the ideological evolution of the nepali maoists

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Studies in Nepali History and Society15(2): 217251 December 2010 Mandala Book Point

THE IDEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OFTHE NEPALI MAOISTS

Aditya Adhikari

Introduction

This attempt to chart the ideological evolution of the Communist Party of

Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) over the past two decades1 begins with a close

look at how the party used Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory to analyze the

nature of Nepali state and society and to identify the political forces that

kept the country subjugated and at a low level of economic development.

It will be shown that the Maoists justified their protracted peoples war by

holding all existing political forces as not merely incapable of solving

Nepals problems but actively responsible for their exacerbation. It was

an inevitable corollary of this analysis that the Nepali people would

escape exploitation and dependency only if the Maoists captured state

power and established a Maoist New Democratic State. The first four

sections of this essay will deal with these matters.

With the realization that a total capture of state power was notpossible through military means, the Maoists declared their openness to a

negotiated settlement to the conflict in 2001. Changes in the Maoists

conception of desirable state institutions began to appear in 2003 when a

party convention adopted a document allowing for somewhat greater

political freedoms than traditionally allowed for in the communist

1 The current Maoist party is descended from the Fourth Convention, whichwas founded in 1974. The core Maoist leadership participated in theCommunist Party of Nepal (Masal), which was formed in 1983, but brokeaway to form a separate faction the CPN (Mashal) in 1985. After the 1990movement, they united with some other communist factions to become theCPN (Unity Centre). The Unity Centre split in 1994. One of its factionsrenamed itself the CPN (Maoist) and went on to start their armed movementagainst the state. In 2009, having entered peaceful politics, the CPN (Maoist)united with a party called the Unity Centre the leadership of which consistedlargely of those who had split from the original Unity Centre in 1994 andrenamed the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M). For thesake of simplicity, the party is referred to as the Maoists throughout this

paper, even when discussing periods when they had different names. For achart detailing the various splits and mergers in the Nepali communistmovement between 1949 and 2002, see Thapa with Sijapati (2007[2003]: 44).


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218 Aditya Adhikari

regimes of the twentieth century. Sections five and six explain these

ideological movements away from the Maoists original goal.

Eventually, the party had abandoned armed struggle, participated in a

popular movement in alliance with the older parliamentary parties against

the monarchy, and entered a peace process. It was then that it began to

pay detailed attention to the precise nature of state institutions that it felt

should be established in Nepal.

Various circumstances the necessity of working together with other

parties, pressure from important international actors and the influence of

the globally hegemonic conception of liberal democracy meant that the

Maoists could no longer aspire to the creation of an authentically New

Democratic State. Rather, they had to commit to basic democratic values,

including regular elections and fundamental freedoms. The acceptance of

liberal democracy, however, was partial.

Although they no longer aspire to the immediate imposition of a New

Democratic State, the new model of state that the Maoists have proposed

in the Constituent Assembly is still meant as a cure to the ills of Nepal as

diagnosed by the party two decades ago. It is thus in a number of respects

closer to models of state of the communist tradition. Importantly, this

model compromises on provisions for separation of powers and insists onthose that will allow the state great autonomy so as to allow it to

overcome political opposition and undertake swift and radical reform.

Tensions, therefore, continue to exist between the Maoist model of state

and that envisioned by the older parliamentary parties. These tensions are,

in turn, reflected in tensions within the Maoist party. The rejection of the

Maoist model of state by the other parties is taken by a section of the

Maoists as an indication that they will never be able to implement their

preferred model as long as they are in an alliance with the other parties.They call, therefore, for a decisive revolt to capture state power. The other

section, on the other hand, rejects such a revolt as unfeasible and insists

that a progressive constitution can be implemented even in a situation

where the Maoists have to work together with the other parties.

The seventh to tenth sections consist primarily of a demonstration of

how the Maoists model of the ideal state involved uneasy negotiation

with older parliamentary parties and the principles of liberal democracy.

It should be mentioned at the outset that a significant component of

the Maoists version of a model state consists of institutional provisions

meant to liberate castes and ethnic groups that have been historically

discriminated against by the state. Originating in a purely Leninist

conception of the liberation of nationalities, its theoretical basis has


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The Ideological Evolution of the Nepali Maoists 219

evolved in negotiations with other political groups, particularly those

representing specific ethnic groups. The Maoists proposal for ethnic-

based federalism that they have presented to the Constituent Assembly

represents a culmination of this process. This essay, however, is not

concerned with this aspect of Maoist theory and will refer to it only in

passing.2

The Semi-Feudal Semi-Colony

The Maoists have long regarded the institution of the monarchy and the

Indian state as the primarily responsible for the oppression of the Nepali

people. One stood at the helm of the feudal order, the other had forced

Nepal to become its semi-colony; both exploited and extracted surplus

from the Nepali population and hindered Nepals development from a

feudal to a capitalist society.3

The period of feudalism is considered to have begun during the

Licchavi period. Existing for centuries in a diffuse form, the Gorkha King

Prithvi Narayan Shah was responsible for centralizing the feudal order

through his annexation of territory that is now Nepal and the

establishment of his capital in Kathmandu. The centralization of feudal

power religious, political, economic and military is considered by theMaoists to be a historical necessity and an evolution in the relations of

production. The vast network of the ruling classes that developed over the

next two centuries, however, which had the purpose of extracting surplus

from the population, became increasingly exploitative. The oppression

faced by the Nepali population was on the one hand cultural: the people

were classified into a rigid caste hierarchy and the languages and cultures

of many groups were suppressed (Kiran 2065 v.s.: 5265). At its heart,

however, the exploitation was economic.The tendency by the state elite to distribute land to members of their

own class and other favorites led to the concentration of land ownership

in the hands of the feudal class. This process had ramifications centuries

later: Baburam Bhattarai claimed that in 1997 that, while 70 percent of

poor peasants owned around 25 percent of land, 5 percent of rich

2 For an analysis of Maoist policies towards marginalized ethnic groups, seeTamang (2006). For an overview of the federalism debate post-2006,including a summary of Maoist proposals on federalism, see ICG (2011). Thisis to mentioned at the outset that this article was completed in January 2011.

3 This section is largely drawn from Bhattarai (2003).


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220 Aditya Adhikari

peasants and semi-feudals owned 30 percent. The poor were thus forced

to work the land of the rich under highly exploitative conditions:

The rights of the tenants are not secure, the rate of rent is high and thetenants are often bonded to the landlord through high interest ratescharged on loans and other labour-service conditions, apart from the rentof land (Bhattarai 2003: 137).

In most of Nepal, however, particularly in the hills, the majority

farmed plots of land that were self-owned. Given the tiny sizes of

holdings and the low land productivity, these farmers too were subject to

semi-feudal exploitation as pernicious as those faced by tenants. Primarily

among these was moneylending:

Peasants are usually in need of loan for both production and consumptionpurposes; taking undue advantage of this situation, the feudal usurersprovide credit to the peasants at high interest rates and under oppressiveconditions, and by entrapping them in a vicious cycle of indebtedness theyenforce and reinforce semi-feudal exploitation through the payment ofinterest and through labour-service payments (Bhattarai 2003: 138).

According to the Maoist argument, then, the exploitation that the

peasantry faced has prevented it from investing in agriculture to a degree

that would lead to a capitalist breakthrough. Thus, while Nepal has beenin the stage of transition between feudalism and capitalism for at least a

century (and was hence semi-feudal), the rate of transformation has been

severely inhibited by the continued existence of productive relations from

another era.

