Aditi BHADURI
4 April 2008

Inside Nepal’s sealed borders women are running for historic April 10 Constituent Assembly elections. As they take advantage of ambitious gender quotas they are learning how to vote and doing what they can to weather campaign violence.

KATMANDU, Nepal (WOMENSENEWS)—Nepal has sealed its borders as it tries to safely forge a new path after 240 years of autocratic monarchial rule, 10 years of a violent Maoist insurgency and two years of a wary stability under an interim government.

Tomorrow the country holds elections to form its first Constituent Assembly.

In addition to governing this tiny Himalayan kingdom, those elected on April 10 will draft a new constitution and hammer out the role of the king, who in 2006 relinquished powers to an interim parliament. Seven major parties and about 50 smaller groups are running candidates.

For women the day is particularly a landmark.

Last year, under the influence of a dominant Maoist faction, the interim parliament’s seven-party coalition framed an interim constitution that required parties’ candidates to be 33 percent female.

Of these, 50 percent have to be filed in the closed lists, which are selected by voting for parties rather than individuals. The rest are fielded for direct elections.

Those are high numbers for a society where educational gaps offer a glimpse at women’s longstanding subordinate role. The male literacy rate is 63 percent, according to statistics from the Nepal Election Commission; for women it’s 35 percent.

“I had to wait so many years and travel to India to complete my schooling in the 1940s because there was no school for girls in Nepal then,” Sahana Pradhan, the country’s interim minister of foreign affairs, told Women’s eNews in a recent interview.

Waiting for Results

While the quotas are high, Sharda Pokharel, a former member of parliament, is cautious about how they’ll translate into election results.

Pokharel now heads the Women Security Pressure Group, an umbrella group of women’s organizations across Nepal. She suspects parties, simply to fulfill legal requirements, are fielding weak female candidates in direct elections for seats where opponents are sure to win.

Pokharel has been running voter education and awareness programs since November in all parts of the country.

Women’s eNews caught up with her recently during the lunch break for a workshop with about a hundred female attendees.

Looking beyond the elections, Pokharel was circulating the list of demands her group wants the next assembly to incorporate into the constitution, including increased political participation by women and a 50-percent quota in parliament. The group also wants a recent law allowing women to inherit property from their parents to be implemented; a constitutional guarantee of equality; compulsory education; and greater security from interpersonal violence, assault, rape and trafficking.

The total number of women seeking direct election is only 367 out of a total of 3,947 candidates.

Nonetheless, many political participants here expect that the high quotas—33 percent overall and 50 percent in the closed list—should mean that women wind up taking more than 20 percent of the places in the assembly.

Maoist Legacy

To the extent women are enjoying new political rights in these elections Sapana Pradhan-Malla, a lawyer and president of a women’s advocacy group, concedes it is a legacy of the insurgency by the Maoists, as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) here is popularly known.

While the Maoists are associated with armed conflict, totalitarian tactics and heavy death tolls, their role in the interim government is associated with pushing for greater political involvement for women, banning the “untouchable” status of some castes in the villages and giving women a stake in parental property.

“They had a more gender-friendly agenda,” says Pradhan-Malla, who is running for a seat in Parliament as part of the closed list of the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist, the Maoists’ archrival party.

Female candidates are facing the same kind of ferocious intimidation afflicting men.

One woman’s house was burned by a party rival and another’s car was stoned and her volunteer workers attacked physically, according to recent press reports.

Ranjana Sarkar, running as an invisible member of Nepal’s United Marxist Leninist Party, told Women’s eNews she had received numerous threats over the phone telling her to withdraw her candidacy.

Sujata Koirala, the daughter of the current prime minister, who is running for direct election, was greeted with black flags when she went to campaign in her southern district. Her car was stoned and her workers physically attacked in violence that local news agencies linked to a rival regional party.

Workers for the Marxist Leninist party told Women’s eNews that the house of one of their candidates, Kamala Mahto, was set on fire.

Preparing Women to Vote

Nonetheless, Babita Basnet, the 36-year-old editor of a Nepali weekly and president of a national media monitoring forum of female journalists based in the capital, remains upbeat about the voting-related activity focused on women. Efforts are being organized by political parties and women’s groups jointly with international entities such as the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the U.S. Agency for International Development and Oxfam, a British relief organization.

Basnet also says female candidates are exerting influence, even when they might not win.

As an example she points to Bhimkumari Beuda, an obscure female candidate with the Nepali Congress party who is running in direct elections against the Maoist leader, Prachanda, who is likely to win. Nonetheless Basnet says Beuda is giving her party a lot of help. Her husband and son were killed by Maoist insurgents and the candidate says that reminds voters of why they might want to support an opposing party.

Basnet’s monitoring group has been staging street theaters throughout Nepal’s high rocky terrain and its southern plains for the past year to teach women how to vote. Women who cannot read are taught how to put their indelible-ink stamp on a ballot and how to identify different party symbols. Women at polling stations on Thursday will also provide guidance to female voters.

