SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 3, No. 24, December 27, 2004

INDIA	NEPAL

Maoist Insurgencies: The Eclipse of Governance
Ajai Sahni
Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management

There is a radical and growing disjunction between the qualities and skills that political management in the modern world demands, and the actual capacities of the political leadership that modern systems - particularly democracies - throw up. Contemporary technologies and the opportunities of the emerging and increasingly integrated world order demand complex, well-informed and deeply nuanced political management. Regrettably, politics itself remains trapped in the paradigms and rhetoric of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with capacities showing signs of decline rather than any visible manifestations of vision and energy. A dry rot afflicts the state in South Asia, and radical Left Wing mobilisation is accelerating processes of disintegration across wide geographical areas in the region.

NEPAL

Nowhere is this more dramatically evident today than in the crumbling political realities of Nepal, where the bankrupt dogmas of feudalism and Maoist communism appear locked in a struggle to death, and where fourteen years of democracy have produced little more than an multitude of cantankerous and embittered veterans who would rather see their country in ruins than share power and responsibility at a common table.

No single initiative over the past three years - since the war escalated after the attack at the Army barracks at Dang on November 23, 2001 - suggests any reversal of the quickening decay that has infected the vitals of the country. This is, truly, as The Economist recently remarked, a country "unable to offer its citizens anything other than poverty and fear".

And poverty and fear have mounted exponentially over the 15 months since the collapse of the ceasefire and negotiation process on August 27, 2003. At least 4,193 persons have been killed in the conflict since that date, and not a single one of Nepal's 75 districts has remained untainted by fatalities [MAP]. Nine of these districts have, in fact, experienced over one hundred killings since the breakdown of the ceasefire, with Dang leading at 294 dead (till December 24, 2004). Myagdhi was at second place, with 242 killed. Another 20 districts have had between 100 and 50 fatalities, and 46 districts have had less than 50 fatalities in this period. Only eight of Nepal's 75 districts counted the dead in single digits, with Bhaktapur, the tiny ancient capital abutting Kathmandu, at the fortunate bottom of the list, with just two killed. Kathmandu itself saw 44 deaths connected with the conflict.

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While fatalities over the past months have shown some decline in comparison to the unnatural peaks they crested in the six months following the collapse of the August ceasefire, they remain at levels that are distressing, and show some trends to escalation as both the Maoist's and the state's positions harden. Much of this killing, however, is by the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) and the newly raised Armed Police Force, as they seek to re-establish their domination in areas - particularly in the mid-western and far-western region - that have long been lost to the Maoist sway. Of the 4,193 killed since August 27, 2003, as many as 2,943 (70.19 per cent) have been categorised as 'Maoists' in reports. Little of this, however, translates to greater state control over these regions.

Indeed, if anything, Kathmandu appears increasingly vulnerable, as complete political disorientation prevails amidst another and major crisis that has been provoked by the Maoist's second blockade of the capital, which commenced on December 23, 2004, and is to continue 'indefinitely'. The proclaimed intent of the blockade is to force the Government to disclose information relating to 'hundreds of missing comrades' and to protest against alleged custodial killings of Maoist cadres.

As with its precursor, the week-long blockade in August, the current blockade is tactical, and deliberately linked to largely symbolic objectives. It is compounded, moreover, by a multiplicity of other blockades and restrictions in other districts, including the widespread embargo imposed across the Tamang Autonomous Region by the Maoist-affiliated Tamang National Liberation Front. The Tamang region comprises the districts of Dhading, Nuwakot, Rasuwa, Sindhupalchowk, Dholakha and Ramechhap, which form a crescent over Kathmandu, from the West, through the North to the East. The Tamang embargo commenced on the 20th, before the blockade of Kathmandu, and has already disrupted life in the region for a week, resulting in acute shortages of essential commodities, including foodgrain and kerosene, the primary cooking fuel among the poor, in wide areas across this region, though, prior to the 23rd, supplies to Kathmandu were still to be significantly impacted.

