No End to Nepal's Maoist Rebellion '
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No end to Nepal’s MaoistMaoist rebellionrebellion Joanna Pfaff -Czarnecka Abstract: Since 1996, Nepal has increasingly been drawn into a violent confl ict between Maoist rebels and the state, leading to a severe crisis. Th ousands of civil- ians have been killed, and most people in the countryside live in constant fear. Economic hardship has seriously increased. Despite repeated eff orts to bring the parties together for peace talks, there is little hope that the violent situation will be resolved in the near future. Th is article analyzes the complex causes of the emergence of the Maoist insurrection and its success, and sketches the problems impeding a democratic solution to the current situation. Keywords: democratization, governance, Nepal, social disparities, violent confl ict During the last century and a half, Nepal has ex- decreased. Traveling in Nepal has become a per- perienced comparatively few situations of overt ilous endeavor as motorways are oft en blocked confl ict. Since 1996 however, this trend has been and there is the danger of bombs placed by Mao- signifi cantly reversed as a civil war emerged be- ist soldiers. All over the country check posts have tween an expanding Maoist movement and the been established, not only by the state, but also by state, taking about 12,000 lives until today (July the Maoists. While visitors from Western coun- 2005). Most of the population is caught in the tries are usually allowed to pass, many Nepalese crossfi re between the two opposing sides—the have been harassed and detained. state’s armed forces and the Maoists. Interna- The public sphere has been considerably tional organizations, notably Amnesty Interna- restricted. Increasingly, the governmental con- tional, have repeatedly reported serious human trol of mass media has impeded the availabil- rights abuses. Tremendous insecurity and fear ity of information and the exchange of opinion. have become an everyday-life experience for Most international development agencies have many Nepalese.1 reduced their projects outside the Kathmandu During this comparatively short period of Valley. Th e scope of academic research has been time, the country has changed visibly. Th e urban reduced as well. Especially American colleagues centers have grown in size, taking in people who are reluctant to face confrontations with Maoist abandoned their homesteads in rural areas in warriors, fearing their resentment. Since the turn search of protection in the city. Especially the of the millennium (according to the Western cal- country’s capital, Kathmandu, is booming for this endar), the situation has changed from bad to reason. Simultaneously, tourism has drastically worse. Short periods of ceasefi re and attempts at Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 46 (2005): 158– 68 No end to Nepal’s MaoistMaoist rebellionrebellion | 159 peace talks have been interspersed by prolonged with Indian support. Celebrated as a ‘hero of periods of escalating violence and the tighten- revolution’, King Tribhuvan became the leading ing of the Maoists’ grip over the countryside. fi gure in a political transition toward democ- Political forces have been caught in an impasse ratization—which however paradoxically co- for several years now and there is little reason to incided with a strengthening of the monarchy. assume that the situation will be resolved in the During the 1950s, most exiled oppositional near future. forces returned to Nepal. While in India, the oppositional politicians had formed political parties, notably the Nepali Congress and the Historical context Communist Party of Nepal. Aft er the death of King Tribhuvan in 1955, his son King Mahen- Nepal, situated at the southern slopes of the Hi- dra initially tolerated eff orts toward establishing malayan range between the borders of China and a pluralist democratic system. However, aft er India, has historically been a country of intense the fi rst popular elections were held in the year religious and ethnic hierarchies. More than sixty 1959, he dissolved the parliament only eighteen ethnic groups live on Nepalese territory, along months later, introducing a party-less Panchayat with the dominant Hindu Parbatiya popula- system that was to last until 1990. tion. Th e country came about in its present size It was King Mahendra (on the throne from when in the mid-eighteenth century the House 1955 to 1972) who initiated the modernization of Gorkha started its military expansion. Until of Nepal, attracting development agencies, skill- 1814, about sixty principalities and ethnic re- fully harnessing political rivalries during the gions came under the sway of the Shah dynasty, Cold War, and exploiting Nepal’s delicate geopo- whose conquests however came to a halt when litical position. He embarked upon the strategy they were confronted with the British colonial of state-driven development, following fi ve-year forces. Nepal never came under British colonial plans, and promoted