Only Visiting

But putting Bhattarai down is not so easy. He is the international face of the Maoists and can save the Left Wing extremists from total isolation if their revolution is successful. Bhattarai or Laldhwaj as he is called by fellow comrades is the man, negotiators hope, who can change the plot by steering the Maoist ship towards mainstream politics without a gun.

THE story of this 51-year-old 8216;8216;revolutionary8217;8217; did not start in a tucked-away village of Nepal. It took shape in the famous Left bastion of Jawaharlal Nehru University. Bhattarai spent his crucial years in JNU as a research student under Professor Atiya Habeeb Kidwai of the Centre for Study of Regional Development. He received his PhD in 1986-87.

Contrary to popular belief, he was not in the thick of JNU8217;s political action. He was short, thin, frail, docile and distanced from any distraction to his academic pursuits till he experienced those three hours with Manus, a baby who lived no longer than that. The baby was born to a Nepali immigrant here and Bhattarai says in his PhD thesis that Manus gave him the 8216;8216;feel8217;8217; of the underdevelopment he was inquiring into.

The 893-page thesis called 8216;8216;The Nature of Underdevelopment and Regional Structure in Nepal8217;8217; is one of the longest submitted to the Centre. In fact, the original draft was 1,800 pages which was returned by Kidwai to be redone. He calls himself Kidwai8217;s 8216;8216;problem child8217;8217; while acknowledging her contribution.

While in Delhi, Bhattarai had a near brush with death. He was hit by a bus while crossing the Outer Ring Road outside Old JNU campus. He went into coma and many of his friends thought they had lost him. He recovered and went on to complete his project.

Though not in the forefront of student politics, he and his wife Hisila Yami spent considerable time with Nepali immigrants in Delhi. Friends say those was probably his 8216;8216;inspiring moments8217;8217;.

Bhattarai proposed a 8216;8216;planning model8217;8217; for Nepal in his thesis. He divided the country into three geographic spheres, identifying lines of socio-economic conflict in each region. In the northern most mountainous region, he says, it was a direct conflict between man and nature.

In the central hilly region, it was a triangular conflict between the dominant class, nature and the exploited class while in the Southern Terai region it was a straightforward clash between the dominant and the exploited. He was clear that the principal problem was the 8216;8216;retrograde feudalistic system8217;8217; which ruled Nepal and that the only reason it received any international attention was because of the revolution in China.

But Bhattarai8217;s development models for Nepal will have to wait as the country is now being drawn into a vortex of conspiracy theories, where everyone is a suspect.