--By Achyut Wagle

 

The Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) exhaustively braces up for its ninth general convention, July 3-9 that is perhaps likely to see the fiercest battle ever to take the reins of this four decade-old outfit. The good news is, unlike in any archetypical communist organization, the chairman and other major office bearers will be chosen democratically through the ballots of the party cadres.The Party over the last two and half decades, since the successful reinstatement of democracy in 1990, has established itself not only as a quintessential political force of the country but also a relatively credible democratic alternative with left-to-the-centreideologies. It is now the second largest party in the Constituent Assembly (CA), which is also the legislature parliament, and the major coalition partner in the Nepali Congress-led government.

 

This transformation from an out-and-out communist to largely a democratic force has definitely not been a cakewalk and yet far from complete. Thanks to late General Secretary of the Party, Madan Bhandari who coined a transitional lexicon 'janatako bahudaliya janabad (JBJ)' or people's multi-party democracy that facilitated it to become a reckoning force in multi-party polity. In essence, except one seemingly unequivocal commitment to remain in the 'politics of ballots'; forsaking the dogma of the 'power from the bullets', the task of redefining other philosophical foundations of the Party is still pending and currently undergoing a rigorous discourse. This is what going to be one of the characteristic features of the upcoming Convention as well. The pain experienced in the process of refurbishment of a force that carried over the legacy of Jhapa andolan of early 1970s, a naive killing spree of landlords to eliminate the class enemy andwith its cadres indoctrinated to 'establish a proletariat dictatorship' or 'new people's democratic republic' ostensibly through violent over throw of 'old regimes' to a disciplined political party believing in a peaceful process of change is not unnatural. But, the most worrying factor is: it is taking too long a time to accept the changing realities of the world and declare that the party no longer remains 'a communist' one. And, the debate also has been too fluid to shape a convincing new 'doctrine' with a double edged sword which preserves the face of the communist party and, at the same time, adapts itself as a credible democratic force.

 

To borrow the word from communist lingo, the 'class struggle' within the party is at its height, but it is not two directional - between the exploiting and exploited classes as explained by Marx. It is in fact innumerably multi-directional and cover everything by a single 'blanket principle' is requiring it to be too large to manage. There is still a fine dividing line between the factions that accept the JBJ as defined by Bhandari as a complete principle and that takes it only as one of the 'many' components of philosophical evolution of the Party. KP Oli and Madhav Nepal, who are the two contenders for the post of chairman in the ninth convention, now represent these two factions respectively There is yet another traditional school that is not vocal but still considers JBJ hastened the aberration of the Party from a true communist force to operatives of ‘comprador bourgeoisie. 'The current Party Chairman Jhalanath Khanal lost party leadership to Madan Bhandari in the fifth convention in 1993, as he campaigned in this potential aberration plank. By now, Khanal seems to be compelled to change as there is no escape from the vote politics, but the reservation to accept the JBJ as 'only' guiding principle of the party still appears to be a bitter pill for him to swallow.

 

There is also a tangible difference in opinion between the so called ‘old school’ and the ‘new school’. The old school represented by the hawks of pre-panchayat underground era are persistent not to give-up the communist tag. The septuagenarian leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari categorically said, ‘There is no need to change the party name to something that doesn’t carry the word communist and the universal communist standard, hammer-and-sickle flag, should be retained.’ The new school, which calls itself a pragmatic left is keen to change the both, just limiting it to convey a ‘socialistic’ meaning - far more softline approach than being a communist. The confusion has run long. So long that immediately after the UML formed a minority government in 1994, the Party dramatically removed the portraits of Marx and Lenin from the Party HQ meeting hall when the then US ambassador to Nepal visited UML headquarters. The act though was subject to acute mockery then but had a symbolic personification of confusion. First, it signified, the Party leadership had realized the redundancy of these figures but was unable to get rid of their hangovers. Second, from the inner self, it wanted to convey that the party doesn’t want to be identified and viewed as the communist in classic sense of the term. And, the third, it wanted to interact with the world as liberal democratic or a social democratic force.

 

But, over all these years, party has hardly been able to embark on this wishful direction it had then contemplated. All these confusions still persistently gnaw the party and all the policy debates still revolve around the same confusion – whether or not to remain a communist and how to keep-up with the pace of openness the world is now moving with. It is for this reason, different ‘think tanks’ within the party are working to give a functional shape to their ideological basis such that it fits to modern-day political parlance.

 

One of such recent exercises of the party has concluded that Nepali society has essentially become a capitalist one leaving behind the traditional agro related feudal production and productivity relations. This in fact is the theoretical basis to do away with the politics of proletarian supremacy and misery due to mass exploitation. However, the entire ‘philosophical’ discourse suffers from a mindset that party cannot function without such ‘grand narrative’. The party very tactfully removed the anti-Indian and anti American diatribes as soon as it rode to power saddle in 1994, forming the first communist government in the world after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, that too through elections.

 

At present, the issues of the centre-stage debate include the massive criminalization of the party politics by protecting and promoting goons and underworld operators, colloquially known as dons–the word borrowed from taekwondo. This began with when Bamdev Gautam was made Home Minister in 1997 under Rastryia Prajatantra Party-led coalition government. He allegedly opened all smuggling channels and protected them using the security establishment. KP Oli did the same when he was Home Minister and now many noted dons are in party rank and file. Madhav Nepal faction has devised its campaign strategy focusing on the theme of ‘cleaning the party from goons.’ But the weight in the balance gradually appears to be tilting to the kings of the goons. Therefore, it will not be a surprise if Oli wins the race.

 

Perhaps the greatest potential for the party to benefit arises from the fact that UCPN-Maoist is now forced to follow the same path the UML has traversed since its fifth convention. This can give a righteous sense of direction to the UML in making timely policy choices as a communist force that wants to survive in the competitive pluralistic politics. Theoretically speaking, UML should have been able to take great advantage given the vindication  of timeliness JBJ. But, internal wrangling and factionalism has marred all its potentials of organizational growth.

 

As the ninth convention inches closer, the campaign becomes nasty. The official manifestos of both Oli and Nepal do not differ much, which is an indication that there is not much differences in principles and policies. But when it comes to practical politics, the competition on mudslinging has crossed all possible decencies. Oli commands very strong organizational support and as an additional advantage Deputy Prime Minister BamdevGautam is in his favour. Oli’s illness is debated in both the camps. Oli has tried to bank on his illness requesting to vote him for the last chance and Nepal faction has asked him to take ‘rest’ on health grounds.

 

It would not be a practical assumption to expect UML to reincarnate by changing its name and revamping all of its communist ideologies . But the throb of need for this change is intensely realized, in more than one spheres – in ideology, organizational orientation, external relations and internal democracy. This certainly gives better hope for overall consolidation of country’s democracy, sometime in near future. 

 

The writer is former editor of Aarthik Abhiyan National Daily.