Democratisation and the growth of communism in Nepal: A Peruvian scenario in the making?

Abstract

This article traces the history of the communist movement in Nepal, its growth and division during the long struggle against royal power, and its consolidation during the "democracy movement'. More specifically, it examines the phenomenon of Maoism in Nepal, traces its links with Peru and investigates whether Maoist parties are capable of generating in Nepal the kind of unexpected and dramatic impact which their counterpart has had on the Peruvian political system. -from Author

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Democratisation and the growth of communism in Nepal: a Peruvian scenario in the making? Journal of
Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Vol. 30, No.3 (Nov. 1992), p 358-86
DEMOCRATISATION AND THE GROWTH OF COMMUNISM IN NEPAL; A PERUVIAN
SCENARIO IN THE MAKING?
R. Andrew Nickson
Senior Lecturer
Development Administration Group
School of Public Policy
University of Birmingham
Birmingham, England.
Abstract
Nepal is one of the least developed countries of the world. For long an absolute monarchy, during 1990
widespread civil protest led by a Movement for the Restoration of Democracy led to the introduction of
constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system of government. Counter to international trends, this
democratisation process was accompanied by the rapid growth of communism as an electoral force, reaching
38% of the national vote during the general election of May 1991. This article traces the origins and growth of
communism in Nepal and singles out the strength of Maoism for special attention. In particular, it highlights
the Mas(h)al party and its fraternal links with the Partido Comunista Peruano - Sendero Luminoso (known as
"Shining Path") through the Revolutionary International Movement. The article compares the conditions for
revolutionary Maoism in Peru and Nepal and concludes by evaluating the future prospects of Maoism in
Nepal.
1. Introduction
Nepal presents a rare exception to the contemporary global trend under which political democratisation has become
associated with the decline of communism and the ascendancy of neo-liberalism. The rapid demise of monarchical
autocracy in early 1990 was spearheaded by a political alliance between the centrist Nepali Congress Party and an
orthodox communist party. The latter emerged as a major electoral force in the first democratic election held the
following year. Furthermore, Maoism, virtually extinct in the rest of the world except Peru, also emerged as a potent
political force. This article traces the history of the communist movement in Nepal, its growth and division during the
long struggle against royal power, and its consolidation during the 'democracy movement'. More specifically, it examines
the phenomena of Maoism in Nepal, traces its links with Peru and investigates whether Maoist parties are capable of
generating in Nepal the kind of unexpected and dramatic impact which their counterpart has had on the Peruvian
political system.
2. The history of communism in Nepal
Communism arrived late in Nepal, a fact which can be largely attributed to the international isolation, extremely low
levels of literacy and repression of political forces which characterised the country under the rule of the Rana dynasty
(1846-1951). Political parties were banned throughout the Rana period, and Britain remained the only country with
diplomatic representation in Kathmandu. As late as 1952 only 9.5 per cent of the male population over 10 years of age
and 0.7 per cent of the female population in the same age group were estimated to be literate. The independence
movement in India provided the catalyst for change, and most of the early Nepalese communists played an active role in
the anti-British struggle in India.1 A Nepal Communist Movement was formed in 1947 and this was transformed into
the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) in Calcutta on 15 September 1949 under the leadership of Pushpa Lal Shrestha, the
founding father of Nepalese communism. The NCP held its first conference in 1953, at which Man Mohan Adhikari
was elected as secretary-general.
The 1950s was a decade of great political uncertainty in Nepal.
Following the overthrow of the Rana regime, King Tribhuvan signed a tripartite agreement in Delhi, known as the

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"Delhi Compromise", for power-sharing with the Nepali Congress Party and the Ranas. He returned home to play the
role of a constitutional monarch and on 18 February 1951 made a Royal Proclamation stating that "The governance of
the nation shall be in pursuance to a democratic constitution as framed by the constituent assembly elected by the
people". An interim government was formed to oversee this process. However, despite this unequivocal commitment,
which he repeated several times in later years, the King continually refused to allow the framing of a constitution by a
popularly elected constituent assembly. Nevertheless, municipal elections were held in September 1963, and although
the NCP was officially banned, six of its candidates won. "This was the largest number from any party and an
unexpected show of strength in the nation's capital".2
Within the NCP, divisions arose concerning the attitude which the party should have towards the monarchy, in a
country where, according to Hindu mythology, the king was still revered as a god. A reformist faction led by Keshar
Jung Rayamajhi argued in favour of a more conciliatory position towards the monarchy, hoping to sway Tribhuvan in
the direction of constitutional monarchy. This view predominated at the second party congress in 1957 after which
Keshar Jung Rayamajhi replaced Adhikari as secretary-general.
Following the death of King Tribhuvan in 1955, his son Mahendra ascended to the throne and soon refused to honour
the Royal Proclamation of 1951. Instead, and in response to an all-party non-cooperation movement launched in 1958,
he appointed members to a special Constitution Committee. They drafted a new constitution, which was enacted and
promulgated by the king himself in February 1959. This constitution entrenched the power of the monarchy, by
reserving emergency, residuary and other ultimate powers in the crown. Despite the formal appearance of a
parliamentary system and a constitutional monarchy, the king retained the right to dissolve parliament and the cabinet.
He also headed a council of ministers and appointed half of the members of the upper house.
Despite its serious shortcomings, the political parties agreed to operate under the 1959 Constitution and the first ever
general elections were held in mid-1959. The poor showing of the NCP reflected the rift in the party and lack of support
for its policy of support for the monarchy under the Rayamajhi leadership. The centrist Nepali Congress Party swept to
victory with 74 of the 109 seats, and 38 per cent of the national vote, while the NCP won only 4 seats and 7.4 per cent
of the vote. However, this experience with multiparty democracy was short-lived. A timid attempt at land reform by the
new Nepali Congress government led by B.P. Koirala provoked the wrath of feudal landlords allied to the royal palace.
On 15 December 1960 Mahendra, supported by the military, took power in a bloodless coup. He dismissed the cabinet,
dissolved parliament, and arrested major political leaders, justifying his actions by reference to the emergency powers
vested in him under the 1959 Constitution. Exactly two years later, he promulgated a new constitution which introduced
the Panchayat political regime, under which all political parties were henceforth banned. The royal coup led to the first
major split within the NCP. Keshar Jung Rayamajhi and his followers agreed to collaborate with the Panchayat system,
in return for which he was rewarded with membership of the royal advisory body, the Raj Sabha.3 Jung Rayamajhi was
expelled from the party and replaced as secretary-general by Tulsi Lal Amatya at its third congress at Banaras in May
1962.
The reverberations of the Sino-Soviet split in the mid-1960s shook the NCP to the core for two major reasons. The
party was still in its infancy and had yet to develop a detailed understanding of the peculiar class formation of Nepal, a
country which was only then emerging from feudalism. Instead, its leaders were strongly influenced by the international
dogmas currently in vogue, which they mechanically applied to Nepalese reality. In addition, Nepal's geographical
location as a buffer state between Tibet (which had been invaded by China in 1950) and India, which remained the
major ally of the Soviet Union in the region, meant that foreign support for one or other faction was explained not
simply by ideological factors, as in much of the Third World at the time, but more importantly by pragmatic strategic
considerations. The result was that the communist movement split into a myriad of competing groups.
3. The Nepal Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)
The most significant faction to emerge from this split was led by young party activists Mohan Chandra Adhikari,
Chandra Prakash Mainali and Radha Krishna Mainali. Together they formed the Koshi Regional Committee of the NCP
in south-eastern Nepal. Influenced by the Cultural Revolution in China, and by the teachings of Charu Mazumdar, the
architect of the Naxalite uprising in neighbouring West Bengal, they launched an underground guerrilla movement,
known as the Jhapa Movement.4 However, their activities were brought to an abrupt halt in 1971 by an effective
counter-insurgency campaign by the Nepalese army during which many of their cadres were killed. The abject failure of
the Jhapa guerrilla campaign forced a detailed self-criticism within the ranks of this faction, from which emerged a deep