The ruling elites did realize, particularly after 1950, that a

transformation in Nepals social and economic structure was required for

modernization and growth. And attempts were made to impose the

required changes from above. But such efforts at reform were toosuperficial to make the required impact. For, modernization requires

fundamental transformations in state and society that will inevitably erode

the elites sources of power. The monarchy and its coterie were not

prepared for this to happen. King Mahendras land reform effort of 1964,

for instance, failed due to resistance by powerful landowners who formed

a central component of the class base of his regime. The implication that

only a revolution from below that sweeps away historically entrenched

privilege is capable of the required transformation is hard to miss.

Following Lenin, the Maoists argued that the world still existed in a

period of semi-colonial oppression. As with radical leftists everywhere,

the center of the imperialist order was considered to be the United States

and the instruments of exploitation of the post-colonial era multilateral


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organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary

Fund.

The nature of imperialism, however, is a relatively neglected area of

the Maoists theory. Developed in much greater detail and length, and

commanding a much greater emotional response among the Nepali public,

has been the theory of Nepals semi-colonial exploitation by India. The

biggest direct manifestation of world imperialist oppression and

exploitation in Nepal, wrote Bhattarai,

is Indian expansionism. Expansionism is the process of exploitation andoppression of a smaller and weaker economy by a stronger economy thathas not itself developed to the level of imperialism but derives its strength

from the backing of external imperialist forces and its own state.(Bhattarai 2003: 123)

The Maoists trace the beginnings of Indian expansionism to the

signing of the Sugauli Treaty in 1816. Signed to conclude a short war

between the Nepal government and the British Raj, the treaty mainly

detailed the annexation of lands previously belonging to the Nepali state

to British India. In the subsequent years, patron-client relationship

developed between the British Raj and the Nepali ruling class. The Indian

government imposed various treaties upon Nepal, primarily with a viewtowards using the latter as a captive market for goods. The Nepal-India

trade agreement of 1923, for example, forced Nepal to accept a common

market between the two countries. The 1950 Treaty of Peace and

Friendship, among other provisions, allowed for national treatment of

Indians in Nepal, thus further enabling Indians to dominate the Nepali

economy.

As Indians steadily encroached into Nepali markets, the latters

indigenous industries which, before 1816 were producing goods such ascotton fabrics, copper and brass utensils and military armaments

became unable to compete and gradually declined. New industry was

stifled even before birth modern goods previously unknown to the

Nepali people flooded Nepals markets. Later, in the twentieth century,

the few industries based in Nepal and producing goods for exports

such as woolen carpets and garments tended to be overtly or covertly

controlled by Indian expansionists through their hegemonic control over

raw materials, labour, capital and trade (Bhattarai 2003: 127). Nepal

was thus eventually reduced to near-total economic dependency. Indian

domination was also substantial in other spheres: Indian officialdom

sought to expand political influence in Nepal to promote what it perceived

to be its countrys national interest.


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222 Aditya Adhikari

The Indian state and capitalist class have steadily managed to expand

influence over various sections of the dominant Nepali classes. The

commercial elites of Nepal have been almost entirely co-opted by India to

serve its economic interests. The national industrial bourgeoisie, a class

that according to the Maoist definition promotes the development of

domestic industry and the production of goods for domestic consumption

is almost non-existent. In their place exists a comprador bourgeoisie

with trade and finance as principal occupations. This domestic

commercial class, engaged in the creation of markets for and the supply

of Indian goods, has directly contributed to the erosion and stifling of

domestic industry.

Because of its comprador nature, the fledging Nepali bourgeoisie

cannot, like in Western Europe, contribute to the development of

domestic industry and lead the transition from feudalism to capitalism. In

order for the capitalist revolution to take place, it is necessary for the

communist party representing the proletariat to take over state power,

protect the nation from external economic exploitation and guide and

encourage the national industrial class in its efforts to achieve an

economic breakthrough.

Dictatorship of the Comprador Bourgeoisie

The immediate aftermath of the 1990 Peoples Movement, which replaced

the absolutist monarchical Panchayat regime with a democratic

parliamentary one, was one of great national exuberance. Elected

governments and the freedom to express ones opinions and organize

interest groups were presented as the panacea to all of Nepals ills. On the

fringes of the parliamentary system, however, stood the Maoists at that

time organized under the party the Ekata Kendra (Unity Centre) and itsparliamentary front the Samyukta Janamorcha (United Peoples Front)

(see Maharjan 1993). Members of this group had participated in the 1990

movement as they wished to utilize the opportunity to defy the repressive

Panchayat system and contribute to ending it.4 They also thought that the

4 The dissolution of the Panchayat system was the first of the 10-point list ofdemands put forward during the 1990Jana ndolan by the Samyukta RastriyaJana Andolan (United National Peoples Movement) or SRJA, the front of theradical Maoist parties. This was a demand shared by the Nepali Congress andthe United Left Front. The SRJAs second demand was for the formation of aninterim government, the drafting of an interim constitution and elections to aConstituent Assembly. Here the SRJA differed from the NC and the ULF. The


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parliamentary system that was being demanded by the most important

participants in the movement the Nepali Congress and a group of leftist

parties called the United Left Front (in which, however, the Maoists were

not included) was preferable to the old system as it would allow the

Maoists greater political space to organize and spread propaganda than

had existed previously (CPN-Mashal 2063 v.s.[2046 v.s.]: 4253).

At heart, however, the Nepali Maoists continued to regard

parliamentary democracy a sham. Like Marxists everywhere, they

believed that a system could not be regarded as a democracy simply by

the presence of institutional arrangements such as separation of powers

and regular elections. Rather, all political systems were dictatorships of

particular classes. The parliamentary system was considered the

dictatorship of the bourgeoisie; its provisions for elections and various

freedoms merely a faade to camouflage this fact. A political system

could be declared democratic only if it was proletarian in nature; that is, if

it was entirely controlled by the communist party representing the

proletariat. Besides, the establishment of a parliamentary system would

do nothing to address the problems arising from Nepals semi-feudal and

semi-colonial situation.

The Nepali Congress original leadership came from families that,owning land and property, were well off but lacked political power. The

political system they desired was a parliamentary democracy existing

under a constitutional monarchy. The Nepali communist parties,

including the original Communist Party of Nepal formed in 1949,

therefore viewed the Congress as the party representing primarily the

bourgeoisie. While the Nepali Congress was firmly against royal

absolutism, however, according to positions on the left, there was no clear

distinction between bourgeois and feudal, and the Congress representedsections of the latter as well. In addition, a class existed the bureaucratic

capitalists in which the interests of the bourgeoisie and feudals

converged, which too was represented by the Congress. In the Maoist

view, therefore, a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie broadly meant a state

dominated by the Nepali Congress (CPN-Mashal 2063 v.s.[2046 v.s.]).

Political events that confirmed the Maoist contempt of the

parliamentary system began to occur soon after the 1990 movement.

Worried at their inability to control the intense agitations taking place on

the streets of Kathmandu, the Congress rushed to reach an agreement with

latter groups simply demanded restoration of multi-party democracy (seeSRJA 2046 v.s.).


