Baburam Bhattarai secured an unusual promotion for himself at the unity conference held by communists from different factions in a hamlet called Madi in Chitwan in 1992. Amazingly, he was able to elbow aside several other senior leaders and get a prominent position to become one of the top five policymakers along with Prachanda, Kiran, Badal and Gajurel in the newly formed Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre). His journey from the position of a regional bureau member when he left the Mohan Bikram faction following the People’s Movement of 1990 to the highest rung of the party within a few months was simply unexpected.

He got promoted out of turn not because of his organisational skill or popularity among the cadres but probably due to the fact that he held a PhD from a prestigious educational institution in India, namely Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The various forces inside and outside the party meticulously worked to create an illusion around him at that time. He was projected as a messiah and a great talent of the country. A rumour going round the party had it that Baburam Bhattarai used to pursue his studies so vigorously that he had no time even to eat, and hence lived on stale bread at JNU hostel. This might have been true to some extent, but this was a well calculated propaganda aimed at projecting him as a great leader.

Communist revolutions

The fact that Bhattarai has now discarded his earlier garb of a revolutionary and become a turncoat denouncing the revolutionary ideology raises many questions in view of his unexpected rise. Even though the Cold War between the capitalist and socialist camps does not exist anymore with the socialist camp crumbling with the fall of the USSR and China following a capitalist economy, the dominant communist ideology in Nepal is still a challenge for Western capitalism led by US imperialism and India.

South Asia has a long history of communist revolutions and violent mass movements directed against the local ruling elite and their imperialist patrons. The region comprising Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka is still the poorest and most backward part of the world after Sub-Saharan Africa. Characterised by rampant poverty, chronic inequality and oppression based on class, caste, gender and religion, the South Asian region has always been a fertile ground for revolution.

Unlike in Central Asia or some African countries where ethnic or religious wars are on the rise,  social contradictions, not ethnic or religious, are more evident in South Asian societies. The design of various national and international forces to turn the perpetual animosity between India and Pakistan into a full fledged war has not succeeded. Nor has the plot to turn communal hatred between different religious sects in countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh into the war born any fruit. In view of the above, the inherent social contradictions in South Asian societies may develop into social chaos leading to full-blown communist revolution. This is more true in the case of Nepal.

The game plan

At the most crucial moment in Nepal’s history when it needed unity more than ever among the political and social players to implement the constitution of the newly established Federal Republic of Nepal, Bhattarai has chosen division over unity. This phenomenon cannot be understood in isolation. Presumably, the renouncement of the communist ideology by Bhattarai is part of a larger game plan of international forces to prevent the further rise of communist and nationalist forces in Nepal. If the US incursion into Central Asia was basically intended to contain the power of Russia, the game plan of Uncle Sam in South Asia has always been to encircle China by gaining a strong foothold in India and Nepal. The launching of Naya Shakti Nepal with pomp and show as a political outfit is aimed at creating an anti-communist and anti-national mass base in Nepal to serve the interests of those who are against peace and stability in Nepal.

Apart from the above, the formation of Naya Shakti cannot be understood without knowing the Indian establishment’s game plan for Nepal. Following the death of GP Koirala and Surya Bahadur Thapa, India has lost its trusted friends in Nepal. Against this backdrop, India has been in search of a trusted friend in Nepal for a long time. Who can be a better friend of India in Nepal than JNU-educated Bhattarai? In Bhattarai, it seems that India’s search for a new leader in Nepal who can work for its interest is over. Tshering Tobgay in Bhutan, Maitripala Sirisena in Sri Lanka, Mohammad Nasheed in the Maldives and Baburam Bhattarai in Nepal are only different names of the same instrument for India.

History, however, has repeatedly shown that the more India tries to shape Nepal’s course, the more it earns a bad name in the country. It is equally important, perhaps more important, to remember that the more the person in a leadership position tries to follow the dictates of Delhi, the more he is likely to go into the dustbin of history. Much water has flown in the Bagmati River from circa 1992 to 2016, but the sudden promotion of Bhattarai in 1992 from a regional bureau member to the party’s highest policy making body in no time still remains a secret.

Pant is a secretariat member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre)