By Achyut Wagle

The UCPN (M) truly wants to remain in the mainstream of Nepali Politics. It, therefore, has ventured into a dramatic change in policy paradigm through its Seventh National Congress. The seventh Congress was a hundred and eighty degree shift in the party's policy stand, from its Sixth Congress twenty-one years ago. The previous one had adopted the policy of raising arms against the state and the recent one has formally proposed to relinquish them altogether -- a changed face of revolution, as the party has baptized it.


The Paradigm Shift

UCPN (M)’s Seventh General Congress held in Hetauda from February 2-7 undoubtedly heralded a new era in Nepal's politics. Thanks to a complete  departure from the doctrine of 'bullets for political change', which had been the political mainstay of the party for the last two decades, to a fairly convincingly documented commitment to embrace 'the politics of ballots and open competition.' With this development, the much needed optimism to restore a peaceful competitive democracy in Nepal has  now revived, more reassuringly than ever before. Skeptics there are, but when the largest political force of the country resolutely announces that it would strip away the hangover of 'establishing the  people's republic' by all possible violent means, the country must give them a chance, at least for once. And, Nepal has no alternative to that for now.


Understandably, this recast was not easy for the party which fought a ten-year long guerrilla war, sent its fighters home largely discontented with the resettlement arrangements and suffered a split recently. But the new policy paper crafted jointly by Chairman of the party, Puspa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) and Prime Minister Dr. Baburam  Bhattarai who is also the senior vice-chair of the party needed to gather massive guts to face the present day reality and come out of the longheld revolutionary hegemony.
 

As evident at the Congress venue, it indeed was a daunting endeavour for the party leadership to rein in and satisfy the cadres about this change rather unexpected for many of them, who were initially indoctrinated, rather foolhardily, to establish a proletarian dictatorship before they would be asked to put their guns down. They were not ready to believe the claim that whatever the party could achieve politically from the 10-year 'revolution' was optimum for now.


In this context, the Dahal-Bhattarai duo deserves a real acclaim for not only making this ideological change possible, and that too relatively smoothly, but also for accepting the fact that there is no polity beyond political co-existence with other forces and a rule-based competition with them in polls.

It was not in a very distant past that the whole party rallied behind a highly mystified dogma of Prachandapath. But over the last seven years, when Prachanda himself has been at the centre of national politics, Prachanda-path emained a neverexplained political term and now it is completely out of the party's official literature. This is indicative of the urgency felt by Prachanda to come out of the violent legacy of the insurgency era. In addition to this, to the surprise of many, he has started to publicly criticize summary execution of his opponents by former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and cautiously negate Maoism for being 'not replicable in our different context.' (It is a great irony though, for both Dahal and Bhattarai deliberately wore special hair-do to look like Stalin as early as a couple of years ago and the party's official banner still carries Stalin's portrait).
 

Dahal's meticulously crafted paper makes every effort possible to sound credible to both- his cadres by using lexicons akin to communist glossary and to the world by practically accepting the ground realities. 'Nepal no longer is a semi-feudal and semicolonial state, but rather a new comprador bourgeoisie capitalist one,'  reads his main policy paper suggesting that another armed rebellion under any pretext would be unjustifiable under these realities. His assessment that 'Nepal is also under the influence of a neo-colonialism of globalization is not much different from the standpoint taken by the underdeveloped world in the world arena, albeit with a bit different diplomatic decorum. He has repeatedly tried to reassure that the party would no longer indulge in a killing spree in the name of physically eliminating the class-enemy, as it has changed plank from the abolition of social classes to capitalistic growth leading to socialism.


This transformation is essentially not much different from the 'people's  multi-party democracy' (jantako  bahudaliya janabad) propounded by late general secretary of the CPN-UML, Madan Bhandari, some 23 years ago. Dahal's detractors have even gone to the extent of calling him ‘nothing but a mere shadow of the UML’. Regardless of anything, this a was much-needed change in the Maoist fold for Nepal to  resolve its political impasse peacefully and it was duly heeded by the Maoists, which is a welcome development.


