People’s War in Nepal: Genesis and Development
ANAND SWAROOP VERMA, GAUTAM NAVLAKHA
In Maoist understanding, People’s War (PW) is 80 per cent politics and 20 per cent warfare. The decisive factor in a war o f this genre is not guns but the mobilisation of people for seizing power through protracted war. This is not to underplaythe significance of armed struggle in Maoist politics or to delink one from the other, but to stress that the mark of Maoist success lies in their emergence as the dominant political and ideological force in Nepal. The remarkable political consistency and dexterity displayed by them in sticking to their strategic goals and making their agenda (a democratic republic through an elected constituent assembly, interim government, under an interim constitution, etc) the basis, if not the rallying point, for ending the civil war, and attempting to win the mandate to constitutionally transform the state, are its articulation. In this paper we confine ourselves to the period 1990 onwards, leading up to PW – the period from February 1996 to the “12-point agreement” of November 2005. We highlight the elements of continuity in the salient features of the strategy of PW implemented by the Maoists. (more…)
