. get a life.
harkee,
apropose to your comment #83
please don’t say such nasty thing about your drandma.
I agree that the Monarchy isn’t a savior, but nonetheless it still has a role right now. Perhaps in the future, the relevence will fade away by itself.
Patriot, you can’t base all your preception on the April revolution. If you look at the Nepali times poll that was conducted in April (just before the revolution) only 6% said that wanted to do away with the monarchy altogeather. Even after the Feb 1st the SPA was having trouble getting people to come out on the streets. They had to pay protestors with food and money. I am not saying what the King did was right – I think the Feb 1st move was totally wrong in every respect and he has paid a price for that. However, given the uncertain circumstances and the volitile situation, people always try to hold on to something ‘stable’ and for many people the Monarchy (not G like kp said) represents that.
Ultimatly a refredrum should decide the future of the Monarchy, but my prediction is (given the rise of the Moaists, appaling security sitution etc.) people will opt to keep the monarchy – its psychology more then anything else!
The current army (NA) is almost identical to the one that was before it (RNA). It is not an unskilled army but not exactly in par with the modern armies of first world (developed) nations. Is it structures, to a certain extent yes, but he problem is it has not been tested properly and completely to initiate any restructuring. They know there are problem in the army but the army is not the problem, as many would like to potray. Now about wiping out the maoists, thats unreasonable, but the idea is to put enough physical pressure through millitary action to induce sufficient psychological stress on the maoist heads up in the hiearchy. This allows for better negotiating opportunities for the “democratic” forces, otherwise the maoist will demand one unreasonable wish after another, until they have exorted enough money and entrenched themselves throughout Nepal to overthrow the democratic system. As for the king, lets leave it for the referendum, which by the way is not the what the maoists are demanding, they just want him gone and they are not willing to concede anything.
kp, a somewhat good reply I must say. However the problem as you yourself pointed out is the fact that the King and the rest of the royal family don’t seem to respect the institution of monarchy in a democratic society themselves. So if the very people i.e. the king and his family, don’t respect the very institution they are supposed to uphold then what is the relevance of the institution of monarchy in Nepal? Is that not why the abolishment of monarchy is looking like a possibility in Nepal? Because the very people who were supposed to protect i.e. the King is corrupting it and thus destroying it.
Kirat the problem doesn’t just lie with the King – our entire system is currupt. If our political system was strong they should be able to put the King on a lease and the King would never dare to interfer! Unfortunetly, no one has any moral authority in Nepali politics to point anything out to anyone.
Debates here and there in this blog evulve on (R)NA about its royalty and loyalty. Maoist militia, raised by Maoist party, is an army having loyalty only toward Maoist ideology and dictatorship, though they have no less fighting spirit than that of NA. Likewise, NA, however professional they are, was raised as a loyal soldier loyal to king and only to king(Raja ko nun khaeko sipahi). Both of the armies, till now, have not shown any other face. So, both of the armies should be disabled – Maoist army disarmed and their soldiers rehabilated, NA detached from its pseudo-master by dismantling monarchy.
Bhudai, you’re not getting the point. If the people’s elected representatives don’t act properly than in a way it is the peoples fault for electing them. It is a betryal of faith which can be corrected in the next election. However the pact made between the King and the people is a very different one-more sacrosanct because theoretically the king will be allowed to rule in perpetuity via his offsprings and their offsprings and so on. However this privelege for the king also comes attached with the responsibility on the king to rule in the interests of the general people and not in his and his coteries personal interests. But if the king does not honour his end of the pact that he is to blame for this betryal. Don’t make it needlessly confusing by stating that our culture, system etc is wrong/corrupt etc. The thing with our kings is that they have never thought it necessary to honour their end of the pact. So if the institution of monarchy has lost it’s relevance who is to blame?
kirat,
you just snatched my thought, well said.
wow! now the debate has shifted to monarchy as an institution, thus need to show reverence to whoever gets on that pedestal, it’s the pesdestal what’s important not who gets on it.
bunch you of you make this argument, while fearing, abhoring and detesting the other institution, where baboon ram and his trolls are trying to instill.
with the merit of same argument, the maoist cadres can say, why do you focus on ‘prachanda’ and ‘babu ram’ and their henious acts, look beyond that, we are fighting for our ideology of equality, it’s not about individuals, it’s about institution of communism.
should you have any trouble with such argument,
my friends?