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distrust of 'imported' political dogmas and a new emphasis on constructing a specifically Nepalese road to socialism.
Comprising a cadre of full-time and well-educated activists, the faction gradually emerged in 1978 as the Nepal
Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), popularly known as MALE, and engaged itself in a long-term strategy of
constructing and consolidating a nation-wide structure of clandestine party cells.
Following the death of King Mahendra in 1972, his son Birendra succeeded to the throne. Hopes of a liberalisation
under the Eton-educated monarch proved ill-founded and in 1975 a second amendment to the 1962 constitution
resulted in the further centralisation of the political system and greater persecution of political parties. Growing
discontent at Birendra's autocratic rule surfaced in 1979 as a result of the torture of a group of students who had
publicly protested against the hanging of the prime minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Street protests rapidly
escalated and led to the formation of an independent student movement. This sparked off a nation-wide movement
against the Panchayat system, culminating in civil disturbances in the centre of Kathmandu when the government
printing press was burnt down. The military was called in to restore order and, in an attempt to defuse the growing
opposition to his regime, King Birendra announced that a referendum would be held on the future of the Panchayat
system. In common with many other communist factions MALE originally dismissed the referendum as a hoax, but it
later changed its position to one of active support for the campaign in favour of a multi-party system. In the run-up to
the referendum, MALE demonstrated the success of its strategy of building a national party structure through its
capacity for mass mobilisation in opposition to the Panchayat system.
The referendum was held in 1980. While the government used all the financial and political resources at its disposal, the
opposition was hampered by the prohibition placed upon the formal organisational structures of political parties.
Despite the fact that vote-rigging took place in many areas and no independent international observers were allowed to
monitor the count, the official majority in favour of the Panchayat system was only 54.8 per cent of the vote, compared
to 45.2 per cent for multiparty democracy, on a turnout of 66.9 per cent. The result was widely interpreted as a symbolic
victory for the opposition, and by participating actively in the campaign, MALE had strengthened its own democratic
credentials in the eyes of the electorate. During the 1980s, the youthful MALE continued to grow in strength, putting
the pro-Soviet NCP-M, led by an older generation, into the shade.5 By the end of the decade, MALE was by far the
strongest and best organised branch of the communist movement in Nepal 6.
4. The Origins of the Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)
While MALE had been building up its organisation during the 1970s and 1980s, a number of orthodox Maoist factions
had remained wedded to a political strategy largely dictated by the fluctuating wishes of Beijing. These groups had
originated at the height of the Sino-Soviet split in 1965 when they broke with the pro-Soviet NCP-M and held a so-
called fourth party congress.7 This group, which became known as the NCP (Fourth Convention) was originally led by
Mohan Bikram Singh and Nirmal Lama. However, following the overthrow of the 'Gang of Four' in China in 1976, it
splintered into several groups. The Fourth Convention faction, itself led by Nirmal Lama, as well as other groups,
recognised the new Chinese leadership. However, one faction, known as the Nepal Communist Party (Mashal), and led
by Mohan Bikram Singh, "... denounced Chinese revisionism as early as 1981".8 It labelled the new Chinese leadership
under Deng Hsiao Ping as counterrevolutionary and declared its continuing allegiance to orthodox Maoism and to the
aims of the Cultural Revolution. Unlike MALE, both the Fourth Convention and Mashal factions boycotted the 1980
referendum.
Mashal was quick to associate itself with an international regrouping of Maoist parties which took place in the wake of
the overthrow of the 'Gang of Four' in China in 1976. In March 1984 Mashal delegates attended the second
international conference of Maoist parties and organisations in London which formed the Revolutionary Internationalist
Movement (RIM). Amongst the other nineteen signatories to the "Declaration of the Revolutionary Internationalist
Movement" at the London conference was the Partido Comunista Peruano - Sendero Luminoso (PCP-SL) ("Peruvian
Communist Party - Shining Party").9 In a similar fashion to that of the NCP (Mashal) which originated from a split in
the Nepalese communist movement, the origins of the PCP-SL are rooted in the history of the wider communist
movement of Peru.10 Soon after the formation of the RIM, Mashal began to express its fervent support for the
revolutionary war waged in Peru by the PCP-SL.
5. The pressure for reform during the 1980s
The promised reforms which followed royal victory in the 1980 referendum only served to strengthen the power of the

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monarchy. The cabinet was restructured in such a way as to restrict its role to day-to-day administration, while policy-
making remained firmly under the control of the king and his palace advisers. However, electoral reform did mean that
for the first time a majority of members of the Rastriya Panchayat ("National Congress") were directly elected, although
exclusively on a non-party basis. In 1981, an independent leftist Padma Ratna Tuladhar was elected in Kathmandu, and
was soon arrested for advocating multiparty democracy in the parliament. In the 1986 general election, which was
boycotted by the Nepali Congress Party, he was joined by fifteen other MALE activists who were elected as
independent candidates. The vociferous activities of these Members of Parliament, effectively functioning as a
parliamentary opposition, served to intensify the demand for reform during the 1980s.
The demand for political reform was strengthened by a new atmosphere of unity which began to develop among the
opposition. This reflected growing popular disenchantment with the Panchayat regime, and the exhaustion of the policy
of reconciliation pursued by the Nepali Congress Party. The deaths of the two historic political leaders of Nepal - B.P.
Koirala, founder of the Nepali Congress Party (in 1982), and Pushpa Lal Shrestha, founder of the Nepal Communist
Party (in 1983), saw leaders of both parties joining together for the first time in public at funeral processions.
The political strategy of the Nepali Congress Party gradually moved towards active non-violent opposition to the
Panchayat regime. In May 1985, it launched a civil disobedience movement starting with a general strike, as well as a
"Fill the jails" campaign which resulted in over 1,000 arrests. Although the campaign rapidly gained ground, it was
abruptly terminated in June when eight persons were killed by terrorist bomb explosions in various parts of the country,
including one in front of the royal palace in the centre of Kathmandu. Responsibility was claimed by a little known
opposition group, the Janabadi Morcha ("People's Front") led by Ram Raja Prasad, who had been living in exile in India
since 1976. However, it was widely believed that provocative elements within the royal establishment were implicated in
these attacks in order to discredit the opposition campaign.11
Despite a new wave of arrests which followed the 1985 bomb attacks, the underlying pressure for reform continued to
rise during the late 1980s. The Panchayat regime, in power for nearly 30 years, had failed dismally to raise living
standards 12. A handful of corrupt politicians had amassed enormous fortunes from smuggling and corrupt activities
associated with the massive inflow of foreign aid.13
A change of strategy within both major parties also spurred the demand for reform. In December 1986, MALE leader
R.K. Mainali, who had been imprisoned since 1973, was released from prison and began to advocate a broad-based
movement against the Panchayat regime. In November 1988, for the first time in 28 years, Nepali Congress leader,
Ganesh Man Singh, was granted an audience with King Birendra in which he submitted his party's demands for the
restoration of democracy. However, the meeting proved abortive when the king refused to accept any of the demands
put forward. Ganesh Man Singh henceforth gave his blessing for a more overt opposition to the Panchayat regime.
In 1988 a series of disasters took place in Nepal. In March 1988 more than 70 people died in a stampede at the National
Football Stadium in Kathmandu and in August a major earthquake struck the eastern part of Nepal, killing 1,200 people
and making many thousands homeless. Despite an international relief effort, the Nepalese army maintained an iron grip
on the distribution of foreign emergency assistance and many of the supplies went astray. There was also widespread
corruption in the management of a national relief fund launched by the royal family. The fact that King Birendra only
visited the affected zone weeks after the earthquake also provoked much criticism.
In addition to the underlying growth in dissent and growing unity among the political opposition, on 23 March 1989
India closed 13 out of the 15 border transit points between the two countries on expiry of a Trade and Transit Treaty
signed in 1978. Since India provided the economic lifeline of Nepal to the outside world, the ensuing economic
blockade had serious consequences for the country. Within weeks, kerosene, petrol and diesel were rationed. Queues
became the norm, sugar ran out of stock for weeks and prices rocketed as merchants speculated with limited stocks.
Among educated Nepalis, the conflict was blamed squarely on King Birendra. He was believed to harbour an irrational
jealously of the Indian Prime Minister Radhiv Gandhi and was accused of unnecessarily provoking the Indian
government by the purchase of arms from the Chinese government.
6. The Movement for the Restoration of Democracy
Against this background of growing economic problems and political dissent, together with the international context of
the world-wide move towards democracy, the various communist factions and the Nepali Congress Party formed a

