Political realignments

JUL 04 -

Sharad Singh Bhandari is an old political animal. From serving as a minister in the Panchayat regime, to being a pillar of the NC in the 90s, and then throwing in his lot with the Madhesi parties in 2008 when other pahadi leaders of the region were changing constituencies, Bhandari has a sharp political sense. Last week, he set up his own party for the first time.

The atmospherics at the Rashtriya Sabha Griha inaugural of his party were interesting. The event began with songs from Mithila, and then at one point, the lights of the auditorium went off. When everyone thought it must be the regular power cuts, a man—with a lantern—walked down the stairs of the hall and up to the stage. He was a theatre artist, and he proclaimed the party’s slogan in the darkness: Jaagte Raho; Madhes, Jaagte Raho. Literally, this means keep awake; Madhes, keep awake. The participants, many of whom had come from Tarai districts, broke into applause. The broad composition of people on the stage was deliberately representative of the different communities in the Tarai, in order to give the party an inclusive image.

Bhandari had to leave the government when he made what was seen by NC and UML as ‘secessionist remarks’. What he had said at Reporters Club was that a constitution that is not acceptable to the people will not last. The 1990 statute lost its popular base, and no one could save the monarchy. Similarly, a statute that does not take into account concerns of people of the districts in the plains will not last either, and who would be able to force the Tarai to accept it?

At the same time, Bhandari was pushing the issue of Madhesi inclusion in the NA—an agenda that has become increasingly popular with young Madhesis of the plains. Both steps were interpreted as Bhandari’s ploy to out-radicalise his own Madhesi colleagues; he was doing it, the allegation went, because he was a pahadi and needed to be ‘ultra-populist’.

Whatever his motivation, these two issues made Bhandari a bit of a hero in the Tarai. Despite his tainted past, it seems that his constituency suddenly accepted him as a leader of the Madhes—the only pahadi to have achieved that feat in the past five years. It is a lesson about what works in the Tarai. The gulf between Kathmandu and Madhes is such that those who take on the establishment become popular in the plains. Those who have come close to the establishment dip in popularity. This fundamental fact has not changed in the past five years.

Now go back another week, when radical Maoists were having a national gathering at Boudha.

The core of Kiran’s political constituency, who prodded him to walk away from the Maoists, had a common grievance: that the Maoists were supposed to deliver ‘change’; that they were to fight established practices but instead succumbed to it; that the struggle must continue but through a different platform. There may be many in the new Maoist party who have done so purely out of personal grudges because they were not getting the recognition they thought they deserved, or out of spite for Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai. But the ideological component cannot be underestimated. 

There are some interesting facts about those who have left. Of the 89 surviving members of the pre-Chunbang party central committee, 41 are with Kiran, which is almost half of those who were in influential positions during the hard fighting years. Nine out of 15 surviving central committee leaders of the party when it began the war are now with the new party, and leaders of key fronts—Newa, Magarat, Madhes and Dalit—have gone with Kiran. This inner layer of the party will call the shots, and it is more extreme than any other formation in the political spectrum. They may ally with NC and UML temporarily to get rid of the government. But substantively, there is no similarity between the agenda of these forces.

The point is that the divisions and realignments within the Maoists and Madhesis are leading to the emergence of outfits, which are even more radical about the ‘cause’ they seek to espouse. Bhandari’s entire political aim is to prove that Bijay Gachhedar has ‘betrayed’ the Madhesi agenda by not pushing inclusion in NA, despite being defence minister, and that he can better protect their interests. Upendra Yadav hates the Madhesi Morcha and felt cheated by the Maoists when they did not reward him—despite his loyalty for over two years—but he cannot go with NC and UML because his base sees them as ‘anti-federal forces’.

From Kiran to Matrika Yadav, the Maoist dissidents do not say that their political philosophy cannot work. Neither do they have remorse about the war. Instead, they feel that the revolution has not gone far enough and the compromises were wrong.

NC-UML and their conservative intellectuals are feeling smug about these splits. They calculate that since there is now disillusionment with Maoists and Madhesis, and since these parties have split and their votes will fragment, political power will come back to the older parties. This is a gross misreading of the political mood of the country. Of course, there is disenchantment and apathy about all forces, especially the Maoists since there were higher expectations from them. It is not unusual to hear ordinary citizens feel nostalgic about royal rule when confronted with fuel and electricity shortages and spiraling prices. And given how predictions about the last polls turned out, the only thing we know is that nobody knows anything about how elections will turn out. 

But if one carefully examines the impulses that have led to the present political realignments, it is—besides personal ambitions—an impatience for change. The anti-establishment current remains strong in popular politics, and no new major party is building its political platform seeking to reverse the 2006 change. Instead, they are arguing it did not go far enough. The fragmentation of the political landscape is leading to the emergence of newer and more radical outfits. This will, in the long-term, make managing politics more difficult.

Source: http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/07/04/oped/political-realignments/356562/