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the monarchy. The Panchayat system was to be abolished, political parties

unbanned and a parliamentary democracy established. A commission

constituted of representatives from the parties and the palace was to draft

a new constitution. The Maoists, like other communist parties, had long

been demanding that a new constitution be drafted through an elected

Constituent Assembly (CA), which, it was assumed would abolish the

monarchy. The Congress agreement on a commission that would restrict

popular participation in the constitution drafting process and allow the

monarchy a significant political role, was perceived by the Maoists and

others on the left as a betrayal and thus widely criticized (Brown

2010[1996]: 151).

The Congress accommodation with the traditional state elite, in the

view of the radical left, only intensified after the compact between the

monarchy and the major political parties was codified in the new

constitution. In the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 1991, for

instance, recognizing the shift in the balance of power, many who

occupied powerful positions in the Panchayat system defected to the

Nepali Congress (Brown 2010[1996]: 156157). The party leadership

welcomed this trend: Panchayat officials were often local notables with a

great degree of power over the inhabitants of their areas; their influencecould be used towards the electoral benefit of the Nepali Congress. For

those on the radical left, it was precisely this class of people landed and

upper-caste that was responsible for the tyranny over the subaltern,

enforced through a combination of traditional legitimacy, economic

power and access to the instruments of the state. In other words, this was

the class that upheld the feudal order and against which social revolution

in the countryside needed to be directed.5 That the leading party of the

new democratic order had chosen to ally with this class ensured, in theMaoist view, that the traditional relations of production would continue

more or less intact.

A broad spectrum of the Nepali left found the actions of the Nepali

Congress government that assumed office after the 1991 election to be

5 For evidence that Panchayat notables at the village level (pradhn pacas)were not universally oppressive but in certain cases worked for the benefit ofthe population and enjoyed popular respect, see Russell (2000). Nonetheless,it cannot be denied that in many areas local notables were considerablyoppressive. For a typical leftist depiction of such a pradhn paca, seeAhutis novelNay Ghar (2064 v.s.[2050 v.s.]). The transfer of an oppressive

pradhn pacas loyalty to the Nepali Congress is depicted in KhagendraSangraulasJnkrko Sagt(2056 v.s.).


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even more objectionable. The Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala,

though professing a strong commitment to democratic values, possessed

an authoritarian streak, was contemptuous of communists (Brown

2010[1996]: 103) and peremptory towards rivals within and outside his

party. The initial years of his prime ministership were marred by

confrontations between the government and left parties, including both

the Maoists and the CPN-UML.6 And during his initial years in power,

Koirala oversaw the steady infiltration of state organs such as the

bureaucracy and the police with Nepali Congress loyalists and the use of

state security forces against political rivals.7 For Marxists, this could be

viewed as a step in the process in the imposition of a bourgeois

dictatorship.

Despite their criticisms of the parliamentary system, the Maoists did

consider the 1990 uprising a blow against the feudal elite. On the other

hand, however, they considered the parliamentary system to have only

further aided the cause of imperialism and Indian expansionism (Mishra

2004: 95). Nepals communists had long considered the Nepali Congress

to be an instrument of Indian foreign policy. This was so, it was thought,

first, because the bourgeoisie in Nepal, which the Congress represented,

was primarily comprador in nature. Then, Congress leaders had spentmany of their years in the political wilderness in India had cultivated

close relationships with many in the Indian ruling class. Further, the

preferred political system of the party was closely modeled on the Indian

parliamentary system. These affinities, it was believed, made the

Congress very susceptible to the influence of the Indians.

Political developments in the 1990s confirmed to many on the radical

left that the parliamentary system Nepal had adopted only enabled the

increase of Indian dominance over Nepal. Despite the arbitrarily despoticnature of the monarchial regime that existed between 1960 and 1990, the

political center possessed a degree of cohesion and was capable of

6 For details of the conflict between the Nepali Congress government and theleft in the early 1990s, see K.C. (2065 v.s.: 512).

7 This was a grievance held by many parties and one that continued to fester. In2001 the UMLs Madhav Kumar Nepal stated that it was very important to

bring an end to the Nepali Congress tendency to unilaterally capture andtake control of state power (Nepal 2064 v.s.[2058 v.s]: 320). A Maoistsupporter in Tansen in 2010 stated that the Congress had taken control of theadministration, the UML had taken control of the NGOs and the Maoists now

planned to take control of the cooperatives (interview with the author, July2010).


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226 Aditya Adhikari

formulating foreign policy goals, implementing them and thus protecting

the national interest. The state was capable of formulating foreign policy

goals and implementing them. While India did possess great influence

over Nepal during this as during other periods, under the leadership of

King Mahendra in particular, the country had succeeded in establishing

diplomatic relations with a range of countries and on occasion was even

successful in using the threat of an alliance with the Chinese as leverage

against the Indians (Muni 2009: 4143).

With the establishment of the multi-party polity after 1990, intense

rivalry between political parties, great factionalism within them, shifting

parliamentary coalitions and the creation and collapse of short-lived

governments became the norm. This enabled the Indian government,

through its embassy in Kathmandu, to expand its influence into political

parties, to play individual leaders and parties off each other. And it was

widely and publicly felt, particularly by those on the left, that the Indians

had been successful in manipulating Nepals political class into accepting

agreements that would benefit them at the expense of the latter. Most

controversial among these was the Mahakali Treaty that, in the Maoist

view, allowed Indian imperialist monopoly over Nepals water

resources (SJM 2063 v.s.[2052 v.s]: 4).8In 1994, having failed to gain a majority in parliament on a vote on

the governments policies and programs, Koirala went to the King to

request the dissolution of the House of Representatives and the holding of

fresh elections (Hoftun et al. 1999: 196). In a response to this event that

was part interpretation of the events of the past few years and part an

invitation to all political actors to join the Maoists in a planned armed

8 It is widely accepted in Nepal that India attempts to manipulate and coercepolitical parties. These efforts usually take place away from the public eye,however, with fragmentary incidents being reported in the press. For anattempt to document the underhanded efforts India employed to get the UMLto support the Mahakali treaty, see K.C. (2065 v.s.: 6875). For a soberanalysis of the treaty and its history, see Gyawali and Dixit (2000: 236304).Mishra (2007: 127) states that the single largest nationalist resistance in

Nepal during the last decade manifested itself against the Tanakpuragreement and the Mahakali treaty signed between the GOI [Government ofIndia] and the GON [Government of Nepal]. Sharad Poudels play Mechi-

Mahakali Express (1997) demonstrates the almost hysterical oppositiontowards the treaty by those on the Nepali left. The play opens to a scene wherea number of people are beating a drum and shouting: Looted! Our country islooted! Mahakali gone! Mechi also gone! Oh, are you all listening? Looted,the dacoits looted the country! Indian dacoits looted our soil!


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revolt, Prachanda accused the Koirala government (and the reactionary

classes at whose behest it functioned) of plundering the nation,

exploiting its inhabitants and causing a social and economic crisis of such

grave proportions that the state could hope to contain the resulting unrest

by the use of highly repressive measures. The decision to abruptly

dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections, Prachanda wrote, was a

conspiracy by Girija Prasad Koirala and the King to perpetuate their

fascist rule. Repression had caused such great polarization in Nepali

society that there was now space only for two political strands: for fascist

reactionaries and armed revolutionaries. Everyone in Nepals political

class had no option but to choose between the two sides (Prachanda 2063

v.s.[2051 v.s.]: 9098).

