The Growing Crisis

The Maoist comrades have done it again. And, this time, the victim is a Swiss national Steve Jeannereet. It is a matter of national shame that we cannot ensure safety of tourists that enrich our public purse and enhance our national image.

The Maoists have killed teachers, journalists, and harassed doctors. But by physically assaulting a foreign national, they have not only ashamed themselves but also dented nation's image. When will the Maoists come to their senses? I guess it is not the right question to ask. Will they ever come to senses, unless they are forced to?

The government is trying to tighten the screw on rebels in the tarai while providing a free pass to the Maoists to engage in criminal activities. This strategy will eventually backfire. It will make easier for the rebel groups in the tarai to manipulate young unemployed youths in the name of ethnic discrimination. If the government cannot ruffle Puspa Kamal Dahal's feathers, it should not set a dangerous precedence of selective justice by targeting Madhesi rebels.

There is no difference whatsoever between Puspa Kamal Dahal and Nagendra Paswan's men. They are all engaged in criminal and anti-social activities. They have blood of innocent people stained in their hands.

The current government has completely failed to maintain law-and-order in the country. One thing that the current government is good at is -- provide compensation to the victims of Maoist crimes. If the prime minister or the home minister had to pay compensation from their pockets, then they would feel the heat. To give away taxpayers' hard-earned money does not seem to bother them a bit. This is height of irresponsibility and unaccountability.

If the Maoists are responsible for committing crimes, the current government is responsible for turning a blind eye on their criminal activities. Needles to say, both are at fault. In order to make the Maoists more responsible, the government should deduct the amount handed over to the victims' family from the money that the Maoists receive for their men confined in the camps. Let them feel the heat too. Hit them where it hurts most.

Of late, it has become evident that the Maoist leadership is not only power hungry but also hungry for money. Thousands of innocent civilians that were lured and registered as combatants have deserted the UN-administered camps, but the Maoist leadership is yet to report the cases to the government and reject payments made to support them. They blame the mainstream political parties for corruption and mismanagement but fail to see how mismanaged and corrupt their own party is. Collecting payments on behalf of non-existent combatants is a fraud in broad daylight.

It is understandable that the Maoists would not budge about it because they are financially benefiting from it. But why are UNMIN and the government silent on this issue? Neither UNMIN has shown any decency and reported the matter to the government nor has the government deemed it necessary to become fiscally responsible and stopped the payment even after media has reported it. When will the people in the corridors of power and those appeasing them to bury their own incompetence be held responsible for their screw ups?

With each passing day, things are becoming clearer: (1) The Seven Party Alliance (SPA) wants to remain in power forever in the name of peace process (2) India, after having burnt it fingers in its mission of buying unequivocal and everlasting Maoist support, now wants to teach them a lesson by strengthening rebels outfit in the tarai (3) the Maoists do not want peace and elections because of the plummeting public support. If there is peace, and free and fair elections are held, the Maoist leadership knows it very well that its bargaining power will take a nosedive. For the Maoists, chaos is profitable. It has both financial and political pay-offs.

Another thing that has become evident from the Maoists' never ending experiment is that they know what they want (capture the power and hang in there), but they don't know how to get there. That's the reason why they are engaged in never ending errant experimentation of all kinds.

The Nepalis are now in a far worse situation than they were during the Maoist insurgency. Then, we had one problem -- the Maoist insurgency. But we have uncountable groups with various motives and agendas. They are used and abused by various unseen forces to gain control. Caught in the middle is the unelected government that neither has the required mandate to force its will on people, nor has any strategy to solve the problems. What an ugly situation to be in.

India by forcing the SPA to join hands with the Maoists has created more problems than it actually had. While Nepal is failing, India wants to redefine its success. After the Maoists stopped dancing to the Indian tune, India now, wants to tighten its grip on Nepal and teach the Maoists a lesson by strengthening the rebel outfits in the tarai. India might have a last laugh by wiping out the Maoists in the tarai, but the Nepalis do not have anything to cheer about. It might be a good strategy from India's point of view, but when it comes to the people of Nepal, India will be simply replacing one devil with another. Creation of warlords has never brought peace and strengthened democracy anywhere.

