The year ahead

TKP 1/1/2010

The major hope for 2010 is that the peace process will struggle on

Political predictions are notoriously prone to failure. Particularly so during uncertain times such as those prevalent in Nepal right now: where a peace process between previously-warring parties, now in its fifth year, appears to have reached a stage where the interests and ideologies of the two sides have come into direct confrontation and are perceived to be incommensurable with each other. The basic question for Nepal’s politics in 2010, therefore, is whether the Maoists and the traditional parliamentary parties--predominantly the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML--will be able to find enough common ground to continue with the process charted in the 12-point agreement of 2005 and Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) of 2006 or whether the fatigue caused by the slow but steady grind of attrition will lead to a resumption of conflict.

There are, of course, no dearth of political leaders in the government camp who, intensely worried about the increase in strength of the Maoist party over the past few years and its supposedly-totalitarian vision for Nepal, are willing to exploit the fatigue and polarisation to take the country, if not into a state of outright war, a period of emergency rule by a narrow elite resting on an equally narrow militaristic constituency. On the Maoist side, too, it is clear that there is a significant constituency still driven by the romance of “permanent revolution.” And it cannot be ruled out that this faction too may provoke a state of anarchy--through mass agitation and various violations of the CPA--and thus instigate a violent backlash on the part of the state.

So the major hope for 2010 is that the nation will not descend into an outbreak of hostilities; that the basic framework of the peace agreements, no matter in how fragile a form, will continue. For, it should be recognized that although all parties may be partially driven by individual desires and flights of fancy, they all have substantial concrete interests that will be destroyed by a return to war. And no matter how great the brinksmanship, the desire to preserve these interests should make them all pull back before the moment of reckoning.

What, then, are these interests? For the Congress and the UML, the breakdown of the peace process would likely set into motion a period of internal upheaval and crisis that would lead, if not to the extinction of these parties, at least disarray and disintegration. For the imposition of an emergency regime would not be able to accommodate the diverse interests and strands within these parties. Not only would such a regime, resting on an extremely narrow base, be unable to provide most of their leaders with suitable positions of power, many of their members, committed to the values of a pluralistic and liberal polity, would be forced to come out openly against the few that have to gain from the imposition of a state of siege. Nor would such a regime be able to count on the support of the urban middle classes -- large sections of which, although disheartened with the internal disarray of the Congress and the UML, still support these parties as a counterbalance against the threat that the Maoists pose to their interests. It will be remembered how the middle classes, led by critical civil society leaders, got radicalised and came out onto the streets in opposition to King Gyanendra’s regime during the last Jana Andolan. The possibility of an April 2006 repeat cannot be precluded.

For all the talk of the ascendance of the hardliners--who desire a Leninist-style insurrection that will enable the capture of state--over the moderates among the Maoists, they too have substantial interests that a resumption of conflict will not serve. It is true, of course, that the Maoists’ strategy, recently laid out in the proceedings of a Central Committee meeting of the party in early December, envisages an uprising against the state if the party is unable to push through a “people’s” constitution of its choosing. But there is recognition that the violent response from the state that this will provoke will likely reverse all the gains the party has made over the past few years, and it is not likely that the party’s leaders--hardline or moderate--will want this to happen.

Since the peace process began, the Maoists have first, as shown by the results of the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections, been able to reach out and get the support of diverse constituencies it had been unable to during the war. It has been able to penetrate and consolidate control over various unions and other spheres of society in urban areas. The party now has access to resources--monetary and otherwise--through its illicit control over various channels: the bidding process for government contracts for example, or the movement of goods across borders. Further, the party has investments in major businesses, its offices and places for the accommodation of its cadres are scattered across Kathmandu, and its newspapers and other media are housed in large buildings in the capital.

It is these interests that will be threatened if the Maoists decide to provoke the state into confrontation. For all the talk of an “uprising” if a constitution based on Maoist beliefs is not promulgated, the stakes are too high for the party--including its dogmatic elements--to undertake such a venture. If they are not unnecessarily goaded into a return to violence by the state, if even a basic compromise between the parties is found, it is likely that the Maoists will compromise on a constitution that is more or less acceptable to all parties and then push for general elections.

In the scenario that is perhaps not too much to hope for, then, the peace process will struggle on--struggle more so, perhaps, than it did over the past few years--but continue nonetheless. And if we’re really lucky the nation’s leaders are able to reach basis compromise and complete the integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants and the drafting and promulgation of the new constitution. When the constitution is drafted, however, it is to be expected that there will be an outcry from various ethnic and regional political groups across the nation; for there is no way that all their demands will be accommodated.


So much for the plausible hopes. In other respects, the systemic failures of the Nepali political system and their consequences seem set to continue. Agreements will be reached, temporarily ensuring that the fragile ties that bind social and political groups do not snap, but their implementation will be near non-existent, contributing further to the fraying of these ties. There will be at least one change of government during 2010. There will be no increase in the political authority the centre will be able to command or in the capabilities of the state, a necessary precondition if the mass upsurge for rights and recognition is to be contained and streamed into legitimate channels.

No sooner have the Maoists and the other political parties in Kathmandu reached a somewhat stable political arrangement, the latent ethnic discontent that is even now simmering under the surface will erupt. The Madhes movement has of course fragmented and reached the point of exhaustion. But discontent remains, not least because the eight-point agreement the government signed with the Madhesi parties in early 2008 has still not been implemented. There is thus no guarantee that another surge out onto the streets in the Tarai--causing disruption to the lives of many and the deaths of a few--will not take place.

But in 2010, there will be other organised groups--of Limbus or Tharus, for instance--that, having consolidated a degree of organisation over the past year, will emerge as prominent adversaries of the state. Rather than mass street action, their methods will likely be more similar to those of the Maoists’ during the early days of the conflict: involving the gradual increase of organised force and targeted attacks on police posts or other symbols of the authority of the state. And if a mass movement does occur in the Tarai, this time the conflict will, although starting as one against the state, not be limited to it. With the growth of underlying antagonisms between groups--Madhesis and Tharus, for instance--it could possibly degenerate into one of conflict between groups with differing ethnic and cultural affiliations.

The constitution, if completed, may state that Nepal is to be a federal state and lay out the broad outlines regarding how the state is to be restructured. But the capacities of the state to expand and reorient the bureaucracy in accordance with the federal structure, let alone to create the infrastructure for the new political institutions in the provinces, will be found to be extremely limited. With the opposition to the constitution that will emerge from various quarters, the emphasis will be not so much on institutionalising the new political arrangements, but on holding general elections. For, although the traditional political parties may feel elections are not in their interests--as the number of votes they will be able to garner will be even more meagre and those of the Maoists even greater than during the CA elections--it will be recognised that the sole way to consolidate the political authority of the centre will be through seeking a fresh mandate from the people.

All of this is an optimistic view of what will unfold in Nepal over the next year. If the peace will hold, if a semi-stable governing arrangement is found, if the constitution is drafted and if all parties feel that it is more in their interest to participate in elections than not to do so, then, at the end of next year, the political situation will be similar to that which existed throughout 2007. The state will still be weak, there will be little attention paid to development or the provision of services, there will continue to be disagreements between parties over issues such as the electoral law and disagreements within them over the desirability of going for elections. But it will be universally acknowledged that the holding of general elections is the next political milestone upon which will rest, in the public eye, the legitimacy of the parties that claim to represent the Nepali people.