The New Democratic Revolution

As representatives of the sarvahr (a word that though in Marxistdiscussions sometimes specifically refers to the proletariat, is more often

used in a more diffuse sense to mean something like the dispossessed),

the Maoists claimed it was their responsibility to stage a revolution in

Nepal and capture state power so as to free the nation from the clutches of

bourgeois parliamentarism, feudalism, imperialism and expansionism. ANew Democratic State would then be established under the aegis of the

revolutionary party. As the goal of this state would be to complete the

capitalist revolution, a necessary step before making the transition to

socialism, the national industrial class would be encouraged and allowed

to flourish.9 The New Democratic State was therefore not entirely

socialist, but it was not bourgeois democratic either. It was clear that a

bourgeois state would not be able to achieve a capitalist breakthrough in a

nation like Nepal where almost the entire bourgeoisie was comprador innature and thus stifled the development of capitalism. The New

Democratic State would be controlled by the proletariat and would curtail

the activities of the comprador and bureaucratic capitalists. When the

productive base had been developed to an adequate level, steps would be

taken to move towards socialism and gradually communism (Prachanda

2063 v.s.[2044 v.s.]: 1115).10

9 The Maoists believed that the following classes would act as the motivatingforces of the armed struggle: the proletariat, the peasantry (poor, medium andrich), the petty bourgeoisie and national industrialists (CPNM 2051 v.s.: 78).

10 On the New Democratic Revolution Mao wrote: In an era in which the worldcapitalist front has collapsed in one corner of the globeand has fullyrevealed its decadence everywhere else, in an era in which the remaining


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228 Aditya Adhikari

Whereas the communists in Russia had captured state power through

an urban insurrection and had immediately moved onto the establishment

of a socialist society, this was not possible in highly underdeveloped,

semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries like Nepal. The exceedingly

small capitalist industrial base meant that the size of the urban proletariat

was tiny and their organization weak. The state, protected by

expansionists and imperialists, was vastly more powerful than any

revolutionary party. Any attempt by communists to mobilize the

proletariat with the objective of overthrowing the state was therefore

bound to fail. The strategy to be followed then, had to be borrowed from

Mao, who had created and demonstrated the efficacy of the strategy of

protracted peoples war. As in China, the Nepali revolutionary party

needed to establish control over rural areas, mobilize the peasantry,

engage the state in guerilla warfare, gradually built the revolutionary

army to a level capable of conventional warfare, encircle the cities and

capture them (CPNM 2063 v.s.[2051 v.s.]; CPN-UC 2004[1991];

Prachanda 2063 v.s.[2044 v.s.]: 1115;).

Revisionisms of Various Kinds

There were, of course, other communist factions in Nepal that claimedtheir goal to be the establishment of a New Democratic State. They

differed from the Maoists, however, in their views regarding the

immediate steps necessary to attain their goal. It was therefore necessary

for the Maoists, intent on protracted peoples war, to justify their position

capitalist portions cannot survive without relying more than ever on thecolonies and semi-coloniesin such an era, a revolution in any colony orsemi-colony that is directed against imperialismno longer comes within theold category of the bourgeois-democratic world revolution, but within the newcategory. Although during its first stage or first step, such a revolution in acolonial and semi-colonial country is still fundamentally bourgeois-democratic in its social character, and although its objective demand is stillfundamentally to clear the path for the development of capitalism, it is nolonger a revolution of the old type, led entirely by the bourgeoisie, with theaim of establishing a capitalist society and a state under bourgeoisdictatorship. It is rather a revolution of the new type, with the participation ofthe proletariat in the leadership, or led by the proletariat, and having as itsaim, in the first stage, the establishment of a new-democratic society and astate under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes (quoted inSchram 1989: 7778, emphasis in the original).


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as the correct one and those of the others as tainted by compromise, the

adoption of the wrong ideology and political strategy.

One faction that was vehemently criticized by the Maoists was of

course the one that, going through various permutations, became in 1991

the CPN-UML. It had originally been militantly Maoist: in 1972,

influenced by Indian Naxalites, its members had murdered a number of

local landlords in Jhapa as part of a campaign of class annihilation

(K.C. 2064 v.s.: 107). The Maoists, going on to start an armed movement

against the state of their own, have acknowledged this movement as an

inspiration (Gaurav 2064 v.s.[2053 v.s.]). The 1972 movement, however,

was very quickly suppressed by the state. This setback forced to group to

reevaluate their strategy. They moved to the cities and focused their

activity around organizing students and laborers (Brown 2010[2006]:

100). After 1980 it began to focus on uniting with other communist

factions and forming front organizations (Hachhethu 2002: 4950). After

Mao died in China and with the ascent of Deng, these communists

gradually abandoned hardline Maoism. The collapse of communism in

Russia and the Eastern European countries in the later 1980s convinced

them that orthodox communism had failed as a system (Maskey 2002:

274).In the early 1990s, the party revised its policy towards bourgeois

parliamentarism. Instead of viewing it as a system that the communist

party should participate in simply to expose it from within, it committed

itself wholeheartedly to the competitive multi-party system and all of the

values associated with liberal democracy. From the perspective of

orthodox Marxism, of course, this was a revisionist move, and the

Maoists adopted the polemics Lenin directed against the arch-

revisionist Carl Bernstein to describe the UML: like Bernstein, theMaoists maintained, the UML had abandoned basic Marxist tenets such as

the belief that the state, regardless of its institutional arrangements, is

always a dictatorship of the class that controls it (Bhattarai 2063 v.s.[2054

v.s.]; Prachanda 2063 v.s.[2049 v.s.]). Participation in the parliamentary

process meant, according to the Maoists, that the UML was gradually

becoming similar to the Nepali Congress.

The increase in the degree of revisionism can only lead to a

dissolution into naked reaction, wrote Prachanda (2063 v.s.[2050 v.s.]:

18). The UML is the prime example of this trend in Nepal. They say

that the goal is a New Democratic State, but their tactics always lead to

the full adoption of capitalism [and] into the embrace of feudals and

imperialists.


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230 Aditya Adhikari

The Maoists also spent much of their energy in polemics against

individuals and groups who were very close to them in ideology and with

whom the former had participated in various factions and fronts over the

years (including in the United National Peoples Movement of the 1990

uprising). The most vitriolic of polemics were directed against the

Communist Party of Nepal (Masal) and its leader Mohan Bikram Singh.

For much of the 1960s and 1970s, Singh was regarded as the most radical

of the Nepali Maoists. By the time the leaders of what was to become the

Maoist party became politically aware in their late teens and early

twenties, Singh was already an established figure, and it was his faction

that they were attracted to. Once having joined the party and learned

Marxist doctrine from Singh, however, many including top Maoist

leaders Prachanda and Kiran grew disillusioned with Masal and its

leadership and left to form their own group. This was partially due to

unhappiness with what was perceived to be Singhs tendency to treat the

party as his personal fiefdom, to peremptorily issue orders while entirely

ignoring the views of other people in the party (see, for example,

Bhattarai 2063 v.s.[2047 v.s.]).

The polemics exchanged between Singh and the Maoists, published in

the Nepali leftist press, span decades and involve abstruse points ofcommunist doctrine and history. By 1994, there were two ideological

strands on the radical left, the first represented by what was then a faction

of the Unity Centre (which was to become the Maoist party) and the

second by a conglomeration of groups that included Singhs Masal and

the other section of the Unity Centre which later united with Singhs

faction to form CPN (Unity Centre-Masal) (Nepali Times 20002001).

