The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal

Revolution in the Twenty-first Century

Mahendra Lawoti, Anup Kumar Pahari, Mahendra Lawoti, Anup Kumar Pahari

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135261672
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Politik

The book deals with the dynamics and growth of a violent 21st century communist rebellion initiated in Nepal by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – CPN(M). It contextualizes and explains why and how a violent Maoist insurgency grew in Nepal after the end of the Cold War, in contrast to the decline of other radical communist movements in most parts of the world.

Scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds employ a wide variety of approaches and methods to unravel different aspects of the rebellion. Individual chapters analyze the different causes of the insurgency, factors that contributed to its growth, the organization, agency, ideology and strategies employed by the rebels and the state, and the consequences of the insurgency.

New issues are analysed in conjunction with the insurgency, such as the role of the Maoist student organization, Maoist's cultural troupes, the organization and strategies of the People's Army and the Royal Nepal Army, indoctrination and recruitment of rebels, and international factors. Based on original field work and a thorough analysis of empirical data, this book fills an existing gap in academic analyses of the insurgency in Nepal.

Part I
Introduction

1
Evolution and growth of the Maoist insurgency in Nepal

Mahendra Lawoti¹

Introduction

The growth of the Maoist insurgency in Nepal around the turn of the century confounded the world by defying several layers of conventional wisdom about politics and society.² The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) controlled a large swath of territory within a decade of launching an insurgency. The armed conflict led to the death of more than 13,000 people, in addition to many other costs of civil war such as destruction, displacement and gross human rights abuses (see chapter 15 for discussion of consequences of the conflict). Eventually, the Maoists successfully negotiated a peace settlement in their favor and went on to win the postwar election.

The first challenge to the prevalent understanding comes from the rise of a violent communist rebellion in the 21st century even as communist regimes fell one after another around the world. The communist insurgency expanded rapidly in Nepal despite the declaration of an end of ideology after the end of Cold War (see Fukuyama 1993) and despite lack of significant external support. In fact, the Maoist insurgency grew despite an adverse international climate, including the US-led War on Terror after Al Qaida’s 9/11 attacks.

Second, Nepal had restored democracy in 1990 and democracy is supposed to defuse violence by transforming such tendencies into non-violent conflicts through electoral politics and non-violent protests (Ward and Gleditsch 1998; Hegre et al. 2001). However, the CPN-M launched the insurgency in February 1996 after taking part briefly in the fledgling democracy – it regularly engaged in petitioning and public protests in early 1990s and competed in the 1991 general and 1992 local elections. The predecessor of the CPN-M, in fact, had emerged as the third largest parliamentary party after the 1991 election. The launch and rapid growth of the insurgency challenged the notion that democracy could settle conflicts peacefully and that it was the only acceptable game in town (see Diamond 1999).

Third, the insurgency gained momentum even though Nepal was witnessing reasonable economic growth, expansion of development, and improvement in human development index (HDI) in the 1990s, including in the Maoist strongholds of the mid-western hills. The average real GDP (gross domestic product) for 1987–88 to 1994–95 was 4.1 percent compared to 3 percent during 1976–77 to 1986–87 (Sharma 2006: 1242).³ The HDI had increased in 2001 compared to 1996 in most districts (UNDP 2004; NESAC 1998). Roads, schools, health facilities, universities, banks and other development infrastructure and service sectors expanded in the 1990s (Mahat 2005; Khanal 2007). Class-based rebellions are said to ignite when economic conditions worsen but the Maoist People’s War was launched and gained momentum when national economic and development indicators demonstrated positive trends in Nepal.

Fourth, the escalation of violence surprised many because Nepal was considered a peaceful country. More than a hundred countries had endorsed the zone of peace initiative of King Birendra by 1990. Hence, it shocked many people when the country regarded as a ‘Shangrila’ turned into a bloody battlefield.

The growth of the insurgency in Nepal thus raises many interesting questions. How did a violent Maoist movement grow and succeed in the post-Cold War adverse global environment? Why did a party that had participated in a democratic election launch a violent movement and receive significant support? Why did people support the rebellion when economic and development indicators were showing improvements? Does the success of the Maoists in Nepal indicate resurgence of radical communism globally? The objective of the book is to contextualize and explain the growth of a violent communist rebellion. It will fill an existing void in academic analyses of the insurgency and connect the Nepali case to a broader literature on rebellions.

The chapters analyze factors that contributed to the insurgency’s growth, strategies employed by the rebels and the state, and the consequences of the insurgency. The chapters cover issues that have not been explicated or analyzed thoroughly yet: indoctrination and recruitment of rebels, the role of the Maoist student organization and cultural troupe, organization, mobilization, and strategies of the rebels and the state, including the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Royal Nepal Army’s (RNA), ethnic dimension of the class-based rebellion, external factors, revolutionary governance, and the role of electoral democracy and liberal market economy.⁴ The chapters also build onto existing analyses and review and retest the role of economy, geography, incentives of leaders and recruits, ideology, literacy, road density and so on.

We have brought together scholars working in different fields employing a variety of approaches and methods to unravel different aspects of the insurgency. Scholars from multiple disciplinary backgrounds – anthropologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and conflict experts – with particular disciplinary expertise have tackled different questions and gleaned valuable insights. The chapters are based on original fieldwork as well as analyses of secondary data and the contributors have employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. Fieldwork-based chapters have marshaled rare ethnographic data of the conflict and provide rich, thick descriptions and analyses while chapters employing sophisticated econometric tools have identified causes of the insurgency based on available quantitative data. Chapters that have studied the rebellion from a comparative perspective, on the other hand, have produced valuable insights through rigorous analyses and filled an important methodological gap (among few exceptions are Marks and Palmer 2005; Bownas 2003; Ramirez 2004; Nickson 1992).