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coordination committee on 28 December 1989 with the aim of launching a new Movement for the Restoration of
Democracy (MRD). In a remarkable display of ideological unity, seven of the various communist groups, spanning the
pro-Soviet, pro-Chinese and pro-Maoist factions (except Mashal), joined the committee and on 10 January 1990 they
founded the United Left Front (ULF), with a minimum programme which included the abolition of the Panchayat
system and the restoration of multiparty democracy.14 On the same day, King Birendra left for Pokhara on an unofficial
tour of the Western Development Region. This meant that for much of the MRD he would be absent from Kathmandu
and dependent on royal advisors for news of political events.
The Nepali Congress held its national conference in Kathmandu from 18-20 January 1990 in the home of Ganesh Man
Singh. The future Prime Minister of India, Chandra Shekhar, called upon the Nepali people to take to the streets for
democracy and this message was circulated throughout the country by video recordings of the proceedings. At the same
time, various professional groups such as lawyers, doctors, teachers, students and ex-servicemen declared their support
for the MRD. In response, the monarchy took measures to pre-empt the movement. The government stepped up press
censorship, the seizure of newspapers and the arrest of journalists. Extra payments were authorised for local leaders of
the Panchayat system and a pro-government rally was held on 28 January. By 18 February over 4,000 people were in
custody throughout the country, including Sahana Pradhan, the president of the ULF and widow of Pushpa Lal
Shrestha.
The MRD, or Jana Andolan ("People's Movement") as it became known, was officially launched on 18 February, the
official "Democracy Day", which although commemorating the alleged commitment of King Tribhuvan to multiparty
democracy in 1951 had been used ever since 1962 to express support for the partyless Panchayat system. In a Royal
Address on the day, the king defended the Panchayat system as being in accordance with national interests, values and
norms. Nevertheless, in Kathmandu demonstrators succeeded in disrupting the official march and a scheduled
government open-air rally had to be cancelled. In the country as a whole, five people were shot dead by police and a
policeman was stoned to death. These were the first of a daily series of killings which became a regular feature of the
MRD.
On 19 February the opposition called the first Nepal Bandh ("nationwide strike") which succeeded in bringing
Kathmandu to a standstill. On 22 February the US State Department issued the first of several statements during the
MRD, which called upon the king to begin a dialogue with the opposition and for an end to human rights violations.
Although a second Nepal Bandh on 2 March succeeded in making Kathmandu a deserted city, the MRD began to run
out of steam in the face of extensive media censorship, and the arbitrary arrest and torture of detainees. A large police
presence forced the movement to resort to lightning demonstrations in several parts of Kathmandu and a third Nepal
Bandh on 14 March found less support among the population. On 16 March, King Birendra ended his stay in Pokhara
and returned to Kathmandu. Despite widespread expectations to the contrary, he showed no readiness to enter into a
dialogue with the opposition and stated instead that there was no need for fundamental changes since the present
Panchayat regime had been endorsed by the result of the 1980 referendum.
A major turning point in the fortunes of the MRD took place towards the end of March as the regime focused its
attention on the education sector. On 20 March, seven hundred academics and professionals met at Tribhuvan
University in the Kathmandu Valley with the intention of discussing the role of intellectuals in the current political crisis.
Instead, the meeting was halted by police and everyone present arrested. Although most were released within a matter of
days, this first-hand experience of repression had a radicalizing effect upon influential sectors of the urban middle class
(journalists, doctors, university lecturers and lawyers). The decision of the government to close all college campuses on
29 March and schools on 1 April also served to strengthen the MRD. Communist students now became a major force in
the MRD, as they clashed with police in incidents throughout the Kathmandu Valley.15
On 30 March, young communists ransacked the Panchayat headquarters in Patan and set fire to police files on
dissidents. The brutality of the police response in search of the culprits led to a popular insurrection against the
government. Barricades were erected, trenches dug across access roads and the police were prevented from entering the
town by vigilante squads, organised by pro-Maoist factions. Patan now became a "no-go" area, providing a political
'space' within which opposition politicians were able, for the first time, to denounce the Panchayat regime in public. On
1 April, 10,000 people from Kathmandu and other parts of the valley attended a rally in Patan. At this, and later rallies,
radical activists, often led by Mashal supporters, made several unsuccessful attempts to extend the 'liberated' area by
marching out of Patan towards Kathmandu where their progress was repeatedly blocked by riot police. Throughout the
week, rallies and black-outs were extended to cover the entire Kathmandu Valley. A significant move which marked the

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growing debility of the regime took place on 5 April when government employees joined the protest for the first time
with 'pen-downs'.
Another Nepal Bandh was announced for 6 April. In an early morning pre-emptive move, King Birendra dissolved the
unpopular Panchayat prime minister, Marich Man Singh, and replaced him with Lokendra Bahadur Chand, who had
been prime minister from 1984-86, and announced the formation of a Constitutional Reform Commission. However,
these cosmetic changes did not have the desired effect of dampening discontent. They were perceived as stalling tactics
which enraged the population further since they did not meet the fundamental demand for democracy. In the following
hours, demonstrations started in several parts of Kathmandu, organised by the United National People's Movement
(UNPM), a political grouping of pro-Maoist factions, whose central spokesperson was a Mashal leader, Baburam
Bhattarai. A large crowd began to weave its way through the city, first towards Patan and then back to Kathmandu,
where it passed close to the Royal palace, getting larger by the hour. For the first time, the slogans openly condemned
King Birendra and leading members of the Royal family. A public meeting then took place at the open-air Tundikhel
("meeting-place"). Attended by 100,000, it was the first democratic mass meeting for decades in the centre of
Kathmandu. The atmosphere at the meeting became heated as speaker after speaker demanded the immediate
restoration of a multiparty system and an end to autocracy. In the late afternoon the crowd began to move on the royal
palace, breaking through successive police lines and was only stopped when army marksmen located in the grounds of
the palace opened fire, killing an estimated 75 demonstrators. As the crowds fled in panic, army troops sealed off the
Royal Palace. A twenty-four hour curfew was imposed and early the following morning troops retook control of Patan.
In spite of the curfew in Kathmandu and Patan, a 15,000 strong demonstration took place in Bhaktapur, the third town
in the Kathmandu Valley, in protest against the massacre, after which a curfew was also imposed there.
The killings had hardened attitudes among the population and the king now came under strong pressure from the
United States government and the European Commission to grant immediate political concessions. On 8 April, King
Birendra held face-to-face negotiations in the palace with four opposition leaders - Nepali Congress president, K.P.
Bhattarai, its general secretary G.P. Koirala, ULF president, Sahana Pradhan, and MALE leader, R.K. Mainali at which
he agreed to lift the 29 year-old ban on political parties, thus enabling the holding of multi-party elections, and that a
commission was to be established to study constitutional reforms.
7. The Interim Government
The curfew was lifted and the next day, 9 April was celebrated as "Democracy Day" throughout Nepal. However, at a
mass meeting at the Tundikhel attended by 100,000, criticism was already being expressed by Mashal activists at the
readiness of the ULF leaders to halt the MRD without wresting greater concessions from the monarchy. During the
coming months, the repeated attempts by the king to roll back the process of democratisation would give much
credence to this view, thereby strengthening support for Mashal in the process.
On 11 April the political leaders demanded that the king incorporate the newly-legalised political parties in the cabinet,
dissolve the Rastriya Panchayat and form an independent constitutional commission. However, in his traditional Nepali
New Year Day speech on 14 April, the king remarkably made no mention of fulfilling demands for a coalition
government and constitutional change. Infuriated by this intransigence, the next day, thousands of demonstrators led by
Mashal activists disrupted negotiations between party leaders and the Panchayat government at the Royal Academy Hall,
stoning the car of prime minister Chand. In the morning of 16 April, Chand resigned, the king dissolved the Rastriya
Panchayat, thereby opening the way for the opposition to form an interim government. The Nepali Congress president,
K.P. Bhattarai, assumed the post of interim president, heading a cabinet composed of three other members of his own
party as well as three members of the ULF, two independent ministers and two ministers nominated by the king -the
first multi-party government in three decades. Its principal objective was to prepare a democratic constitution and hold a
general election within twelve months.
In the following weeks, rumours abounded of coup attempts led by the Queen and members of the Rana dynasty
against the fledgling democracy, while disgruntled Panchas sought to destabilise the interim government by undermining
law and order. Mandales ("thugs") in the pay of hardline elements in the royal palace were suspected of a spate of
looting of shops and arson in a riverside slum. The deteriorating law and order situation become a serious problem for
the interim government. In response, political activists, including Mashal members, organised neighbourhood vigilante
squads which carried out night patrols. In the early morning of 23 April vigilantes captured six suspected mandales who
had been driving through the suburb of Teku in police cars, dressed in police uniforms. The Mandales were lynched by

