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The
People’s War in Nepal It
is not difficult to appreciate why there is a mass guerrilla war raging in
Nepal. In contrast to the obscene wealth of the corrupt royal family, the great
majority of people in Nepal live in desperate poverty. According to the United
Nations Human Development Index the average annual income in Nepal
is just $205 (£122) ranking it
amongst the poorest countries in the world. The $205 is an average for
the whole population of 26 million, which includes the tiny ruling clique who
siphon off a massively disproportionate share. In a country with just 3% of the economy consisting of modern industry many peasant farmers who make up just over 90% of Nepal's people will receive very much less. It is often said that those people who are struggling against oppression and injustice have 'nothing to lose but their chains'. In the case of Nepal this is literally true. With a massive infant mortality rate of 70 deaths to every 1000 live births, and for those born alive a life expectancy of just over 59 for males and just under 59 for females, many Nepalese yearn for change and view armed struggle as the only means to achieve it. (Figures
from CIA, The World Factbook 2003) From
February 1996 an armed, mass revolutionary insurrection has been raging
in Nepal, a country positioned along the edge of the Himalayas between India and
Tibet. This has grown to the point whereby imperialist powers such as the USA
and Britain are taking it seriously and actively intervening to try to crush
this popular uprising. The Indian bourgeoisie have made it clear that they will
not tolerate a Communist led government in Nepal and that this would trigger an
invasion. There is certainly a tension within the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist) between those comrades who do not want to 'provoke' an Indian
intervention and those who view such an intervention as not only inevitable, but
as a move which may very well produce revolt in India itself. Overview
of Nepal One
of the major problems facing the CPN is that the population consists of many
different peoples each with their own distinct languages, customs and religions.
The class/caste system is extremely complex. The dominant, ruling class element
was originally of Indian origin and is Hindu in religion. Although they lord it
over the people there are many poor, oppressed people in this ethnic group with
a low caste status (dalits). In
the early 19th. century the Gorkha kingdom in Nepal was defeated by the British
Raj and the country became a client state of British imperialism. When India
gained political independence in 1947 control over Nepal passed to the new
Indian state. The Nepalese ruling class consists of feudal landlords, such as
the royal family, comprador capitalists, whose interests are tied in with
foreign capital, and bureaucrat capitalists, who use the state apparatus to
exploit the people. They are closely allied with and dominated by the Indian
monopoly capitalist class. These parasites ruthlessly exploit the Nepalese people and their resources, such as water which is diverted to India, to their own advantage. Like many less developed countries, Nepal has massive foreign debts and is undergoing privatisation and trade liberalisation at the command of the World Trade Organisation. Millions of Nepalese are forced by poverty to work abroad, particularly in India. Some of them are driven to prostitute themselves as mercenaries in the Indian and British armies. The so-called "Gurkha" units in the British Army - Gurkha being a corruption of Gorkha, one of the many peoples of Nepal - are made up of many nationalities from this country.
History
of the Struggle The
Nepal Communist Party (NCP) was formed in 1949 and although in theory it claimed
to favour armed struggle to overthrow the feudal monarchy, in practice it mainly
engaged in peaceful, parliamentary politics. Despite the predominantly pacifist
and revisionist leadership of the NCP, there were some armed uprisings
such as the one in the Western region in 1952-3 which was crushed by Indian
troops. The eastern border of Nepal is next to the part of India where an armed
uprising under Maoist leadership broke out in 1967, the Naxalite movement named
after the village in which it broke out. In 1971 this rebellion spread over the
border into Nepal but the NCP denounced it. In
1974 the NCP actually claimed to have adopted the revolutionary political line
of Marxism-Leninism, but actually avoided preparing for people’s war in Nepal
by claiming that first it had to begin in India! During the next twenty years
there was protracted political struggle between the revolutionaries and
revisionists in the Nepalese communist movement until there emerged the
Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) which in 1995 decided to start a war of
national liberation. As the name suggests the CPN(M) was heavily influenced by
Mao Tse Tung's theories of Peoples War. The
People's War began with attacks on police posts and the burning of the mortgage
and loan documents that consign the rural poor to eternal debt bondage. The
landlords and Government forces responded in their customary ways with burnings
of houses, beatings, killings and raping women. Women in Nepal are even more
oppressed than are men and many of them have rallied to the PLA where they are
among the most committed fighters and leaders. Needless to say, the various
revisionist "communist" groups such as the United Nepalese Communist
Party (M-L) (known as UML) were horrified at the armed insurrection and rushed
to condemn it.
Female
Guerrilla Fighters of the PLA The
guerrilla fighters had no modern weapons when they launched their offensive.
Many of these comrades are armed with percussion cap rifles, the sort of
equipment the British Army had 150 years ago. But this has not inhibited their
determined struggle. Increasingly the PLA are capturing modern weapons and
equipment from the Government forces they defeat. Targets
attacked by the PLA include local government officials, informers and various
international non-governmental organisations (NGO's). The policies of the latter
are directed primarily at middle strata groups and are aimed at bolstering up
the status quo. The Revolutionary United Front has called for a number of
successful boycotts of both local and national government elections. These
"elected" bodies are nothing but stooges, including various
revisionist "communists", who try to give credibility to successive
reactionary governments. Also there have been a number of national strikes in
protest at the oppressive legislation passed and enforced by the regime in
Kathmandu. The
Political Line of the Communist Party Given
its semi-feudal and semi-colonial character, the CPN(M) argue that Nepal is at
the stage of New Democratic Revolution and that only when this has been achieved
will it be possible to move forward to socialist revolution. In Nepal the
immediate problem is to destroy feudal oppression and exploitation from within
and imperialist, capitalist exploitation from without. The
CPN(M) argue, in classic Maoist fashion, that this necessitates the building of
a Revolutionary United Front of workers, peasants, the middle strata
intelligentsia and even the national bourgeoisie, i.e. those capitalists whose
interests are obstructed and limited by feudalists, comprador/bureaucrat
capitalists and imperialists. The working class are only a few per cent of the
population, concentrated in the towns, but their objective position in society
disposes them to recognise the necessity for socialism. This class is the
fundamental, necessary force for leading the revolutionary movement. The
peasantry are the great majority of the population but are divided into poor
(landless) peasants, middle peasants who have land insufficient to provide all
of their sustenance and "rich" peasants who employ landless labourers.
