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"There cannot be a black to white evolution in Nepal"

Suresh Nambath

The country faces the twin challenges of bringing into the political mainstream the left-wing Maoists and keeping in check a right-wing monarch, according toKanak Mani Dixit, Editor ofHimal, who was in the forefront of the pro-democracy struggle. In an interview in Chennai recently, Mr. Dixit says he is optimistic about the future. Excerpts:

— Photo: K. Pichumani

Kanak Mani Dixit: "India realised that stability in Nepal would no longer come with the King occupying the throne."

How important was the inclusion of the Maoists in the campaign for democracy against the King in Nepal?

Once the Maoists realised they could not win with the gun, they decided to come into multi-party politics. This allowed the political parties to have an alliance with the Maoists on the basis of a 12-point agreement in November 2005. The people thus were hopeful of both peace and democracy. Without the Maoists coming into multi-party politics, there could not have been peace, and without the political parties, there could not have been democracy. The Maoists played a peaceful, supportive role. The King had the intention to create a police state, but not the intellectual or managerial capacity.

Did the circumstances in which King Gyanendra took over (after a palace massacre) contribute to the erosion of his political legitimacy?

I don't think these had as much of a role as his own actions after he became King. Nepal had 12 years of complete pluralistic democracy. The people had tasted that. We had our first people's movement in 1990. We got a new Constitution and between 1990 and 2002, we had a full-fledged parliamentary democracy. It got a bad name because both the Maoists on the extreme Left and the King on the extreme Right wanted to create a propaganda of a failed democracy, which is not true. We didn't have a revolution, we had a movement, an evolution towards a new regime. International legitimacy and national legitimacy came after the re-institution of the parliament.

To what extent did pressure from the international community, and India in particular, make a difference?

The worst thing that the King did for Nepal was to militarise it, and give the Army generals ambitions, and really create a move towards converting Nepal into a Burma run by a junta. The international community and India, in particular, were very strongly against the royal move in that year-and-a-half. They denied the King the recognition of his coup. India was significant because it realised that stability in Nepal would no longer come with the King occupying the throne. In its own self-interest, India sided with the people of Nepal as represented by the political parties. And India also looked the other way when the political parties and the Maoists were meeting semi-secretly in New Delhi. That must be regarded as a positive contribution for the evolution in Nepal. The King was about to militarise us. We were right at the edge of the precipice. And we had to have a people' s movement in the Spring of 2006. Otherwise, we would have got into the monsoon, then the festival season in Autumn, then the cold of the winter. By that time, the militarisation and the King's rule would have been entrenched. And the international community would have had to say, realistically, that "we've got to go with what we've got." So, the people of Nepal arose at the penultimate moment. I would've much rather wished that the revival of the Parliament had come not through a proclamation from the royal palace but wrested [from the King] from the street.

But that would have meant an immediate end to monarchy, without anyone else in power.

Not necessarily, because Parliament might have decided, as they have now, to still let the Constituent Assembly decide. What we have now is a seven-party government ruling the country with the commitment to move towards a Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly is required for two reasons. One, it was the minimum demand of the Maoists; to bring them in from the jungle to the political sphere. The other reason is the disenfranchised communities of Nepal. The old constitution could not deliver inclusive governance for a people divided by ethnicity, region, faith, and language.

What is the immediate challenge in Nepal, now that the King is reined in?

The immediate concern is if you want to go to a Constituent Assembly, you need to have elections, you cannot have a situation where the State has its Army and security forces and the Maoists have their own private army. Therefore, the immediate challenge in Nepal is "arms management." The Maoists do not concede they have lost the war and you cannot talk of demobilisation. But it was not a Maoist-led movement, only a Maoist-supported movement. The Maoists in fact realised that only a peaceful demonstration could bring down the King. For ten years they fought in the jungle, but they could not bring down the state. Nepal is today in a unique position where a violent insurgency of ten years' standing can actually be brought into open politics. It is not going to be easy, but I think the probabilities are higher that the Maoists will indeed lay down arms. But there cannot be a black to white evolution. There is going to be some grey period.

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"There cannot be a black to white evolution in Nepal"

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