ELECTION
results in Nepal should not come as a surprise
to India when it first persists with kingship
and then with a non-performing political party.
New Delhi’s failure is in not gauging the
popular mood. This should be a point of concern
because the span of thinking between India and
Nepal turns out to be not a few months, but many
years. People were changing and New Delhi was
stuck in its wishful thinking of saving kingship
and its old ally Nepal Congress. The king is as
good as gone.
To say officially that India would deal with the
government which emerged at Kathmandu was to admit
that it did not want what had happened and, now
that it had happened, it would accept it. What
else is New Delhi’s choice? People have
returned the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists)
in the election. Who are we to comment on their
choice?
In fact, the vote for Maoists is also the vote
against India. Nepalis have seen New Delhi’s
excessive involvement in their affairs. The Maoists
raised the Big Brother attitude of India at their
poll meeting. The treaty we have with Nepal is
not to their liking. We should have scrapped it
long ago. Why did we not do so is beyond me, if
they ask for it?
In the same way, I do not understand former President
Carter’s appeal to America to accept the
change in Nepal. The most powerful democracy in
the world as it is, the US should realise that
however unpalatable, the outcome of the free and
fair elections is final. It does not matter if
one country does not like the government in the
other. It is people’s free will which counts
and Carter, who supervised the polls, should know
it better.
Still not many will understand or appreciate what
the Nepalis have done. Theirs is a feudal society
which has lived for some 235 years under the concept
that the king is God and in his rule rests democracy
and prosperity. Disparities are so entrenched
in the country that any call to turn against the
past finds a respondent chord. The hopes that
their lot would improve begin to take shape. Maoist
leader Prachanda has only utilised the atmosphere.
When the whole of Kathmandu came out in the streets
in support of the demand for abolition of kingship
two years ago, it was an expression of the suppressed
society to set itself free. The promise to switch
over to a republican setup gave them a hope of
change. They have supported the change, pinning
their faith in the betterment of people.
The Maoists have been returned, not because the
voters are impressed by the Marxist ideology but
because they trust that those who have promised
a different economic order will get them out of
poverty in which they have been stuck for centuries.
True, the element of fear was there because the
Maoists ‘ruled’ the countryside for
years through gun. And it is an open secret that
the Maoists have not surrendered all the weapons
as agreed upon long before elections and have
stacked them elsewhere. Yet people had no alternative.
They had rejected the king. They did not want
to go back to the Nepali Congress which they had
tried again and again and had found it failing.
It was, however, amusing to see election posters
showing a photo of Stalin along with the pictures
of Karl Marx, Lenin and Engels. Stalin killed
hundreds of thousands who dared to differ or speak
out. But then Stalin’s portrait hangs prominently
also at the CPM headquarters in Kolkata. Still
the CPM is part of the mainstream and puts its
faith in a democratic system. The Maoists in Nepal
will do the same when they assume power. The disillusionment
against them would begin, as has happened against
the CPM in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, if
and when they fail to deliver. Who knows that
the Maoists in Nepal may also come to rationalise
that the establishment of a welfare state was
not possible in a capitalist system, as the CPM
is doing.
I am vehemently opposed to what the Naxalites
(also called Maoists) are doing in India, indulging
in an orgy of bloodshed and crime. But then they
make no secret of their opposition to the democratic
system. They do not want to come into the mainstream
because their faith is in coercion, not consensus.
This is precisely the reason why the Maoists in
Nepal and those in India may not join hands. One
is a conformist and the other is against conformism.
The Indian Maoists may support the radical group
within the Maoists in Nepal to support the concept
of a “red corridor” extending from
“Pasupati to Thriupathi.”
Nepal is, however, an example which can teach
the South Asian region a lesson if it is willing
to learn. No doubt, poverty gives birth to desperate
remedies. Feudal order negates democracy. But
what makes people revolt is their feeling of despondency
and helplessness that their plight can never change.
They revolt when they are convinced that they
have no way to escape the oppressive order except
through violence.
Democracy gives people a peaceful option—to
vote against those who oppress or do not perform.
The Nepalis have done that. The question which
the Maoists have to answer is whether they have
the ability and determination to improve the lot
of the people. The polls at which the Maoists
have won are for the formation of the constituent
assembly. The same people can throw them out if
they do not see any promise in the constitution
to be framed.
The Maoists have said they would not go back to
arms. Not long ago when I met some of their leaders
at Kathmandu, they told me that even if they were
defeated at the polls they would not pick up the
gun again. This is how democracy functions. People
change masters, not masters change the people
as it happens in authoritarian and military-run
states. I am not sure whether the Maoists who
have emeged through violence can keep to their
word once they feel that they may lose power.
This demands an unshakable faith in methods. Mahatma
Gandhi emphasised that if means were vitiated,
the ends were bound to be vitiated. India has
not lived up to that advice even though it won
freedom through non-violence. Democracies, wherever
they are, have to show their faith in the methods
they employ. America gives the feeling increasingly
that it has compromised with oppressive laws and
violations of human rights. In fact, the US of
today has changed beyond recognition. Maoists
in Nepal do not have to follow it even if it is
a democracy. Their undertaking not to take to
guns again will be watched with anxiety. |