To emphasize the importance of women’s participation in the elections they have come up with a jingle, “Sambidhan Sabha Laye, Mahila Ko Aka Le Hero,” which means “Look at the Constituent Assembly Through Women’s Eyes.”

The group is also helping to arrange for a substantial police presence at polling stations, including female officers. It plans to station 100 of its members alongside other observer groups at polling stations so that female voters, especially in rural areas, will feel safe.

Other groups that will observe the elections include the Nepal Election Monitoring Association and the Democratic Electoral Alliance of Nepal. International groups include the Carter Center, founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and the Bangkok, Thailand-based Asian Network for Free Elections with many female observers participating.

“I have worked with so many women, from the most urban to the most rural and I find that the woes of working women remain the same,” Basnet told Women’s eNews. “Irrespective of the work they are doing and the money they are earning, they are both questioned by their family if they ever happen to come home late. In both scenarios it is their sexuality that is under the family’s scanner.”
A Crumbling Kingdom

Nepal is a small landlocked kingdom sandwiched between China and India. Some semblance of democracy was introduced to Nepal in 1990, denting the totalitarian monarchy’s power.

In 1996 an insurgency led by Maoists broke out and fighting claimed thousands of lives. The current king, Gyanendra, came to the throne after his brother, Birendra, and most of the royal family were murdered by the crown prince in 2001. In 2005 King Gyanendra dissolved parliament and restored absolute rule.

His grip on power has been challenged by a nationwide people’s movement demanding the reinstatement of parliament. An uneasy peace reigned after the king acquiesced. The government and the Maoists signed an agreement and the Maoists entered parliament in January 2007.

Since then, the fragile peace has prevailed and the king’s power has been curtailed. After the election, the new parliament will draft a national constitution. In December 2007, a seven-party alliance controlling the government signed a 23-point agreement with the Maoists under which Nepal was declared a federal republic, a declaration that is subject to a vote by the new Constituent Assembly at the first meeting after the election. If the declaration is confirmed, the monarchy will be permanently dissolved.
BHADURI Aditi

* From http://www.womensenews.org:80/article.cfm?aid=3557

* Aditi Bhaduri, WeNews correspondent, is a gender consultant and a journalist based in India. She filed this story from Kathmandu, Nepal, and will participate in election observation as a member of the Asian Network for Free Elections.

Baburam Bhattarai pointed to a bouquet in his study and said: “People who never looked at us before are coming here to give me flowers.” Flanked by portraits of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, the chief ideologue of the Maoists spoke to Nepali Times on Tuesday about sleepless nights, his party’s economic agenda and about whether he’d been offered the prime ministership.

Nepali Times: How does it feel to arrive here after the long journey from a village in Gorkha?

Baburam Bhattarai: There is a deep sense of responsibility, and that comes from the fact that I was born in an ordinary village family, my mother can’t read or write, my father is a farmer. As a child I used to tend livestock and help in the farm, and when I went to high school I had to carry water and cook for myself. From that to be able to go to a good school and be educated, and to have that contrast in one lifetime is fascinating in a way. But now we have been brought to this position where we have to try to resolve issues of national importance, there are enormous aspirations, there is lots to do but we have very little time and resources. It makes us somewhat anxious, thinking about whether we can do it or not. There are sleepless nights, getting up at three in the morning and not being able to go back to sleep.

But luckily we have a lot of experience, we engaged in open politics, then we went underground for ten years then we engaged in an armed struggle. This gives us the capacity to deal with challenges, and personally I have always been very committed and that is why I think we can handle the challenges before us.

Did you ever have a sense of destiny? That this is where you wanted to go.

No, I didn’t. You were born and raised here in the city, but as a child in my village there was no way I could imagine I would ever end up where I am now. Even the background of (my wife) Hisilaji is different, and when we take our daughter to my home village she is surprised at the conditions there. If I hadn’t had the chance to have the schooling I did, I am sure I would still be there.

I used to get very emotional back then when I saw the poverty, discrimination and disparities all around me in the village. And what was I going to do about it, those feelings did touch me at an early age. But what are the ways to deal with it, how can these problems be solved, I started thinking about those things in my college days when I finished architecture and started working on my PhD in JNU where I analysed the problems from a Marxist perspective.

Marx said there is always a combination of necessity and chance. I had a realization about the social conditions of my community, the poverty. I knew that the feudal monarchy had to be ended. But I never knew how it was going to happen, how we were going to go about it, who would come to the forefront to lead it.

This week when the first results started coming in, weren’t you surprised?

Not so much. You are all in the media, you do political analysis, I have the feeling you may have been a bit out of touch with the reality in the countryside. The ground had shifted in the past 10 years of conflict. The marginalized and deprived women, janjatis and Dalits were really suffering, and city-based people couldn’t really understand how bad things were. There was all this about how the Maoists were spreading terror and fear, but we understood what was happening in the hinterland. We used to go back and forth from Gorkha and Rolpa.