assimilationist policies. rule; it remained closed to the outside world, by His cultural style was depicted as ‘Nepalization’: and large, especially aft er the Rana family seized imposing cultural-religious elements of the power in 1846. Th roughout the nineteenth and high-caste elite, while declaring ethnic cultures the fi rst half of the twentieth century the rulers as backward and their promotion as dissident. managed to centralize their kingdom, establish- Although his government cannot be called en- ing direct rule in most areas of the country and tirely autocratic, King Mahendra, and his suc- bringing a large share of the fertile land under cessor son King Birendra (1972–2001), did man- their control. By facilitating the migration of the age to combine all powers upon themselves and Parbatiya population to the ethnic territories, seriously curtailed human rights—most notably they actively contributed to ethnic lands shift - the right to information and to organization. Po- ing hands to the rulers and their political allies litical opposition had to go underground, or into and clients. In 1854 the Ranas promulgated the exile, once again. However, popular protest never fi rst civil code (Muluki Ain), formalizing the hi- ceased to exist. In the late 1970s and throughout erarchically ordered caste society with clear-cut the 1980s civic protest gained momentum in ranks. To a large extent, membership in a rank Nepal, escalating in the spring of 1990. decided about one’s rights and duties. Aft er forty persons were killed by the armed Nepal opened to the world in the year 1951 forces in April 1990 in Kathmandu, King Bi- when the Rana regime was overthrown. Grow- rendra faced serious criticism, both internally ing popular protest had won momentum when and from the international community. Conse- the powerless King Tribhuvan of the Shah dy- quently, he agreed to give up some of his pow- nasty, stripped of most power prerogatives by the ers, to reintroduce a multi-party political sys- Ranas but still kept in offi ce, managed to escape tem, and to promulgate a new constitution that to India and to come back shortly aft erwards for the fi rst time in Nepal’s history declared the 160 | Joanna Pfaff -Czarnecka population, rather than the king, sovereign. He Singh Shrestha, and Girija Prashad Korala could formed an interim government to be headed not be prevented. Turbulent disagreements and by members of the Congress Party and in May realignments were a central feature in the Com- 1991 general elections were held. Th e political munist parties’ dynamics as well. process was strongly dominated by elder po- In 1994, following the prime minister’s rec- litical fi gures within the Congress Party and ommendation, the king had to dissolve parlia- numerous Communist leaders who had spent ment. Aft er new elections, a Communist govern- large portions of their lives in exile, oft en in ment was formed. Th is government was however prison, and whose charisma derived from pro- also not to last. In eff ect, between 1991 and 2002, longed oppositional battles. eleven subsequent governments were formed In the fi rst popular elections since 1959, the and dissolved. On 1 June 2001, the king and Rashtriya Prajatantra Party that was closely as- most of his closest relatives were killed by King sociated with the royal house and the former Birendra’s son Crown Prince Dipendra, who Panchayat system therefore lost severely, gain- most probably was under the infl uence of drugs ing only 12.5 percent of the total seats. Instead, and alcohol. Th e assassination of the royal family the elections were won by the Party of Congress brought about a considerable shift in the gov- with 39.5 percent, followed closely by Commu- ernment’s stance vis-à-vis the Maoists. Aft er the nist parties that together won 38.1 percent (the royal massacre, King Birendra’s younger brother, Communist Party of Nepal 29.3 percent; the Gyanendra was enthroned. While King Birendra United People’s Front 5 percent; the Communist had been reluctant to deploy the army against the Party of Nepal (Democratic) 2.5 percent; and Maoist movement, King Gyanendra perceived the Nepal Worker’s and Peasant’s Party 1.3 per- the involvement of the armed forces as a serious cent). By and large, this election “demonstrated option in bringing the Maoist movement to a the dramatic growth of Nepali communism as halt. With this aim, the Nepalese army was sub- an electoral force, at a time when communist stantially enlarged and trained. Simultaneously parties worldwide appeared to be in rapid de- however the Maoist movement gained strength. cline in the wake of the collapse of communism Th ough the Maoists reduced their public pres- in Eastern Europe” (Nickson 2003: 24). One of ence during the weeks aft er 11 September 2001, the Communist parties, the Masal Party, which when they had to fear external interference, their later transformed into the Communist Party of violent actions reappeared in a reinforced man- Nepal (Maoist), however, boycotted the elec- ner from late 2001 onward.