5-11 December 2014 #735

Dash vs Cash

Suresh in Jana Aastha, 2 December

Another party has been born in Nepal. Comrade Netra Bikram Chand has parted ways with Comrade Mohan Baidya and formed another Maoist party. This brings the total number of Maoist parties in Nepal to four. (Or is it five? It might even be six.) The Maoists are a progressive and forward-looking party. Which is why the rate at which new Maoist parties are being formed will steadily increase as time goes by. The total number of Maoist parties is not going to go down. No way. There was a point in this country’s history when there was only one Maoist party, but its cadre base was growing exponentially. Now, things are different. Today, the number of card-carrying members is going down but the number of parties is increasing all the time. This is the revolutionary change that has come about after the armed people’s war.

The other Maoists have ‘Cash’, ‘Dash’ appended to their names. But Chand’s party doesn’t have a tag, it’s neither Cash nor Dash. In fact it is a Maoist faction that has neither cash nor dash. Can such a party survive? The Cash Maoists survive because they have cash. The Dash Maoists survive because they are dashing. But a comrade from the Chand faction maintains that his is the only genuine Maoist party that is fighting for the liberation of the proletariat. A party that has no cash can speak for the majority of the population that has nothing, and therefore will be around forever.