We were convinced the people wanted change, and we knew they would let us lead them. We knew we’d be the largest party, but we didn’t know exactly how many seats we would win. That is why we were surprised that everyone, including the media doubted us. The middle class and the city elite were shocked by the result because they’d never understood what was happening in the villages.

Everyone got it wrong. We have been meeting members of the diplomatic community this past week, and they have told us that there was intelligence failure. But we are people who fought a war, for us getting things wrong by a minute or by a metre was a question of life or death, so we had told our cadre to carry out a very concrete analysis for the elections.

The really oppressed groups like the Tamangs and Tharus voted for us in large numbers. In the Tamang belt we have won 24 of the 27 seats and in the Tharuwan, of the 22 seats we have won 20. Of the 24 women who have won, 20 are Maoist women. But even the traditionally-vacillating urban middle class, the 20-30 percent, who make up their minds at the last moment came over to our side.

Was the price the Nepali people had to pay in terms of lives lost and destruction, was the revolution worthwhile?

We are still in a revolution. The elections were part of our revolution. It’s not just an armed struggle that is a revolution. Revolution means a radical rapid change in the socio-economic structure, that can happen through violent or non-violent means. At some point in a revolution, violent means need to be adopted. This election was part of the revolution to end the feudal monarchy. If we hadn’t waged the People’s War to weaken the state and empower the masses, the conditions would not have been created for the elections alone to achieve the goal.

So, it’s not true that we abandoned the bullet to come to the ballot. We used both the bullet and the ballot in this revolution. You couldn’t win with only bullets, and you couldn’t win with only the ballot. Nepal’s revolution has been completed in this unique manner.

After a ten year war, 15,000 killed, don’t you think these elections were like coming back to square one?

No. If you don’t mind, that is where you are wrong. This was a constituent assembly election. Earlier elections were parliamentary elections granted by a king. There was no structural change, sovereignty was not with the people. This time we are drafting a new constitution. And it wasn’t possible without an armed struggle.

There are reports of widespread threats and intimidation by your cadre during the election camapaign?

It is possible that happened in some places. But it would not be possible to do it from Jhapa to Kanchanpur and from villages to the cities. The main factor is that the people wanted change, and they wanted relative change and to give a chance to a new party.

When are you going to turn your attention to the economy?

Our goal is economic development. For an economic revolution to succeed, we have to complete this political revolution by writing a new constitution. There is of course the need to provide immediate relief. There are the victims of the war, those affected by inflation, corruption those things needs to be addressed urgently. But the foundations also need to be laid for structural changes required for an economic transformation.

Can these things be achieved in two years? How will you deal with inflation?

Unless you pay attention to the structural reforms in the economy, superficial interventions won’t help. You can give subsidies and get over the immediate problem, but we also have to address the roots of the crisis which is that a subsistence agricultural economy on which two-thirds of our population depends. That will not lead to economic development. There has to be a total transformation of the economy.

Second, we need massive job creation for which we need investment in hydropower, tourism and its optimum utilization. This will lay the foundation for longterm economic development.

Your election manifesto also talks about land reform. What kind of land reform are you talking about?

The simple universal principle of land-reform is land to the tiller. In mountains, the owners are also tillers but in the tarai there is a lot of absentee landlordism and productivity is low. There has to be redistribution and modernization of the methods of cultivation.

But Mao’s collectivization and the kolkhozes of the Soviet Union which led to famines and were a disaster. Can we afford to experiment?

There has been some exaggeration here. In China and Russia there may have been some problems, but in other Third World countries it worked. And if the Chinese and the Russians hadn’t totally dismantled the feudal structures, they wouldn’t have achieved the growth that they have today.

When we say we want to end feudalism, we don’t mean we want to end private ownership. Our economic development is in our language bourgeoise democratic revolution, in other words, collectivization, socialisation and nationalisation is not our current agenda. All we mean to say is that for a weak and backward economy like ours the state must play a facilitating and regulatory role. Without monetary and tax policies foreign interests may be more dominant, so the state has to protect the domestic private sector and the free market.

Yet, the business community is not yet comfortable with the Maoist win mainly because of their experience over the past two years. Do you have words of assurance for them?

We would like to assure everyone that once the Maoists come (into government) the investment climate will be even more favourable. There shouldn’t be any unnecessary misunderstanding about that. The rumours in the press about our intention are wrong, there are reports of capital flight, but this shouldn’t happen. And the other aspect is that once there is political stability, the investment climate will be even better. Our other agenda is economic development and for this we want to mobilise domestic resources and capital, and also welcome private foreign direct investment. The only thing we ask is to be allowed to define our national priorities.

We want to fully assure international investors already in Nepal that we welcome them here, and we will work to make the investment climate even better than it is now. Just watch, the labour-mangement climate will improve in our time in office. What happened in the past two years with the unions happened during a transition phase, but the business sector also hasn’t identified the other factors that are cauing them losses.