The poor, landless peasants are the largest group and are the main force in the
revolution and their immediate aim is land redistribution. The worker-peasant
alliance - symbolised by the hammer and sickle - is the crux of the United Front
but provided the Party correctly handles the contradictions between them and the
other class elements all of them can unite to defeat feudalism and imperialism.
Only when this has been achieved will it be possible to inaugurate the socialist
revolution. The
problem with this type of analysis is that, especially given the cross class
nature of the party and its alliances, the time for an advance towards socialism
may never come. The CPN(M), even when they have been doing very well in the
military struggle, have constantly asked the government of the Kingdom of Nepal
for negotiations. Negotiations
can be a useful tactic for revolutionaries, for example if a cease fire allows
re-groupment of military forces, but the calls of the CPN(M) for peace and a
constituent assembly reveals limited aims which could have the potential to
severely inhibit the struggle if they gain wide support. However,
the line of the CPN(M) appears to be that the ruling class will never accept
even these restricted demands. In an interview with Central News Network
television, comrade Mahara, a political bureau member, mentions that, ‘Our
party's chairman comrade Prachanda has The
slogan for constituent assembly is not ours, it is that has
always been people's democracy and new democracy. that's
why they are not even agreeing to our flexible demand.’ (CNN,
November 14th, 2002) Another
aspect of the Nepalese Revolution that the CPN(M) is addressing is the set of
contradictions among the various national and ethnic groups in Nepal. The feudal
monarchy has tried to maintain the dominance of Hindu religion, Nepalese
language and the Khas nationality over all of the different peoples of Nepal.
The CPN(M) recognises that national oppression is widespread throughout the
country and upholds the right of self-determination and even secession for the
different national groups. There cannot be a United Front unless these national
contradictions are handled correctly. The
Current Situation As
the People's War has grown from strength to strength differences have sharpened
among sections of the increasingly anxious Nepalese ruling class.
King Birenda, who allegedly was assassinated by the Crown Prince in July
2001, (the CPN(M) call this event a "reactionary coup"), had held back
from ordering the Royal Nepalese Army to launch an all out offensive against the
PLA. This was, in the view of the CPN(M), the primary reason for his murder. The
feudal monarchy, which is in a state of growing crisis, appears to be rapidly
disintegrating as a result of the onslaught of the People's War. The
new prime minister installed after the King's death, Sher Bahadur Deuba, ordered
a ceasefire by Government forces so that there could be negotiations with the
revolutionary forces. The PLA responded by suspending military operations and
the CPN(M) called for the formation of an interim government truly
representative of the various political forces in the country, the popular
election of a constituent assembly and abolition of the monarchy. Deuba rejected
these democratic demands thus exposing the dictatorial character of the
Kathmandu regime. Military operations recommenced with intensified ferocity in
November and many people such as students and journalists sympathetic to the
revolutionaries were arrested and imprisoned. Following
the September 11th. events in America, the Nepalese ruling class has
turned to the US and British imperialists to step up support for the "war
on terrorism" in Nepal. US
Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Nepal in January 2002 as has the British
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Ben Bradshaw who said: ‘Britain
will certainly help Nepal. We have kind
of problem for 35 years. There is need In June 2002 the US and British governments held a special meeting in London to step up their military intervention and aid to the reactionary Nepalese Government.
Despite
the concerted efforts of the imperialist powers, and their internal supporters
in Nepal, the fight of the people there is proceeding rather well! The Peoples
Liberation Army of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) now controls most rural
areas and has forced the Royal Nepalese Army to operate mainly from fortified
bases. Even in the capital city, Kathmandu, the RNA has been subject to attacks
and strikes are increasingly common. Unwilling to confront the Peoples
Liberation Army RNA attacks are increasingly targeted on massacres of civilians.
With such a large amount of territory under its control the CPN(M) has been able
to introduce a system of Peoples Power, organisations
which are democratically controlled by the people and not only run the
liberated zones but which are also able to "prepare for insurrection
through continuous political intervention at the central level and country-wide
strike activities." (The Worker, No. 8, CPN(M), January 2003,
p.15. When one considers that only 45% of the population (27% of females and 62%
males, (Factbook) are even basically literate this indicates the massive,
but absolutely vital task of education which the CPN(M) is engaged in. The
International Situation The
CPN(M) is well aware that the struggle in Nepal is not an isolated one, but
rather one which could effect the South Asia region of the world. Therefore the
CPN(M) has called for a co-ordinated united front of communist parties and
national liberation movements throughout the whole region to oppose expansionist
Indian monopoly capitalism. The CPN(M) considers that the Nepalese New
Democratic Revolution can only achieve victory if there are similar
revolutionary movements in nearby countries. The strategic aim is to establish a
Soviet Federation of South Asia that could be the vanguard of the second wave of
socialism in the world. The basic orientation of the CPN(M) is internationalist.
They see the revolutionary war in Nepal as but part of the international
revolutionary struggle to destroy capitalism and commence socialist
transformation. Conclusion Nepal is a relatively small and very economically backward country, however its people are providing a marvellous example to all progressive forces in the world who will be inspired by their revolt against oppression and exploitation! |
