Holding the centre

TKP 12/2/2010

The Maoists have come a long way since 1996, but the struggle to balance the demands of political order with those of liberty and autonomy continues

It can be said that underlying the Maoists’ armed movement were two longings. The first was for the creation of a potent state, which manifested itself through the Maoist emphasis on nationalism. And the other was for liberty and release from a suffocating centralised rule. This was manifested through the demands for the abolition of the monarchy and for the granting of autonomous rule to all of Nepal’s marginalised communities. To answer the question, “Was the Maoist war justified?” is to ask whether the nation has, through the years of the People’s War and those of the peace process come any closer to the achievement of these goals. And it should be noted at the onset that these two goals were contradictory: the first, after all, required a great concentration of power, the second its dispersal. Which requires us to ask: Is it possible to serve both demands simultaneously? Or does the pursuit of one necessarily damage the other?

Parliamentary Quicksand

In concrete terms, the demand for a potent state was directed against the mainstream parliamentary parties, who the Maoists believed, were weak and fractious and could do nothing to establish political order or to prevent succumbing to the indirect rule of anti-democratic forces--both domestic (the monarchy) and foreign (India). And in fact, though this was to become evident only in hindsight, the moment when the Maoists went underground in Feb. 1996 to begin their violent assault against the state was more or less the precise moment when the first idealistic phase of the post-1990 democratic experiment had come to an end and a period of cynical, self-serving politics had begun.

The defining moment that marks the end of the first idealistic phase occurred on Aug. 28, 1995, the day the Supreme Court decided against then-Prime Minister Manmohan Adhikari’s decision to dissolve the Parliament and hold mid-term elections. As will be remembered, facing a no-confidence motion in parliament, Adhikari’s minority UML government had decided that rather than see its government ejected from power by the House of Representatives, it would rather seek a fresh mandate from the population. With the Supreme Court refusing to honour his whims, Adhikari was forced to face the vote and his government was replaced by a Nepali Congress coalition led by Sher Bahadur Deuba.

Until the term of the UML minority government came to an end, despite the fractiousness evident between and within the political parties, there was still a sense that the parliamentary system could provide stable and legitimate order. There was still a sense that there were major differences of policy and principle between the Nepali Congress and the UML, which each of them would pursue when they were in power. The opposition meanwhile, it was thought, would, while maintaining checks on the actions of the government, not behave so irresponsibly as to incapacitate it.

The August 1995 Supreme Court decision, however, invalidated a mechanism whereby prime ministers exercised disciplinary control over the government and the House. It was thus a step towards the erosion of the political authority of the head of government. And in a situation where no one party commanded a majority in the house, a situation was created where from then on governments would be formed and toppled on the basis of the shifting of alliances between groups and individuals who were members of the House. The historian Surendra K.C. has remarked that the UML was taken over by the frenzy of revenge when its government was thus removed. Its sole goal then became the attainment of power at all costs. It was willing to enlist the support of whomever possible and by means legal or illegal in the pursuit of this goal. The replacement of Deuba’s government in March 1997 by an unnatural alliance between the far right and the left, between the former Pancha leader Lokendra Bahadur Chand and the UML, was the defining moment in this shift and a harbinger of the unprincipled manner in which various governing coalitions would be formed until Sher Bahadur Deuba, with the support of the king, dissolved the House of representatives in May 2002.

These events severely corroded the capacity and the will of the state. Actors opposed to democracy or a strong Nepali state found that it was easy to fish in such troubled waters in pursuit of their own interests. After all, antagonisms between parties went so deep and the desire to grasp state power so strong, that almost all politicians became willing to utilise the support of both the King and the Indian establishment against their rivals--regardless of the pound of flesh that would be extracted from them. By the time of the royal massacre in 2001, the Maoists must have felt they had been justified in their belief that the multi-party system, while being more progressive than the Panchayat system, would not succeed in achieving a genuine socio-economic transformation (for which a stable state would be required) or in extricating the state from the control of elite groups (“feudal” and “expansionist”, in Maoist jargon). For, it began to appear that the Nepali Congress and the UML--the two main groups responsible for spearheading the 1990 movement against the Panchayat system and establishing a competitive multi-party democracy--were slowly sinking into what those on the Nepali left call parliamentary quicksand.

Monarchical Follies

Of course, divisions and shifting alliances between parties did not appear only with the collapse of the UML minority government, nor was Manmohan Adhikari the first prime minister to attempt dissolution of parliament and call for mid-term elections. For, when 36 members of the ruling Nepali Congress had refused to vote for the programmes and policies of the G.P. Koirala government on July 10, 1994, the furious prime minister resigned and requested the king to hold general elections. On this occasion, the Supreme Court raised no objection to the prime minister’s decision and the elections went ahead as planned. At the time, it was taken as a matter of simple due procedure that Koirala had taken his request to the king. It was only years later, in October 2002 to be precise, that it became clear that when Koirala had gone to the king with his request, he had initiated a process whereby the power struggles between and within parties would allow the monarch to gradually weaken them and consolidate his own power.