The sum of their disagreements was encapsulated in the rival doctrines of

Maoism and Mao-thought respectively. While it is easy for the initiatedreader to get lost in the esoteric polemics exchanged between proponents

of the rival doctrines, the basic outlines of the disagreements are not

difficult to delineate. By terming their doctrine Maoism, the Nepali

Maoists asserted that Maos theoretical work was equivalent in stature

and profundity to those of Marx and Lenin. Maoism, just as Marxism and

Leninism in the past, was the scientific interpretation of society and

provided the correct guide to action for communists in semi-feudal and

semi-colonial countries. This being the case, a Mao-style protracted

peoples war was absolutely necessary if Nepali society was to be

liberated and move towards socialism (for an explication of this

argument, see RIM 2009[1998]).


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232 Aditya Adhikari

great concentration of political and economic power and importantly of

state security forces in Kathmandu meant that the decisive military

strike on the city would likely fail even if all the countryside was

brought under Maoist control. What was required was therefore the

adoption of a Leninist-style insurrection into the strategy of protracted

peoples war (CPNM 2004[2001]: 63). This meant that the Maoists

needed to instigate a mass uprising in the capital similar to the one that

led to the overthrow of the Panchayat system in 1990. Towards this end,

greater efforts had to be put into tasks that had been considered secondary

during the early years of the armed struggle: propaganda campaigns in

urban areas, for example, or the use of fraternal organizations to organize

strikes and demonstrations (ICG 2005: 23).

Second, the Maoist leadership decided to put greater effort into

seeking a negotiated settlement to the armed conflict. The Maoists

decided at the Second National Conference that the

party needs to advance in a planned way the issues like organizing aconference of all political parties and peoples organizations of thecountry, conducting the election for an interim government by theconference and guaranteeing the formation of constitution by the people

under the leadership of this elected interim government (CPNM2004[2001]: 118).

The Maoists had been pushing for elements of this proposal, like the

demand for a new constitution through an elected body, as early as the

mass uprising of 1990 (see SRJA 2063 v.s.[2046 v.s.]), but this was the

first time since the beginning of the war that they openly announced that

they were open to negotiations.

Many politicians and analysts welcomed the Maoists new focus on a

negotiated, political resolution to the conflict (Nepal 2064 v.s.[2058 v.s.];Roka 2064 v.s.[2057 v.s.]). Some thought that it indicated that the armed

movement was failing and that the Maoists wanted a safe landing into

mainstream politics. The Maoists, however, had greater ambitions. They

envisaged negotiations as an instrument to create divisions between

enemy forces and to achieve a greater degree of political penetration

into Kathmandu (by, for instance, taking advantage of the open political

environment during ceasefire periods to organize various political events

in the city). At least a section of the Maoist leadership considered

negotiations as a tactical step towards the goal of fomenting an armed

insurrection. It was left unclear with which political forces the Maoists


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wished to negotiate. 11 Only time would tell how precisely the mainstream

political forces would become polarized and which of them would

become open to dealings with the Maoists.

Learning from Stalin

Although the two tactical modifications made at the Second National

Conference of 2001 were to have profound ramifications for the evolution

of the Maoist party, they did not represent any ideological departure from

its prior convictions regarding the ideal model for party, state and society.

There was one area, however, where this conference did mark the

beginning of an ideological modification in the direction of a somewhat

greater political freedom. As the doctrine of the Nepali Maoists regarded

Maoism the most profound development of revolutionary thought and the

Chinese Cultural Revolution (the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in

Maoist jargon) the greatest revolutionary exercise in history, it was in

aspects of these that the roots of the ideological departure were sought.

The starting point was Maos analysis of Stalins mistakes. According

to Maos well-known dictum, Stalin was 70 percent correct and 30

percent wrong. Among the mistakes that Stalin made and the Nepali

Maoists had to learn from regarded his handling of the party organization.Mao stated that Stalin did not apply proletarian democratic centralism

and, to some extent, violated it (CPNM 2004[2001]: 55). This meant that

Stalin, instead of following Leninist principles of party organization and

allowing for open debate on matters of policy until a resolution was

reached (at which point of course the entire party would have to strictly

adhere to the decision), considered the communist party a monolithic

body that should always remain subservient to his command. Dissent was

treated harshly. Stalins was a model of extreme bureaucratic centralism.The proper exercise of democratic centralism, according to Mao, should

11 As Madhav Nepal (2064 v.s.[2058 v.s.]: 319320) stated at the time:It is necessary for them [the Maoists] to clarify a number of issues. What isthe meaning of a conference of all political parties and peoplesorganizations? What will be the role of the King and the Nepali Congress inthat conference? What will be the situation of the 70 other parties in the

parliament and registered at the election commission? Which of them can beallowed to participate in the conference?.Will it be the King or the PrimeMinister who convenes the gathering? If differences arise at the conferencewhat mechanisms will there be to resolve them? How many people will beincluded in the [interim] government?. According to which clause and sub-clause of the current constitution will the interim government be grantedlegitimacy?


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whereas the systems created by true proletarian democrats gained a

reputation for being brutal and oppressive dictatorships? And how should

the socialist party of the twentieth century structure the state under its

control so as to avoid these pitfalls?

The answer that the Nepali Maoists found enshrined in the party

document The Development of Democracy (janavd) in the Twenty-First Century (CPNM 2004[2003]: 129149) was that the communist

parties of the twentieth century found themselves entirely unopposed once

they came into power and became unreceptive to the needs of the wider

population. In the absence of political competition that would have

motivated them to stay connected with the people, the parties turned

mechanistic and bureaucratic and granted themselves special

privileges. Similarly, the masses became a victim of formal democracy

and gradually their limitless energy, creativity and dynamism got sapped

(CPNM 2004[2003]: 148149)

A number of modifications, the Nepali Maoists argued, to the

structure of the party, the army and the state would enable the new

socialist party to remain committed and receptive to the needs of the

people. First, it should be ensured that while a section of the party was

involved in running the state machinery, another section should beinvolved in mass work so that close ties with the general population

were maintained. At regular intervals, the responsibilities between the two

should be switched, so that party members had continuous experience of

both governing and of working amongst the people. This, it was thought,

would keep party leaders and cadres sensitive to the needs of the

population and encourage them to continue living, as according to

communist principles, in an austere fashion.

Second, it was argued, the revolutionary army should not be confinedto barracks after the capture of state power but should continue its work

as a torch-bearer of revolution engaged in the militarization of the

masses and in the service of the masses (CPNM 2004[2003]: 146147).

Third, the revolutionary party would compete with other parties

politically, including in elections. The relations between the parties would

not be like those prevailing in China, where the smaller parties simply

mechanistically cooperate with the communist party. All parties would

be allowed significant freedom and autonomy. This measure would keep

the revolutionary party responsive to the population. However, as would

be mentioned in the constitution, only anti-feudal and anti-imperialist

forces would be allowed to compete in this state.


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indication that the two political models were fundamentally

irreconcilable.

