Nepal’s Basanta: Re-evaluating Prachanda and his path

At one point the Nepalese Maoist movement declared that their approach to politics was encapsulated in an evolving synthesis they called Prachanda Path — after their founding leader Prachanda.

In subsequent years, Prachanda became part of a political move to the right, abandoning and then disbanding the essential gainst of the revolution — the base areas, the peoples courts, the Peoples Liberation Army, and essentially the hopes of revolution itself.

As radical forces within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) regrouped, they have had to reevaluate their party’s previous decisions.

Here is one that deals with ideas and synthesis. Basanta is the political name of Indra Mohan Sigdel. He was previously a member of the  Politburo of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). His earlier 2006 article on Prachanda Path was widely read within the international communist movement. Now he is discussing the way he believes things now stand.

International Dimensions of Prachanda’s Neo-revisionism

by Basanta

I had authored an article about 6 years before. It was entitled: “International Dimensions of Prachanda Path”.

The article, published in the 10th issue of The Worker, Party organ in English, had created debate in the international communist movement. Is Prachanda Path really a creative development of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism or merely a deviation from it was the question under debate at that time. Given the development of people’s war in leaps, one after another, it was also not an easy task for them to take position against it. But, most of the revolutionary parties did not assimilate it rather they opined that it resulted from the ideological deviation on the part of CPN (Maoist).

The wave of Prachanda Path, which was said to be the synthesis of the experiences of 5 year’s long stormy people’s war, had stretched all across the world. It was not unnatural too. Party had defined Prachanda Path as a series of particular ideas generated by the Nepalese revolution. I had prepared that article as our party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), comprehended it at that time. Unsurprisingly, Prachanda was happy with the article.

Documentary Report from a People’s War: the New People’s Army in Southern Mindanao

Chairman Kiran speaks on continuing the revolution in Nepal

Kiran, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist

This is from World’s People’s Resistance Movement of Britain.

This uncut-hour long audio is from the press conference organized on June 19th by the newly formed Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist. The question and answer session is available in Nepali. Thanks to Comrade Pooja for taking her time to make this audio available in English transcription. And thanks to World People’s Resistance Movement of Britain for circulating this.

Q: How do you justify the formation of the new party?

How should people understand this?

A: – Communist party is a party for the benefit of the proletariat and the people. In the case of Nepal, the aim of a communist party remains to move forward, raising the issues of safeguarding national sovereignty; people’s democracy and livelihood then ultimately leap towards socialism and communism. This is self-proven.

Philippines: Report from base area of the people’s war

Leaders of oppressed groups join Nepal’s new Maoist party

Jayapuri Gharti Magar–leader of All Nepal Women’s Association (Revolutionary)

Two thirds of the leaders of groupings under the old UCPN(M) have joined the new revolutionary Maoist party in Nepal, led by Mohan ‘Baidya’ Kiran. These groups (also called ‘sister wings’) include leaders of the Maoist women’s organization and  most of the national liberation fronts.

“The sister wings represented suppressed communities that the Baidya faction has always stood for while Pushpa Kamal Dahal had said that he had dug his own grave by forming ethnic fronts in the party. So it is natural for the chiefs of sister wings to spurn Dahal,” said Santosh Budha Magar, chief of the Magar National Liberation Front.

The article originally appeared at MyRepublica.

20-odd chiefs of sister wings join Baidya’s party

by KIRAN PUN

KATHMANDU, June 21: With only one-third of the UCPN (Maoist) central committee members joining the newly-formed CPN-Maoist led by Mohan Baidya, one would have speculated that only a few lower rung leaders would follow suit. But, this has been proven wrong.

Almost all the chiefs of around three dozen sister wings — considered the backbone of the mother party — of the UCPN (Maoist) have joined the new party. They had sided with Baidya ever since the beginning of the rift in the UCPN (Maoist). This has left only around a dozen chiefs of sister wings in the mother party.

