Opinion New year,old burdens

The political isolation of the UCPN-M,the underground outfit that led the insurgency to subvert the Nepali state,appears almost complete. Major pro-democracy parties like the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) seem to have realised,after four years together in the “peace and democratic exercise”,that the former rebels were only using them for the limited purpose of removing the monarchy,so that dismantling every component of the old state,including the non-Maoist parties,becomes far easier.

Certainly,the Maoists stand discredited today. The past four years have taken a toll on the party as well as its leader Prachanda’s revolutionary,incorruptible and larger-than-life image,built during his underground days. The UCPN-M trade union controls all the 10 casinos in country’s big hotels,and most of its 7,000 employees.

The casino owners pay “protection money” to the Maoist trade union leaders instead of clearing revenue that stands at a whopping Rs 193 million to the government. Top leaders,Prachanda included,have come in for sharp criticism for their lavish and corrupt lifestyles,which surpasses those of their declared class enemies. The Maoists launched their insurgency in 1996 with an array of political and social crusades that included the eradication of gambling. Now,they are exposed as the patrons of five-star gambling. Their standing in popular esteem has sunk steadily.

And this year more than ever,the Maoists have completely lost India’s trust,which was decisive in bringing them to overground politics four years ago,with the blind assessment that they would be transformed into a force for democracy and shun the weapons they wielded for a decade. The disillusionment,however,seems mutual. A section of the Maoists feels betrayed by the Indian establishment — thinking it simply wanted the former rebels to act as Indian stooges in Nepal — and wants to resume armed struggle and capture power. Among the public too,India is seen as a cause for most things that have gone wrong in the country.

Bibek Shah,who was asked to resign by King Gyanendra in November 2002 as his military secretary, has come out with a book called Maile Dekheko Durbar (The Palace I Have Seen) that not only reveals many dark sides of the royal palace,but also asserts that India trained the Nepali Maoists as it did the Sri Lankan Tamils in the ’80s,and used them as leverage for political bargaining in Nepal. How India responds to the charge is one thing,but for the Nepali Maoists,who have postured against imperialist America and hegemonic India,Shah’s claim is highly toxic,especially at a point when the Maoist leadership is trying to manage contradictions between its stated beliefs and its real actions.

Ambassador Rakesh Sood’s three-year tenure was perhaps the best barometer of India’s plummeting popularity,as all hopes of Nepal becoming a successful model of conflict mitigation evaporated. The Indian initiative that helped bring the Maoists and pro-democracy forces together and axed the monarchy without working out how the void left by that 250-year-old institution would be filled,the rise of radical identity politics and the complete collapse of the state’s legitimacy,has created a deep malaise in Nepal.

The Maoists,despite their threats,might not resort to armed revolution,but the recent past has been hostile to all moderate,traditional and democratic forces. In fact,all the compromises made ended up hurting their interests. The promise of a fresh new year is barely reason enough to revive hope.