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The economic inequality that this perpetuates has political repercussions. India's Maoist insurgency that now touches 13 of 28 states is fed directly by the neglect, indifference and exclusion, especially of the adivasis and low castes in India's poorest states. The police's counter-insurgency operations have actually helped Maoist recruitment.
A Naxalite reincarnation is now taking place in West Bengal, that bastion of India's moderate left where the CPI-M
has ruled uninterrupted for 25 years. (See p 4). The new Congress-led government in New Delhi (now unencumbered by a communist partner) has responded by sending in the central paramilitary CPRF.
In both India and Nepal, it is poverty, inequality, injustice and discrimination that drives Maoism. And on both sides there is a temptation to meet violence with counter-violence. As long as the roots of conflict are not addressed, however, there cannot be long-term peace and reconciliation.
After the resignation of Nepal's Maoist-led government in May (with a little bit of help from friends down south) there is loose talk in military and rightwing circles in Kathmandu of "doing a Sri Lanka" on the ex-guerrillas. What is forgotten is that Nepal's terrain and geopolitics makes protracted guerrilla war unwinnable for both sides. Maoism here has degenerated into criminal warlordism, and is probably headed towards violent self-destruction. What we have to prevent is it turning ethnic in the process.
Gandhi said violence can never be ethical, that it is counterproductive to those who start it. Nepal is the living proof. The lesson for both India and Nepal is that without resolving the structural inequity in our societies, creating jobs and lifting living standards there will be a million other mutinies even if we solve this one.
After the Chauri Chaura killing of 22 policemen in 1922 near Gorakhpur, Gandhi suspended his anti-British civil disobedience campaign saying he had not been able to prevent the violence. He later put forward the concept of "struggle and construction": achieving societal transformation not by destroying but by working against discrimination, injustice and inequality.
The Maoists who want to destroy and return to Year Zero are on the wrong side of history. Those who threaten a return to bloodshed if they don't get what they want haven't realised the ruin they brought to this country. Those for whom the end justifies the means forget Gandhi at their own peril.