New Constraints

King Gyanendras takeover of 2005 made it possible for the Maoists, who

had been seeking an entry into nonviolent politics, to form an alliance

with the traditional parliamentary parties against the monarchy (CPNM

2063 v.s.[2062 v.s.]: 292309). Although most of the Maoists continued

to regard the parliamentary parties the Nepali Congress in particular, but

also sections of the UML as representatives of the comprador

bourgeoisie that needed to be eliminated for the greater good of Nepal, it

was possible to justify an alliance with them ideologically. Mao, himself,

after all had on some occasions formed a united front against the Japanese

with his staunch enemy Chiang-Kai Shek. And the Nepali Maoists had

themselves consistently believed that the genuine communist policy is

one whichtactically, concentrates the struggle against the one [either

the monarchy or parliamentary parties] which has seized state-power and

has been directly exploiting and suppressing the people (CPNM

2004[2001]: 71).

In fact, the entire political process of late 2005 and 2006 could be seenas a concrete outcome of what the Maoists had envisaged in 2001. The

success of the April 2006 mass uprising against the monarchy was

perceived as the success of the Maoist decision to incorporate the

strategies of armed insurrection into the protracted peoples war

(CPNM 2004[2001]: 63). And the writing of the Interim Constitution, the

formation of an elected government and the holding of elections to a

Constituent Assembly could be perceived as the outcome of a Maoist plan

charted in the political report of the 2001 National Convention. TheMaoists felt further vindicated when the parties jointly agreed to declare

Nepal secular, agreed to their demand for a forward-looking

restructuring of the state to resolve the problems related to class, caste,

gender, region and so on (SPA and CPNM 2005) and, later in 2008,

when the elected Constituent Assembly (CA) voted to abolish the

institution of the monarchy.

In order for the parliamentary parties to take the Maoists on as

partners, of course, the latter had to commit to democratic norms and

values such as competitive multiparty system of governance, civil

liberties, fundamental rights, human rights the principle of the rule of law

etc. (SPA and CPNM 2005). This meant that, with a view towards the

creation of a stable peace, the Maoists would, most immediately, cease


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238 Aditya Adhikari

attacking members of other parties and would let them engage in political

activity in peace. In the longer term, the other parties expected that the

Maoists, separated from their instruments of coercion, would become

acculturated to the norms of liberal democracy.

For the Maoists, however, such an acculturation would mean that their

party had accepted the cardinal sin of class conciliation and thus had

degenerated into revisionism. Privately, therefore, the Maoists

continued to view the peace process negotiations, not as a process of

compromise at all cost, but rather as another front to fight against the

enemy (CPNM 2004[2003]: 137). In other words, this entry into

competitive peaceful politics was but a stage in a process that would lead

to the achievement of the Maoist partys ultimate goals.

The nature of these goals was, however, by no means unambiguous.

The more doctrinaire of Maoists, led by Mohan Baidya Kiran, believed

that the entire peace process had to be viewed merely tactically. There

was no question of committing wholeheartedly to the commitments made

in the peace agreements. In fact, as he argued, the longer the Maoists

stayed in the peace process, the more they would become corrupted by the

privileges of power and lose their revolutionary edge. A continuation of

the alliance with the older parliamentary parties was impossible; theirideology was irreconcilable with that of the Maoists. The other parties

would in no circumstances agree to the promulgation of a constitution

acceptable to the Maoists. Therefore, now that the monarchy had been

abolished, it was time for the party to focus their struggles against the

parliamentary parties, in particular on the organization of an armed urban

insurrection that would enable the party to capture entire state power

(Kiran 2065 v.s., 2067 v.s.).12

A violent seizure of state power, however, remained, under prevailingcircumstances, impossible. For, the institutions of state in Kathmandu

remained too powerful for the Maoists to take over by force, the party

lacked the mass support required for an urban insurrection and there was

no possibility that major foreign powers would accept an entirely Maoist-

dominated state. Besides, the Maoists had to a great extent become locked

into the political process outlined in the political agreements of 2005 and

12 Kiran has a substantial base among the Maoists and the party leadership hasfound it difficult to disregard his line. There have been occasions when, in anattempt to placate him and his followers, the party chairman has had toincorporate aspects of these demands into party policy documents (seeUCPNM 2008). This is one reason why the party leadership often seems tomake contradictory statements from one day to the next.


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2006. Whatever their theoretical objectives, on a day-to-day basis they

had to identify challenges and formulate tactics within the framework of

multi-party competition.

Participation in the peace process necessitated Maoist participation in

elections to a Constituent Assembly. And after they emerged as the party

with the most number of seats in that body, pragmatism dictated that they

should participate in deliberations within that body regarding the details

of the constitution that was to be drafted.

In their vision of the state system that Nepal should adopt that they

presented in the CA, the Maoists were of course first and primarily

influenced by their Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology. But 24 other

parties were present in the CA, and none of them would agree to a

traditional dictatorship of the proletariat. In particular, in consonance

with the peace agreements, the older parliamentary parties insisted that

the Maoists accept without reservations the inclusion of all political

freedoms that form the cornerstone of liberal democracy in the new

constitution. This was one factor that conditioned the content of the

proposals that the Maoists brought to the CA. Although the other political

parties continued to find many of their proposals objectionable, the

Maoists from the very beginning agreed to include the bare minimum ofpolitical rights and freedoms in the new constitution: regular elections, the

freedoms of expression and organization.

Participation in a constitution building exercise with parties that the

Maoists regarded as enemies required a strong ideological justification.

And it was Baburam Bhattarai who provided the arguments regarding the

historical necessity of Maoist participation in the CA and was chiefly

responsible for the production of the Maoist draft constitution, titled

Janatko Saghiya Gaatantra Neplko Sabidhn 2067 (UCPNM2067 v.s.).Bhattarai had for years believed that the Maoists, once having gained

control over the state, needed to allow for much greater political freedoms

than had existed in the communist regimes of the twentieth century. Now

that the Maoists were in fact participating in an open political

environment, Bhattarai argued that the peace process should not be

viewed merely as a tactical stage that the Maoists should break out of

once the appropriate conditions for eliminating the other political parties

arose. Rather, it should be recognized that the Peoples War and the 2006

Jana ndolan had led to major gains in the transformation of the Nepalipolity.


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240 Aditya Adhikari

So far, Bhattarai argued, through the declaration of secularism and the

abolition of the monarchy, there had been some movement toward

eliminating Hindu chauvinism and feudalism. It was now necessary to

draft a constitution that permanently protected and institutionalized these

gains. In addition, efforts needed to be made to restructure the state so

that Nepals various oppressed castes and communities were offered

conditions of emancipation such as affirmative action and political

autonomy in their historical homelands. Over a period of time, the

remnants of feudalism would gradually be eroded through land reform

and other measures, economic growth would take place and Nepal would

become liberated from the chains of dependency. But for the nation to

move in this direction, it was essential that the alliance between the

Maoists and the older parliamentary parties remain intact and the letter of

the peace agreements followed (Bhattarai 2067 v.s.).

Bhattarai, in an attempt to fit his vision to his partys ideological

mould, claimed that the state system he envisaged would be transitional

in the path to the attainment of a full New Democratic State, then of

socialism and eventually, of course, of communism. This was dubious to

the more ideologically inclined sections of the party, accustomed as they

were to thinking of any prolonged cooperation with the parliamentaryparties as revisionist. And Bhattarai did come under repeated attack

from others in the party during the years of the peace process on specifics

of his political line. In the absence of any real political alternative,

however, many of the more pragmatic among the Maoists adopted to a

large extent Bhattarais analysis of the Maoist partys historical role and

responsibilities.

