Kathmandu: It is another matter that neither the Nepali media nor the intelligentsia could draw a significance from the fact that prime Maoists’ negotiator Krishna Bahadur Mahara arrives for the third round of talks in Kathmandu directly from a New Delhi whose government is as yet the lone official source that has declared Maoists insurgency “terrorists”. It is equally significant that the Mahara standpoint on talks is recognized to have suddenly changed at Godavari itself upon his “receit” there of a “Telephone Call”). Outside of these two factors it is not quite not possible to blame the Deuba government for not having anticipated Maoists strategy of using the festival season for organizational reprieve after its near debacle at “Holeri”.
A new phase has now begun in Nepali politics. Whether the parliamentary parties will cease its excessive partisan politics recognizing the need to tackle a home-grown, nationwide insurgency is hardly encouraged by the three day delay in imposing an emergency in the country. Already, reports of the Girija faction demanding a Deuba resignation after the Dang and Syangja debacles suggest that partisan needs will demand that our politicians seek the advantage of being at the helm while using the “emergency” to nurture their respective organizations. Regardless, the Maoists have proven that they have launched serious armed turmoil in the country, which is likely to be long-drawn, expensive, and fratricidal.
Forgotten in the process is the fact that today’s Maoists leaders’ were as much participants in the movement for the restoration of multi-party democracy in the country. Forgotten in the process also is the fact that segments of the current Maoists leadership were members of the interim government. Also forgotten is the fact that the current Maoists leadership had used the advantage of governance to ensure sizeable representation in the parliament for which the interim government conducted the elections.
It should be equally important to recall here hat this segment of the Left was virtually wiped out in the sudden second parliamentary elections after which the Maoists leadership splintered and advocated resort to arms. In the current context again it should be noted that not only is a section of the previous alignment resorted to by the Maoists represented in parliament but their student organization are active throughout the nation at the schools and campuses.
While students of Nepalese political organizations techniques are very much aware of the excessive partisanization of the police and the administrative machinery, it should be equally evident that much of the Maoists success at the local level has been on account of its galvanizing the locals to meet their partisanization with the creation of their own law and order machinery and administration which, since the declaration of the Maoists insurgency, has been visibly armed and authoritative.
The Dang incident last week may have been surprising because of the timing. The public, however were by and large aware that violence would resume once the talks failed. It is the intensity of the violence that caught one surprised. The new phase, has seen the Maoists challenged a Royal Nepal Army that for years now had been seeking a “legitimate role” in combating this recognized threat to national security.
Outside the confusions deliberately or otherwise created for sake of populism or from blatant ignorance, some clear facts can be gleaned. The first is the effects on the country and national security by the purposive dys-functionalization of the national Security Council for over a decade after 1990 movement. The second is the intentional preference for investments and confidence for the use of a demonstrably incompetent police force over an army that has time and again proven its professional capabilities in the country. Equally noteworthy is the excessive publicity granted belated army attempts to equip itself with essential mobility and fighting tools in preparation of a near certain war that logic would compel an ultimate military responsibility.
It is now safe to presume that Nepal has been granted armed conflict that will be of a long-drawn nature. It will be expensive in terms of life, money and etc. The Nepali topography will ensure the length of the would be conflict and its cost. It is also safe to presume that the military will find its largest professional challenge coming from politics while strategically the challenge will remain the Maoists.