INDIAN MAOISTS THROWN INTO DISARRAY BY THEIR NEPALESE COMRADES
Daya Varma
It is possible for a man to be a genuine feminist, for a Hindu to treat a Muslim as their kith and kin and for a caste Hindu to have no innate sense of superiority over Dalits. However, it is a Himalayan task for an Indian to refrain from chauvinism towards the Nepalese. Therefore it is not surprising that the Communist Party of India (Maoist), or CPI (Maoist) acts like a big brother towards their Nepalese counterpart, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).This “revolutionary” chauvinism is worse than even that displayed by the Indian rulers from Nehru to Manmohan Singh.
As is well known, Nepal Maoists disbanded their army and joined the government and forced the Nepalese army to the barracks. The infamous King Gyanendra is no more the head of the state. These acts of the Nepalese Maoists have not only been hailed by the Nepalese masses belonging to diverse political spectra but also by democratic forces all over the world. Even the reactionaries were disarmed. Above all, this decision of Nepal Maoists concur with the aspirations of the Nepalese people and it would not be justified for Nepal Maoists to ignore the well being of the masses in order to hold on to their earlier war strategy.
Instead of lauding these developments in Nepal, the Central Committee (CC) of CPI-Maoist (see below the text of their Press Release) “has been perturbed by this agreement” and “warns the CPN (Maoist) and the people of Nepal of the grave danger inherent in the agreement.” Every agreement carries the seeds of conflict and betrayal but the issue is not whether to make concessions but how to handle alliance with reactionaries and bourgeois parties.
Every party has a leader but that does not mean that every leader is charismatic, wise, a mature Marxist or even Maoist. Those days seem to be gone when intellectual giants, seasoned in mass struggle, were the leaders of Communist Party of India. So there is no reason to think that the CC of CPI (Maoist) has superior wisdom although it does seem to have memorized classical communist verbiage. If they had truly grasped Mao Zedong thought, they would know that the strength of Nepalese Maoists did not lie in their weapons but in their disciplined members of the People’s Liberation Army. Arms are freely available everywhere. If the organization is there, a People’s Liberation Army can be brought into operation in no time. In the meantime, the Nepalese Maoists were are able to exert sufficient pressure through mass mobilization as happened after Koirala arbitrarily appointed 14 ambassadors.
Advising a foreign communist party is nothing new but there is not a single instance where it has served any useful purpose; the reverse has usually been the rule. In this issue we produce a January 1950 document of Cominform (probably written by Rajani Palme Dutt of the British Communist Party, one of the smallest parties of that period) which led to the split of CPI to no good. One can only hope that Nepal Maoists will reject not only the advice of Indian Maoists but also tell to mind their own business and not interfere in Nepal’s affairs.
During his speech in New Delhi, Prachanda, the leader of CPN (Maoist) pronounced that the battle for democracy will be the greatest battle of this century. He could have said that the dictatorship of proletariat, i.e., the de facto dictatorship of the Communist Party, is the urgent need of the time but he did not. Only time will prove if Prachanda is right. If he is, he has made one of the most profound statements ever by leader of the communist movement after Marx.
On the other hand, by reaching an agreement with Koirala and other parties, Prachanda has pulled the rug from under the feet of the Indian Maoists whose putative strength appears to lie in Nepal and not in India.