New Institutions for Old ProblemsThe Maoist diagnosis of Nepals ills and the nature of the social and

economic transformation necessary to overcome them remained

consistent from the period before beginning their armed movement to the

time when they were engaged in debates on the new state system to adopt

in the CA. In their most comprehensive version of a draft constitution to

date, the section on the Directive Principles of State identifies the

liberation of Nepal from the clutches of semi-feudalism and semi-

colonialism as the chief tasks of the state. By undertaking wide-scale land

reform (a process in which the state should not, according to the Maoists,

have to recompense those from whom land is being confiscated a

proposal that the Nepali Congress and UML vehemently oppose

(CACDNRFRR 2066 v.s.: 4246)), the current feudal production system


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is to be brought to an end, and the right and control of farmers and other

labourers over natural resources ensured. Bureaucratic capital is to be

controlled and eliminated and national industrial capital encouraged so

as to lead to the establishment of a self-reliant, socialist-oriented national

economy (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 54).

The nature of the state that is to implement these goals, however, has

changed. Private capital is to largely be allowed to continue to flourish, as

are electoral and other kinds of competition between rival parties. It is

clear, however, that the accomplishment of the goals above will require a

significant intervention by the central state. It will be necessary to

overcome significant opposition from powerful sections of society to

redistribute land and stop the comprador class from, say, opening up

Nepali markets to foreign goods. Similarly, the state will require immense

bureaucratic capacity to properly implement the land reform effort and to,

say, provide support to fledging industry meant to supply domestic

markets.

Thus, while accepting basic liberal democratic principles, the system

that the Maoists propose also includes provisions that they believe will

enable the accomplishment of the partys socio-economic goals. In a

number of respects, these provisions differ substantially from thoseprovided for in the 1990 constitution.

First, the Maoists propose that Nepal adopt a presidential system,

where the president will occupy the positions of both head of state and of

government. The president is to be directly elected and select a council of

ministers from all parties according to the proportion of seats they hold in

the legislature (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 72, 73, 74, 82).

The argument here is that the parliamentary system that has existed in

Nepal for the past two decades is directly responsible for politicalinstability and for the fact that no government has been able to act as an

agent of change and to implement long-term policy. For most of Nepals

recent history, no single party has commanded a majority in parliament

and all governments, being elected through the legislature, have required

coalitions of a number of parties. Rapidly shifting political alignments

have meant that these coalitions last for very short periods of time.

Government turnover is thus extraordinarily high. As a result, those who

gain positions of power, understanding that their tenure in office is likely

to be short, have spent most of their efforts on remaining in power for as

long as possible and on enriching themselves.

Further, the provision for separate heads of state and of government in

a parliamentary system, by allowing for a division of supreme authority


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242 Aditya Adhikari

over the state, is also, according to the Maoists, problematic. For, in such

a situation, the head of state is provided with the opportunity to expand

his or her power over that of the elected government. This was seen very

clearly when the monarch, constitutionally the head of state, exploited

ambiguous provisions in the 1990 constitution to first dissolve parliament

in 2002 and later directly take over executive power in 2005.

In contrast, in a system where the president is liberated from the direct

control of the legislature (though still accountable to it) and is instead

directly elected from the population, it will not be easy to get rid of

governments as easily as when the head of government is under the

control of the legislature. The Maoists argue that this will bring an end to

the instability that has existed so far, enable governments to undertake

significant structural reform and, when needed, overcome political

opposition. And by investing the president with the authority of both the

head of state and of government, it will be possible to avoid problems

arising from a division of supreme state authority.

Second, the Maoists insist that the constitution mention that the

legislature will be unicameral. In their opinion, a House of

Representatives (HoR) should be allowed to draft and pass legislation

unhindered as, consisting of directly elected lawmakers, it represents thewill of the people. An upper house, which is expected in most

democracies to moderate the more extreme urges of the lower house, in

the Maoist view presumably can only act as an impediment in efforts to

implement swift and rapid change. And, in the Maoist opinion, it is

necessary to ensure that decisions are taken through consensus to avoid

the partisan conflict that has plagued Nepali democracy and made it

impossible for the government to take decisive action. Therefore, they

maintain that there should be no provision for an opposition in thelegislature. Rather, all parties should be represented in government in

proportion to the number of seats they occupy in that body (UCPNM

2067 v.s.: Art. 82,112, 113).

Third, the Maoists argue that so far in Nepals history, the judiciary

has failed to provide justice and has been wholly unaccountable to the

wider population. It is thus necessary to subject it to greater public control

and scrutiny. For this purpose, they have recommended the formation of a

Special Judicial Committee consisting of members of the legislature

that will recommend appointments to positions of the chief justice and

other judges of the Supreme Court (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 155). After

the legislature approves the recommendation, the president is to ratify it.

Further, the Special Judicial Committee is also to have the ultimate power


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in interpreting the constitution and federal laws on matters of national

importance, those directly concerning political issues, and in cases where

the law contradicts the constitution (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 172(2)(a)).

Fourth, in order to liberate the various marginalized caste, cultural,

lingual, regional and ethnic groups of Nepal, the Maoists maintain, Nepal

should be restructured along federal lines. As Lenin argued with reference

to the countries in early twentieth-century Eastern Europe, the Maoists

once believed that for a period of time all such oppressed groups (which

they refer to as nationalities) need to be granted full autonomy,

including the right to self-determination (Tamang 2006). The partys

current position on federalism is a direct outgrowth of the Leninist

position. As oppression historically took place along ethnic and cultural

lines, it is argued, federalism is necessary to grant oppressed groups the

rights they have not been allowed to exercise so far (UCPNM 2067 v.s.:

Art. 60, 61, 62). These groups should be allowed certain preferential

rights over others so that, for example, the top political leadership of the

province will be afforded to members of the dominant ethnic/caste group

in that area for the first 10 years after the constitution comes into

operation (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 70). And each province should be

granted the right to self-determination (according to the Maoists,however, in Nepal, this right will not include the right to secession)

(UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 69).

The Expansion of Power

The Maoists continue to believe in the validity of their original analysis

and diagnosis of the ills of the Nepali state and society and perceive

themselves to be the party of the revolutionary vanguard, the only one

capable of leading the socio-economic transformation necessary in Nepal.In their view, therefore, there would be no point if the system they have

devised comes into existence if their party will not lead it for a significant

amount of time. One of the partys objectives thus is to gain a majority in

elections held in the foreseeable future. In fact, when hardliners complain

that their party is stuck in the parliamentary trap and a violent revolt is

necessary in order to extricate itself, more pragmatic leaders such as

Maoist Chairman Prachanda have argued that the revolt meant to

capture all state power should be held after the Maoists have managed

to accumulate a great deal of power through winning a majority in the

general election that will take place after the constitution is drafted

(Prachanda 2067 v.s.).


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244 Aditya Adhikari

In fact, significant changes have been made in the Maoist party

organization since the end of the conflict in 2006 in line with its self-

conception and ideology. During the war, ideological fervor and

discipline were valued highly, as befitting a party mostly concentrated on

waging a guerilla war against the state. During the years of the peace

process, the objective became to recruit large numbers of people and thus

rapidly expand the party organization. There were drawbacks to this

effort: party leaders repeatedly expressed concern that many lumpen

elements, young men with low levels ideological and political training,

concerned only to gain some power and influence, were joining the

partys Young Communist League (YCL). The process of rapid

recruitment could not be stopped, however, for, no matter the quality of

cadres, a significant increase in their quantity could only help the Maoist

party consolidate power over all sections of society and help them, among

other things, to win elections.

