Frank answers to these twin questions are at a premium in today’s Nepal.  

The five-point agreement among the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Nepali Congress (NC), and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) that was hammered out by Prachanda (a.k.a.) Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Sushil Koirala and  Madhav Kumar Nepal as the basis for new ‘consensus’ is not a workable compromise. It doesn’t go into the specifics of the peace process, which, in essence, is winding up of the PLA and de-weaponization of the Maoist cadres. This is an issue that demands real and verifiable action, not just promises.

As a news paper headline summed up the situation at the end of the day on May 28, the last working day after six extensions, ‘Nepal’s parliament survives’, but divisions and trust deficit remain. This became clear a day after the agreement was sealed after a 15-hour long marathon discussion by the lead players.

One key area of agreement was that Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal would resign to let a consensus based national government to take office. Maoist Number 2, Baburam Bhattarai is seen as the new incumbent as he is acceptable unlike his party’s supremo Prachanda, who has antagonized friends and well wishers within and outside the Maoist camp.

Prachanda stands as a prime example of how one cannot realise one’s political dreams even with a huge unassailable strength in Parliament – the Left has about 62 percent strength in the Nepal House. He has to blame himself for his politics of deception, polemics of half-truths, and games of brinkmanship.

That Prachanda refuses to learn is clear from the latest Maoist stand that Prime Minister Khanal would not resign till a new government is in place. This stand is sweet music to Khanal, who had thought of banking on the combined Left strength (Maoists plus UML) to ‘manage’ the extension blues. Not to Madhav Kumar Nepal, his predecessor, who was forced out of office last year by Prachanda’s politics of brinkmanship, but had to hang on tenaciously till Prachanda- Khanal pact was in place in February. Four months rule is a self-inflicted wound for Khanal, whose politics of expediency have few parallels even in Nepal’s chequered tryst with peace and good governance.

Nepal’s 601-member Constituent Assembly, which is also interim parliament, was elected in 2008 after a decade of civil war with a two-year mandate to write a new national constitution and oversee the peace process that began when the conflict ended in 2006. The Assembly has produced three governments but the new statute is nowhere in sight. In fact, the Assembly has so far been unable to complete even a draft version to create a new secular, democratic republic. Three months is not a short period in politics but given the differences on key issues like federalism, setting up of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there is going to be no curtains down on the theatre of the absurd in Kathmandu.

Political instability plaguing Nepal has stifled economic growth, forcing many Nepalese to seek work overseas. Thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent weeks in protest at the slow pace of progress and law makers’ failure to complete the constitution.

The latest ‘package’ deal includes a commitment to complete the fundamentals of the peace process, prepare a first draft of the new Constitution by August 28, make the structure of Nepal Army inclusive and implement the agreements done with Madhesi parties in the past.

Only a miracle can materialise the statute in the current state of acrimony, which shows no end with the Maoists unwilling to walk the extra mile on the larger issue of integration and rehabilitation of their combatants. It has been the key concern of the Nepali Congress.

In the run up to May 28 deal, Moist leaders said handing over of the arms of their guerrillas, (People’s Liberation Army, PLA) to the government was just a technical issue and that it could be solved immediately once parties reach an ‘understanding’.   They also promised to ‘end the dual security arrangement for the Maoist leaders immediately, and lock the weapons used by the body guards in the containers kept at the seven main cantonment sites belonged to the Special Committee. The plan has some psychological value since the Special Committee is a part of the Home Ministry headed by Maoist senior, Krishna Bahadur Mahara.

The Maoists had also pledged to finalise the regrouping procedure within June 4, complete the regrouping process by July 5 and complete integration and rehabilitation by September. They more or less endorsed the concept paper the Army had come up with to create a mixed force of Army, Armed police, Police and the Maoist combatants in the ratio of 35:35:15:15. The new force could have easily absorbed some 4000 armed Maoist guerrillas.  Provided, of course, the Maoists are serious of becoming a mainline civilian political party.