For a revolutionary break in Nepal stalemates: Looking back and looking forward

“We had a type of peace and constitution before people’s war but in our analysis it was not pro-people – to the contrary. It was a system that did not reflect their interests but only those of the entrenched bourgeois – feudal classes. Therefore the great people’s war was launched and a pro-people peace and constitution came to the forefront. But now they are trying to rebuild the system as it was before and this is unacceptable.  It will be designed to function for those who were the ruling class in the past.This creates the necessity of struggle for a pro-people settlement.”

The following is a significant statement from revolutionary forces previously within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Increasingly they are separating themselves organizationally from the old party, and seeking to chart a new course, for themselves and the people, toward a more decisive revolutionary break in Nepalese society.

This article originally appeared in Red Front and then on Democracy and Class Struggle.  It was published two days ago on Kasama.

The Challenge for the Nepalese Revolution

by Netra Bikram Chand (party name: Biplab)

The leadership of Baburam Bhatterai and Prachanda in the Nepalese revolution has disintegrated. It has shown that rightist reactionary politics emerged again in Nepal’s history.

The situation has become difficult because their leadership abandoned the goal of the People’s Federal Republic.

Nepal: – A New PLA in Formation

This article is from my republica.

Dang-based Ex-combatants Form People’s Volunteer Bureau

Gajendra Bohara

Dang, May 9: Dang-based Maoist ex-combatants who opted for voluntary retirement and youths aligned with Mohan Baidya faction of the Maoist Party on Wednesday threatened to launch revolution against the UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal  and his supporters and also formed the people’s liberation army (PLA)

Nepal – Landless Squatters call for protests across the country

The All Nepal Landless Squatters Association has issued a call for protest  in response to thousands of landless squatters being bulldozed  from their homes on the Bagmati river May 8.

This article is from http://onlinekhabar.com

Kathmandu: May 9th: The All Nepal Landless Squatters Association has warned of stern protest against police suppression in the settlements of landless squatters living at the bank of Bagmati River in Thapathali.
Issuing a press statement today, the Association warned of organizing protests and demanded proper alternative to the management of the landless squatters.

Issuing the statement General Secretary of the Association, Puskar BK, has urged the landless squatters living across the country to express solidarity in the protests.

Nepal – Security Strategy for May 27th

The constituent assembly process has again failed to draft a constitution that would benefit the people of Nepal. The numerous  nationalities of the country have been left in the lurch, as the CA could not decide on a proper federal system to guarantee their rights. In response, Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai is calling for new elections in November, while nearly every other political force in the country–including the revolutionary faction of the UCPN(M) is calling for him to step down.

The situation in Nepal is unstable again, and as the article below suggests, security forces, no doubt with blessings from India and the US, are installing measures to curtail any rebellion of the people. It seems clear now, that if there is a road to revolution in Nepal, it will not be through the Constituent Assembly process.

[Intro by Redpines] This article is from Nepalnews.com

New Security Strategy to be Enforced in Kim Valley for May 27

A new security strategy has been prepared to obviate possible risks during the period around the promulgation of the new constitution and also to maintain peace and security, RSS reports.

Organizing a press meet in the capital  on Tuesday, Metropolitan Police Commissioners Office said the strategy would be implemented in three phases.

West Bengal Chief Minister flees audience of Maoist students

Nepal: Gajurel says constitution already drafted in India

UCPN(M) secretary CP Gajurel

This article is from My Republica

Gajurel  – Govt Conspiring to Bring Sponsored Constitution

Republica

Kathmandu, May 12: UCPN (Maoist) Secretary CP Gajurel  claimed on Saturday that the government and major political parties were creating an environment to impose state of emergency  for what he called promulgating a ‘sponsored constitution’.

Addressing a program organized to launch a book ‘Nepali Janayudhha’ (People’s War) authored by Dr. Rishi  Raj Baral at the factional headquarters of Maoist party’s Senior vice-chairman Mohan Baidya in Kupandole, Gajurel said in a veiled language that the new constitution has already been drafted in India.

He alleged that Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and the Prime Minister and party Vice Chairman Baburam, along with the leaders of Nepali Congress. UML, and Madhesi parties were trying to endorse a ‘ready-made’  constitution on May 27th even though they seem busy in political negotiations these days.

