Maoism or Monarchy? Nepal's bipolar politics

Maoism or Monarchy? Nepal’s bipolar politics

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. Twenty-five percent of its population lives on less than 50 cents a day; monsoons, floods, earthquakes and landslides are perpetually disastrous; the Hindu caste system is claustrophobic, and women’s lack-of-rights are wretched - 37 percent of girls are married before they turn 18 and thousands are trafficked into prostitution by their parents.

The Himalayan nation is also fantastically, chaotically diverse, 123 languages, 125 caste groups, and altitude ranging from 194 feet in its mosquito-swarmed subtropics to the 29,029 feet of Mount Everest. Situationally, it is squished, like a street dog in a closet, between the two massive mega-powers of India and China. Politically, the Nepali government is depressingly corrupt. When I asked a well-educated Nepali associate what political party she belonged to, she grumbled “I don’t vote, it’s useless, they’re all criminals.”

Two influential Communist parties battle it out on the far left wing: Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre). There’s two social democracy parties, two democratic socialist parties, two socialist parties, and two separatist movements: Alliance for Independent Madheshis in the southeast, and Kirat Janabadi in the northeast, seeking statehood with Sino-Tibetan ethnic cousins in Bhutan and Sikkim.

Nepali conservatives? They’re so far right they’re feudal. The Rastriya Prajatantra Party wants a constitutional monarchy and re-establishment of a Hindu state. Wistful nostalgia for the never-golden days of the Hindu Kingdom of Nepal, formed in 1768, that survived for 240 years, until it was upended by the royal bloodbath of June 1, 2001, when Prince Dipendra went ballistic, assassinating nine members of his family, including the king and queen, before shooting himself into a coma and dying three days later.

Maoist rebels streamed victoriously into Kathmandu from the high hills sixteen months later, where they’d been grinding like glaciers for a decade, enrolling and/or executing the populace. Civil war raged until 2008 when a Peace Accord and People’s Republic were finally established. Hooray for democracy and the new society! Hope lifted, then plunged, because poverty remains, and escaping it seems as elusive as the yeti.

On November 23, 2023, pro-monarchy protestors packed Kathmandu passageways and breached barricades, waving placards and chanting slogans demanding King Gyanendra’s return to the throne, the chair he was tossed out of sixteen years ago. In line with his country’s corruption, the ex-monarch is obscenely wealthy, due to riches he inherited from murdered relatives who failed to dodge the bullets of the demented Dipendra. The king’s bloated portfolio includes luxury hotels, tea plantations, Toyota dealership, Maldives isle, Nigerian oil, spinning mill, brewery, etc.

The monarchist mob - who define their march as a “Citizen’s Campaign” - screamed, legitimately, that the Maoists had failed to improve their lives. Riot police blasted them with water cannons, tear gas, and batons, Communists joined the cops, injuries occurred, more than 200 people were arrested.

Monarchist mayhem like this occurs regularly here, as frequent as snow on the Tibetan border. Conservative solutions will continue to be fought for in this rough up-and-down land where the political pendulum can potentially swing wildly far-right-far-left-far-right. The situation is reminiscent of mid-1930’s Germany, where the progressive liberties of the Weimar Republic collapsed in the face of Nazism, due to economic instability.

This winter and every winter, of course, Nepal is speckled with chap-faced mountaineering tourists, trekking across the roof of the world, zip-lining over savage rivers, munching on momos at monkey temples. It’s their vacation, they’re spending their money in an imagined Shangri-la that’s seething under the surface with discontent.