Revolutionary dreams of Nepal – a photoessay

[Years of the revolutionary People’s War in Nepal raised the sights and dreams of millions throughout the country, as well as throughout South Asia and around the world.  Peasants in rural areas marched to the fore, battling feudal and semi-feudal oppression and state repression with bold efforts to reshape the society, drawing rich lessons and strategic thought from Maoism.  The People’s Liberation Army was a powerful force, a work-in-progress, until the leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) reversed course, abandoned the rural struggles and liberation zones, moved to the city (Kathmandu), bought into parliamentary-electoral post-revolutionary enticements in a dramatic peace/surrender, and dismantled and dispersed the PLA fighters.  The betrayal was lauded by regional powers like India and Western imperialists and neo-colonialists alike.  The following photo-essay on the former PLA fighters of Nepal brings to mind the famous poem by Langston Hughes:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore–

And then run?:

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over–

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

What happens to a revolution deferred? “Revolutionary dreams of Nepal—a photoessay” from Nepal by Pooja Pant and Bikkil Sthapit is now part of a traveling exhibition and published online in Raiot.in. —  Frontlines ed.]

June 17, 2016 / Pooja Pant & Bikkil Sthapit

I fell in love with my husband in the camp because he didn’t speak too much. We got the approval from our commander and married two years later. Now we both talk about how the leadership betrayed us.

Janaki Bhatta – Accham, currently living in Lamki, Kailali running a hotel

I get depressed when I look at my personal situation, my party’s situation and my society’s situation. A part of me has tied my dreams, my anger, my fire that I had as a Maoist fighter in a handkerchief and put them aside and another part of me has to work and make a living.

Ishwor Timilsina – Kuika, Accham, currently living in Lamki, Kailali runs a small hotel

Chand-led dissident Maoist group officially forms CPN Maoist

[The people of Nepal have a long history of revolutionary struggle, in the course of which they have been repeatedly betrayed by bourgeois nationalists, revisionists, and opportunists of many stripes.  Yet they continue to rise and struggle forward, through and over so many obstacles.  Now, a new Maoist party has been announced, aiming to serve the revolutionary interests of the Nepalese people, beginning with openly challenging those who have failed to serve those revolutionary interests since the open reversal and destruction of the People’s Liberation Army and liberated zones in the countryside in 2006.  We share with the Nepalese people the hope that this new effort will truly meet the difficult challenges ahead by rebuilding the base in the countryside and nationwide, reestablish the instruments of struggle and power, and carry through the struggle against revisionism and opportunism.  The Nepalese people have contributed much to revolution throughout the world, and will, we believe, find the ways to carry that struggle to new heights. — Frontlines ed.]

nepalnews.com, Tuesday, 02 December 2014

Netra Bikran Chand ‘Biplav’-led breakaway faction of the CPN-Maoist Monday announced the official formation of a new party Communist Party of Nepal Maoist.

Netra Bikran Chand ‘Biplav’-led breakaway faction of the CPN-Maoist Monday announced the official formation of a new party Communist Party of Nepal Maoist.

Organising a press conference in Kathmandu on Monday, December 1, 2014, the newly formed party urged the ruling coalition parties to implement in full the 12-point understanding, the interim constitution and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The group, which had recently announced it had severed ties with CPN-Maoist led by Mohan Baidhya, appealed to the parties to set change its attitude of treating Maoist forces peremptorily, and try and not isolate the former insurgent-fighters from the political process and deprive the people of their rights.