THE SOUL OF THE BUSINESS
A PRIVATE   FAITH MADE DANGEROUSLY PUBLIC 
The Making of a Paper
 By SHOMA CHAUDHURY
 In Gratitude
 By TARUN J TEJPAL

The truth is that Maoists, now following a ceasefire, control most of Nepal, whereas the king earlier had only Kathmandu and the satellite towns under heavy army control. But still, of the 75 districts, the Maoists control 75 percent, and their mass popularity is entrenched across the landscape

The night is thick with the smell of the forests and mountains, while beautiful river Karnali ripples below like a shining, pure miracle in the far western end of Nepal. A miracle, because it is perhaps the last untamed river in this Himalayan nation of 6,000-plus small and big rivers, where its biggest rivers like Gandak and Mahakali have become trapped victims of unequal Indo-Nepal treaties, whereby the big brother gobbles all the water and little Nepal is left high, dry and thirsty. The Japanese have built a fantastic hanging bridge over Karnali, and as the night darkens as it does in the forests, children from the village across, Chisapani run across the bridge, shouting ‘Loktantric Ganatantra’, democracy, democracy, republic, republic, like a childhood chant of magical freedom.

This little village too protested for 19 days, blocked the highway, shouting slogans popular across Nepal — Paras goonda, rukh mein jhunda. (Paras is a goon, hang him on the tree). Paras is the notorious son of autocratic King Gyanendra. Also, Gyane chor, desh chod (Thief Gyanendra, leave the nation). In Nepal, clearly, it’s an autocratic king versus the people.

But Gyanendra, or his son, are in no mood to leave. He is still there, hanging on, and so is his Royal Nepal Army, and so is the discredited army chief, General Pyar Jung Thapa, and the miscellaneous feudal chieftains and the stinking rich elite, who have usurped and fleeced this poor nation of its blood, sweat and natural resources; who have killed, arrested, maimed and eliminated thousands of ordinary people and dissenters, especially the underground rebels of the Nepal Communist Party (Maoists); who have gagged the press, co-opted the judiciary, destroyed public institutions, hauled writers, artists, lawyers, housewives, human rights activists inside jails and torture chambers, and who had unleashed a reign of State terror and the nights of long knives after the Emergency last year.

Hail The Martyr: Maoists pay homage to a fallen comrade at Choranta village

We crossed river Karnali in the midnight dark. A wiry man in uniform crosses our way and disappears in the shadows. “Maobadi,” (Maoist), whispers Guruji, our driver. We have travelled almost 1,000 km in the last nine days across the strongest Maoist territories, so we are not surprised. We move on, further west, into the tense, volatile, often fiercely violent forests and byways of Nepal’s first revolution.

Army jeeps upturned, tyres, drums, barbed wire, bunkers, young Gorkha soldiers with their hands on the trigger in blue fatigue, tired and edgy, hundreds of check posts, barricades, barriers. We cross through epic battle-sites, police stations bombed out, bridges under which they killed the Maoists and dumped the bodies, villages where the young ones disappeared, massacred. We enter a sudden battle zone, an empty and desolate army check post on the highway, no soldiers in the bunkers, no guns behind the sandbags, no barricades. It’s silence, and even the trees don’t seem to move. We slow down and stop.

Anything can happen. They can shoot to kill. They don’t trust anybody. We can be the enemy. In these mountains of dense forests, the Maoists can come anytime, from any side, this too is their stronghold and they know the terrain so well. Sometimes they attack the army or district headquarters (as in Kapilavastu in April) in thousands, 5,000-6,000 strong, as they did at Tansen when they captured the town, led by women commanders. (Women constitute 40 percent of the Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA)).

We hesitate, fear runs through our veins, but we move. And then suddenly, a flashlight blinds us. It moves inside our Tata Sumo. “Who are you, where are you going in this night?,” the voice is far away and anonymous, one voice, but there are others, and the flashlight is still scanning us. It’s the army and we can’t see them. Guruji tells ‘the voice’ that we are Indian journalists. The voice retreats but returns. “Okay, go, but don’t come back in the night.”

Symbolic: Gyanendra Memorial was turned into a memorial for a dalit martyr in Bhimnagar

Not all army check posts are as tense as this midnight mountain post. Nepal is slowly discovering the first, eclectic, half-empty joys of democracy after a long spell of severe repression. The 19-day non-violent revolution has pushed the king into a corner, but rumours of palace intrigues, betrayals and compromises are all over the place. And the old fears still remain.

Will the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) led by old and wily Girija Prasad Koirala, yet again betray the people, as it has done so many times in the past? Will the army stage a coup? Surely, the elite, fattened by absolute, autocratic power and pelf, will not give up so easily? Will the Maobadis be allowed to join the interim government? Will the discredited 1990 Constitution be scrapped, an interim Constitution be formed and the SPA’s 12 point-agreement with the Maoists be adhered to in its totality? Will the Constituent Assembly be formed, and what will happen to the king and the army, and the pla spread across the rural landscape? Will there be a counter-revolution?

The truth is that Maoists, now following a ceasefire, control most of Nepal, whereas the king earlier had only Kathmandu and the satellite towns under heavy army control. But still, of the 75 districts, the Maoists control 75 percent, and their mass popularity is entrenched across the landscape. They are feared and admired for their sacrifice, tenacity and guts, they live and die for the poorest of the poor, among whom they work and survive, building schools and roads, distributing land, providing instant justice, and most crucially, creating social and political empowerment, political awareness and effectively destroying the ancient structures of feudal oppression.

And the people hate the king. They blame him for the palace massacre. “We personally abused the king and his son. He has to go,” said Maoist Comrade Athak in Nepalganj at the Bahraich border in UP. He is the district secretary of Bake and Bardia. In Mahendranagar at the Uttaranchal border (now renamed Bhimnagar by the revolution after Bhim Dutt Pant who led an armed peasant movement in the 1960s and was killed by the king’s men), Krishna Dutt of the Communist Party (UML) says, “The Maoists are an invisible force, but they are always there, and they should be in the government because they too were a major force in this jan andolan.”