With each passing day, not only our freedom and prosperity, but also our sovereignty is at stake. How much India values our sovereignty is crystal clear from its recent request to maintain a status-quo on encroachment of the Nepali soil at Susta.

Let us get realistic for a second, shall we? Had King Gyanendra agreed to dance to Indian tune like Jigme in Bhutan, Gayyoom in the Maldives, and General Than Shwe in Burma, what would have been the fate of SPA politicians? Where would they be now?

India's selfless desire towards establishing peace and stable democracy in Nepal is not as selfless as India would like it. It cares more about its grips on Nepal than anything else. It wants to administer proxy rule in Nepal through the likes of Dasho Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, Gayyoom in the Maldives. What will it take us to realize this fact?

Ram Raja Prasad Singh has already revealed India's role in fueling the ongoing crisis in the tarai. If India really wanted peace in Nepal and respected its sovereignty, it would not deploy its intelligence agency to bring together all the rebel groups operating in the tarai and have a meeting with them in Indian soil. It would not have engaged itself in encroachment of Nepali soil. It would rather help negotiate a settlement between the rebels and the Nepali government and returned encroached soil even before Nepal approached for it.

The problem with our political leaders is that they don't believe what they don't want to believe. Ignorance is bliss and this adage applies very well to beleaguered politicians who want to conveniently ignore ground realities as long as they can. The self-esteem of the political leadership has sunk so low that it is hard to believe that the current leadership will be able to navigate the nation towards stable liberal democracy.

So far both optimists and pessimists have been proved wrong. Neither peace nor complete political paralysis has resulted. Political crises are yet to be equated with disaster. However, if the current political deadlock and insincerity among the political leadership persists, the nation will plunge into a deep political and social crisis. Nepal will disintegrate internally if the inherent malaise is not removed.

Honest Illusion and Dishonest Betrayal

Recently, the Maoist cadres called for a transport strike in the Hetauda, Kalaiya and Nijgadh areas to affect the mass meeting organized by Nepali Congress in Birgunj. While the toprung Maoist leaders and other leftleaning politicians demand an immediatedeclaration of a republic and threaten taking to the streets if not done so, the second man in the present cabinet, Ram Chandra Poudel, gets “booed” and showered with filthy materials. A seniorjournalist, Kanak Mani Dixit, who led the April uprising from the front narrowly escaped from getting roughed up. Are these isolated incidents or is there a pattern that needs to be analyzedand understood?

Who are these people that don't think even for a second before attacking people that have spent their entire life fighting for democracy and the freedom of the Nepali citizens? Are these people average Nepali citizens that are working hard to make bothends meet, or are they brainwashed, radical leftists that are shrewdly being used against the people that do not share their radical leftist ideology? Is itan outburst of pent-up frustrations or a calculated move to silence the democratic forces by the radical left?

Nepal as a nation is passing through a tumultuous time of both honest illusion and dishonest betrayal.The Maoist radicals, who posed themselves as supporters of democracy and lured democratic forces to team up against the despotic monarch, are nowcovertly operating to silence democratic voices. Are we becoming the prisoners of our own mistakes (teaming up with the Maoists)?

Looking back, it begs for a question: Was it a good idea on part of democratic forces in Nepal to team up with the Maoists who are drastically different in thoughts, ideology, and aspirations, to overthrow the ruleof an utterly unpopular monarch with no popular backing? Was it a good idea to ignore that “radical communism,” which the Maoists vouch for, and thefreedom and democracy that Nepali citizens long for, were two significantly different and titanic ideas, two ways of life, and two totally irreconcilablebeliefs? Is it a case of “marry in haste and repent in leisure”?