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an angry mob, placed on an open cart and paraded through the city. Mashal and other Maoist groups hastily announced
a mass meeting at the Tundikhel in order to mobilise popular discontent at the impotence of the interim government in
the face of provocation from the royalists. However the meeting had to be abandoned when the adjacent office of the
Bagmati Zonal Commissioner was burnt down by mandales, destroying documents concerning human rights violations
during the Panchayat regime. When a crowd gathered to protest the arson, police opened fire, killing six persons. In
response to the growing threat to the fledgling democracy, Bhattarai threatened to resign but the king backed down and
offered to support his government. A night curfew was imposed to restore law and order and on 25 April the king
issued a press release backing the multi-party system and calling on the people to support the interim government.
Nevertheless, political tension mounted once again on 11 May, when, on the day that the curfew was lifted in
Kathmandu, the king announced the formation of a Constitutional Recommendation Committee, whose members were
chosen without consultation with the interim government. Troops surrounded the Royal Palace on 13 May as students
met at Tundikhel to protest against the arbitrary behaviour of the king. On 16 May, the king agreed to dissolve his own
Constitutional Recommendation Commission, and to allow the interim government to nominate members to a new
commission consisting of three representatives of the Nepali Congress Party, three from the ULF and two nominations
by the king. Mashal led the chorus of condemnation of this political compromise between the interim government and
the monarchy, since it flagrantly ignored one of the key demands of the MRD - direct elections to a popularly-elected
constituent assembly which would have the task of drafting a new constitution.
On 10 June the interim prime minister Bhattarai signed an agreement with the Indian government which lifted the year-
old trade embargo as a precondition to negotiate a new bilateral trade and transit treaties. The joint communique stated
that India and Nepal would henceforth consult each other before making any decisions regarding security matters. This
was widely interpreted as a major political concession to India in exchange for the re-opening of the border from 1 July,
and as a result demonstrations organised by Mashal demanding the abrogation of the new agreement generated
considerable support in a population among whom anti-India sentiment has historically been rife.
The draft of the new constitution was published at the end of August 1990. Despite the trappings of a multi-party
democracy, the future role of the monarchy remained ambivalent. The constitution retained the religious basis of the
monarchy which had been assiduously cultivated under the Shah dynasty by asserting that the king was the incarnation
of a god, Vishnu, and by reconfirming Nepal's status as the only Hindu kingdom in the world. Despite the multi-ethnic
and multi-religious nature of Nepalese society, the freedom to engage in religious proselytism was also expressly
prohibited. Under the terms of the new constitution, the king would be allowed to declare a state of emergency on the
advice of the Council of Ministers, but such declarations would have to be approved by the House of Representatives
within three months.
The draft constitution was approved by the Council of Ministers on 15 October and sent to the king for his
endorsement. However, in yet another attempt to railroad the democratisation process, on 29 October 1990 the king
released his own amended draft of the new constitution. His action provoked large-scale street protests, in which
lawyers were actively involved and which, for the first time, included large numbers of civil servants acting in open
defiance of the government. On 6 November the Maoist Nepal Workers and Peasants Party organised a major protest
march to Kathmandu from its political base in Bhaktapur, whose size suggested that the political initiative was beginning
to pass into the hands of Mashal and other Maoist parties, with their history of advocating a constituent assembly as the
only way of ensuring that royal hegemony could be defeated. The following day, the Maoists announced a Nepal Bandh,
which was largely effective in Kathmandu Valley despite the official decision of the ULF, under pressure from the
Nepali Congress Party, not to support it. Instead the interim government, while rejecting most of the proposed
amendments in the royal counter-draft, agreed to the proposal by the king to establish a Raj Parishad ("State Council"),
with a 15-member standing committee headed by a royal appointee, and with a majority of its members appointed by
the king. Although K.B. Bhattarai stated that this new body would not be anti-democratic, many observers compared it
to the 'Palace Secretariats' which had functioned as a parallel body to the Council of Ministers throughout the Panchayat
years. As a result of this further compromise by the interim government, the new constitution was finally promulgated
by the king on 9 November.
Mashal denounced the new constitution, and pointed to the similarity with the situation in 1951 when, by agreeing to the
"Delhi Compromise", the Nepali Congress had fudged the commitment to a constituent assembly. This had enabled
King Mahendra to write his own constitution in a manner which preserved his power by the incorporation of emergency
powers vested in the monarchy. These powers were eventually invoked by King Mahendra in 1960, and as a result, the

8
transition to democracy in Nepal was postponed for three decades. This persuasive argument now became the main
justification used by Mashal to deny the legitimacy of elections held under a constitution which had not been passed by a
constituent assembly. It was also used as a major political accusation by Mashal against the 'revisionist' ULF, which it
accused of going back on a key demand of the MRD.
8. Political re-alignments and the split in Mashal
In the months following the promulgation of the new constitution, dissension appeared within the ULF over the
inability of the interim government to tackle urgently needed social and economic reforms and its unwillingness to bring
to trial leading figures from the Panchayat regime who were responsible for embezzlement of public funds or gross
human rights violations. In December 1990, the Nepal Communist Party - Fourth Convention and the Nepal Workers
and Peasants Party broke away to form a rival United National Democratic Movement, later renamed Sanyutkha Jana
Morcha ("United People's Front") or UPF. Meanwhile, the NCP-M and NCP-ML (MALE), the bedrock of the ULF,
maintained their adherence to centre-left unity, as expressed through the interim government, in order to frustrate the
designs of the revivalist forces who supported the return of the Panchayat system and absolute monarchy.
However, as the prospect of a genuinely democratic election loomed on the horizon and as destabilization by
recalcitrant elements from the Panchayat system appeared to be on the wane, this political alliance between the ULF and
the Nepali Congress also began to fray at the edges. Although the interim prime minister Bhattarai was disposed to
continue collaboration with the ULF, an electoral alliance was bitterly opposed by Girija Prasad Koirala. The United
States government was also averse to the prospect of a 'united front government' at a time when its global ideological
onslaught against communism was reaping enormous dividends. When Ganesh Man Singh met President George Bush
and the right-wing pressure group, National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington in December 1990, he was left
in no doubt that US support for his party would be conditional on a break with the ULF.
In early January 1991, leftist hopes of an electoral alliance were finally dashed when Bhattarai announced that the Nepali
Congress would be contesting the forthcoming elections alone.
The communist response was swift. On 6 January, the Nepal Communist Party (Marxist) and the Nepal Communist
Party (Marxist-Leninist) announced their amalgamation into a single party, the United Nepal Communist Party (Marxist-
Leninist), henceforth known as UML. Man Mohan Adhikari was appointed as president and Madan Kumar Bhandari as
general secretary of the new party.16 At the same time, leading members of two other moderate communist factions -
the Nepal Communist Party (Varma) and Nepal Communist Party (Manandhar), resigned in protest at the failure of
their respective leaders to respond positively to the call for communist unity expressed by the new party. Meanwhile
Mashal denounced the move as further evidence of the polarisation between reformist and revolutionary tendencies
within the Nepalese communist movement.
The decision to join forces in the Nepal Communist Party (United Marxist and Leninist) was unexpected and was
apparently taken by the leaders of both parties with minimal consultation among their membership.17 The ULF
experience, when seven Marxist factions buried their differences in the interest of a broad front strategy to overthrow
the Panchayat system in an alliance with the Nepali Congress had encouraged the gradual process of re-unification.
Another consideration was the provision of the new electoral law which stated that a party must secure at least 3 per
cent of the national vote in order to obtain the status as a national party which was a precondition for contesting
parliamentary and local elections. Through the amalgamation, the ageing NCP(M) leadership hoped to increase their
electoral prospects by the infusion of young activists with a grass-roots organisation. The MALE leadership, on the
other hand, hoped to benefit from political association with respected elder figures in the communist movement.
However, the decision was not without dissent within MALE. R.K. Mainali, one of the instigators of the people's
movement, and ousted general secretary, C.P. Mainali, supported by young party activists, argued that MALE was the
major communist party in Nepal while the NCP (M) lacked a national grassroots network, and that decision-making
within the new party should have reflected this imbalance. However, this view was overruled by the faction led by Jhal
Nath Khanal and the new general secretary, Madan Kumar Bhandari.
9. Masal in Nepal - recreating the Peruvian experience?
In April 1978, a tortuous political slogan, over 50 metres in length, had appeared overnight beside the zancón, the urban
motorway which links the Peruvian capital of Lima with the fashionable coastal suburb of Miraflores. Denouncing
"United States imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, and Chinese revisionism", and praising "the 'shining path' of