What do you mean by national industrial capitalism?

Local development is important. Every state wants to give priority or protection to its own industry. Otherwise why have a state? When we allow foreign direct investment we will give priority to those who have a local partnership. That way the national entrepreneurial class will also develop and the national economy will benefit.

How about the hydropower deals that have already been agreed on?

The ones that have been signed needn’t have been done in a hush-hush manner, after all we were in an interim period and we could agreed on it collectively. By agreeing to these projects a day before we returned to government has aroused suspicions. But we understand that big hydro projects are not possible without foreign investment. The deals could have been negotiated in a more open manner. If there has been major irregularities, we need to investigate them, correct the decision-making process but we don’t want to discourage investors by shutting down projects.

The time has come to deliver on the promises. There are very high expectations.

That is true, but the bigger challenge is to maintain national unity. Let’s have political competition, but for the next 10-15 years let’s cooperate, let’s agree on a common minimum program. That will bring political stability, allow us to make optimum use of our domestic resources and bring in investment and make progress in the elimination of absolute poverty. If we can achieve these things in a fairly short timeframe, it will give the people patience and lay the groundwork for further development.

Our main worry now is the culture of disunity that results in political instability. All the parties must work together until the new constitution is written. The parties shouldn’t react emotionally and say they’ll leave the government.

Have you been offered the prime ministership?

(Laughs) Can’t say now. We have been advocating a presidential system, but need to make provision for that, and then we will divide up our work among us depending on who is more capable of completing the task at hand. As we say, it is everyone according to their need and their capacity. Because of my interest in development planning, maybe my work will be in that field.

Everything is reaching a crisis point. There are big expectations and hope, people need to see immediate changes?

The first thing we want to stop is corruption and leakage. That itself will bring big relief to the people. Like Marx said, if everyone lived in huts people are satisfied. It is when someone builds a village among the hovels that there is expectation. We have to meet basic needs of people first, that is our priority. Our economic agenda has growth with employment. Like our plans for infrastructure development, this creates immediate jobs and also gets things built.We have to take advantage of the fact that we are located between China and India. These two countries are the next two superpowers and we are in the middle. In the past we were seen as a buffer state, now we can be a vibrant bridge between them and benefit from the comparative advantage. For this we need infrastructure development and connectivity on both sides. For this we have the labour and for capital we can raise the money from the wasted investment in unproductive sectors. For large-scale investment we will have to rely on outside investors and for that we can use the BOOT model.

Your party has served in government in the interim period. You understand it from within, which aspects of it would you like to change?

One thing is that there is no coordination between ministries. Everyone is doing their own thing, that just won’t do. They should be operating according to the state’s main policies and coordinate activities. Secondly, the bureaucracy is lethargic and corruption-ridden. Unless that is changed the ministries won’t be effective. A lot of ministries overlap, and we need to restructure them.

Your own subject is urban planning. How are you going to control this unplanned centralized growth in Kathmandu?

You see on this map the various federal units, we need to spread out the economic activity so jobs are available outside Kathmandu. The fast track highway (to Hetauda) will shift the population out, and we have to plan the growth of Kathmandu properly with zooming and the outer ring road. No where in the world is urban growth as unplanned as it is here.

With all these problems, do you think the other parties just gave up and said let the Maoists handle it?

(Laughs). Maybe. Maybe they think let’s see how the Maoists do it. The cynical ones would probably say it.

Nepal Maoists to embrace capitalism
18 Apr, 2008 TNN
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Nepal_Maoists_t…

NEW DELHI: Maoist supremo Prachanda, whose party is poised to form a
coalition government in Nepal, said capitalism will be the new
regime's tool for bringing economic advancement.

Reports from Kathmandu quoting Prachanda said Maoists will promote
capitalism and encourage foreign investment. This statement is
expected to soothe the frayed nerves of those who have invested in
Nepal.

Mr Prachanda assured industrialists that Maoists were not going to
nationalise industries at the moment. "We will allow private
investment and also promote foreign investment. Don't loose
confidence, we are not going to capture industries, but we need your
cooperation to gain economic prosperity," he said.

But industries will have to function under the gaze of the Maoists was
clear when he said that the new government will provide a force to
guard industrial establishments. He said the government will "create
conducive industrial environment to businesses by creating special
security force with the involvement of Maoist combatants stationed in
cantonments."

Prachanda also appealed to the private sector to trust them fully and
give them a chance saying the government will expand the tax base,
eliminate red tape and end culture of commissions and corruption.

http://www.kantipuronline.com/interview.php?&nid=143920

Q: How can you restructure the state and achieve economic growth in a
short span of time?
Dr Bhattarai: What we need right now is political stability. We cannot
think of rapid economic growth sans political stability. Now the CA
results have given some hope for political stability. Secondly, there
must be a strong leadership. Above all, we have yet to start
restructuring the state. So, how can we think of the economy? The
30-year-long panchayat system promised us that it would deliver the
people's needs, but it could not do so as it was a political system
imposed by the royal regime to serve its own interests.

