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The Nepalese Maoist Movement in Comparative Perspective: Learning from the History of Naxalism in India

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The Nepalese Maoist Movement in Comparative Perspective: Learning from the History of Naxalism in India HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 23 Number 1 Himalaya; The Journal of the Article 8 Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies 2003 The Nepalese Maoist Movement in Comparative Perspective: Learning from the History of Naxalism in India Richard Bownas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation Bownas, Richard. 2003. The Nepalese Maoist Movement in Comparative Perspective: Learning from the History of Naxalism in India. HIMALAYA 23(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol23/iss1/8 This Research Article is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RICHARD BowNAS THE NEPALESE MAOIST MovEMENT IN CoMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE: LEARNIN G FROM THE H ISTORY OF NAXALISM IN INDIA This paper compares the contemporary Maoist movement in Nepal with the Naxalite movemelll in India, from 1967 to the present. The paper touches on three main areas: the two movemems' ambiguous relationship to ethnicity, the hi stories of prior 'traditional' m obilization that bo th move­ ments drew on, and the relationship between vanguard and mass movement in both cases. The first aim of the paper is to show how the Naxalite movemem has transformed itself over the last 35 years and how its military tacti cs and organizational· form have changed . I then ask whether Nepal's lvla o­ ists more closely resemble the earli er phase of Naxali sm , in which the leadership had broad popular appeal and worked closely with its peasant base, o r its later phase, in which the leadership became dise ngaged fr om its base and adopted urban 'terror' tactics. The paper ends with some speculations as to where the lV!aoi st movement in Nepal is heading, based on the comparisons made earlie r. INTRODUCTION itary training and ideological borrowing. This could be the topic for a different strand of research. This paper places the lvlaoist movement of Nepal in historical context with the Naxalite movement A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NAXALITE MOVEMENT in India. I am certainly not claiming that the future of the Maoists can be read in the evolution of the To understand the events and processes that have Naxalites. Rather, the paper highlights aspects of the come to be termed 'Naxalism' l w11l first present a thirty-year history of Naxalite revolt in India that 'top clown' account of the educated leadership of parallel the current Maoist insurgency in Nepal. My the movement and their ideological splits, and then hope is that an analysis of India's Naxalite movement make a 'bottom up' analysis of the experiences and will provide scholars with insights that can guide fu­ beliefs of the peasant supporters3 ture research on the 1v!aoist movement in Nepal. The 'top down' history of the movement would Social movements are rarely if ever unified, ho­ begin with the series of splits that affected the In­ 1 mogeneous phenomena. The Naxalite movement in dian communist movement in the 1950s and 60s: a India is no exception and this is perhaps the most fra gmentation of the Left that parallels Nepal's. The valuable lesson the comparison can teach us: while main ideological argument was between those com­ the Maoist movement in Nepal may superficially munists who imitated the success of the Congress appear ideologically united and highly organized Party by se tting up patron client networks to ensure around common goals, it arose from particular his­ electoral success at the regional level, and those com­ torical events that affected specific peoples at certain munists who chose the lvlaoist-inspirecl approach of 2 identifiable places Examining the Naxalite move­ revolution in the countryside, followed by the en­ ment from the longer perspective its history provides c irclement and capture of the cities. may allow us to identify these local and historically' grounded roots of rural insurgency and use the in­ . The "revisionist" electoral path to power advocated sights this perspective provides to analyze the case by the pro-Soviet Communist Party of India had in­ of Nepal. duced its more radical members to form the Mao­ ist-oriented Communist Party (Ma rxist), or CPI ('tvl) In this paper I will not address another important in the 1950s. By the late 1960s, when the Naxalbari issue: the direct connections between Naxalism and unrest began , this more revolutionary party fa ced Nepal's 't•/laobaadi, in terms of resource sharing, mil- new internal divisions. The CPI (M) had entered into THE NEPALESE MAOIST MovEMENT IN C oMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE/Bownas 31 a new coalition government in Bengal with the CPI and was Na xalism appeared to be a thing of history and its leader, keen to preserve its nevv institutional status. The more