9
Peruvian socialism under José Carlos Mariategui", it provoked the amusement of commuters and political analysts alike.
The extreme political position adopted by a hitherto unknown faction of the Partido Comunista Peruano, which later
became known as Sendero Luminoso ("Shining Path"), seemed almost farcical at a time when the mainstream
communist movement was fast emerging as a strong electoral force for the first time in Peruvian history. The military
government, which had ruled the country since October 1968 when it banned all political parties, had just agreed to
return to the barracks in the face of widespread popular opposition to its rule. In June 1978 a united left front won 34
per cent of the national vote in elections for a Constitutional Assembly, although the front soon dissolved and in the
subsequent presidential and parliamentary elections the combined vote of the left fell to 19 per cent.
Nevertheless, the date of these elections, 18 May 1980, marked a high-point in popular faith in the political system of
Peru. After twelve years of authoritarian rule, there was widespread optimism that the return to democracy would soon
lead to an improvement in living standards for the poor, and this was reflected in the high turn-out. However, amidst
the general euphoria, an isolated incident of violence in the Department of Ayacucho passed unnoticed in the national
media. In the small market town of Chasqui in the Province of Cangallo, masked youths attacked the polling-station
and burned the ballot-boxes. This symbolic gesture of contempt for what it called 'parliamentary cretinism' marked the
start of the armed struggle for the liberation of Peru waged by Sendero Luminoso.
By 1992, just twelve years later, Peru was in a state of undeclared civil war, with constitutional guarantees suspended in
one-third of its 180 provinces. Guerrilla movements operated in over half of the national territory and the PCP-SL
believed that its struggle has reached "strategic equilibrium", the last phase before the all-out war which would give it
power by 2005. In the twelve year period from May 1980 - May 1992, some 25,000 people have been killed in political
violence associated directly or indirectly with the activities of the PCP-SL.
In October 1990, a 50 metre long political slogan appeared on the wall outside the luxury Himalaya Hotel in Patan. The
text, which bore many similarities with the Peruvian one of 1978, read "Down with local feudalism, Indian
expansionism, American expansionism, Russian social imperialism, Chinese revisionism and all kinds of reactionism!"
Like its erstwhile Peruvian counterpart, fourteen years earlier, its appearance was treated with a mixture of contempt and
derision by local political analysts. The broad-based popular Movement for the Restoration of Democracy had only
recently succeeded in forcing the absolute monarchy of King Birendra to abolish the Panchayat political system and to
introduce free and fair elections under a new democratic constitution. As in the case of Peru, the Nepalese communist
movement had initially emerged greatly strengthened and reunited during the return to democracy. The graffiti rantings
of an extremist faction of the Nepal Communist Party, known as Mashal ("Torch"), appeared to be of little
consequence.
The insignificance of Mashal seemed to be heightened by the internal political differences in the run-up to the general
election which led to its first major split. On 15-16 March 1991 a breakaway faction led by Baburam Bhattarai, a young
intellectual, held a conference at which they announced their decision to participate in the forthcoming election under
the banner of the United People's Front, in order to use the opportunity to "expose the monarchy and the parliamentary
system".18 Party candidates, if elected, would take no part in the Parliament. At the same time, the group decided to stay
underground, identifying only its party spokesman, Sindhu Nath Pyakurel, and its general secretary, Shital Kumar. It also
decided only to identify its central office, but not zonal, district or regional offices. However, Dhananath Sharma, a
spokesman of the faction led by Mohan Bikram Singh Gharti, described the meeting as "an indisciplined gathering of
individuals who had been expelled from the party"19 and reiterated the decision of his party to boycott the elections. The
split led to some confusion among political observers since the two factions were distinguished by different spellings -
Masal being the group led by Mohan Bikram Singh, and Mashal being the group led by Baburam Bhattarai. However,
each faction expressed its continued support for Sendero Luminoso.20
10. The election boycott by Masal
Through its front organisations, Masal launched its campaign for an election boycott. On 19 March the All Nepal Trade
Union (ANTU) published a statement calling for all to boycott the election on the grounds that it would be held under a
constitution framed by a commission appointed by the monarchy, rather than by a constituent assembly, and at a
meeting in Pokhara on 13 April the All Nepal National Independent Student Union (ANNISU) did likewise. Both front
organisations also proclaimed the coming Naulo Janabadi Kranti ("New People's Revolution"), itself an almost literal
translation of the equally ill-defined Nueva Republica de Democracia Popular of Sendero Luminoso.

10
Masal formed local committees to organise the election boycott in Pyuthan, Arghakhanchi, Gulmi, Rupandehi,
Kapilavastu, Nawalparasi, Surkhet, Kailali, Kanchanpur, Baglung, Bara and Parsa districts. On 14 April 1991, Masal
called on voters to boycott the parliamentary elections and prepare for a struggle aimed at transferring sovereignty from
the king to the people through a Constituent Assembly, as well as support for the world socialist movement. The
statement demonstrated its faith in Sendero Luminoso as the vanguard of the world revolutionary movement at a time
of global decline in communism.
"Most of the former communist parties of the world have followed the footsteps of Soviet and
Chinese revisionism and are abandoning the path of revolutionary Marxism- Leninism. As
such, revolutionary Marxism-Leninism has become very weak today. In many countries, they exist only in name.
This have provided an opportunity to reactionary elements to say that Marxism has been proved to be a
wrong doctrine and that it has no future. In our opinion however Communism can never disappear from the
world so long as class exploitation and class struggle continue. The decline that has appeared in the
communist movement of the world today is a temporary phenomenon. There is no doubt that the waves of
evolutionary communism will surge over the world again. The revolutionary movement in Peru,
which is marching ahead in the struggle against American imperialism, Soviet social imperialism and Soviet
and Chinese revisionism, heralds a bright and hopeful future for the world socialist revolution."21
National and international media attention on election day focused on the democratic nature of the poll in sharp
contrast to the vote-rigging which had been endemic under the Panchayat regime. However, attempts to disrupt the
elections were ignored by the media, in the same way that they had been in Peru in 1980. Yet in several towns, including
Nepalgunj and Dhankuta, as well as in remote Himalayan villages in Humla district, graffiti had appeared in the weeks
leading up to 12 May elections which denounced the elections and praised the "revolutionary war being waged by
Peruvian communists". In contrast to their Peruvian counterparts, however, the Nepalese army had mounted an
impressive display of force throughout the country which was largely successful in pre-empting threats of disruption on
election day itself. Nevertheless, attempts by masked youths to destroy ballot-boxes in polling-stations in the districts of
Pyuthan and Sailari, did force the postponement of the election in several constituencies.
Although the voter turnout on election day was 65.1 per cent, in four districts adjoining each other in the Western and
Mid-Western Regions, turnout was well below this national average - Baglung (49.5 per cent), Myagdi (52.2 per cent),
Rolpa (58.5 per cent) and Pyuthan (36.7 per cent). Yet these districts were characterised by higher than average levels of
literacy and political consciousness. The low turnout was attributed to the effects of the national election boycott
campaign by Masal in this area of the country where its political work had been concentrated. The effects of the boycott
were also felt nearby in the north-west part of Gulmi district and parts of Rolpa district, where, according to the team
leader of a voter education campaign financed by the United States government in the months prior to the 12 May
elections "....the Maoist Masal are strong and they have managed to spread a sense of terror and insecurity in the minds
of the people".22
On 8 February Masal supporters attacked a public meeting of the Nepali Congress Party in Pyuthan addressed by the
future Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, forcing him to flee the town under police protection.23 Several days later,
the voter education campaign was forced to suspend operations altogether. According to the testimony of the Pyuthan
team leader of the campaign,
"The main accusation came from the Masal in Pyuthan where the team members had to face a hostile
crowd of nearly 50 or 60 people. The main Masal activist was Krishna Bahadur Shrestha who
confronted the team and told them to leave Pyuthan within 12 hours. The main reason given by the
Masal was it was against their principle of not taking part in the general elections, further
the Masal claimed that Pyuthan was internationally known as Masal's stronghold; and as a hardline Maoist
group, the Masals would like to usher a Naulo Janabad which means a new republic without the bourgeoisie
revolutionaries of the past".24
11. The 1991 General Election Result
On 12 May 1991, Nepal held its first democratic election since 1959, and only the second in its entire history. Some
10,700,000 citizens were registered to vote at over 13,000 polling stations in order elect members to a 205 seat
parliament. On a turnout-out of 65.2 per cent, the election produced a convincing victory for the Nepali Congress, with
110 out of the 205 seats, although well short of the two-thirds majority required for under the new Constitution for the
signing of international treaties. This was particularly significant in view of the impending renegotiation of the sensitive