The Himalayan Times reported on May 27 that Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal had ruled out handing over their arms under normal circumstances. “It is untrue if anybody thinks that the weapons exchanged with blood would be handed over so easily,” he said reminiscing on the bloodshed caused during the decade-long insurgency. He went on to observe “The path of revolution is curvy. We are still at a turn. One day, we will definitely win this political battle front for national independence and people’s liberation.”

Now it is difficult to say whether Prachanda was indulging in an emotional rhetoric to keep the restive cadres happy or was trying to brow beat the other political parties, notably the Nepali Congress, which goes into convulsion at the very mention of threat to democracy movement. His interpretation of the agreement on Khanal’s resignation is the perfect give away.   NC, UML and Madheshi parties could have scripted a different screen play by putting their act together. Their failure is advantage Maoists.  

There is a view that the basic problem is Nepali Congress centric and not of the Maoists. This school believes that NC and even UML look at the Maoists through tinted glasses and consider them as a threat and hence their insistence on PLA disbanding as the first step towards peace and reconciliation. To accept this school of blinkered thought is to close eyes to the reality of the countryside today and also to gloss over the way the 2008 election was held and won. Level playing field may be an economic jargon. But it is very much relevant to the political arena too, particularly in countries like Nepal where left extremism had held sway over the hinterland for long years.

So, in the days ahead not only how the NC presents itself but also how the Maoists manage their affairs will be in the focus. The Maoist party may not split but it will certainly go through convulsions of expulsions and purges that the Communists are known for at regular intervals.  According to Telegraph Nepal, daggers are out against Prachanda himself.

The allegation is that he had plotted the arrest of Senior Vice Chairman Mohan Baidya ‘Kiran’ Secretary C.P. Gajurel, Kul Prasad K.C. and Matrika Yadav) while being in Indian exile ‘just ahead of the extended plenum meeting of party’s central committee held in Chunbang at the fag-end of the peoples revolt’. Another vice chairman Babu Ram Bhattarai, Dina Nath Sharma, Hisila Yami and others were kept under detention by the Prachanda group itself.  These ‘arrests’ allowed Prachanda to swiftly manage to switch from the Revolt line to Democratic Republican, according to a report in The Rajdhani Daily on May 19, 2011.

“Chairman Prachanda plotted our arrest (Baidya and C.P. Gajurel) and got the Democratic Republican line passed by the Chunbang meet”, Baidya is quoted as saying by a central committee member present at the secret meeting held somewhere in Baneshwor-Kathmandu to discuss the ‘internal’ state of the Maoist Party as of now. “We need to be very cautious and take our steps carefully because Prachanda is a person who could go to any extent”, Baidya is further quoted. Baidya followers from various parts of the country have been invited to the secret meeting. Senior leaders, Dev Gurung and Netra Bikram Chand and politburo members Pampha Bhusal and Dharemendra Bastola are attending amongst others.

“During the revolt, Prachanda feared that if Comrade Badal (General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa) led front continued to succeed in the attack on state forces, Badal would be powerful enough to capture the party leadership. Thus Prachanda manufactured stories linking Comrade Badal with Comrade Ms. Pampha Bhusal. Similarly, Prachanda is also blaming Comrade Gaurav (Gajurel) of being influenced by the Europeans”, Baidya also said.

The Rajdhani Daily quotes Netra Bikram Chand as telling the meeting that Prachanda had requested him not to take on to the course of party split until May 28, 2011. ‘I told him that if differences persist it is better to split the party to preserve ideology’, Chand said, adding that ‘’Prachanda fears party split but he is planning to capture the party headquarters if that eventuality takes a shape”.

The Rajdhani report also carries a statement by another leader, who was not identified that the possibility of party split is remote in the present context. “We prefer to create another party within the party itself but do not favour a vertical split”, he was quoted as saying.

Suffice to say there is going to be no dull moment in the next three months in Kathmandu.