(Courtesy: La Verdad)
Proof by contradiction
Mathematicians often use “proof by contradiction” in order to solve difficult problems that deny straightforward answers. When it is impossible (or too difficult) to directly prove the veracity of a statement, mathematicians tactfully show its opposite to be untrue, thus proving the statement itself to be true. We are witnessing in Nepal today, a similar proof.
There were many who decried the alliance between the SPA and the Maoists as “unholy”. There were many who questioned the Maoists’ commitment to “mainstream politics”. But there were more who believed otherwise, and they happened to be the ones with the loudest voice and strongest influence.
This group that controlled the media and so-called “civil society” organizations, along with the political parties, of course, led us into believing that the Maoists were dying to join peaceful, competitive politics while an arrogant and ambitious king was only using them as an excuse to consolidate his own power.
If the parties were given a chance to have their way, we were told, they would deliver us a “peaceful solution” to the Maoist insurgency as opposed to the king’s “military solution”. The anti-royal regime fervor had been pumped to such feverish pitch that sensible people couldn’t even demand the bases for such lofty claims from these “peaceful-solution-walahs”.
More than a year has now passed since these “peaceful-solutionists” goaded their fellow countrymen to risk their lives and put the SPA back in the driver’s seat. Time has come around to examine their claims again.
Do we have peace now? Is any solution in sight? What have been the achievements of this party-press-civil society-led route to peace (not to mention a “new Nepal”)?
Events in the past one year are clearly contradicting their predictions that a “safe-landing” to the Maoists would assure us peace and a better Nepal. By contradiction then, as mathematicians might put it, the opposite (i.e., that the SPA-M alliance was indeed “unholy”, and that the Maoists couldn’t be trusted to enter the “mainstream”), are now being proved true.
Let us examine more closely the fallout of the “peaceful-solution” route:
The fallout
An immediate casualty of this misguided effort was the 1990 constitution, a document once hailed as among “the best” in the world. Why anger against a king (who allegedly misused the constitution) had to translate into wholesale bashing and trashing of the constitution itself is a million-dollar question, without an answer.
One could hardly come across a better example of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”. Nonetheless, the swift annulment of the 1990 constitution exposed the dearth of ideas (to solve the insurgency) in the SPA ranks. An agenda that was brought to the fore solely on the point of guns was thoughtlessly accepted as the “only solution”.
The fact that to this day, an overwhelming majority of the Nepalese people still don’t know what a constituent assembly is, clearly indicates that this “solution” was mere political expediency, not popular demand. Secondly, given that the 1990 constitution was a document that the SPA had themselves helped create, its unceremonious end exposed our “leaders” faith and conviction in their own words and deeds, and the strength (or rather lack) of their convictions.
As per the Maoists’ wishes, the UN was brought in to help resolve Nepal’s insurgency. While this was in the interests of a “terrorist group” aiming to attain the status of a “rebel force”, it would have been in the interests of all Nepalese too if the UN had been given some teeth.
But when after months of waiting we finally learnt of the 10:1 ratio of combatants to arms, we began questioning the efficacy of the much-hyped “arms management” process. And now as we watch a hapless Ian Martin wailing about the stalled arms verification process (and a growling Baburam threatening to throw the UN out), we know definitively that the rebels have outfoxed the "re-instateds." While the Maoists' managed to use the UN gimmick to attain international stature, the SPA has failed to use the same to provide a sense of security to the Nepalese people.
Finally, when the CPA was signed in November, the act of legitimizing the Maoists’ 10-year brutal war— a war originally waged against parliamentary democracy— was completed. In the preamble of this document, the Maoist insurgency is placed as a continuum in the Nepali people’s struggle for freedom since “around 1950”. Hence, a war that was waged against parliamentary democracy, against the 1990 constitution, was allowed to be re-interpreted as a war solely against monarchy and feudalism.
By then, of course, the SPA had removed the terrorist tags from the heads of their Maoist compatriots, freed their leaders who had been painstakingly captured by the security forces, and opened up the whole nation for them to carry out their (until then, forbidden) politics. The opposite — enabling the rest of the parties to carry out activities in hitherto forbidden space — on the other hand, has not been fulfilled to this day.
Through the “peaceful-solutionists” the Maoists managed to bag their most elusive and invaluable goal: legitimacy, recognition as an open political party. But what invaluable goal did the SPA wrench off in return?
And yet the unconditional give-aways to the Maoists didn’t stop there. Thence forward, they were brought into parliament, an interim constitution formed as per their wishes, and they were even given ministerial berths to run the country. Those people who’d murdered innocent Nepalis, including cadres of the SPA themselves (and who had not garnered any votes of the Nepalese people) were given the privilege of delineating our destinies purely on the strength of their guns. The use of violence for political gain was not only legitimized, but rewarded with a resounding thump.
The result is open for all to see. Every little group—student or trade union, ethnic forum, indigenous group, teachers’, dealers’, drivers’, displaceds’ anybody’s association, is using the same means to achieve their goals.
The state lies effete as every interest group uses abhorable, anti-social means to achieve their narrow interests. Faith in industry, discipline, hardwork, fair-play, truth and justice has been smashed to smithereens and ability to exploit the situation to one’s advantage by any means (including violent ones) have been proven as the qualities that succeed. Through all the ups-and-downs of our 240-year history, Nepalese have probably never been more demoralized than we are today. To be sure, we are closer to state-failure today than at any point in our history.
But make no mistake, the confusion, turmoil, uncertainty, anarchy and anomie that exist today are, in reality, a Maoist’s dream. There is room to assert that the Maoists deliberately seek to use this situation to discredit and destroy the parliamentary system in Nepal—their original goal. Through the “peaceful-solution” route the Maoists have achieved what they couldn’t with ten years of armed struggle from the jungles.
Then and now
Without doubt the Maoists have made good of the break offered to them by the “peaceful-solution” beatniks. Compared to where they were in early 2006, they have moved up in leaps and bounds.
By early 2006, the PLA had been reduced to a hit-and-run outfit that could only snap at the heels of a strengthening and maturing national army. The Maoists’ money-bags were fast drying up since they’d been swept clean out of the cities, the centers of extortion. A sense of impending defeat, and disillusion with Maoist ideology were leading their guerillas to surrender in hordes.
The impossibility of military takeover and inevitability of the shattering of the PLA changed hardcore believers of armed struggle into pragmatists who latched on to the SPA, their original enemies, for survival. Spurned by the king, and egged on by the “peaceful-solution” idealists the SPA took the bait.
The current situation is a stark reversal of fortunes. The Maoist cantonments are over-stuffed with fake recruits, while their guerillas have reincarnated as the YCL. The common Nepali’s tax-money is paying for the sustenance and salary of these fake guerillas while extortions have resumed afresh in the cities.
Fake soldiers in cantonments have become a bigger bargaining chip than guerillas in the jungles could ever be, and what’s more, we, the people, are paying for it! Property seized during the conflict have not been returned to rightful owners, instead Maoists are busy amassing more property – royal, public or private.
While arms management was the loudest, clearest call of the Nepalese people before, during and after the Jana Andolan, it is the one demand being pushed off all the time, while Maoists continually obtain whatever they ask for.
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