In line with their desire to become the hegemonic communist party in

the country, the Maoists also encouraged small communist factions to

merge into the party. In January 2009 the faction calling itself the Unity

Centre consisting largely of individuals who had split away from the

Maoists in 1994 in opposition to their plan to start an armed movement decided to rejoin their former colleagues. During the process of

negotiation that preceded the merger, there were discussions regarding

what official ideology the party should adopt. In a reprise of the intense

ideological disputes of the early 1990s, the Unity Centre insisted that the

united partys ideology be Marxism, Leninism and Mao-thought. The

Maoists argued that the ideology remain Marxism, Leninism, Maoism.

Times had changed, however. Disagreements that had once provoked

such deep rancor and had seemed essential to the development of theNepali communist movement had become irrelevant. And so, the two

groups, now a single party with the name of the Unified Communist Party

of Nepal (Maoist), did something that would have been inconceivable two

decades ago: they decided that their official ideology would hence on be

Marxism, Leninism, Maoism andMao-thought.

A Peoples Democracy

As the political system the Nepali Maoists have envisioned in their draft

constitution has been designed in a manner that will, it is hoped, enable

the party to realize its original goals, it is but natural that it bears

structural similarities to the model of state that the party had held ideal

before acknowledging the need for political freedoms. According to Mao


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himself, grass-roots participatory democracy was desirable and necessary,

but only within the context of a strong and centralized state (Schram

1989: 93). The Nepali Maoists too believe this: while they have been

strong proponents of ethnic-based federalism, they envisage that the

federal provinces will be kept under the control of the center.13

There are thus provisions for central control over provinces in their

draft constitution. Most notably, each province is to have a provincial

chief appointed by the president in consultation with the provincial chief

minister. Most of the powers of the provincial chief are limited to

performing tasks at the recommendation of the provincial council of

ministers. In this, the range of their powers approximates those of state

governors in India, who are mandated at the provincial level with tasks

that at the center are the responsibility of the president (at least in political

systems where the president is head of state and the prime minister is

head of government, as in India or in Nepal during the currently-ongoing

transitional period following the abolition of the monarchy).

In India, governors of states have the discretionary power to

recommend to the president that the center should take over the direct

administration of the province in cases of severe misgovernance or other

crises. The Nepali Maoists, however, seem to take a broader view of theprovincial chiefs powers. A clause in their draft constitution mentions

that: Notwithstanding anything contained in Clause (2) [which states that

the provincial chief will exercise powers at the advice or consent of the

Provincial Council of Ministers], the advice or consent of the Provincial

Council of Ministers shall not be required while exercising powers on the

recommendation of any other body or authority as allowed for by the

constitution or laws (UCPNM 2067 v.s.: Art. 95(3)). The ambiguity here

regarding the bodies or authorities that can exercise control over theprovincial chief is perhaps indicative of the Maoist desire for greater

central control over the provinces than in India.

More importantly, there is also a tendency in the Maoist draft

constitution to collectivize and universalize political participation in the

manner of groups everywhere that have come to power after a violent

revolt and are intent on radical change. The president, being directly

elected, is taken to represent the will of the entire people. So is the

13 According to a Maoist supporter interviewed by the International Crisis Group(ICG 2011: 10), It must be clear that under any form of government, thecentre would command the nation as a whole. That is true in many otherexamples. The father rules the family, the principle the school.


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246 Aditya Adhikari

legislature: the absence of any opposition and the provision that all

decisions will be taken in consensus seems to assume the existence of a

singular peoples will. In the absence of an upper house that in liberal

democracies is tasked with the sober reconsideration of legislation passed

by the lower, there will be few checks on attempts by the dominant

faction in the legislature to implement the various aspects of their vision

of rapid socio-economic transformation, even as the rights of certain

minorities may be abrogated. Even the judiciary is to be brought under the

control of the legislature, that body representing the collective will of the

people.

There are, of course, other measures in the draft constitution that, by

allowing for various political freedoms, inhibit the dominant party from

establishing total control over state and society as in Russian and Chinese

communist regimes. However, it is clear that the provisions that seek to

allow unhindered implementation of the collective peoples will, do so

at the cost of the erosion of checks and balances that are accorded such

importance in liberal democratic regimes. The model of the Nepali

Maoists, if implemented, could well lead to majoritarian tyranny.

But majoritarian tyranny, of course, is a not a problem that the

Maoists really recognize. Their adoption of some political freedoms andelectoral competition does not mean that they have come around to the

liberal democratic belief that a political system is democratic if includes a

specific set of institutional arrangements (the separation of powers, for

example). Rather, as indicated by the continued insistence that a

distinction be made between parliamentary democracy and a peoples

democracy (the phrase used to describe their political system in the

Maoist draft constitution is Peoples Federal Republic), the Maoists

continue to hold on to the original Marxist notion that all state systems aredictatorships of particular classes. The only true democracy is one where

the proletariat is in control of the state, for, goes the official Marxist point

of view, only such a state can lead the transformations necessary for the

establishment of a classless society. The new system that the Maoists

envisage, in which the party of the majority will exercise hegemonic

control, can be regarded thus as a version of the dictatorship of the

proletariat (or a true proletarian democracy), for a time when liberal

democracy is in a position of global supremacy, and accommodation with

it is thus necessary.


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Conclusion

There is almost no possibility that the Maoist draft constitution will be

adopted as the law of the land anytime in the foreseeable future. The

Nepali Congress and the UML, prepared only to make a few

modifications to the existing parliamentary system, believe that the

Maoist model of state is fundamentally undemocratic and has been put

forward with the objective of easing the path towards the imposition of a

one-party state. Supported by the Indian establishment, they have thus

opposed almost all of the provisions described above regarding the nature

of the executive, judiciary and legislature, leading Baburam Bhattarai to

state that the razing[sic] struggle between bourgeois democracy and

proletarian democracy has been sharply manifested while drafting a new

constitution (Bhattarai 2011).

The parties have managed to resolve a number of differences.

Notably, the Maoists withdrew their insistence on their provision that

only anti-feudal and anti-imperialist forces would be allowed to

politically compete in the face of vehement opposition by other political

parties. By and large, however, the differences that have been resolved

consist mostly of the more peripheral issues. The core disputes over the

nature of state institutions remain unresolved. Indeed, it is difficult to seehow they will be unless the Maoists are prepared to accept, among other

things, more checks and balances and a weaker executive.

There is a high possibility that Nepals Constituent Assembly will not

be able to deliver a constitution by the scheduled deadline of May 28,

2011. There is some talk that the parties will produce a partial constitution

and then extend the term of the CA to allow more time to discuss

unresolved issues. Many maintain that agreement on the form and

structure of government, which includes many of the issues referred toabove, is imminent, that it is only over the nature of federalism that major

differences persist. This, however, is too complacent a view: a closer look

at the differences between the Maoists and non-Maoists regarding forms

of governance are as in fact major.

The debate will continue for some time. As it does, the precise nature

of the institutions the Maoists envisage as ideal may well continue to

evolve. And, at the heart of this evolution will continue to lie the

negotiation between models of state that place primary value on immense

authority and the capacity for radical reform on the one hand and the

rights of and protections for individuals on the other.


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248 Aditya Adhikari

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