The underground beneath his feet

For a man who fondly recalls how he bought two rifles for Rs 3000 each to launch what became a blood-drenched rebellion, this dramatic switching of gears from opposing Nepal8217;s political parties to aligning with them has the whole word watching.

Earlier this week, in a guest house in Kathmandu, he talked about the past and the future marking out how tenuous the line between the two can be.

8220;Our main enemy was the Nepali Congress because we thought they were guilty of betraying the people, after luring them with promises of a democratic future,8221; says Prachanda, 8220;and so, reaching the 12-point agreement with the Seven Party Alliance was very difficult, and the toughest negotiations took place, and several of these sessions took place in Delhi.8221;

Noida8217;s little-known Tel Bhawan was the venue of critical rounds of meetings between Maoist leaders and the 84-year old G P Koirala, current Prime Minister of Nepal, who was then president of the Nepali Congress as well. While Prachanda and his protective Comrade Commanders obscured Prachanda8217;s physical identity by circulating only one old photograph of the leader, how did the well-known Koirala attend the meetings undetected?

Prachanda says that Koirala would travel from Kathmandu to Delhi for 8220;health reasons,8221; often as the guest of the Government of India, and then on the appointed day, Koirala8217;s official vehicle would drop him at a state guest house, where the Maoists would arrange a pick-up, in one of Delhi8217;s 8220;kali-pili8221; taxis, or in an air-conditioned private hired car to take him to Tel Bhawan, or to various sympathisers8217; homes for lengthy meetings. Maoists and Nepali leaders would also meet in NDMC parks, discussing issues that would change the course of a nation, our neighbour, while munching peanuts.

In the gale force events that swept the monarchy off its perch this year, the final moments of April 24 were the most dramatic, when Koirala spurned King Gyanendra8217;s offer of a Prime Minister of the political parties8217; choice to head an appointed government. Angry youths massed barely a km from the Narayanhiti Palace, provoked, impatient and volatile. As the crowd swelled, it surged towards Thamel. And reportedly it is then, well after 10 pm, that the King flinched and asked Koirala for the exact sentences that His Majesty would finally read to the nation, surrendering power to the people and to their elected government.

Koirala and the political parties, and Prachanda and the Maoists, had drawn the template of this surrender by the King.

Prachanda is well too aware that the peace accord with the Seven Party Alliance has slipped yesterday8217;s deadline. This accord is expected to define the terms of cooperation in the peace process, and in power-sharing between the SPA and the Maoists. The future of the monarchy is on the backburner for the moment, since Prachanda wants the feudal apparatus demolished while most of the seven parties prefer to wait and watch.

According to the agreed time-table, next week the Maoists will occupy 73 seats in the 330-member Nepali Parliament 8212; the only armed party in Parliament. All its cadres are still armed, and according to Indian arms experts, they have light machine guns, rocket-launchers, mortars, carbines, modern rifles, pistols.

Political parties fret that the proposed arms surrender and the billeting of 35,000 Maoist cadres at seven cantonment sites across Nepal will take up to five or six months during which the Maoist Party will remain an armed force within Parliament. Prachanda dismisses this time-frame and claims that arms surrender will start next week because his own cadres will construct the cantonments, the trusses, the Quarter Guards, the living quarters. 8220;They will work at the building sites and live at the same place. So the surrender will start straightaway.8221;

Many are openly skeptical. There are questions and questions that parties constantly ask each other and then lob at all visitors, 8220;Can you trust the Maoists? Are the leaders saying one thing in public, but giving another signal to their cadres? Why are cadres still looting, kidnapping and extorting? If the leaders don8217;t stop them today, will they stop them later? If a Maoist cadre is discovered with arms outside the cantonment, will that attract punishment? If not, can elections be held when a section of the electorate is armed?8221;

Prachanda8217;s will-power has moved the proverbial mountains in the mountain country and that ferocious focus is intact. Claiming that the Maoists took to violence only when 8220;provoked8221; by the killings of scores of their cadres in 8216;92 and 8216;93, Prachanda says it is then that he and his deputy, Baburam Bhattarai, decided they would have to retaliate by picking up arms.

But there were no arms to pick up, and they had little money. 8220;So we went to Gandak in a very remote area. Here we struck a deal for two rifles, at Rs. 3000 each. One rifle worked, the other didn8217;t. We named the rifle that worked, the Wholetimer, because it was the only weapon we had for display of strength and for training. Sometimes Wholetimer was dispatched to Rolpa for training, sometimes to other locations. And so we sowed the seeds of our revolution with one rifle.8221;

A Wholetimer could apply to Prachanda as well. Fiercely focused, he says he feels disappointment at delays in implementing agreed schedules and so as talks with the SPA dragged in the last six months, he felt acutely disappointed.

What does a disappointed Maoist do? As the peace process misses its new deadlines, this is a question to which the world needs answers. And now it could be slightly more difficult for Prachanda to slip away into a Rohini hideout.

The writer is a journalist and managing director of Nepal 1, a TV channel