Dil Bhushan Pathak: Looks like the party is back to its old days: destroying property, imposing bandas, capturing land, and terrorising people.
Our aim is not to terrorise people. A new kind of dictatorship has been forced upon the country and we are protesting against it through this struggle movement.
Is shutting down the whole country a part of your struggle?
We are aware that bandas are bothersome, but we had to use it as a last resort to make ourselves heard in this so called democracy where unless you do something dramatic nobody will even bother to listen.
Do you have any idea how harmful bandas are?
There are many other things that are harmful for the country so our banda alone cannot be blamed. The country was shut for 19 days in 2006 in fact all the parties who are in power now reached there after a similar struggle, so it is not just us.
You want to showcase the party’s strength, but then you obstruct people’s right to free movement. How do you justify that?
We have been compelled to come out on the streets because democracy in Nepal has failed to embrace thousands of marginalised people who are still suffering and being exploited. Democracy hasn’t been achieved anywhere in the world without citizens revolting. These struggles will carry on forever. In fact people will continue to fight unless they are truly liberated.
Moving on to vandalism, how many laptops has your party seized or destroyed so far?
Let’s not put it that way. We are only trying to protect ordinary Nepalis who are being forced into this circus of election. When certain people tried to prevent our peaceful protest, we had to respond and some damage might have taken place during the process.
The party can surely carry on protesting without hurting Nepalis?
Our struggle is for the people and they have supported us. What is far more troublesome is the way some parties are moving ahead with their agenda without consulting others. The current government is nothing more than a mere puppet of foreigners.
When you were with UCPN (M) the party was in power but what reform and change was it able to bring then?
First of all the party was in the government and didn’t have power since the existing bureaucracy with its old ways didn’t allow us to usher in any kind of change. Also some our party members had started derailing from their goal of working for the people and the country.
So who what was the point of the decade long armed conflict, which allegedly began after foreign intervention and killed thousands of Nepalis?
These are all conspiracy theories of the reactionaries who do not understand the spirit of the revolution we undertook for people’s freedom. Look at any other uprising in the world, thousands have been killed. There was nothing unique to us, in fact our revolution was less destructive in comparison to other countries.
Since your party hasn’t registered with the election commission yet is there still any possibility of unifying with UCPN (M)?
We tried to resolve our differences while we were still in the party when that didn’t work we had to split, so it will be difficult to go back and reconcile. We haven’t been able to register yet because of technical issues.
How much faith does your party have on democracy?
We believe in democracy that is for everyone in the country and not just for a handful of powerful men. The present democracy in Nepal is run by five per cent of privileged class. We are demanding a democracy where people from marginalised communities are also equally represented. And our ultimate aim is to establish a socialist state.
Cadres have been aggressively mobilised to obstruct the election process. Do you think the country can go to poll in June?
It is for people to judge why the election date hasn’t yet been announced yet. The election was slated amidst chaos, the Nepali people were deceived, I don’t think the parties would have received much support from them.
Why is your party so hesitant to go to polls?
We haven’t yet decided whether to participate in elections or not. This election is not going to take the country out of the current turmoil since the decision was forced on us by the four party syndicate. They have overstepped the values of democracy in the name of polls. We won’t go for election until this government is scrapped and all the fringe political parties are included in discussions about the country’s future.
The general secretary of the party Ram Bahadur Thapa recently announced that CPN-Maoist still has old weapons, hasn’t your party given up all the guns yet?
He said that lightheartedly in a different context. We have already given up all our weapons.