History of the communist movement in Nepal

The communist movement arrived in Nepal via its southern democratic neighbor India, and not, in fact, directly via communist China, the northern neighbor. The Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) was established in 1949 in Calcutta, India, with the active assistance of Indian communists. The party was banned from 1952 to 1956 during the interim democratic period. The communists tied with the People’s Council to win the most seats – six out of 18 – in the first adult franchise-based election for Kathmandu municipality in 1953 but won only four seats out of 109 in the first election to the Parliament in 1959 (KC 1999).

The communist movement spread clandestinely during the Panchayat period (1960–90) when the regime was more focused on tackling the overt challenges from the Nepali Congress, whose two-thirds majority government King Mahendra had dissolved in 1960. The common strident nationalist agenda between the communists and the palace sometimes brought them closer. Many communist cadres, especially the more radical ones, however, were jailed or killed during the period.

The communist movement in Nepal has faced a chronic problem of factionalism and frequent splits. There have been around a dozen communist parties and factions in the country at any one time since the 1960s (KC 1999; Khadka 1995; Maharjan 2000; Rawal 2047 v.s. (1991)). The splits began when King Mahendra seized power in 1960 and banned the political parties. The ‘Russian communists’ or those that were closer to the USSR were supportive of the royal action whereas the ‘Chinese communists’ or the group that followed the Beijing line remained aloof. Both the CPN factions split numerous times. The splits and factionalism often occurred over minor differences in interpretations of policies and strategies or personality clashes among the leaders. In 1974 the more extremist leaders of the mainstream communist movement – notably Nirmal Lama and Mohan Bikram Singh – established the Nepal Communist Party (Fourth Congress). The top Maoist leadership hails from this group (Maharjan 2000; Thapa and Sijapati 2003).

The Nepali communists launched a violent movement for the first time in 1971. Influenced by the violent Naxalite Maoist movement in West Bengal, a group of young communists killed several ‘class enemies’ in Jhapa district in east Nepal. The campaign was brutally crushed by the state. Nevertheless, the group went on to form the Communist Party of Nepal-Marxist Leninist (CPN-ML) in 1978 and became the largest communist faction by 1990. It merged with CPN-Marxist, a party with well-known leaders but a weak mass base, to become the CPN-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) in 1990 and emerged as the major opposition party after the 1991 general election. It formed the first democratically elected communist government (minority) in the world after the mid-term election in 1994 but lasted for only a year

The communist movement had grown considerably by the 1990s, even though it was split into numerous factions. The utopian ideals and wide-ranging promises to

Table 1.1 Votes and seats received by communist and non-communist parties in parliament

end all forms of inequalities and injustices have attracted the poor, youth and marginalized groups into the communist fold. The communist movement has also received considerable support among the clerical government workers, labor unions and public school teachers.

The political parties that call themselves communist range from the radical Maoists to moderate groups like the CPN-UML. Nepali communists are highly nationalist, unlike the international communist movement. Many moderate communist parties also do not uphold many other elements of the communist ideology anymore. Many accepted the constitutional monarchy and multiparty parliamentary democracy after 1990. Likewise, since 1990 many communists have adopted market-friendly policies.

The communists collectively received 36, 33 and 39 percent of votes in 1991, 1994 and 1999 respectively (see table 1.1). Collectively they received more votes than the Nepali Congress, the largest party, only in 1999. The communists finally obtained more votes than all the non-communist parties in 2008. The brief history of the communist movement shows that by early 1990, communists had firmly established themselves as a major political force in Nepal despite the fact that the world was headed towards a post-communist global order.

Evolution of the Maoists

The Maoists were a small communist faction among a number of extremist communist parties before 1996. Scholars identify the origin of the Maoists with the establishment of the CPN-Fourth Congress in 1974 under Nirmal Lama and Mohan Bikram Singh. After a number of splits, some of the persons and groups involved in the CPN-Fourth Congress, except Mohan Bikram Singh and the CPN-Masal he led, formed the CPN-Unity Center (CPN-UC) on 23 November 1990.⁵ The CPN-UC was made up of the CPN-Fourth Congress led by Nirmal Lama, CPN-Mashal led by Prachanda aka Puspa Kamal Dahal who had replaced Kiran, and the breakaway faction of the CPN-Masal led by Baburam Bhattarai, the Maoist ideologue. The CPN-UC established a political front headed by Baburam Bhattarai – the United People’s Front Nepal (UPFN) – to participate in the elections (Maharjan 1993).

Before the 1994 mid-term elections, the CPN-UC and the UPFN split and the faction led by Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai boycotted the elections partly because their front was not recognized by the Election Commission. In 1995, Prachanda-led CPN-UC held its Third Plenum during which the party renamed itself as CPN-Maoist and decided to begin an armed insurgency (Thapa and Sijapati 2003).⁶ On 4 February 1996, the UPFN led by Baburam Bhattarai submitted a list of 40 demands on nationalism, people’s democracy and livelihood with an ultimatum to initiate insurgency if they were not met.⁷ The demands included a range from genuine concerns (land rights to tenants, secular state) to wishful issues (employment guarantee to all). A majority of the nine demands on nationalism related to Nepal’s relations with India. The people’s democracy subsection included demands concerning indigenous nationalities, women and Dalit. Some others points were ideological and questionable in terms of democratic credentials, such as restricting the activities of NGOs. One demand called for the abolishment of royal privileges but did not call for a republican state, which became a major issue during different phases of the insurgency. The list included a demand for a new ...