The post-1990 parliamentary system created a sort of anarchy. It
neither had any clear political vision nor could it deliver anything.
During this interim period, it would be difficult to think of economic
prosperity. We can only think of economic growth in the post-CA
period. This mandate has just opened the door to a future Nepal. Now
the job is to garner the support of all the political parties and
maintain political stability. This would be the beginning.

Second, the resources we have include land, water, jungle, herbs and
people. I do not think that we run short of resources, but we need
external support for technology and skills. We need foreign
investments. I am sure if we really work together, we can achieve
rapid economic growth in a short span of time.

Q: China has adopted a liberal economic policy. It has achieved
remarkable economic growth in the past 30 years. To what extent do you
think we can follow China's model?
Dr Bhattarai: China eliminated the feudal system during Mao's regime.
It established a solid foundation for economic growth. We could have
thought of making rapid economic progress had the country been
liberated from the age-old feudal system. When you inject new
technology after the foundation for economic growth has been
established, you can achieve such development. We don't have such a
foundation now. Once we restructure the state and involve the private
sector, it will be possible to achieve rapid economic growth. We would
implement a transitional economic policy during such an interim period
which involves public and private partnership.

Q: Currently we are seeing a pattern of capital flight. How are you
going to halt this?
Dr Bhattarai: We can't think of developing this country in the absence
of domestic and foreign investments. Technological inputs are of equal
importance. So, we will follow the policy of attracting domestic and
foreign investments. For that to happen, we have to put an end to
political instability. From our side, we have to provide security to
investors and create a conducive environment for domestic and foreign
financiers. And I also think that we will be able to resolve the
differences between labor and management. Unless we resolve such
issues, we cannot create a better investment atmosphere. In a
nutshell, we recognize the legitimacy of management and the
participation of labor in management.

Secondly, we have to identify areas for investment and create the
necessary infrastructure. We have to focus on productive sectors. We
don't want to encourage assembly industries. Business activities
should raise productivity and generate employment.

Q: You mean the state's involvement in economic activities will
increase from now on?
Dr Bhattarai: The state will play the role of facilitator. The state
cannot intervene in business activities. It will encourage investors
to raise productivity and generate employment opportunities.

Reading the statements of Dr. Bhattarai, the CPN-Maoist seems to be a non-Maoist or even anti-Maoist organization or is just vying time before implementing its national democratic program. The doctor's call for reliance on domestic and foreign investments is already an obvious deviation from the Maoist program of nationalization of industry. He is now more concerned with the foreign and domestic capitalists, promising them that their properties and business operations will continue to enjoy protection under Maoist-dominated coalition rule. He has forgotten the workers and the peasants who have been ground by the machines of foreign and local capitalista exploitation.

This means that trend in Nepal may be likened to the trend that followed the collapsed of Eastern Europe: the trand of replacing the old monarchial system with their bourgeois-democratic regime which will have a thousand connections with the multinationals and the local capitalists and even the WTO, WB, IMF, etc.. The worst thing about it will be their baptizing it with a communist or socialist name.

The people will soon find out that they have only wasted their thousands of their lives in a protracted people's war that now is establishing a government of the petty bourgeois Moists and other "communists" in collaboration with the capitalists and monopoly capitalists throughout Nepal.

U.S. subverting Nepal poll mandate

Siddharth Varadarajan

http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/26/stories/2008042660061700.htm

Nancy Powell "actively pushing" the idea that Koirala should remain
PM

A section of Nepali Congress says Maoists must first oust Koirala to
stake claim to the top post
Amendment to interim constitution to allow PM to be removed by
simple majority proposed

KATHMANDU: After first "congratulating the people of Nepal on their
historic Constitutional Assembly election," the United States is now
seeking to subvert the electorate's mandate by lobbying against the
Maoists heading the next coalition government.

According to political and diplomatic sources, the U.S. ambassador
in Kathmandu, Nancy Powell, is "actively pushing" the idea that
Girija Prasad Koirala should continue as Prime Minister.

Under the interim constitution, all major decisions, including the
appointment or removal of the Prime Minister, must be taken by
consensus, failing which by a two-thirds majority. With the
encouragement of the Americans, a section of the Nepali Congress
(NC) leadership is now citing this provision to argue that the
Maoists will first have to oust Mr. Koirala before they can stake a
claim to the top post.

"Suicidal for party"

The American suggestion which one NC leader in an interview to The
Hindu described as "suicidal for the party" runs counter to the
belief of Indian and other diplomats here that a Maoist-led
government is inevitable given the scale of their victory.

The CA consists of 601 seats, 575 of which are elected. Of these,
the Maoists have 220, or 38.2 per cent, the NC only 110 and the
Unified Marxist-Leninists (UML) 103. The four Madhesi parties have
85 seats between them. A further 26 seats will be filled by
nomination on a pro rata basis.

