"Some perspectives on Nepali Maoism" from INSN.ORG
by BHishma Raj Karki
In the days of Panchayat rule, the air in Nepal was charged with the talk of necessity of revolution. There was a genuine feeling of solidarity with the cause of democracy among the overwhelming majority of Nepali people. As a young student I too was infected with a revolutionary zeal. I was fascinated by the making and breaking of the revolution.
The occasion was my imprisonment in Bhadragol jail. I chanced upon an abridged history classic on the Russian revolution by Trotsky. ?The History of Russian Revolution? is a wonderful book by Trotsky. He was a great stylist and raconteur. The original book runs to nearly two thousand pages. The book has a wealth of details and offers fresh insight into the Russian history which makes it a history classics of the highest value. Before I studied Trotsky?s book, I had only a limited exposure to the history of Russia but quite an advanced knowledge of Russian literature. Certainly Trotsky left deep impression on me. Trotsky was a hero of the Russian revolution.
One of the most curious points observed by Trotsky is that Russia long lacked something comparable to the depth of European culture. The Russian wilderness and all the shifting settlements and commercial centers of Russian never fostered culture. When I read the book, I got the impression that there was nothing like the inevitability of the downfall of the Czarist Russia, although the contradictions and confusions within the old regime on the eve of the Bolshevik takeover were fatal. I could not welcome the bloody Bolshevik triumph; I had many misgivings and doubts about the communist Russia.
Nepal has no intense intellectual culture; it does not, therefore, have adequate conceptual clarity over the best strategy to confront the Maoist terror. There is no program, thought and ideology that should have made the Maoist insurgency a genuine movement of the masses. The violent campaign of the Maoist is indefensible. They have tried to build their insurgency by mobilizing the backward population.
While Marxism evolved in a cultural ferment of western Europe, Nepal?s communist movement, like its democracy, is undernourished in terms of cultural vitality. Marx was a world historical figure. The men leading the Russian revolution were mostly men of letters. They were men stepped thoroughly in western thoughts. I do not want to say the revolution can happen only under the leadership of great men. But a true revolution without a great figure to lead it is doomed.
Maoists may have been able to stage a propaganda coup that they are the party of poor and downtrodden mass. As the Maoist violence unfolds, whatever iota of genuineness of cause and appeal there was in the Maoist campaign has been supplanted by the brutality. Their mass base is never large, although they have succeeded in holding the army of Nepal at bay. As I grow older, I look upon revolution with an uneasiness and sometimes revulsion, especially when the insurgency is led by the Maoist. The Maoist?s sacred faith revolves around the senseless violence and terror. That so violent a campaign of terror by the Maoist should succeed in crippling Nepal after the advent of democracy attests to the fact that the government after government of Nepal have been led by the incompetent fools. Nepal under the new democracy failed to bring about the improvement in the lot of common people. This failure does not give the Maoist the right to take over the country at gun point. Who are the Maoist thugs to speak for poor? Is their backward philosophy of violence and terror likely to contribute to Nepal?s well-being? Does it justify the violent insurgency, killing and terror? The followers of Polpot justified the killing and terror in Cambodia, ostensibly to promote the social inequality and economic development.
I have been curious student of Nepali communism. The communist mindset in Nepal in general and the Maoist mindset in particular has been very primitive. Nepal is far more backward culturally than the Czarist Russia ever was The ideology of Nepali communism is derived from the shallowest understanding of Marx and other leftist thinkers. A crude distortion of the historical thought like Marxism is being invoked as a magic wand by an uneducated leaders of the Maoist party to bolster their cause. They see the world in black and white. Such a simplistic thinking is indication of the intellectual barrenness of the Nepali Maoists; they are totally bereft of critical thinking to discover the truth. The Maoist leadership is full of uncultured and uneducated philistines who believe, by foisting forcibly the communist tyranny, Nepal would enter into the golden age of the communist paradise.
It was sweet for a poor Nepali person like us when the Soviet union was kicking and alive in one respect because for a penny one could buy the great classics of Marx even in Nepal. The Soviet Union served as the global center of the Marxist literature. The great fascination of communist thought stemmed from the unmatched intellectual superiority of Marx. In spite of the intellectual inadequacy of my formative youth, I read Marx but was intimidated by his abstruse elaboration of economics in Das capital. I keenly devoured the first volume of Das Capital, but my understanding of the other two volumes remains infirm. I have never had opportunity to master the entire three volumes since I left Nepal. Digesting Marx is a very difficult task. I had complete collection of Marx?s works and my family threw them away after it was discovered that they were totally damaged by the bugs.
I have adequate exposure to Marxist thoughts which puts me in some kind of position to judge critically the inner worth of the communist movement in Nepal. It has not produced a single leading figure who can be admired for the intellectual brilliance. The intellectual capacity of Nepal?s big communist party like UML is totally unsatisfactory. At least Nepali congress, the largest democratic party, had a truly remarkable leader like B. P. Koirala. In the case of the Maoist party, the situation is even more hopeless. Much is made about Baburam?s success in the school leaving certificate (SLC) and other exams but he is particularly stupid, devoid of any genuine intellectual accomplishment. At best his ability is confined to writing trashy articles full of clich?s and cryptic rigmaroles.
Even Marx proved to be wrong in his historical prognosis and the downfall of the communist movement is an irreversible and permanent fact of the world history. To the Maoist terrorists in Nepal, this is an act of blasphemy. Where Marx fails, Maoists think they can do better. This is plain stupidity. The measure of the idiots like Prachanda and Baburam (Maoist Supremo) can be gauged by the fact that they delude themselves by thinking they are at the center of new south Asian wave of future. Or is it a global volcano?
Is there a solid theoretical foundation of the Maoist insurgency which can be defended in a free open minded debate? The answer is an emphatic no. They have tried to copy blindly some formula from the exploits of Mao in China and want to reenact them in Nepal.. Since Nepal is poor and backward, they claim that the so-called rural proletariat will enthusiastically embrace their call for arm. Meanwhile the forward looking mass finds the Maoist tactics repugnant and they are making common cause to resist the Maoist terror. The insurgency is driven by nothing but an irrational worship of the violence. Maoists show an utter contempt for the democratic tolerance
Nepal might go through the worst in the days ahead. But her future belongs to those who are willing to defend the freedom and democracy against the assaults of the Maoist. The purity of the cause loses none of its luster even if the leadership is at the hand of the most traditional institution like monarchy. The activist role of monarchy will automatically recede into the background when Nepal is peaceful again. All these talks of the murder of democracy are dishonest lies which willfully overlooks the absence of atmosphere of security to make democracy and the rule of law a practical reality for the entire country.
To confront the Maoist butchers, I consider it my solemn duty as a Nepali citizen. Only by exposing the brutality, terror, destruction and killing perpetrated by the Maoist can we lay the foundation for the vibrant democracy in Nepal. I am not a royalist but the ancien regime of Nepal had much more humanity than is ever possible under the Maoist guerilla whose favorite tactics is terror and more terror. The face of Maoism in Nepal is one of the unmitigated barbarism and it has an unlimited potential for evil.