For, a replay of 1994 occurred in 2002. The prime minister on both occasions belonged to the Nepali Congress. On both occasions there were factions within the party intent on bringing him down. And on both occasions the prime minister, in an attempt to face down his rivals, went to the king to request dissolution of the House of Representatives. In 1994, the prime minister was G.P. Koirala, his chief opponents Ganeshman Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and the monarch King Birendra. In 2002, the prime minister was Sher Bahadur Deuba, his chief opponent G.P. Koirala and the monarch King Gyanendra. Deuba’s actions in 2002 were clearly modelled on those of Koirala in 1994. Deuba’s attempt, however, was to have a substantially different outcome than that of Koirala’s.

The situation in 2002 was different from that of 1994 in two substantial ways. First, King Gyanendra was far more ambitious and desirous of absolute power than his brother. And second, the Maoist insurgency was raging and had become a real crisis for the state during the time when Deuba was prime minister. The fact of the Maoist insurgency had already enabled the King to assert his power by demonstrating his control over the Army. It is commonly acknowledged that it was the king who prevented the Army from taking on the Maoists in 2001 even after then Prime Minister G.P. Koirala had ordered it to do so. This led to Koirala’s resignation. And when Deuba requested the King to dissolve parliament, the latter agreed, not because he felt it was required of him by constitutional process, but because he again saw an opportunity to expand his own power. He thus sacked Deuba on Oct. 4, 2002, accusing the prime minister of being “incapable of holding elections as scheduled.” Three prime ministers hand picked by the King were to briefly hold office before the King dispensed with the pretence of any popular representation whatsoever and took over total executive power on Feb. 1, 2005.

The Maoists’ armed movement, therefore, served to exploit and increase contradictions between the monarchy and the parties. By doing so, and thus encouraging the king to take a more direct political role, the Maoists could claim that they had been successful in exposing that the 1991 constitution, instead of creating a constitutional monarchy along the lines of Great Britain, had brought into being a regime where sovereignty and executive power were both split between the political parties and the king.

Reasons of political ambition aside, King Gyanendra took over direct power because he felt that the parliamentary parties, already in great disarray through their internal feuds, would never be able to successfully resolve the great crisis of internal security that was the Maoist insurgency. For that, a coherent and potent state was necessary, and this could only be achieved by brushing aside all democratic liberties and procedures.

So by 2002, there were no elected bodies either at the local levels or at the centre. All power was concentrated in the hands of the King and his cronies. Though in theory, this could enable the state to chart a coherent path forward (though no indications emerged that King Gyanendra actually had such a plan during the time he was in power), there was a major problem with such an arrangement. It rested on an extremely narrow social base, and there was no chance that it could indefinitely hold on to power in a situation where both urban and rural social groups had, under the direction of political parties and the Maoists, mobilised against it.

A Fine Balance

At various times during their war, the Maoists thought about either allying with the monarchy against the political parties (in defence of democracy) or allying with the parties against the monarchy (in defence of nationalism). Eventually, due to the king’s own mistakes, the latter course was followed. The monarchy was abolished, despite fears that without it there would be no institution to act as guardian of the political order and thus hold the country together.

From the viewpoint of the Maoists, they had temporarily sacrificed their goal for the creation of a potent state in service of their goal for a democratic dispensation with widespread distribution of power. This path, however, was not without dangers. The entry into a political system that was essentially akin to that which prevailed during the 1990s may have been undertaken as a tactic, the larger strategy of which was to use constitutional means to sideline the other political parties and take over state power for the foreseeable future. But, in the meantime, however, the Maoists have had to compete in a legislature where no party commands a majority and where thus, no matter what the exertions, the danger of sinking into parliamentary quicksand remains acute.

Then, there has been the emergence of myriad political groups organised along ethnic lines and demanding autonomy. Though inspired by the Maoists, many of these groups have, much to the party’s chagrin, rejected their leadership. Although much of the political authority the Maoists have built through their organisation still remains, the emergence of independent ethnic movements is like having the ground beneath their feet give way. After all, it was on the back of various marginalized groups, to whom the Maoists had promised liberty, that the party had emerged as the strongest political force in the land.

The Maoists’ war against the state, then, has led to a situation where there is a surfeit of mass mobilisation and where there are so many interests--both at the centre and in the districts--that they seem irreconcilable. The Maoists pursuit of liberty and autonomy has far surpassed their pursuit of a potent state. The success of the former has undermined the latter.

If the Maoist movement is to be remembered in history as beneficial, some balance between the two goals needs to be restored. First, the mistake made by the political parties during the 1990’s needs to be avoided. That is to say, the Maoists, in alliance with the parties at the centre, need to devise ways to restore political order and not fall prey to the factional struggles of the 1990s. Second, they have to avoid the mistake made by King Gyanendra. That is, in the process of consolidating central political authority, the major parties need to ensure that the numerous demands for rights and autonomy are incorporated into the order, so that fresh revolts that pose a threat to it do not arise. The task is not easy, but its achievement is necessary if the promises the Maoists have been making since beginning their armed struggle are to be even partially realised.