In the current coalition based on the "interim legislature," the NC,
with 40 per cent of the seats, has not just the prime ministership
but also the defence, home and finance portfolios. In line with this
practice, Prachanda, chairman of the Nepali Maoists, says his party
will now head the coalition government and keep the three top
ministries to itself.

Though some observers feel the "GPK as PM" line is meant to pressure
the Maoists into yielding at least one top portfolio to the NC or
UML in an eventual coalition government, there is a fear that the
proposal will take on a life of its own as other players who feel
threatened by the Maoists such as the Palace and Army brass — latch
on to it.

Last week, the entire debate within the NC was over whether the
party should join the coalition led by the Maoists or not. But when
the Central Working Committee of the NC met on Thursday to take
stock of the party's defeat, senior leaders openly challenged the
Maoists' right to lead the government.

Second `proposal'

A second `proposal' that is being floated to prevent the Maoists
from forming a stable government is an amendment to the interim
constitution to allow the Prime Minister to be removed by simple
majority.

Since the Maoists will have more than one-third of the seats in the
CA, the argument goes, there will be no check should they refuse to
hold elections again. The Maoist leadership rejects these arguments.

"When the interim constitution itself spells out the lifespan of the
CA and mandates fresh elections within a maximum period of two years
and six months, where is the question of the Maoists delaying
elections?" Mr. Prachanda told The Hindu. "Would any of these
proposals or formulas have been made if the NC or UML had been in
our position?" he asked. "That is the true test of how valid these
proposals are."

The Maoists fear the new emphasis on the "politics of numbers" will
vitiate the consensual spirit that the CA needs to write Nepal's new
constitution.

Mr. Prachanda says the electorate's mandate is for a coalition
government led by the Maoists. "This is a time when all the parties
have to work together the Maoists, the NC, UML, the [Madhesi
Janadhikar] Forum and others."

Role for Koirala

Asked what role he envisaged for Mr. Koirala, Mr. Prachanda said
the "guardianship" of the NC leader had been crucial in pushing the
peace process and ensuring that elections to the CA were held
properly. "At the same time, he has repeatedly said he wants to
retire from active politics and this must also be respected. And
yet, we feel some way must be found for him to continue to play the
role of a guardian. My view is that given his age and his own
sentiments, the proper way to honour him would not be to insist on
his involvement in the government or day-to-day politics. We have to
find another way of honouring him. But if he wants, we are open-
minded on this," said Mr. Prachanda. "I told him we are prepared to
talk about this."

***

Not giving up violence yet
24 APRIL 2008
http://www.nepalitimes.com.np/election/news.php?id=39

Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said his party is not yet
ready to formally renounce violence, one of the preconditions to the
US lifting the terrorist tag on the former guerrilla group that
swept Nepal's 10 April elections.

With all the results in, the Maoists are going to be the biggest
party in the constituent assembly elections. They have won exactly
half the seats in the first past the post ballot and one-third the
seats in the proportional representation segment. Still, the former
rebels don't have the majority to form a government on their own,and
will need to strike a deal with some of the other smaller parties.

Dahal and his deputy Baburam Bhattarai have been busy lobbying
political parties, the business community and Kathmandu-based donors
this week. The Maoist duo was invited to a regular monthly meeting
of the UN with the donor community. Present at the closed door
meeting were 20 diplomats, including American ambassador Nancy
Powell. But sources said she and the Maoist leaders didn't talk or
shake hands.

After the meeting, Dahal told the press he reassured donor
representatives about his party's commitment to multi-party
democracy and a mixed economy. He added: "We are not ready to give
up all kinds of violence yet."

Later, Baburam Bhattarai denied that the YCL was an armed group and
said there was no question of disbanding it. The remarks came even
as Nepali media reported continued threats and forced displacement
of NC and UML supporters from various parts of the country allegedly
by YCL cadre. "It's an insult to the people's mandate to question
our commitment to non-violent politics," Bhattarai said.

Meanwhile the NC has started a post mortem of its election defeat
with a central committee meeting Thursday. NC leaders blamed the
defeat on Maoist violence in the campaign period and the prime
minister's inability to ensure security for Congress candidates.

Maoists to scrap ‘unequal’ India pact
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080425/jsp/foreign/story_9185094.jsp

Kathmandu, April 24 (PTI): The Maoists plan to scrap the 58-year-old Indo-Nepal
peace and friendship treaty and replace it with a pact that will reflect new
realities.

They also decided to review all other bilateral agreements between the two
countries.

“Our past policy towards the 1950 treaty remains unchanged, we want to scrap
that treaty and replace it with a new one in the changed context,” Maoist chief
Prachanda said as the former rebels won the most seats in the country’s new
governing Assembly, taking more than double the number of their nearest rival.

“We also want to review all other treaties signed between Nepal and India,” the
54-year-old former school teacher said.

