Two faces of Prachanda

WITH a moustache that gives a Stalinesque edge to his personality8212;and a reputation of a hardliner who led a violent insurgency for over a decade8212;Prachanda is a man whose word is feared. Of course, what he says may not always be credible, but you can8217;t trivialise his statements either. So when he says the king of Nepal should vacate his palace, even royalty acquiesces.
His words are sure to ring across the country when the Constituent Assembly sits for the first time on May 28. Because playing a prominent role in the body will be the shadowy underground leader with a grand nom de guerre of 8220;Fierce8221;8212;considered by many a terrorist for the 13,000 deaths his Maoist activists caused in fighting a 8220;People8217;s War8221; in Nepal since 19968212;and now the leader of the largest democratically elected party in Nepal8217;s Constituent Assembly.
More than others, he will be remembered as the one who led Nepal8217;s transition to a democratic republic on May 288212;that is if the ongoing infighting among four major political parties doesn8217;t upset the schedule.
In bringing an end to the 240-year-old monarchy, Prachanda would not only achieve a singular objective, but would also silence the international community, mainly the United States, United Kingdom and India, who had until four years ago, sided with King Gyanendra to defeat the 8216;terrorists8217;.
Such has been Prachanda8217;s clout in politics since he came overground in 1996 that two major political parties which had led governments earlier, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist CPN-UML, ended up toeing the Maoists8217; political line on ending the writ of Narayanhity Palace in Nepal. For long, the two parties had resisted all attempts to change their stand, saying that a constitutional monarchy was a non-negotiable aspect of Nepal8217;s politics.
But all that changed after the man from the jungle influenced Nepal8217;s parliamentary politics, first as a peripheral character and then as centrestage performer.
In a couple of days, he might well be at the helm of a new government. In any case, with the country8217;s army of 93,000, virtually demoralised and disowned, few will dispute that the chief of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists CPN-M and the supreme commander of its 30,000-strong People8217;s Liberation Army PLA is the most powerful man in the Himalayan country.

HIS decade as a guerrilla chief lends itself to easy mythmaking in an impoverished country. And it8217;s easy to see why. Chhabilal Dahal was born to a peasant family in western Nepal8217;s Kaski district 55 years ago and trailed his father Muktinath as he moved from place to place, looking for a relatively secure settlement. The Dahal family settled down in Chitwan, a district developed with US assistance, in the early 1960s.
Young Chhabilal was enrolled as Pushpa Kamal Dahal in a nearby village school and then moved to Kathmandu in 1970 for higher education. He then returned to Chitwan to study agriculture science at a university there-one founded on US assistance.
It was in university here that Dahal8217;s dormant inclination towards communism blossomed into ideological commitment. There was, however, an anomaly. Despite the American largesse in evidence around him, anti-Americanism became the core value of his political belief and worldview.
His university days also gave him friends who later became his comrades in the jungle during the years of insurgency and now are his partners-in-power.
Dahal became a member of an underground outfit in the mid 8217;70s, and then kept shifting party and position. He became an established leader in 1985 when the proposed armed rebellion of the radical Left party8212;Mashal8212;was not only exposed but was foiled by the government. As a result, the top leaders of the party were 8220;collectively demoted8221; and Dahal, the youngest of the lot, was chosen to take over as General Secretary.
It was, in fact, the beginning of the political career of Dahal, now going under the single name of Prachanda. Nepal8217;s communist movement has been replete with splits, reunions and defections and after many such events, Prachanda became the leader of the United Jana Morcha United People8217;s Front that was formed with the merger of two parties in 1995 and later decided to convert the party into an underground outfit-Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists CPN-M.
The new party was set up with the aim of launching an armed movement for securing a democratic, republic Nepal. The strategy that the Maoists chose to fulfil this objective was armed struggle. The bloody war, which at its peak was so effective that the writ of the government ran in just the capital and urban areas, saw at least 13,000 lives lost and 200,000 people displaced.
And then King Gyanendra played into the Maoists8217; hand, so to say. He took over absolute powers in early 2005, angering even the moderate politicians. As pro-democracy parties ganged up against the palace, they acknowledged that neither peace nor stability and democracy could be achieved without the Maoists joining the political process.
Prachanda and his activists joined the mainstream, which culminated in the elections to the Constituent Assembly in April, in which the CPNMaoists won 220 of the 601 seats, leaving the traditional powers, the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML, trailing at 110 and 103 respectively. Prachanda now has the chance to lead a coalition government for the two years of the Constituent Assembly8217;s life.

