Rajesh Tyagi/ 21 July 2015
Nepal's former Prime
Minister and chief of the Communist
Party of Nepal (Maoist), Prachanda, arrived
in New Delhi on 14th July on a 7-day visit to deliberate with Modi and his
cabinet colleagues as Nepal draws closer to finalise the Constitution. Prachanda also met foreign affairs minister Sushma
Swaraj, foreign secretary Jaishankar, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, apart from
President Pranab Mukherjee.
Earlier, Nepali Maoists had been closer to China and
continued baiting India for long, but in changing world scenario where China is
being isolated politically through “pivot to asia” program under US, Nepali
Maoists have changed their strategy and have come closer to US strategic establishment.
On Modi’s visit to Nepal, Prachanda had praised Modi government a lot for its performance in India. In turn Modi has also praised Prachanda and Maoists under him for their contribution in peace process in Nepal.
Maoists in Nepal, have openly disarmed the revolution and have thwarted it in the name of democratic stage of revolution, wherein according to them, the working class cannot and should not strive to take the power or contend for it against the bourgeoisie.
The earthquake of April 25 this year has given a serious
jolt to the bourgeois regime of Nepal, exposing innumerable cracks in its
establishment and its inability to protect the people against calamities. The
Maoists, however, instead of taking any advantage of destabilization of the
regime, have actively assisted it to restabilise itself.
Since 2006, Maoists had played critical role in dousing the prairie fires of revolution in Nepal. Alongwith Stalinists, they dissuaded the working
class from fighting for political power in Nepal and tagged their party and
followers to capitalism and its regime led by Nepali Congress. Refusing to
advance the revolution further by dissolving the army and liquidating bourgeois
parties, Maoists, on the contrary, surrendered all gains of the revolution like
the seized lands and arms and disbanded the forces of revolution, especially
its combat units, organized over decades of civil war. Since then, the Nepali
bourgeoisie has taken full control of the national army, stabilized its rule
and has marginalized the revolution.
Maoists, have set one point agenda before them- promulgating
a Constitution, that would only settle a bourgeois regime in the country. The
16 point agenda that comprises the basis of an alliance among four major
political parties in Nepal – Bourgeois Nepali Congress, Stalinist CPN-UML, Maoist
UCPN and Madhesi People Democratic Forum- goes not even a step further than the
program of Nepali bourgeois. The four parties, together command 90 per cent
majority in the 601-member Constituent Assembly.
The first draft of the Constitution has been presented for
debate in the Constituent Assembly of Nepal, last week. Immediately thereafter,
Prachanda has undertaken the visit to India to brief Modi and his colleagues
about the draft and the perspective of Maoists. The purpose of visit of Prachanda
is to garner support of the right-wing bourgeois government under Modi, convincing
it that Maoists are the best defenders of capitalism in Nepal.
In an interview to Bhasha Singh, bureau chief of weekly
magazine ‘Outlook’, Prachanda admitted that revolution is sidelined in Nepal
due to ‘errors’ of Maoists. However, instead of undertaking a serious study of
those errors, Prachanda dismissed the same as incorrect identification of stage
of revolution. Elaborating, he said, “With fall of Monarchy in Nepal, bourgeois
democratic stage of revolution was over. We must change our strategy now. We
should prepare for socialist revolution in Nepal”.
Guided by the ‘two-stage’ Menshevik theory of revolution, that was so zealously
opposed by both Lenin and Trotsky, but later endorsed by Stalin and then Mao,
the Nepali Maoists had virtually arrested the revolution at its ‘democratic’
stage, forbidding the working class from organizing it in vanguard of the revolution
and fighting in its first ranks, for power. Now overnight, they see a ‘socialist
revolution’ on the horizon!
This strategic shift is however coupled with a moderation.
Prachanda further declared that “The road to socialist revolution in Nepal is presently ‘peaceful’. The days of armed struggle are matter of past”.