In Kathmandu, the blockade was total over its first three days, but some 200 cargo trucks, laden with essential commodities and fuel, were able to penetrate the embargo under heavy security forces escort on December 26. This is, at best, a tiny trickle: more than 5,000 cargo trucks are estimated to ply on the Prithvi Highway on the average day in 'normal' circumstances, if, indeed, anything over the past years can be described as normal in Nepal.

Indeed, the country's economy is now shattered, and developmental projects are progressively coming to a standstill. Sultan Hafeez Rahman, the Country Director of the Asian Development Bank Nepal Resident Mission (ADB-NRM), for instance, indicated that the ongoing conflict had affected all the ADB-assisted projects in the country. Some internationally backed projects have continued limited operations through the expedient of 'registering' themselves with the Maoists and in many cases paying some 'taxes' to the insurgents, but Rahman clarified that his organisation has refused to register its developmental programmes with the insurgents, and consequently is unable to continue many of its schemes in rural areas.

Against this backdrop, in his message to cadres on the occasion of Mao's 111th Birth Anniversery on December 26, Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka 'Prachanda', the 'Chairman' of the Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist (CPN-M) declared that the movement had embarked on the first stage of 'strategic retaliation'. The eventual objective, he added, was to establish the 'dictatorship of the proletariat', and he reiterated his party's unambiguous commitment to this idea.

The state's response continues to vacillate between importunate offers of a truce, alternated by a rising desperation that periodically transforms itself into ferocious, and at least occasionally indiscriminate, military operations. There is, moreover, a high measure of make-believe dominating Kathmandu, and this was particularly manifest in the days preceding the planned visit of King Gyanendra to several locations in India, including New Delhi and the four States bordering Nepal: West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal. The visit, originally scheduled between December 23 and January 2, was abruptly deferred as a result of the state mourning announced on the death of India's former Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao, on December 23. Gyanendra was expected to come to Delhi with a standard wish-list of military hardware, including helicopters and bullet and bomb resistant armoured vehicles for intensified counter-insurgency operations. Kathmandu, however, was rife with rumours that a 'secret deal' with New Delhi was in the offing, which would cement the King's power and barter Nepalese 'sovereignty' for direct military intervention by India to resolve the insurgency - by all measures as fantastical a scenario as any that can be imagined given the current constitution and orientation of the United Progressive Alliance regime, and, indeed, the general and increasingly conservative thrust of India's policies within the South Asian region.

Part of the current make-believe is also the rhetorical reiteration of the promise to hold early elections - again, as improbable an event under current circumstances as can be conceived. The Government's 'deadline' to the Maoists to join the peace talks by January 13 has also been routinely echoed, though it is far from clear what the Government plans or hopes to do in the face of Maoist intransigence. In effect, apart from conspiracy theories, fantasies and knee-jerk reactions to Maoist provocation, the political leadership in Kathmandu clearly has no game plan for the restoration of any measure of order or relief to the people, beyond frantic measures to retain a semblance of control in the immediate vicinity of the Capital. The Maoists, on the other hand, have both strategy and tactic, and have employed these to secure extraordinary advantages. Absent any radical strategy of response, the immediate future can only see a further consolidation of their agenda.

INDIA

On October 18, 2004, just as his Government was about to enter a round of negotiations with the Left Wing Extremists (also called Naxalites) in Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy remarked, "How can any Government agree to the demands of people who insist on carrying arms?"

Amidst repeated reports of forcible occupation of private and forest lands by the Communist Party of India - Maoist (CPI-Maoist), with whom the Andhra Pradesh Government is currently in negotiations, State Home Minister K. Jana Reddy asserted, on November 7, 2004, "Only an elected government can control surplus lands and distribute them to the poor… Nobody else would be allowed to take the law into their hands." On November 27, Naxalite mediator, S.R. Sankaran, expressed his concern over rising incidents of Naxalites grabbing private and Government lands. Earlier, on November 8, the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) President, Keshava Rao Jadhav, and its general secretary, Jaya Vindhyala, accused the Naxalites of 'endangering the peace process by destroying forests for the sake of land distribution.' Illegal timber felling, incidentally, is also a lucrative source of Naxalite revenues.