8220;Prachanda has the burden to prove himself worthy of the trust of 13,000 people who lost their lives because of his movement,8221; says Deepak Thapa, a journalist who has researched and written books on the insurgency in Nepal.
So as May 28 approaches there is hope and cautious optimism. But there is fear and opposition too and the former guerrilla will find that being a leader in a democracy may not be as facile as being the supremo of a militia. Ramila Shrestha, whose husband Ramhari Shrestha allegedly disappeared two weeks after being taken to a Maoist camp in Chitwan, is determined to stall Prachanda8217;s prime ministerial chances. 8220;Prachanda is unfit to occupy the high post and he must be stopped from getting there at any cost,8221; she said. About 102 organisations have already thrown their weight behind Ramila and her demand.
But Prachanda has the support of many others. 8220;He has the advantage of being a new face compared to those who were tried, tested and rejected by the people,8221; reasons Thapa.
And the common people deify him for standing up to the all-powerful king. 8220;He is a wonderful leader. We have trudged with him in hilly terrains for days-up to ten days at a stretch-and he is always inspiring. He mingles with the children, takes interest in people8217;s problems,8221; says a woman activist who has just been elected to the Constituent Assembly. 8220;But at times, he acts like a loose cannon and gets into troubles for what he says,8221; she adds.
And even as an elected representative of the people, he has changed little from the days when his was a feared name. In June 2006, he dismissed the Nepal Army in the first ever press conference that he addressed as an overground leader as a 8220;bunch of rapists and thugs8221;. He had to apologise after there was public criticism for his rash comments. Only last year, in an interview to an Indian TV channel, he said he would become Nepal8217;s president in two years. When his comment drew scorn in Nepal, he shrugged it off, saying he simply wanted to create a political wave.
8220;Comrade Prachanda8217;s biggest strength is he can address the inner contradictions and can really bring about the fusion between political and military thoughts, but his weakness is he is misguided by a small coterie and even his family members,8221; says a senior Maoist leader. 8220;That is our biggest fear now,8221; he says, giving an account of his 11-year-old association with the leader.
The fact that Prachanda8217;s wife Sita Poudel and daughter Renu Dahal have been made members of the Constituent Assembly shows the fear is not entirely unfounded.
Yet the mystique holds. 8220;He has apologised much more often than any other leader,8221; says Sonam alias Kul Prasad KC, leader of the young Communist League. 8220;We learn by mistakes8221;.
But the distance Prachanda has travelled in such a short time is almost without a parallel in Nepal. 8220;He has a disarming power to argue and convince. Prachanda puts before comrades the worst and best case scenario of every move that the party undertakes,8221; says Barshaman Pun alias Ananta, Deputy Commander of the PLA and now a member of the Constituent Assembly.
Recalling the days when severe action was taken against senior Maoist leader Badal on charges of adultery, Ananta says Prachanda cried8212;bringing tears to almost every eye in an underground meeting in far western Rolpa district8212;but his request to all was that 8220;we must save the party together8221;.
Similarly, when Prachanda put his friend and deputy Baburam Bhattarai in a labour camp for 8220;being an Indian agent8221; in February 2005, he managed to convince his party that such activities should not be tolerated.
8220;Prachanda is equally comfortable with Baburam as his key advisor now,8221; says another leader, citing this as his ability to pick, reward and punish people according to the 8216;need of the hour8217;.
8220;He is a shrewd negotiator,8221; says a senior official at the Prime Minister8217;s Office. 8220;Every time he has to achieve something, he politely tells the Prime Minister to understand his predicament in having to convince the armed militants in his party. This subtle threat almost always ends in giving him what he does not deserve. Prachanda himself has never conceded anything, not even returned the private property confiscated from individuals, although he is bound to do it under the comprehensive peace agreement,8221; he adds.

As Prachanda embarked on an overground political exercise, he began frequenting religious congregations as well. During one such congregation recently, a Jain Guru called him the avatar of Parsuram8212;the legendary character in Hindu mythology regarded as the reincarnation of Lord Vishnu who freed the earth of all kshatriyas for their 8216;misrule8217;.
No one knows if that title was conferred on him in anticipation of his dethroning a 8216;kshatriya8217; king. But the irony is the king of Nepal has always been regarded as the living Vishnu by Hindus and Prachanda is now being projected as his avatar.