India: West Bengal chief terrified of Maoist students

The following video Mamata Banerjee, the anti-communist chief minister of West Bengal becomes angry and storms out of a television station as she suspects students in the audience of being Maoist cadres or supporters. Thanks to B and BJ for pointing this out. 

Nepal: Squatter Settlements Bulldozed – Police Fire Teargas and Rubber Bullets

The Nepali people are being bulldozed and teargassed.  For living in settlements.  And being poor in one of the poorest countries in the world.  And in a country that is known for its Maoist revolutionary  people and its revolutionary struggle.

The media calls them squatters.  There is an estimated population of 25,000 people living in various spots along the Bagmati river in  Kathmandu.

We should also remind readers that these people are being removed by a government led by Baburam Bhattarai, a member of one wing of the UCPN(M). Revolutionary forces within the Maoist party have refused to participate in this government. 

We will publish all the stories on this we can find.  And if readers have info on this please send your comments.

This article is from my republica

Government Bulldozes Bagmati Squatter Settlement

Arjun Poudel

Kathmandu, May 9: Over 250 squatter homes were demolished when the authorities sent bulldozers to the slum settlement on the  bank of the Bagmati river near Thapathali Tuesday morning.

The ruling classes tremble: Maoists expand influence in Northeast India

Location of Assam within India

The following article about the expanding operations of the CPI(Maoist) into northeast India originally appeared at A critique of the times. 

The Northeast is in danger of becoming the next Maoist hub

January 15 2012

Reports of Maoists mobilising people against dams in Arunachal Pradesh, shortly after Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had warned about ultra-Left presence in Assam, can only mean that policymakers both in New Delhi and the North-East can no longer ignore the presence of the Reds in the region. The situation in the state is increasingly worrying, especially now that captured Maoist members have reportedly confessed links to elements in the North-East.

Gogoi’s claims were not backed by reports from the ground. All he said was that two officials – one from the Assam Students Youths Organisation (ASYO) and the other from the Assam Chah Janajati Suraksha Samiti (ACJSS) – had been nabbed by security forces in Orissa’s jungles. He did not have any more incriminating information to offer, except to say that these were frontal organisations of the Maoists. Moreover, the timing of this revelation was suspect – it came close on the heels of the tripartite Suspension of Operations being signed by the Union and state governments with the overground faction of the ULFA led by Arabinda Rajkhowa.

CPI(Maoist) calls for bandh on May 16

The following is a press statement released by the CPI(Maoist). It discusses recent attacks on Maoist forces and adivasi peoples by Operation Green Hunt, as well as the role of the Indian Army in these brutal incursions. In response, the Maoists are calling for a large bandh, which is a kind of strike, enforced by the revolutionaries:

The Central Committee of our Party has given the call for a 24-hour `Bharat Bandh’ on 16 May to stop the fascist attacks on the people of the country by the exploitative ruling governments, to prevent the deployment of army in Bastar under Operation Green Hunt, to send back the armed forces camping in the pretext of `training’, to unconditionally release the adivasis and political prisoners confined in the jails of the country, and to demand the scrapping of the proposed fascist NCTC.

Bharat Bandha : CPI (Maoist)

( Comrade Gudsa Usendi, the  Spokesperson of Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC) of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has released a press statement on  4 May 2012. He has focused on the brutal attacks on the oppressed people of  India, by the facist   Indian Government. He stresses : The Central Committee of our Party has given the call for a 24-hour `Bharat Bandh’ on 16 May to stop the fascist attacks on the people of the country by the exploitative ruling governments…)

The Indian state is relentlessly continuing its extremely brutal attacks on the people of the country, particularly the adivasis, in the last two and half years in the name of Operation Green Hunt. The police and paramilitary forces unleashed by the ruling classes are perpetrating acts of `encounter’ killings, mass murders, sexual assault, torture, burning of villages, destruction of crops and grains, plunder of peoples’ property, wanton arrests and forced `disappearances etc. These forces have carried out the cold-blooded murder of more than 250 adivasis in the last two and half years in Dandakaranya alone. The objective of this war on people is to uproot the ongoing Maoist movement in the country, particularly in its central and eastern regions.