During the election campaign, the Maoists had said that the treaty was “unequal”
and needs to be repealed. The demand for an end of the agreement was raised in
Nepal eight years ago.

Under the pact, people living in India and Nepal can freely travel across the
border for employment.

There is a termination clause in the treaty and Nepal can do away with the
agreement, which is actually meant to address India’s security needs, if it is
uncomfortable.

“I think a new dimension has now been added to our relations with india,”
Prachanda said.

“If we consider the situation right from the signing of the 12-point agreement
with the seven-party alliance in Delhi in November 2005 and now when the
Constituent Assembly polls have been successfully concluded, an atmosphere has
been created to forging a new unity on a new basis with India,” he said.

“We believe that in this new context Nepal-India relation should be taken to a
new height in a more positive and constructive way,” the Maoist chief said.
However, Prachanda said he had no immediate plan to visit India. “I have not yet
decided about visiting India at the moment,” he said.

A hung House is the likely outcome of the Constituent Assembly polls after no
party secured a clear majority.

The overall Maoists’ seat tally is expected to be 218, more than double the
number of their nearest rival, Nepal Congress, after the counting of ballot
papers for 575 seats of the 601-strong Constituent Assembly was completed late
last night. The remaining 26 members in the Assembly will be nominated by the
new cabinet.

Under the proportionate or indirect voting for 335 seats, the Maoists received a
total of 3.14 million votes or 29.28 per cent of the 10.74 million votes cast.
The Nepali Congress came second with 2.27 million or 21.14 per cent votes while
the CPN-UML was in third position with 2.18 million or 20.33 per cent votes.

....................................................................

HISTORY WITH GRANDEUR
- The Indian Left is strangely quiet at the CPN(M)’s victory
Cutting Corners - Ashok Mitra
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080425/jsp/opinion/story_9185263.jsp

The only Hindu kingdom in the world is in the process of transforming itself
into the world’s only country where a communist party has come to power
vanquishing all others in a free, democratic, multi-party election. The
magnitude of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)’s victory is so breathtaking
that even last-ditch supporters of the country’s centuries-old monarchical
system have chosen to call it a day.

Many foreign entities are part of this crestfallen crowd, with the United States
of America department of state to the fore: after all, Nepal’s royalty has been
the jewel of its eye. The collapse of the ‘evil empire’ the Soviet Union
presided over had allowed the Americans an untrammelled entry into central Asia.
They had cherished clandestine hopes about the land-locked country. Those
daydreams would now need to be aborted. The Chinese leadership too could be —
who knows? — somewhat disheartened by the Nepal poll outcome. The colour of the
cat is still a crucial ideological issue with the Maoists; any cat will do for
the Dengites.

Reaction is similarly mixed in India, which in fact was strongly represented, by
proxy in the Nepal elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party naturally has a
proprietorial concern for the security and well-being of a Hindu monarchy. Some
among its creamy layer are also related by marriage to the Ranas, the most
powerful royalist coterie in Kathmandu, while a few others are known to have
fraternal links with business groups that provide financial assistance to
Madhesi factions supporting this or that Indian immigrant group. However, the
more important surrogate electoral presence was that of the Indian Congress and
the Left. The Nepali Congress, built in the image of the Indian National
Congress, is not only emotionally attached to the Indian party, it has,
according to rumours freely circulating, habituated itself to draw up its
strategy and programme in close consultation with its Indian counterpart.

The persistent ambition of policy-planners in New Delhi has been to present
India as south Asia’s natural leader, basking in the love and admiration of
neighbours, big and small, thereby appearing to the US as a credible strategic
partner in future jousts with the People’s Republic of China. To have Nepal
safely in its pocket would have strengthened this ambition. The eclipse of the
Nepali Congress will now set everything in disarray.

The Indian Left had a more limited field for furrowing. Let the Nepali Congress
emerge as the first party, it did not matter much; but the second accredited
political formation following the poll, the official Left in India had been
telling those within earshot, must be its ideological ally, the Communist Party
of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist). As in domestic politics, so too in
across-the-border political assessment: bourgeois parties have ceased to occupy
the place of the major adversary of the establishment Left in India; that
position now belongs to the deviant Left. Interestingly, India’s orthodox Left
seems of late to have acquired a certain respect for the Central Intelligence
Agency. For example, in the prolix listing of knaves and scoundrels who
allegedly took advantage of the temporary discomfiture of the Left in Nandigram
in West Bengal, the CIA was left out of the enumeration. On the contrary, the
CIA’s dissertation on a Maoist conspiracy, originating in Nepal, intending to
infiltrate India via West Bengal, and gradually spreading across to Jharkhand,
Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil
Nadu and Kerala, has reportedly greatly impressed the Indian Left; it is the
season of received wisdom: Maoists have naughty designs on India, they want to
exploit the poverty and land hunger of our people to foment revolutionary
anarchy.

