|
|
|
|
Nepal's Maoists air their dirty
laundry
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Rumors of a rift in the
top leadership of the Nepalese Maoists were
confirmed last month when Maoist "supreme leader"
Prachanda admitted to serious differences with his
deputy and political ideologue, Dr Baburam
Bhattarai. While the rift could undermine the strength of
the Maoists, it could also prove problematic
for the Nepalese government.
The rift
between Prachanda - or the "fiery one" - and
Bhattarai is not new. Rumors regarding differences
between the two have swirled for years. But it was
only in March this year that the division erupted
into the open and was publicly acknowledged by the
Maoist leaders. And this is the first time that
the leaders are airing their differences in
public.
Nine years have gone by since
Nepal's Maoists launched their "people's war" to
overthrow the monarchy and set up in its place a
secular republic. The transformation of Nepal's
Maoists from a rag-tag band of idealistic
revolutionaries to battle-hardened insurgents in
control of vast swathes of rural Nepal has been
dramatic. Today, not only do they run parallel
administrations in villages under their control,
but they have also repeatedly signaled that a mere
call from them for a general strike is enough to
paralyze the capital, Kathmandu.
It has
now emerged that even as King Gyanendra was
consolidating his control over Nepal by dismissing
the elected government, declaring a state of
emergency and jailing political leaders and
mediapersons, Prachanda was consolidating his
position in the Maoist movement by divesting
Bhattarai and his wife Hisila Yami of their party
posts.
In a press statement issued on
March 14, the Royal Nepal Army claimed that
Bhattarai and Hisala Yami had been expelled from
the organization. The allegation was swiftly
denied by Maoist spokesperson Krishna Bahadur
Mahara, who insisted that Bhattarai and Yami "had
been fulfilling their roles and responsibilities
in the party and the movement through mutual
consultation and regular co-operation with
Prachanda".
Then came the statement from
Prachanda listing his grievances with Bhattarai.
"Comrade Bhattarai is bolstering groupism and
divisive activities within the party at this
crucial moment for implementation of the central
committee's unanimous and most important decisions
on revolutionary transformation and
counter-offensive plans," Prachanda said, alleging
that Bhattarai and his wife were working against
the insurgency by questioning recent military
decisions of the party's highest decision making
body.
According to reports in the Nepalese
media, Bhattarai's expulsion is the culmination of
serious differences that surfaced during a plenum
of the Maoist central committee held last August.
Sudheer Sharma, editor of Nepal Weekly magazine,
points out that Bhattarai was upset with the
withdrawal of a decision in favor of greater
inner-party democracy and against democratic
centralism that had been made a year earlier.
During the 2004 plenum it appears that Prachanda
sought to be declared head of the underground
government, which Bhattarai headed hitherto, as
well as the party and the people's army.
In a 13-point note of dissent addressed to
the Maoist high command Bhattarai questioned the
centralization of power and posts in the hands of
one person; the elevation of the Maoists'
revolutionary path called "Prachandapath" to
"Prachandaism or Thoughts of Prachanda"; and the
decision to promote Prachanda to the pantheon of
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin,
Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.
Bhattarai's
discomfort with Prachanda's megalomania, however,
is not recent. It can be traced back to 1998, when
the Maoist plenum decided to elevate Prachanda to
the post of "Supreme Leader" and made it mandatory
that political articles written by Maoist leaders
quote him. "The personality cult that was emerging
around Prachanda troubled Bhattarai right from the
start," recalls "Upadhyay", a former Maoist now
based in India, adding that Bhattarai resented the
way Prachanda chipped away at Bhattarai's status
within the organization.
The Nepalese
Maoists have had serious differences on strategy.
Whether or not to go in for talks is one issue
that is known to have divided the Maoists at
various junctures over the past nine years. In
2001, for instance, after three rounds of talks
with the Sher Bahadur Deuba government, the
Maoists suddenly walked out of the talks and
launched a series of high profile violent attacks.
It was reported at that time that Comrade "Badal",
the Maoist "military commander", was opposed to
the talks. "In some villages, posters with
Prachanda's portrait highlighting the 'Prachanda
Path' were torn down and replaced with those on
'Comrade Badal's Path'," recalls Upadhyay. "His
supremacy challenged and with the threat of a
possible revolt looming large, Prachanda called
off the talks." Media reports suggested at that
time that Comrade Badal had in fact deliberately
carried out the attack on the military camp at
Dang with the specific aim of torpedoing the
talks.
Now the Maoists are said to be
divided not only on the issue of talks with the
government but also on India's role. Prachanda and
Bhattarai are said to have sharp differences on
the way they perceive India today. In the past,
their rage and rhetoric against "Indian
expansionism" notwithstanding, Maoist leaders
sought to cultivate contacts in India. In fact, as
S D Muni points out in his book Maoist
Insurgency in Nepal: The Challenge and
Response the Maoists "moderated and diluted
their anti-India rhetoric between November 2001
and January 2003".
Sharma writes that at
the August 2004 plenum, however, the Maoists
"identified India as the primary enemy which might
interfere militarily or sabotage their talks with
the king". Bhattarai, who believes that the main
enemy of the Maoists is the monarchy and is said
to be open to reaching out to India, was
reportedly upset with the 2004 decision. Sources
in Indian Intelligence agencies argue that the
difference in the way Prachanda and Bhattarai
perceive India finds reflection in who they see as
allies in the "people's war". They say that this
difference has been visible for years.
In
2002, the online Public Affairs Magazine reported
that the Maoists were helping transport jihadi
recruits across the territory of Nepal and then
through the narrow Siliguri corridor into
Bangladesh. The report said that Prachanda and
Bhattarai differed on co-operating with Islamic
militants and pointed out that Prachanda "is keen
on stepping up the cooperation with the Islamic
fundamentalists in a bid to boost the operational
capabilities of the Maoists. But Bhattarai is of
the view that extended cooperation could lead to a
loss of popular support in rural Nepal where most
people are predominantly Hindu. Bhattarai is
apparently unwilling to give a pro-Islamic image
to the movement."
The rift at the highest
levels of the Maoist movement indicates that even
as the Maoists are fighting to overthrow Nepal's
monarchy, they are fighting among themselves to
determine their own future course of action.
The
implications of the Prachanda-Bhattarai rift for
the Maoist movement will be far greater should the
rift result in a vertical split of the
organization. While the rift could create
confusion and undermine the morale of the cadres,
a vertical split that results in fighting between
the two factions would severely erode the strength
of the Maoists. The possibility of one faction
co-operating with the army, disclosing hideouts
and arms caches of the rival faction cannot be
ruled out. All this would work in favor of the
army, which has for years been hoping and working
on deepening the rift between Prachanda and
Bhattarai.
The Nepalese government
will be hoping that the rift will see the entry of
either faction into the political mainstream. It
is widely believed that a section among the
Maoists is tired of the war and is keen to come
above ground into the political mainstream.
Whether the rift will encourage this section to
come into the mainstream remains to be seen.
However, the split in the Maoists might not work
out quite so neatly in favor of the government.
The split is very likely to result in both,
Bhattarai and Prachanda, adopting tougher
positions in order to project themselves as
uncompromising campaigners of the Maoist cause.
Should that happen, Nepal's government is in for
more trying times.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent
journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
|