In the aftermath of the derailment of the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections, the leftist political parties, in an effort to close in on social and liberal democrats, are forging an alliance, which according to them is needed stepto declare the state a republic. UML's general secretary, whose desperateness to become the Prime Minister has been evident for a long time, now wants to fulfill his long cherished dream by bringing all political shops run by the leftists under a single umbrella. Nepal's dubious character and hidden motives became clear when he said that there was now no utility of opening up small shops in the name of communist parties. If all the communist parties areunited, we can easily defeat the rightists, he said during the event organized by the Maoists to mark the anniversary of Lenin's birth coinciding with the57th anniversary of the establishment of Communist Party of Nepal (CPN), on April 22. His statement has made it crystal clear that the UML's previoustie-ups with the social and liberal democrats in Nepal were a mere compulsion and political compromise in the absence of the ability of the political left to defeat social and liberal democrats rather than a logical step tostrengthen democracy in Nepal.

Maoist leader Mohan Baidya, speaking at a press meet in Charikot, Dolakha, without mincing a word madeit ample clear that the Communist Party of Nepal-(Maoist) and CPN-UML had reached an accord to put forward a commitment paper and declare Nepal arepublic even if Nepali Congress was not ready. Furthermore, he exhibited a classic example of what is called dual character of the leftists by putting all the blame on the prime minister for not being able to conduct CA elections. Isn't the Maoists' insincerity towards the peace agreements to some extent responsible for the delay in CA elections?The Maoists want to enjoy all the privileges of being in the parliament and the Cabinet, but do not want to share the blame for failures. What a classic example of hypocrisy and double standard?

However, it is not surprising to see the Maoists not sharing the blames for failures. This has been the strategy of the Maoists from the very beginning.The Maoists wanted to be in the cabinet in order to use all of the resources of the nation so that they could embolden their political footings and buy political legitimacy and support of the international community. The need to paint centrist political forces as a “good for nothing” group by blaming them for not being able to conduct CA elections is their strategic ploy to achieve their longterm goal, the establishment of a proletariancommunist state. The leftists know very well that without downgrading and discrediting democratic forces in Nepal, the virtues of communism cannot be spoon-fed to the innocent and largely illiterate Nepali populace.But the sad part of the story is, while the political left is all set to forge an alliance and bring all leftist shops under a single umbrella and trap freedom-loving Nepali citizens under the "yoke of communism," the democratic forces in Nepal seem to be clueless about the strategies to secure its political space and freedom of Nepali people in modern day Nepal. Is it a case of tacticalblunder or an act of thoughtless minds?

If the “red menace” is not fought against both now and effectively, the democracy in Nepal will be in peril. It is time to fight back against sophisticated lies and leftist propagandas which, ifnot acted upon now, will poison coming decades of our national life. The days ahead appear bleak for the social and liberal democrats in the country.The political left will take maximum advantage of their majority in the parliament and the cabinet. In the days ahead, while the top rung leaders of thepolitical left will keep themselves busy unleashing politically charged propaganda against democratic forces, the brainwashed radicals who belong togroups such as the Youth Communist League (YCL) that lack logical reasoning and have zero tolerance towards others that do not share their view point of an idyllic communist utopia will be used to silence the voices of freedom-loving people in Nepal.

Time is running out for democratic forces in Nepal. They need to act now and act rapidly to forge an alliance amongst the democratic forces. If needed, seek help from the international community that better understands the “red menace” and is more knowledgeable about ways to defeat it.Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, during the recent South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), said that he gambled his sixdecade long political career to secure peace in Nepal and he is right about it. But the recent activities of the Maoists show that he betted on an “unreliable horse.” Despite his all good intentions,his partner for peace – the Maoists – are proving themselves untrustworthy. They are abusing his trust to achieve their goal.

In the current situation, whereby peace and stability seem to be a distantdream due to the Maoists' insincerity and the UML's dubious character, Koirala's lumping of all Male (then UML), Masale (radical leftist party)and Mandale (regressive elements) into the same category seems real than ever. History will judge if Koirala's instinct to join hands with the Maoiststo defeat a cornered despot--King Gyanendra--was a good thing or not. It will also judge if it was entirely impossible to defeat King Gyanendra withoutseeking any help from the Maoists, which many people think was not the case. It might have taken a little bit longer, but couple of months or years is not a long time when it comes to the history of a nation. The dilution of ideology has a price attached to it. Maybe we are destined to pay that price!