Thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. It is important. I wouldn’t want the Chinese version of Maoism to be applied anywhere else.

If you will indulge me, I’m wondering about your perspective of Monday night’s announcement that the King will restore the parliamentary government.

I’ve heard that most of the protest groups are happy with this and believe there will be new consitution drafted by this parliament. But the Maoists are not happy. Does the Maoist discontent mean they will possible remain violent?

Also, they are installing a man who was previously running the government, who is apparently ill and also was seen as corrupt. Is he the right man for now? I can imagine that in a pinch, when you’re simply desperate to put someone in who has enough experience to know how a government runs, he might seem like the best idea. But, I was wondering whether it was his government that escalated tensions between the factions.

I understand your skepticism. On the face of it, and especially given Nepal’s physical proximity to its giant neighbor, it’s plausible to put China, Mao and the Maoist rebels in Nepal all together and think that somehow they are all directly linked to one another.

But the present-day China and its government have nothing to do with these home-grown Maoists in Nepal just as they had nothing to with the Maoists in Peru in South America about 10 to 15 years ago. In fact, last year, China asked Nepali rebels not to go around killing civilians in Nepal by invoking Mao’s name.

Communists have been in Nepal at least since 1950. And there’s their rich, if fractious, history in Nepal. Over the years, they have split up into various factions (Marxist, Stalinist, Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, Kim-Il-Siungism, etc), each of which have splintered into further factions espousing different and mind-boggling combinations of communist ideologies.

The lineage of Nepal’s present-day Maoists needs to be traced primarily from within

the history of Nepali communist movement as it formed due to interactions with the international communist movement in the 1960s and the 1970s, and not so much from present-day geopolitics. One large member of the present seven-party-alliance that’s opposing the king, for instance, is called the United Marxist Leninist (UML), who

now take pains to portray themselves as “social democrats� (in an European sense).

This UML was in power in 1995-96 in Nepal as head of a democratic government.

In simple terms, the present-day Nepali Maoists could be thought of as a rebellious breakaway cousin of the UML.

Ashu aka Ashutosh Tiwari

Columnist “Strictly Business�

The Nepali Times

http://www.nepalitimes.com

In essence, is there a two-fold fight? One to achieve full democracy and another to keep the Maoists – possible Chinese – at bay?

As I wrote earlier, I’m skeptical about the role of China in this mess. It would be tragic to see a repeat of Tibet.

Why is the US, Europe ( EU), ( and India- I can understand their anxiety about stability) urging them to settle for something less than the fuller democracy that they desire and should have?

This administration ESPECIALLY is being two faced, dishonest, about it’s ( supposed) support of democracy.

That constitution — invoked by the present king — has three remarkable clauses:

1. Smaller parties could be shut out of the political process if they fail to gain certain percentage of votes in a general election. This translated as: The present Maoist leaders, before they went underground in 1996, openly fielded their candidates who won a few seats in the parliament in the 1992 elections. By 1995, the (then future) Maoists had decided that under the constitutional provision, they had NO chance of ever winning a majority by playing only the election game every five years. They then went to the jungle to wage their “people’s war”. [The new constitution, whe it is drafted, has to address this issue so that in future smaller political parties do not feel compelled to take up arms to make their political voices heard.]

2. The role of the army is ambiguous; in practice, it reported to the king, and not to successive civilian governments. This led to the start of a wrangling between the palace and the political leaders, as the latter wanted to use the army against the Maoists in 1999 and 2000, but received no co-operation/authority from the palace. Armed policemen were battling the Maoists in the hinterland until late 2001. At present, the army is loyal to the king. [The new constitution has to address this issue too so that in future the army is accountable to the head of a civilian government, and not to anyone else.]

3. That the Kingdom is a Hindu one, even though Nepal’s version of Hinduism is a watered-down one, with Buddhist, animist and various tribal religious practices thrown in to co-exist with one another peacefully. Because Nepal was historically

a trading corridor between Tibet/China and the Indian plains, it is an ethnically diverse, culturally rich and lingustically complex (not to mention, stunningly beautiful Himalayan country) of various ‘nations’. But its official “Hindu Kingdom” label irks vast swathes of Nepali people who feel politically marginalized with little or control over access to public service provisions.

One intellectual argument in support of the present protests is that it is for a better and an inclusive constitution of Nepal, with or without the king.

more later

ashu

(a regular listener of Chris’s earlier shows on WBUR when I lived in Boston about 10 years ago).

http://www.saag.org/papers3/paper277.html

What confuses me (happens easily) is that the Maoists are supporting the democracy protests. Or is that what the king wants us to believe so he can suppress the protesters?

On the “suggest a showâ€? thread last week I posted comments from the government saying they were going to start searching houses because they believe “terrorists” have infiltrated the democracy protesters. Oh man, here we go.

I have a feeling the dynamics of this situation are complex. I think I will ask my friend more questions and post back here. I put some links to a couple of blogs on that other thread.

Are the people of Nepal so disillusioned that they would embrace a Maoist government – I don’t believe that the Maoists would setttle for being just a part of a democracy.