Again, on December 16, the day after a landmine explosion triggered by the Naxalites had injured four policemen, Home Minister Jana Reddy complained, "With or without the ceasefire it is the same for the Naxalites as they are acting as per their whims and fancies, extorting money from the poor and helpless and blasting landmines."

On December 2, the Chief Minister reiterated, "…we will not tolerate any act of violence as there is no room for private weapons in democracy."

In the interim, the leadership of the CPI-Maoist has repeatedly emphasized that it will not relinquish its 'right to bear arms', its 'revolutionary objectives' including the forcible redistribution of land, extraction of 'revolutionary taxes', 'political mobilization', recruitment and training of cadres. Nor, indeed, has the Maoist leadership made any secret of its abiding commitment to secure the larger goals and objectives of the people's war, which incorporate the destruction of India's 'comprador bourgeois' Constitutional democracy. Addressing a public gathering on October 11 at Guthikonda Bilam in Guntur District, Akkiraju Haragopal aka 'Ramakrishna', the 'State Secretary' of the CPI-Maoist, declared that 'the people' were prepared to "wage a relentless struggle" against the state, and that the Party would continue to maintain the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army, the armed wing of the CPI-Maoist, to capture political power in different regions of the country. Ramakrishna also declared, ahead of the first direct talks with the State Government on October 15, "Our ultimate goal is to capture power region-wise and establish people's rule. Now, we have an army of people and are on firm ground in 13 States."

Despite all this, albeit after some characteristic dithering, Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy eventually ordered an 'indefinite extension' of the 'unofficial cease fire' after the six month duration announced in June came to an end. "We will maintain status quo," he declared ambiguously, "The Police would continue to adopt the same stand as they have been doing for the last six months. The Naxals, too, should maintain restraint and create a congenial atmosphere for further negotiations."

There is, however, no ambiguity whatsoever about what the Maoists are doing. Even while the Andhra Pradesh ceasefire was in place, the Naxalites executed the most dramatic of strategic advances in their history - the unification in September of the two major factions, the CPI - Marxist-Leninist - People's War (or People's War Group, PWG) and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) under the banner of the CPI-Maoist. Efforts to bring an increasing number of lesser factions under this umbrella identity have since met with some progress. At the same time, the Naxalites have established themselves across the widest geographical area that has ever been commanded by Left Wing extremist movements in India in the history of their existence. Crucially, they have extended their sway, over the past one year, on an average, over two districts each week.

Yet the state persists in negotiating on its knees. It is now abundantly clear, at least in Andhra Pradesh, that the State's leadership lacks the imagination and the will even to co-opt critical elements of the Naxalite agenda - particularly the issue of land redistribution. This tends to be unsurprising, since many in the political leadership, and including a majority of the ruling party's legislators and several of its Ministers, come from the landed classes who have the most to lose from land reforms and a strict implementation of the Land Ceiling Act.

Clearly, the negotiation process will be allowed to meander on, with the state's Forces continuing to operate under extraordinary restraints, even as the Naxalites intensify activities over expanding areas.

The dangers of the present trajectory are not restricted to Nepal and the current concentration of Naxalite activity along India's eastern board. Indeed, Bangladesh is currently witnessing a cycle of violence and repression centred around the activities of the Purba Bangla Communist Party (PBCP), largely in the country's western districts bordering India. The PBCP is a member of the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) formed on July 1, 2001. At least 213 persons have been killed in Left Wing related violence in Bangladesh this year alone, though a majority of these (160) are alleged cadres of the extremist group. Bhutan has also seen activities of the newly created Bhutan Communist Party - Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (BCP-MLM), which was formed with support from both the Nepalese and Indian Maoist groups.

The Maoist ideology constitutes the gravest danger to democratic governance in geographically the widest area threatened by insurgent and terrorist violence and disorders in South Asia. It is a movement, moreover, that has systematically expanded its scope and influence over the past years, and one that has been systematically underestimated by Governments in the region, even as regimes here ignore the fundamentals of governance and fail to provide large populations with the basics of security, welfare, education, health, opportunities for gainful employment and the essentials of human dignity. This is how nations are weakened and this, eventually, is how they disintegrate.

With inputs from
P.G. Rajamohan
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management, &
Nihar Nayak
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management