The Nepali electorate has understandably let down India’s genteel Left
leadership; the CPN(UML) has been reduced to the position of a poor third while
the CPN(Maoist) has emerged supreme. Is this, however, not an occasion when
sectarian reasoning deserves to be discarded? What about the grandeur of what
has taken place in Nepal? In a free democratic poll, the deprived and
impoverished millions, led and inspired by a communist party, have marched to
the booths and asserted their will to get rid of the vestiges of feudalism and
semi-feudalism. Is this not a great historic occurrence?

Suspend for a moment other concerns, consider the suffrage in Nepal as a
phenomenon qua phenomenon. That little canton in Italy, San Marino, had, in free
elections, voted for a communist mayor for years on end in the post-World War II
period; the world was tantalised. Way back in 1957, Kerala voted the communists
to power in a multi-party electoral battle. That state was a puny constituent of
the Union of India. So what, it was an unprecedented achievement and the world’s
press made a beeline for Trivandrum. And the Left Front’s seven consecutive
electoral triumphs, stretching over 30 years, in West Bengal, another
hamstrung-by-constraints constituent unit of the Union of India, have been
accorded the accolade that was due. Is not the Nepal happening even more
epoch-making? Not a minor canton, not a relatively powerless province in a
federal set-up but an independent country, still a formal monarchy, where a
communist party participating in a multi-party election has won, single-handed,
an overwhelming majority of the seats that were at stake.

Should this not have been regarded an extraordinary event, calling for
celebration for Left forces everywhere? As the news of the CPN (M)’s stupendous
success started flashing across television channels, should not directives have
gone out from all Left party headquarters that cadre be immediately on the
march, throng roads, streets and thoroughfares of villages, towns and cities,
build victory arches, illuminate party offices, fly the Red Flag high and
organize rallies to hail the toiling masses of Nepal for their courage and
resoluteness? Instead, apart from issuing a brief statement expressing
satisfaction at the poll result, there has been deathly silence. Such lack of
generosity is saddening, and, cannot one add, asinine too?

The official Left, particularly in India, is worried; perhaps its adherents have
good reason to worry. Once they themselves withdraw into a cautious corner, a
radical initiative in any part of the world by any other group can make them
feel vulnerable. But this sense of vulnerability might one day spell doom. For
caution often leads to a breed of conservatism. And a morning arrives when
conservatism is no longer distinguishable from unalloyed reaction.

The Left in Nepal has experimented with a strategy of revolutionary activism
that has had a deep impact on the country’s masses, especially the youth.
Prachanda and his comrades realized the implications of this massive swing in
their favour, and confidently opted for participation in multi-party elections.
Their preoccupation for the present, common sense suggests, will be exclusively
on domestic matters. To imagine that thundering success on homeground would now
tempt them to infiltrate into the heartland of India is nothing more than
nervous speculation. Revolutions can be neither exported nor smuggled in. If
India falls prey to revolutionary turmoil, it would be on account of, as the
cliché goes, quantity on its own maturing into quality, not because of Maoist
infiltration from Nepal, with a population less than 2 per cent of India’s.

The CPN(M) should not feel daunted. For the experience of Fidel Castro and his
comrades with the then alive-and-very-much-kicking world communist movement was
no better: their revolution, the reproof was handed down, was not according to
grammar. Circumstances changed so rapidly that orthodoxy had soon to eat humble
pie; Castro and Che Guevara were invited to take over, lock, stock and barrel
the erstwhile communist party in Cuba. History is known sometimes to repeat
itself.

Welcome to Revolution in South Asia!

Posted by Mike E on April 27, 2008

This RevSA site (http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/) will be developed, as rapidly as possible, as a lively and interesting resource focused on the Maoist revolutions of South Asia — including breaking news, documents, analysis, and key controversies.

Please join us in this internationalist informational effort! There are many ways you can help this effort around RevsA:

* Promote this new website — link to it from your own site,s email the url to interested people, post this announcement on relevant discussion boards/lists. All people interested in radical change need to know about these important revolutionary movements.
* Use this site to raise your own understanding of the issues and controversies surrounding of these Maoist “New Democratic” revolutions.
* Help us uncover substantive materials to post here. The RevsA site will not be limited to cheerleading: We will post critical articles and the charges of the revolution’s enemies. We want explore the differences and debates developing among the revolutionaries — as they face difficult choices and dare to propose unexpected solutions. we hope to provide readers with an many-sided sense of these living conflicts. Please email us if you know of material we should post — including those you have written yourself.
* Make your own comments on the materials and controversies posted on RevSA.
* Please get in touch right away if you are interested in helping in an ongoing way. We need to be developing posters, flyers, teach-in materials, study guides and other online materials. We are planning public event at campuses. And we need help moderating and maintaining the new site.

Events are moving quickly in Nepal, in unpredictable ways. There are several armed forces in the field, and the broad Nepali populations is mobilized to transform Nepali society — with very high expectations. The future is unwritten.

The possibility of deepening revolutionary crisis and the danger of counterrevolutionary action all demand that we act quickly and boldly.