11
Trade and Transit treaties with India.
The election also demonstrated the dramatic growth of Nepalese communism as an electoral force, at a time when
communist parties world-wide appeared to be in rapid decline in the wake of the collapse of communism in Eastern
Europe. The mainstream Nepal Communist Party (United Marxist-Leninist), popularly known as UML, emerged as the
second largest political force in the country by far, winning 69 seats. Together with the United People's Front (UPF), a
coalition of pro-Chinese and pro-Maoist parties to the left of the UML, as well as two other small communist parties,
Nepali communists won a total of 82 seats in parliament. However, the electoral strength of the combined communist
movement was considerably understated in the number of their Members of Parliament since their combined share of
the vote was 38.1, only marginally less than that of the Nepali Congress (39.5 per cent). At the other end of the political
spectrum, the two parties formed by leading members of the former Panchayat regime were routed, winning only 4
seats, but nevertheless obtaining 12.5 per cent of the vote. The only other party to win parliamentary seats was the
Nepal Sadbhavana Party, a regional party based in the Terai, which won six seats. Twelve other parties failed to obtain
any seats in parliament, while three independent candidates were elected.
Table 1: General Elections Results - May 1991
Party Seats Share of Poll
Nepali Congress 110 39.5
Nepal Communist Party (UML) 69 29.3
United People's Front 9 5.0
Communist Party of Nepal(Democratic) 2 2.5
Nepal Workers & Peasants Party 2 1.3
Communist Movement 82 38.1
National Democratic Party (Chand) 3 6.9
National Democratic Party (Thapa) 1 5.6
Ex-Panchayat regime 4 12.5
Nepal Sadbhavana Party 6 4.3
Independents 3 4.4
Other Parties (twelve in total) 0 1.2
TOTAL
205 100.025
Source: Derived from House of Representative Members' Election - 2048: Final Results. Kathmandu: Election
Commission, 1991.
The result was also noteworthy for the marked geographical concentration of the electoral strength of the two major
parties, with the Nepali Congress Party dominating in the more backward western regions of the country, while the
Nepal Communist Party (UML) dominated in the relatively more developed eastern region. The communists scored an
impressive victory in the Kathmandu Valley, the political nerve centre of the country, winning eight out of the ten seats
in the three towns in the valley. They won four out of the five seats in Kathmandu itself, all three seats in Lalitpur, and
one of the two seats in Bhaktapur. In constituency No.1 of Kathmandu, a major surprise took place when the interim
prime minister, K.P. Bhattarai, was defeated by the UML leader, M.K. Bhandari. There was also a marked age difference
between the two major parties. While the average age of members of parliament belonging to the Nepali Congress party
was 45, the average age of those elected by the UML was only 39.
Although Masal boycotted the elections, several Maoist factions of the communist movement did score significant

12
victories. The United People's Front, which included the Mashal breakaway faction, and the pro-Maoist Nepal Workers
and Peasants Party, won eleven seats in total and obtained 6.3 per cent of the popular vote. The Maoists did particularly
well in the far northern border constituencies of the Himalayas. Part of the electoral attraction of Maoism here was
undoubtedly the proximity of Tibet, where the provision of physical infrastructure, such as roads and electricity supply,
is far in advance of that in northern Nepal. The rapid increase in local trade since the border was re-opened in 1985 led
to greater awareness of these disparities as more traders visited Tibet. However, the external influence of Tibet begs the
more important question of the extent to which factors domestic to Nepal are likely to encourage the prospects of
Maoism in Nepal after the end of the Panchayat era. In this respect, a comparison between Nepal and Peru, a country
where Maoism has been relatively successful in the recent past, is instructive.
12. Structural similarities between Nepal and Peru
There are striking similarities in the human geography of Peru and Nepal which have a bearing on the prospects for
revolutionary social change.26 The two countries have similar populations - 21.2 million (1989) in the case of Peru and
18.5 million (1991) in the case of Nepal. Both countries are characterised by extremes of altitude and slope, ranging
from a high mountainous zone in the Andes and Himalayas respectively, to a fertile low-lying litoral which, in the case of
Peru, borders the Pacific Ocean, while in the case of Nepal, forms the edge of the Gangetic Plain of northern India.
Historically, self-sufficient and militaristic societies flourished in the mountainous zones of both countries, notably the
Warri and Inca in the Peruvian Andes and the Khas and Gorkha in Nepal. In both countries, these agricultural societies
developed on the basis of what has become known as 'vertical ecology', a prime ingredient of which was the use of
sophisticated techniques of gravity-fed irrigation and terracing.
In both countries, during the process of nation-building, the vagaries of conquest and trade led to the gradual
subordination of these mountain societies. This subordination manifested itself through the extreme class exploitation
and ethnic discrimination suffered respectively by the cholos (Quechua and Aymara-speaking indians) in Peru and hill
tribes (Tamang, Gurung, Rai and Limbu) in Nepal. In both Peru and Nepal a 'national' language - Spanish and Nepali
respectively - was imposed throughout the country, the use of local languages banned in the educational system, and
linguistic expression of minorities severely restricted in the media. This discrimination was mirrored in the neglect of
mountain peoples in state development policy and in the associated economic decline of the mountain economy. In
both countries, this combination of neglect and decline has led to an outmigration as young men leave for the costa and
Terai respectively in search of employment. As a result, the demographic and economic contribution of the mountain
region to the nation is in secular decline, a decline which is reaching the level of 'crisis' in both countries.
In both countries, the process of economic development has been extremely centralised, even by the standards of most
developing countries. For over 150 years since independence from Spain in 1824, the mountainous region of Peru,
known as the trapezio andino ("Andean trapezium") or the mancha india ("indian stain"), was largely neglected by the
central government in Lima, apart from limited areas of mineral exploration and exploitation. Following the unification
of Nepal by the Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1767, local mountain leaders paid nominal homage to the new
rulers of the Kathmandu Valley, and in exchange little attempt was made to impose a central authority on these areas.
The introduction of state-directed 'development' from the 1960s has done little to alter the secular neglect of the
mountain regions of both countries. In Peru, economic growth remained closely linked to the inflow of foreign
exchange from the export of a range of mineral and agricultural products, while Nepal benefitted from large inflows of
foreign aid grants and a rapidly growing tourism sector. In both countries, domestic resource mobilisation stagnated as
traditional economic elites successfully opposed tax reform. As a result, in both countries the economic growth rate
during the 1970s and 1980s has been among the worst in the world and income inequalities worsened considerably
during this period.
As a result of these structural features, the presence of state institutions has remained extremely limited in the more
remote mountain regions, while formal local government institutions have made little headway against traditional
political decision-making structures at the local level. Consequently, as late as the 1970s, in large parts of the mountain
regions of Peru and Nepal, a strong cultural identity, coupled with geographical isolation and economic neglect, had
produced a situation where popular allegiance to the nation-state, as represented by central government, was
questionable.