revo­ Mazumclar, was dead. lutionary elements of the CPI (M) broke off in 1969 to form However, the movement had an afterlife. After surviving a the CPI (Marxist Leninist), the party most closely associated few years underground, the end of the 'emergency' period in with the Naxalite revolt. This newest party was dominated the late 1970s allowed Naxalite-inspirecl movements to re­ by the forceful, some would say Stalinist, personality of CPI emerge in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. This has been the pat­ (ML) leader and propagandist,4 Charu Mazumdar. Mazum­ tern since: as repression increases the movements disappear dar's domination of the CPI (ML) conveys the impression that only to emerge when conditions relax, as for example during the Naxalite movements which allied themselves with the the early 1990s when the Congress went though a period of CPI (ML) were under the CPI (ML)'s control, but at no time internal fractiousness allowing the "Maoist Communist Cen­ did one party, leader, or organization have overall control of ter" to rise up in Andhra and the "Peoples' War Group" to events 5 attack landlords in Bihar. The Naxalite movement began in 1967 at Naxalbari, near The focus of the more recent movements has been less Siliguri in West Bengal. After ambitious, because revolu­ the police had beaten and tionaries realize that they raped women of the tribal cannot realistically seize "Santal" group, Santal peas­ control of the state. How­ ants and tea plantation labor­ ever, Naxalite groups do ers revolted and were joined exercise effective power by some non tribal lower and over millions of Indians in middle peasants. The actions the Telengana and Danda­ undertaken included the ex­ karanya regions of Andhra ecution of landlords, redis­ and in large parts of anar­ tribution of grain, and the chic southern Bihar. They destruction of land deeds. Al­ have had strong enough though this was a short-lived, support from 'clalit' ('un­ locally based movement, it touchable') populations was immediately claimed and from tribal peoples to by the CPI (ML) as part of establish local 'administra- its revolutionary project and tions' that perform many was publicized by China's Peoples' Daily, which declared in a governmental functions that the state has failed to do in rural headline that "Spring Thunder is breaking over India." But an India. Indian revolution did not follow. Instead, the Naxalbari revolt was crushed after just four months by police. "OBJECTIVE CONDITIONS" AS CAUSE OF REVOLT? Nevertheless, the Naxalite revolt provided a model that was imitated in a sporadic fashion across India's "tribal belt," Can the Naxalite revolt be explained by "objective" class her northern and eastern states. The greatest success came conditions in the Indian countryside? The Naxalites, in lan­ in Srikakulam, Anclhra Pradesh, where the 'Girijans,' another guage prefiguring Nepal's Maoists, claimed they were fighting tribal people, were able to form a longer lasting movement. a vvar against 'semi-feudal, semi-capitalist forces,' and that the I will discuss the reasons why particular regions were more objective nature of exploitation in the countryside, with its successful than others in organizing later in this paper. combination of pre-capitalist bondage and capitalist market By 1969, with most of the attempted rural uprisings weak­ relations, was impoverishing and abusing the poor majority ening and cadres not able to inspire mass support, Naxalite and inducing them to revolt. tactics changed. Those movements, under the influence of Clearly, objective economic conditions contribute towards Charu Mazumclar, started a program of 'class anni~ilation ' revolt. Routledge (1997) identifies five main variables in his and covert assassination coordinated by an influx of CPI (ML) analysis of the Naxalite movement: students from Calcutta. l. Land inequality in which the bottom 50% of households This emphasis on terror reached itspeak in 1970-71 vvhen controlled just 9% of available agricultural land by the early the assassination program moved into Calcutta itself6 'vVhen 1970's. the police cracked clown in Calcutta, they killed as many as 2. Underemployment of landless laborers leading them to 5,000 supporters, most in extra judicial fashion. By 1972 32 HIMALAYA XXIII (1) 2003 Lake loans at exorbitant rates of interest. no state officials who would intercede on their behalf when it 3. Harvest failures in 1965-67, just before the Naxalbari came to legal battles over land tenure or usurious debts. It was in this context of imperiled communal life that Maoist cadres revolt began, which were exacerbated by a cut in US food aid were able to mobilize tribal people to resist threats to their in 1966. communities in ways described in the following section. 4. The unequal regional impacts of the Green Revolution, whose benefits were concentrated in the wheat-producing In West Bengal analyses from Mukherjee (1987) and Duyker (1987) shows a different pattern of exclusion of tribal areas.
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