 BIKRAM RAI |
For committed revolutionaries who joined the Maoist party in the early 1990s, there must be a profound sense of disillusionment as they watched their leaders on the stage on 1 February as the party marked the anniversary of the war.
Many of them became Maoists because they were convinced that parliamentary democracy was not bringing about the transformational change in state structure to dismantle a feudal monarchy. They had seen structural violence at election time in the mid-western hills, and were convinced that democracy was just a way for the feudal elites to shuffle the cards every four years through elections. Inspired by Mao Zedong's teachings, they concluded that an armed struggle to overthrow the state was the only way to liberate the country.
Many of us often ask ourselves whether the 16,000 Nepali lives lost, and the cost in delayed development were worth it. The Maoist comrades argue that without the war, the monarchy could never have been removed, and the country would never have been turned into a federal democratic republic.
May be. But it is also true that what the war could not achieve in ten years was attained in 19 days of largely peaceful street protests. The 2006 people's movement represents a moral victory for non-violent political struggle. Those gains are being frittered away.
It is what followed 2006 that must be making some committed Maoists, including those who were willing to kill and be killed in the frontlines, wonder how things went so badly wrong. The state decided to compensate the ex-guerrillas for their re-assimilation into society by giving them some pocket money, but their own party is taking it away from them.
We all knew that the battle-hardened fighters were never in the 'cantonments', they became the dreaded YCL. Now, the YCL wants its pound of flesh too, and there is a strong possibility the estimated Rs 2 billion compensation for them is going to be diverted from state coffers as well.
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Senior leaders of a party that launched a revolution to overthrow a feudal centralised Khas state and replace it with autonomous federated provinces for ethnic minorities, it turns out, were just using it as a slogan to recruit cannon fodder for the war. Some of the most vociferous opponents of ethnic federalism are now the Maoists themselves.
Reckless political brinkmanship has pushed this country closer to a communal conflagration, while competing territorial claims are leading to violence and factional confrontation. It is now looking like the interim constitution may even have to be the new constitution. Ethnic federalism has become just too hot to handle, and there is no way a directly-elected presidential system is going to go through the CA.
The root of the problem lies in the lack of trust between the Maoists and the rest, and the main reason for which is the party's continued adherence to goals like violent state capture. If the Maoists can convince the other parties that they have once and for all turned a new leaf, `and demonstrate that they now swear by democracy, pluralism and free elections, there will be closure.
Failure to do so will prolong this volatile transition, open the possibility of an implosion within the Maoist party itself and unleash an Orwellian dystopia.
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