13
13. Education, ethnicity and political extremism
Whereas improvements in most social indicators - especially life expectancy, infant mortality, nutritional intake and
housing conditions, have been minimal in the Peruvian Andes and in rural Nepal for decades, the one striking exception
is educational enrolment which has soared in both countries.27 Several writers have noted a link between the rapid
growth of educational opportunity among the Andean population from the 1960s and the growth of support for PCP-
SL. In particular, the rising expectations generated by the re-opening of the University of Ayacucho and the critical role
of rural school-teachers in recruiting party cadres have been highlighted.28 Furthermore, the ethnic discrimination faced
by Andean secondary school leavers and university graduates in the ever-shrinking formal sector job market in Lima is
also believed to have played a significant role.29 A highly disproportionate number of the leading cadres of the PCP-SL
are the children of local Andean elites, whose political praxis has been strongly influenced by an authoritarian tradition
known as gamonalismo.30 The racism and discrimination which they often encountered as cholos in Lima encouraged
an extreme ideological identification with the interests of the rural poor, and an easy assumption of the role of 'natural'
leadership which derives from gamonalismo.
Such a link also has a relevance to contemporary Nepal, where primary enrolment has risen dramatically from only 20
per cent in 1965 to 82 per cent by 1987, while secondary enrolment rose from 5 per cent to 26 per cent over the same
period.31 The enrolment of secondary schools students rose from 21,000 in 1965
to 120,000 in 1971 and 497,000 by 1986. In an authoritative study of the failure of foreign aid to effect social change in
Nepal, written in 1965 one writer noted, "Only one element of Nepalese society could be said to have a vested interest
in fundamental change. But this element, the educated and semi-educated, who were unemployed or received negligible
incomes from the land, was only just coming into existence at the end of the twelve-year period covered by this study."32
The same writer noted that by bringing graduates into the government, the regime had given them a firm stake in the
status quo, but that ability to continue to do so was a dependent on the availability of foreign aid to generate new
employment opportunities. As a result, "foreign aid served to frustrate the very reforms that most of the donors were
working to push through." 33
By the 1980s, although foreign aid inflows had increased considerably by comparison with the 1960s,it had long ceased
to generate sufficient new posts to absorb the burgeoning numbers of secondary school-leavers and university
graduates. Given the virtual absence of an industrial sector and extremely limited opportunities for service sector
employment, apart from tourism-related work, this led to rapidly rising levels of unemployment among secondary
leavers and graduates. Employment in the public administration had remained the only other mechanism for absorbing
educated youth, and staff levels had indeed risen from 27,000 in 1960 to a peak of around 100,000 by 1990. However,
entry to the officer and clerical grades of the civil service remained tightly controlled by higher caste groups (Brahmins
and Chettris), while ethnic minorities remained almost totally unrepresented at all levels. Furthermore, entry to the
armed forces, another major source of employment, remained totally denied to the 40 per cent of the population born
in the low-lying Terai region near the Indian border. Continued political, economic, administrative and military
hegemony exercised by high caste groups from the 'middle hills' at a time of rapidly rising educational enrolment has
strengthened the deep ethnic, regional and caste cleavages in Nepalese society as expressed through the job market. The
Peruvian experience suggests that economic and social frustrations experienced by graduates from ethnic minorities and
other low castes could well be translated into support for the all-encompassing political ideology of Maoism with its
promise of a 'new republic' of equality and democracy.
14. Masal's response to 12 May elections and post-election panorama
Masal responded to domestic and international events during 1991 by altering its political line. The Nepali Congress
Party victory in the general election prompted a central committee meeting from 15-18 June to declare that the king
would no longer be regarded as the "number one enemy". Henceforth this accolade would be shared equally between
the king and the Nepali Congress Party. The meeting also responded to the breakup of the eastern bloc by declaring that
US imperialism was now its number one foreign enemy, whereas previously Soviet social imperialism had shared this
distinction.34
The unswerving commitment to Maoism was reiterated on 23 July when Masal organised a procession in Kathmandu to
protest against the denial of medical treatment by the "Chinese revisionist leadership" to Qiang Qing, the widow of
Mao-Tse-Tung and leader of the Cultural Revolution. The demonstrators were stopped by police when they attempted
to reach the Chinese Embassy. The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union in September 1991 brought an equally

14
uncompromising response from Masal. A public statement viewed the events as the culmination of the policy of
surrendering before capitalist imperialism, and only served to underline the justification of the struggle by Maoists and
Marxist-Leninists against revisionism. The statement called for a people's war in Nepal
"along the path shown by the Communist Party of Peru, which has been fighting against U.S. imperialism,
Soviet social imperialism, and local reactionary forces and is attaining victory in the new people's revolution. All
this indicates a bright future for the international communist movement."35
In the case of Peru, the early years of the armed struggle launched by Sendero Luminoso went largely unreported in the
euphoria created by the return to democracy. There was general disbelief that a tiny faction of the communist
movement which had been quiescent during the military regime, would choose this moment in time to launch its
revolutionary war. However, there is already some evidence that Masal, which had also remained quiescent during the
Panchayat regime, is following the strategy of Sendero Luminoso and that it has decided to launch its armed struggle to
coincide with the establishment of parliamentary democracy in Nepal. In May 1990, the Committee of the
Revolutionary International Movement sent a message of support for ".... the efforts by our Nepali revolutionary
comrades to prepare and launch revolutionary people's war which alone can bring about the new democratic
revolution".36
This view is also supported by recent events in the Western and Central Regions of Nepal where Masal activity is
strongest. Following the murder of a police inspector at Jyamireghat in Baglung on 15 January 1992, 24 persons
including Masal activists were arrested and allegedly tortured.37 On 10 February 1992, police raided a clandestine
guerrilla training camp organised by Masal at Baghtar in Nawal Parasi district and arrested 60 trainees.38 Shortly
afterwards, it was also reported that Masal had formed teams consisting of 60-70 workers for different areas of Baglung
district to carry forward its programme of awakening peasants in the villages.39
15. Conclusions
Sendero Luminoso and Masal have emerged in countries with many structural similarities. Both political parties
appeared at a time when each of these countries was emerging from a long period of authoritarian rule during which the
standard of living of the those living in the poorest rural areas had stagnated despite the official rhetoric of priority
concern for these sectors. The subsequent growth of Sendero Luminoso can be largely attributed to the failure of
successive democratically-elected governments in Peru to address the historic neglect and discrimination of the
mountain peoples, and the widespread disillusionment which this has engendered, especially among a growing body of
semi-educated youth from these communities.
The future prospects of Maoism in Nepal will similarly depend largely on the extent to which the newly-elected Nepali
Congress government addresses the historic neglect and discrimination of the small rural communities which still make
up the overwhelming bulk of the population of the country. As in the case of Peru, this would require a radical
reallocation of government expenditure towards rural areas in the form of agricultural extension services and primary
health care provision. Successful implementation of such a programme would mean a radical shake-up of the public
administration system in order to make it both more representative of the ethnic diversity of the country and more
responsive to the needs of peasant communities.
However, such a scenario is extremely unlikely, given the entrenched power of the landed aristocracy supported by the
armed forces, the highly traditional and Brahmin-dominated public administration and the shallow and ambivalent
ideology of the Nepali Congress party itself. If, as seems extremely likely, the Nepali Congress Party fails to deliver
serious structural improvements in land tenure and in service delivery by the public administration, then, in the face of
deteriorating living conditions in general, and growing unemployment of secondary school leavers in particular, the
fragile centreground of Nepali politics may well begin to disintegrate, thereby widening the degree of tacit support for
revolutionary solutions such as that proposed by Masal. Despite tortuous efforts by its secretary general to reconcile
multi-party democracy with communist orthodoxy, large sectors of the youth wing of the UML are known to be
ambivalent about the value of parliamentary democracy.40 In Peru, the political impotence experienced by the
parliamentary left under Peru's anachronistic Presidential system of government has already undermined its electoral
support and has fuelled desertions to the senderista camp. Similar frustration is easy to envisage in Nepal where the
public administration, armed forces and monarchy remain highly conservative in spite of the formal process of political
democratisation.