This discovery of ‘peaceful road to socialist revolution’,
finds its echo in ‘British Road to Socialism’, the infamous program of British
CP based upon Dutt-Bradley thesis, prepared under instructions of Stalin, that
claimed an end to era of violent class conflicts and opening of peaceful path
to revolution in view of weakening of world bourgeoisie. History has since then again and again
demonstrated the bankruptcy of this thesis. Wherever, this ‘peaceful path’ was imposed,
from Indonesia to Chile, the revolution was wiped out.
The ‘peaceful path’ is the lame excuse of Nepali Maoists for
their refusal to undertake a political fight against the Nepali bourgeoisie and
its international allies, with whom they are integrated in an alliance based on
16 point understanding.
Reinforcing his innovation of the onset of a socialist
revolution in Nepal after accomplishment of the democratic one, Prachanda
claimed, “Now there is neither that kind of state nor feudalism in Nepal. During
the ten year long civil war under leadership of our party, the land relations
have changed a lot”.
Suffering from political myopia, Maoist leaders are creating
illusions for their followers too. Since fall of the Monarchy, social relations
have undergone very little change in Nepal. Slightest of the reforms, are
directly conflicting with interests of thoroughly reactionary Nepali bourgeois
and are being instantly blocked by it. The bourgeois democracy has failed to
resolve any of the issues whether land, nationality or rural unemployment. Few gains that were made by the revolution during the
decade of civil war, like few seizures of rural lands and arming of poor peasantry,
that already stand liquidated in the last decade.
The most pressing tasks of the revolution in Nepal, alike in
India, are the pending tasks of bourgeois revolution. These tasks remain in
peril because of the incapacity of the bourgeois to carry them out through a revolution.
Capitalism, in these countries has grown up only in the lap of a medieval
milieu, which instead of resolving the democratic tasks has made them more
complicated.
Maoists, however, deny
this and credit the bourgeois regime for accomplishing the democratic tasks of
the revolution, pushing it into their assumed next ‘socialist’ stage.
The revolution in Nepal, like in all countries of backward
capitalism, cannot be divided into artificial stages- democratic or socialist. A
revolution can only be defined by its class alignment and its character can be
identified only with such class alignment that propels it. In backward
countries, irrespective of whatever may be the immediate tasks before it, in individual
countries, the revolution marches under the leadership of the working class and
in turn is backed by toilers, especially rural peasants. From this viewpoint,
the character of the revolution remains democratic, in so far it depends upon
two classes- worker and peasant.
However, both Stalinists and Maoists, apply ‘economic
determinism’ for artificial and arbitrary staging of revolution in individual
countries. In Nepal, they continued to claim yesterday that the revolution was democratic
as bourgeois-democratic tasks are pending and capitalism was not sufficiently
developed to strengthen the working class to take to power. Now they say Nepal has entered next stage of
revolution- ‘socialism’ and democratic tasks are over.
Contrary to bogus claim of Maoists, the revolution in all
countries of backward capitalism, remains and will remain a democratic
revolution, as the pending democratic tasks due to incapacity of bourgeois to
resolve them, make wider sections of toilers and peasants a natural ally of the
proletariat in this revolution.
Further, indicating a clear rightward, sectarian and nationalist
leaning of Nepali Maoists, Prachanda told that Maoist Party would support the ‘Religious
Conversion Bill’ on the pattern of the one introduced by right-wing governments
in India, that would criminalise the conversion of faith on the ground of force
or coercion. Prachanda admitted that this is being done to isolate the Christian
missions from converting Hindus to Christianity. However, in balancing
exercise, Prachanda stated that he does not want Nepal to become a Hindu state
either.
Maoists are bound up with the state and regime of Nepali
bourgeoisie and continue to block the path of the revolution- first in the name
of ‘democratic’ stage and now peaceful ‘socialist’ stage. Lost in false
theories of Stalin and Mao, Maoists have become core defenders of capitalism in
every country, including Nepal. Turning their back completely upon the working
class, Maoists are leaning more and more upon the right in Nepal.
No comments:
Post a Comment