Author: Ajay Suri
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 14, 2001
Tucked away in mid-western Nepal
are names that are exotic even to the intrepid back packer: Rukum, Rolpa,
Ramechap, Sindupelchok, Khotang, Sinduli, Panchthar. There're also seemingly
so distant from governance and development that they have cradled the movement
that's now the bane of the Nepalese government: the dreaded, shadowy Maoist
uprising.
Nepal's Public Enemy No. 1 has left
a bloody trail: over 1800 deaths in the last five years. It's believed
that the Maoists engineered the riots in Kathmandu the day after the royal
massacre, and police have been put on high alert against them.
At Talkot village on the outskirts
of Kathmandu, residents speak of the Maoists in hushed tones. "You never
know when one of them will strike. The police and Army are here, but the
Maoists are too violent," said a resident.
Maoist violence has been reported
from over 50 of Nepal's 75 districts. Today, its "people's governments"
are found in at least six districts of western Nepal, where the police
and their antiquated 303s dare not venture and outsiders need special passes
from party leaders. The Maoist agenda of social justice includes an end
to monarchy and a secular form of governance.
The movement's ideologue is Baburam
Bhattarai, whose provocative India-RAW thesis on the palace massacre in
the Kantipur newspaper got its editor jailed. A PhD from New Delhi's Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU), the underground leader is credited with having
converted several students from Kathmandu's Tribhovan University and other
colleges and schools of Nepal to the movement, which has around 6,000 members.
Former Indian ambassador to Nepal
and ex-JNU professor, Bimal Prasad remembers Bhattarai vividly. Bhattarai
may have been miles away from home, but Nepali politics was top-of-the-mind
for him. "Bhattarai had established himself as a communist leader even
then. Many Nepalis would flock to him.
Though actively involved in his'
country's communist movement, he did not show any interest in the leftist
campus politics of JNU," says Prasad. While at, JNU, he adds, Bhattarai
also established contact with Naxalite leaders in West Bengal.
