B.P. and the Maoists

TKP 29/6/2009

The crucial question remains unanswered: Now that the monarchy no longer exists, what is the Army for?

Towards the end of his eight-year incarceration in the 1960s, B.P. Koirala wrote a historical analysis of the national army. The repeated occasions on which he had been jailed under the surveillance of the Army, B.P. wrote, had led him to reflect on the role of the institution in the life of the nation. The essay was first published in 1975 in a Nepali Congress bulletin. As “democratization of the army” became a core objective of sections of the Nepali political class, and was even included in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the essay was rediscovered and published by the left-leaning newspaper Naya Patrika last year. It was then republished by Mulyankan magazine last month, following the recent crisis over the Army that led to the Maoist withdrawal from government.

B.P. observed that while he was under constant surveillance while under arrest, none of the soldiers or officials on guard was allowed to speak to him. The King was so paranoid that the jailers would develop sympathy with their prisoner that soldiers were allowed to attend to him only in groups so that they would keep watch over each other and thus inhibit any desire to speak to the captive. This led, B.P. recounts, to the comical sight of a whole crowd of officials and soldiers trooping over to B.P.'s narrow quarters even when they had to deliver the most insignificant of messages.

Disconnected from the people, B.P. wrote, the rulers had to take all measures necessary to ensure that the military under their control was equally isolated from the population. The sole reason for the existence of the national army was to protect the feudal ruling class, whose political authority, was gained “through the barrel of the gun.” Of course, the ruling class tried to hide this appalling fact by forbidding public discussions on the Army and developing a mythology around it. But it was clear, concluded B.P., that the Army did not have any other role. The 1792 battle with Tibet and the 1816 war with the British had firmly fixed Nepal's territorial boundaries. There was no more scope for expansion, nor could Nepal's tiny Army defend its territory in the case of an attack from the powerful neighbours in the north or south.

After 1816, the energies of the military turned inwards. It became involved in the factional intrigue and struggles for power within the feudal ruling class, according to B.P., demonstrating that it was susceptible to incentives provided by one group to act against another. As the Army was for all rulers the single-most important institution for the perpetuation of their rule, it received extraordinary privilege and status in the state structure.

Although the status of the Army grew and was later even modernised through Indian support, it remained narrow-minded and parochial. The task of the rulers of Nepal after unification, B.P. wrote, should have been to cultivate a sense of “nationalism” among the population. In the process of building national identity (rather than parochial regional ones), the Army should have encouraged recruitment from a wide mix of castes and ethnicities. But it remained almost completely dominated by the Thakuri ruling clans and retained its feudal Gorkhali identity.

Given the current circumstances, B.P.'s essay has thus resonated with the left. The Maoists in particular see parallels between B.P.'s vision and theirs. They may have won little more than a third of the vote in last year's elections in contrast to the Congress's absolute majority in 1959, but like B.P., they like to view themselves as the single representative of the progressive sections of society. Again like B.P., they feel their revolutionary agenda thwarted by what they consider an oppressive and corrupt ruling class that still has control over the institutions of force. And, if in the 1950s, the Army transferred its loyalties from the Ranas to the Shahs, an ally of the Congress in the revolution, in recent times it transferred its loyalties from the Shah king to the traditional parliamentary parties, the Maoists' allies in the 2006 mass uprising.

But the Maoists feel they have learned from B.P.'s mistakes. In recent days, as part of their campaign for “civilian supremacy” over the Army, the Maoists have been fond of repeating some lines that B.P. wrote in Jail Journal, where he claimed that the biggest mistake he made when in power was to neglect the Army and make no efforts to democratise it. It was this mistake, he believed, that enabled King Mahendra to imprison him, “rendering all of our efforts and successes useless.”

Judging by some of B.P's other actions, it appears that what he meant by the “democratisation of the army” was quite similar to what the Maoists mean when they use the phrase today: to establish control over the Army's chain of command, wean it away from the Shahs and Ranas and make it loyal to their party. This was what B.P, quite successfully, attempted with the police force. This was legitimate, he thought, because the party of which he was the great leader was synonymous with democracy.

This was a problematic proposition then, and it continues to remain so now. As with B.P, the Maoists take an absolutist position and maintain that their party is the true representative of the people whereas all of the other major ones consist of feudal reactionaries. It is this belief that enables them to disregard norms of democratic process and rule of law and equate the party's dominance over the Army with civilian supremacy, inviting much conflict in the process.

B.P. also did not go far enough in redefining the role of the Army. He concluded that the Army was an inherently flawed institution as its sole purpose was to protect the ruler from his own people. Yet, when it came to providing recommendations for the reform of the Army, B.P. simply said that the Army had to be given a national character through recruitment of all sections of society and weaned away from the monarch. But what then would be the Army's new role? Hadn't B.P. himself said that to think the Army could be used to defend against external aggression was absurd?

The Maoists have, to some extent, attempted to answer what B.P didn't: The Army cannot protect against external aggression and should therefore be massively downsized and given development work. But then in a strange twist of logic, the Maoists state that the population should receive compulsory military training so as to be able to form militias to defend against aggression when the need arises.

What B.P did not mention was that it was partially because of the existence of the Army that led to a distortion in the Nepali conception of nationalism. For, if it was true that the Army existed to coerce the population, the only way the institution's existence could be justified was by convincing the population that a foreign invasion was imminent. In practice this meant playing up fears of India, which the monarchy did repeatedly during the Panchayat years.

As is well known, the Nepali left assimilated the Panchayati notion of nationalism, and the Maoists, among others, continue to darkly warn of the “Sikkimisation” of Nepal, when it is clear to any observer that any military incursion into Nepali territory is highly unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future. Or that it is hardly possible to counter Indian “interference” — whether in national politics or through border encroachment — by military means. The militarization of the population that the Maoists propose will only lead to a continuation and intensification of the belligerent nationalism promoted by the Panchayat regime.

One of the unfortunate effects of the current political polarization has been that the debate on the restructuring of the Army has been inhibited. One side supports the Army as defenders against the Maoists, the other is intent on establishing its “civilian supremacy.” As in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Army once again is embroiled in conflicts between those in close proximity to state power, and amid all the noise, the crucial question remains unanswered: Now that the monarchy no longer exists, what is the Army for?