Evolution and growth

TKP 2/2/2010


The recent Standing Committee meeting of the Maoists demonstrated how much the party has evolved in the past four years

The recently completed meeting of the Maoist party’s Standing Committee decided to focus on completing the peace and constitution drafting processes as opposed to beginning preparations for a decisive “people’s revolt” to capture state power. The relative ease with which Baburam Bhattarai’s line (in favour of the peace process) prevailed over that of Mohan Baidya ‘Kiran’ (who advocated a “people’s revolt”) is indicative of the changes that have occurred in the Maoist party and in the thought of its leaders since the peace process began.

Chiefly, the decision of the standing committee indicated that the top leadership of the party had gotten used to open politics and realizes that it can now make significant gains through its practice. The Maoists have seen that setting clear political goals, communicating them clearly to the public and engaging directly with other political forces has been beneficial. With this there has been a decline in the belief in the efficacy of conspiratorial politics -- where the political line the party takes in public is but a mask for a more sinister ulterior strategy. The conspiratorial method was effective, it is now realized, when the Maoists were weaker than the other parties and their political line not as clearly established among the population. Then, subterfuge and stratagem were necessary. Such methods may again be necessary if the party feels that the other parties are secretly conspiring against it -- by, for example, deciding to dissolve the Constituent Assembly (CA) and installing a militaristic emergency regime. Currently, however, it is clear that such a situation does not prevail.

In terms of personality, this shift is marked by the rise of Baburam Bhattarai and the decline of Kiran within the party. Ever since the “two-line struggles” between the so-called hardliners and the moderates of the party began to be played out in the public eye, most notably during the Balaju plenum of August 2007 and the Kharipati convention of November 2008, there has been a general impression that Kiran’s strength among the party’s leaders and its organizational machinery far exceeds that of Bhattarai. Notwithstanding the elements of exaggeration in the media’s portrayal of the “ascendancy of the hardliners”, there was a basic truth to this analysis. Having participated for over a decade in an underground armed movement against the state, there were major misgivings that the party seemed to be compromising too greatly in the course of the peace process with the other political forces. Having been trained to think of the parliamentary parties as the “enemy”, it was not easy to overcome deep-seated feelings that the goal, at all costs, had to be their elimination.

So resentment arose towards party chairman Prachanda and, to a greater degree, Baburam Bhattarai, when it appeared that too much of their emphasis was on negotiating with the older political powers and in seeking accommodation with broader social forces than on paying attention to the needs of the Maoists themselves. Kiran stepped in to take advantage of this resentment. Averse to media exposure, quietly hostile to any kind of contact with those from outside the party, he utilized his leverage over the party through loyalists such as Netra Bikram Chand ‘Biplab’ to apply pressure on Prachanda to pursue a more “revolutionary line.”

Over a period of time, however, as the Maoists expanded their organizational machinery and their contacts with sections of the population not directly affiliated to the party, the party’s shrewder second-generation leaders began to develop a taste and discover an aptitude for the subtle negotiations involved in the politics of open competition. This is most clearly seen in the personality of Barsha Man Pun ‘Ananta’. Once a Deputy Commander of the Maoists’ People Liberation Army (PLA), he abandoned his position in the military to fully participate in politics. He soon revealed that he was a particularly sharp and pragmatic politician with the ability to decipher and negotiate the shifting political currents. A close confidant of Prachanda, he has more recently drawn towards Bhattarai. Bhattarai, incidentally, considers Ananta to be the most promising of the younger leaders in the party.

Similar changes have also been seen in the personality of former Kiran loyalist Biplab. While Ananta’s chief strength lies in his shrewd political understanding, Biplab’s lies in his aptitude for the consolidation of the party’s organizational machinery. With his immersion in internal party affairs, he too was initially suspicious of the party’s transition to open politics -- thus his support for the Kiran’s conspiratorial line. However, Biplab has now recognized that the party has gained much through its organizational growth over the past few years, and that the best way to protect these gains is to continue participation in the peace process. Hence, at the most recent meeting of the Maoists’ Standing Committee, he voted in favour of Bhattarai’s line over that of Kiran’s.

As for Baburam Bhattarai himself, it has long been thought that although his intellectual and strategic strengths are indispensable for the party, he lacks organizational capacity and the ability to command personal loyalty. This is, to a certain extent, true. Bhattarai’s personality is such that he does not cultivate individuals through the giving and receiving of personal favours. He also keeps himself apart from the evening drinking sessions -- which Prachanda and Kiran are partial to -- during which information and gossip is exchanged and personal ties cultivated. Over the course of the peace process, however, Bhattarai has shown that whatever strengths he does possess are formidable. In particular, the consistency of his views, the tenacity with which he is able to pursue them and the flexibility with which he is able to reach out to non-Maoist social forces has endeared him to the intelligentsia and, to some degree, to Kathmandu’s middle class. It was the last of these characteristics that exposed him to attacks within the Maoist ranks. As the party itself evolved through exposure to other political forces, however, recognition of the value of his approach increased within the party, and so did his personal stature and the loyalty he was able to command. This was, of course, demonstrated most recently in the series of events that culminated in the meeting of the Standing Committee that concluded on Sunday.