The inability to effect structural reform through the parliamentary system and the continued deterioration in the
economic well-being of the rural poor and urban youth, will encourage this process of political polarisation, even
without any attempt by the monarchy to reassert its power. But if the latter happened, then the Masal message of
contempt for the 1991 Constitution and the parliamentary democracy which it engendered would indeed have a new
resonance. For these reasons, it would seem that, contrary to global trends, the medium-term prospects for Maoism in
Nepal are by no means exhausted.
1. Much of the following description of the early history of the communist movement in Nepal is take
n
from Bhim Rawal, The communist movement and its development. Kathmandu, 1990 (2nd ed.). For a
n
account of the early history of the communist movement, see Rose, Leo." Communism under hig
h
atmospheric conditions: the party in Nepal", in Scalapino, Robert A. (ed.), The communist revolutio
n
in Asia (2nd ed.). New York: Prentice-Hall, 1969, pp. 363-90.
2. Rose, L. op.cit. p.367.
3. Following the overthrow of the Panchayat system in April 1990, Rayamajhi emerged as one of the
King's nominations to the interim government which ruled the country until the Parliamentar
y
elections of May 1991. In those elections, Rayamajhi's new Janata Dal Democratic Socialist Part
y
suffered a humiliating defeat and he was not elected to Parliament.
4. For an account of the Naxalite movement in India, see Banerjee, Sumanta. India's simmerin
g
revolution: the Naxalite uprising. London: Zed Books, 1984. 327p.
5. Meanwhile, further splits had developed within the pro-Soviet Nepal Communist Party - Marxist
(NCP-M), as leading party members such as Tulsi Lal Amatya, Verma, and Manandhar, jockeyed to gai
n
official support from the Soviet leadership.
6. When MALE emerged as a legal party in April 1990, its secretary-general C.P. Mainali, who had bee
n
working underground for 20 years, was totally unknown to most Nepalis.
7. The genesis of the Mashal faction actually goes back to the earlier party split following the
royal takeover in December 1960. At a secret plenary session of the Central Committee of the NCP hel
d
in March 1961 when the factions led by Jung Rayamajhi and Pushpa Lal clashed, " A third, mino
r
faction, led by the Piuthan Party unit, demanded the election of a constituent assembly to draw up a
new constitution, and the eventual establishment of a republican form of government" (Rose, L.
op.cit. p.375).
8. Quoted in Bhattarai, Baburam. Nepal: a marxist view. Kathmandu: Jhilko Publications, 1990. p. 24.
9. A World to Win (London). Issue no.4 (1985), p.2.
10. For a detailed account of the early history of Sendero Luminoso, see Degregori, Carlos Ivan,
Ayacucho 1969-1979: el surgimiento de Sendero Luminoso. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1990;
Gorriti Ellenbogen, Gustavo, Sendero: historia de la guerra milenaria en el Peru, Vol.1. Lima:
Editorial Apoyo, 1990. For a devastating critique of United States 'senderologists', see Poole D. an
d
Renique, G. "The new chroniclers of Peru: US scholars and their 'Shining Path' of peasant rebellion",
Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol.10, No. 2 (1991), p. 133-191.
11. An official report submitted to interim prime minister Bhattarai on 23 April 1991 confirmed 61
cases of missing persons during the Panchayat regime, including five people arrested in connectio
n
with the 1985 bombing incident who had subsequently disappeared.
12. Between 1965-1989, per capita income grew at only 0.6% per annum. World Bank. World Development

Report 1991. Table 1.
13. As yet there is no exhaustive study of administrative corruption and foreign aid during the
Panchayat regime, although a useful introduction is provided by Raj Pandey, D. "Administrative
development in a semi-dependency: the experience of Nepal", Public Administration and Development,
Vol.9, No.3 (1989), p. 315-29.
14. The United Left Front comprised the Nepal Communist Party -Marxist, the Nepal Communist Party -
Marxist-Leninist, the Amatya, Manandhar and Verma factions, the Nepal Communist Party -Fourt
h
Convention and the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (Rohit).
15. The opposition began a new form of protest, requesting households to switch off their lights as a
silent vote for democracy. The first black-out on 29 March plunged the three valley towns of
Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur into darkness between 7.00 pm and 7.30 pm, while communist activists
used the cover of darkness to shout slogans against the monarchy and carry out sabotage operations.
16. Madan Kumar Bhandari was born in Taplejung in 1952. He studied in Varanasi, India and in 1972 was
named central committee member of the Janabadi Sanskritik Morcha, a student's movement launched b
y
Pushpa Lal. Around 1976 he left the NCP to launch the Mukti Morcha Samuha ("Liberation Front Group"),
which formed an alliance with the survivors of the Jhapa Movement in 1978. He was a founder member of
the MALE preceding the 1980 referendum and was elected general secretary at its fourth national
convention in 1986.
17. In the case of each party, the unification decision was taken by an extended central committee
meeting and without the convening of a national party convention.
18. Quoted in Pristhabhumi (Kathmandu), 21 March 1991.
19. Quoted in Gorkhapatra (Kathmandu), 21 March 1991.
20. In 1992, Baburam Bhattarai continued to be the main contact of the RIM in Nepal.
21. Quoted in Sanghu (Kathmandu), 14 April 1991.
22. Strengthening democratic processes in Nepal; Voter Education Program, 1991. Kathmandu: SEARCH,
1991. p. 87.
23. Reported in Nepal Press Digest (Kathmandu), Vol.35, no.7. 18 February 1991.
24. Strengthening democratic processes in Nepal; Voter Education Program, 1991. Kathmandu: SEARCH,
1991. p. 91.
25. Calculated from House of Representative Members Election -2048: Final Results. Kathmandu:
Election Commission, 1991. 183p.
26. Despite these similarities, it is surprising that it was not until very recently that specialists
in mountain agriculture from both countries met at an International Symposium on Strategies fo
r
Sustainable Mountain Agriculture organised in Kathmandu by ICIMOD, 10-14 September 1990.
27. For an examination of the relationship between the growth in educational enrolment in Peru an
d
the rise of Maoism among rural school-teachers prior to the public appearance of Sendero Luminoso i
n
Peru, se Angell, A. "Clasroom Maoists: the politics of Peruvian schoolteachers under militar
y
government", Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol.1 No.2 (May 1982), p.1-20.
28. Degregori, C.I. El surgimiento de Sendero Luminoso: del movimiento por la gratitud de la
enseñanza al inicio de la lucha armada. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos,1990. 270p.
29. For a social and educational profile of PCP-SL cadres, see Denis Chaves de Paz, Juventud
y
terrorismo: características sociales de los condenados por terrorismo y otros delitos. Lima:
Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1989. For an examination of the ethnic roots of support for PCP-SL
among returned migrants from Lima, see Berg, R.H. "Sendero Luminoso and the peasantry of

17
Andahuaylas", Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol.28, p.165-196.
30. See for example Manrique, Nelson, "La década de violencia", Margenes (Lima), No. 5/6, 1989.
p.137-182. The gamonal refers to the rural landlords of the southern Andes, whose cult of violence
and rebellious defense of 'local interests' against central government has for long enabled them to
maintain the tacit political support of the very peasantry whom they have cruelly exploited.
31. World Development Report 1990. Washington DC: World Bank, 1990. Table 29.
32. Mihaly, E.B. Foreign aid and politics in Nepal: a case study. London: Oxford University Press,
1965. p.176.
33. Mihaly, E.B. op. cit. p. 184.
34. On 6 March 1992, Masal organised demonstrations in front of the US Embassy in Kathmandu to mar
k
the end of the "Year of Solidarity with the people's revolution in Peru 1991". The demonstrators were
led by Dhananath Sharma.
35.Statements by Politburo of NCP (Masal) reported in Naya Jhilko (Kathmandu), 8 September 1991 and 6
October 1991.
36. "Message of the Committee of the RIM to the Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)." A World to Wi
n
(London), Number 15 (1991), p.50.
37. Reported in Nepal Press Digest, Vol.36, No.11, 16 March 1992.
38. Reported in Hindu (Kathmandu), 12 Feb 1992.
39. Reported in Hindu (Kathmandu), 11 March 1992.
40. In a press interview in Deshantar on 6 October 1991, Madan Bhandari, General Secretary of the UML
said that "There is no fundamental difference between New People's Democracy and Multi-Party People's
Democracy", as reported in Nepal Press Digest, Vol.35, No.41, 14 October 1991.