Dahal's policy paper, finally adopted as the 7th Congress Resolution with some ritual modifications, at times is unexpectedly mild and flexible. As reason for this, Dahal has tried to vindicate that all inflexibility, irrationality, dogmatism and impractical policy rigidities had gone with the party's break-away Mohan Baidya faction and what now remains in the UCPN (M) is a political organization with modern, 21st century outlook and vision.


Grip Not Loosened

Despite all odds, Dahal has emerged quintessentially an unchallenged leader from this Congress as well. It appears that as long as Dahal and Bhattarai can work together, a third person is  unlikely to claim the topmost position in the party, for the foreseeable future. At least, this looks like a smooth sail at the centre. But the situation at the
grassroots is much different as reported by the respective local representatives of the Congress. They complained that the party had failed to assign political responsibility to the entire rank and file in the organizational structure. Former cadres who returned home dejected are hardly under party discipline and a large 'garbage lot' of socially discarded people who were used during the armed rebellion are proving a nuisance to entire party. These factors can erode Dahal's grip on the party in the long run. When the party actually goes to the polls sooner or later, Dahal is likely to face a steeply uphill task of differentiating his party with the one like the CPN-UML and establishing the rationale of killing so many thousands of people at the cost of the country's great opportunity for development and growth, ultimately, just to become another UML. But for now he is the helmsman, which in turn is an opportunity to keep his grip intact with tactical moves like the present one.


Confession Drama
 
Dahal has confessed that his resignation from the prime ministerial position over the tussle with the then Chief of Nepal Army, Rookmangud Katwal, was a naïve and unnecessary emotionalism. Though not explicitly expressed, his remorse was apparently for the anti-Indian tirade he belched out while leaving the post; perhaps in hope of placating the power blocs in the southern neighbour that he believes have gone against him since. In a bid to be seen as a  mature political force, he has omitted all traditionally used vocabularies such as 'Indian  expansionism, American and Russian imperialism, Chinese revisionism' etc from the official party literature. 'The differences now should be dealt  through mature diplomacy,' he argued to pacify the cadres. But, that is what exactly should be done,  practically.


Economy First
 
The party's new policy paper has put the economic agenda in the forefront of its 'vision', so to speak. Its policy paper on harnessing the country’s water resource by mobilizing the local and domestic resources and setting up a production and development brigade are testimony to this. But, these propositions lack maturity and need a gross  overhaul that suits to the ground realities of the country.


Developing hydropower projects on a commercial scale with only local resources is a sweet but impossible dream. It is not like a cooperative farming where labour-intensive production can be adopted. Capital, technology and market - all three have to be explored and traded across the national borders.


It is not difficult to understand that Dahal needed some mechanism to adjust the party’s erstwhile armed members. So, he proposed a production and development brigade. It sounds like a good idea from the supply side, but as a responsible political party, UCPN (M) needs to adequately consider the demand side of it as well. What to produce? How and where to produce? Where to sell it? And, will his cadres be willing to be in another labour camp of a sort for this purpose? These are a few example- questions to argue that the UCPN (M) needs further clarifications in these propositions to remain in the political forefront in future Nepal. Nevertheless, the party has made a good beginning by the cardinal policy change through its recently concluded 7th Congress.


Despite a good and encouraging beginning to transform his party into a contemporaneous force, Dahal has left many crucial unanswered questions which still cast doubts over his intentions. He has mentioned Nepali Congress as the 'prime enemy' but has failed to enumerate the reasons. There is no mention of what the party would do to the land and property forcefully occupied by its cadres during the insurgency period. How will the party view the private property rights, civil  rights and individual as well as press freedom? Until these questions are answered satisfactorily, the proposed transformations from the margins will not yield the benefits as aspired by Dahal and his party. But again, transformation is a continuous process and momentum is more important than the event.