New Nepal one year later: still waiting to be born

Click for full picture. Photo: Eric Ribellarsi

The reporting team of Winter Has Its End is now starting work in Nepal. This is the first report from Kathmandu.

By Jim Weill and Eric Ribellarsi

We have arrived in Nepal, the center of a radical Maoist revolution. We stood here last year, when half a million Nepalis declared their hope and determination to make a revolution. There has been a double stalemate since then, both in the constituional assembly and within the Maoist party. Every aspect of political life is marked by the need to break out, push aside roadblocks, and take a leap.

This time, our journey begins during the heart of the monsoon rains. Every night, dark clouds roll in and shower the city, mopping up Kathmandu’s thick, throat-burning pollution. When the morning comes, the clouds are gone just as quickly as they came. These rains muddy the streets and green the sharply rising hills that surround the city.

The monsoon season is also a time when tourist traffic is low in Nepal. Life generally grinds to a halt. Because the roads are muddy, travel throughout the country is very difficult.

Remembering Charu Mazumdar: Still that spring thunder stirs us!

Charu Mazumdar, leader of the armed Naxalbari uprising of peasants and founder of the modern Maoist movement

Charu Mazumdar was the communist leader of India’s 1967 uprising in the village of Naxalbari — an opening shot of a fierce revolutionary wave that raged for years. This daring act of revolt created the Naxalite movement — the heart of India’s modern revolutionary effort.

Charu Mazumdar became one of the most wanted men in India, and was captured by police in 1971. He died ten days later at 4 am on July 28, 1972 — in Lal Bazar lock-up – a prison notorious for torture. Today, July 28, we remember him and the many martyrs in India’s great historic struggle for liberation and communism.

In 2007, several of us were looking for a form to write our first Kasama manifesto. We wanted to use a style sharply different from Bob Avakian (whose rambling, self-indulgent style reflects key weaknesses of his method). We chose to study closely the “Eight Documents” of Charu Mazumdar (plus early pieces by Turkey’s Maoist Ibrahim Kaypakkaya). The result was the format we adopted — “9 Letters to Our Comrades.”

Charu’s work can be found in his own section of the Marxist Internet Archive.

Here is a brief biography of Charu Mazumdar from an archive of Indian communist documents: