Nepal – Peoples war betrayed

No, this is not a “Colour Revolution”.

How the Nepalese ‘Maoists’ destroyed the revolution and handed it over to the ruling order

In the words of Brecht: We stand disappointed and see concerned / The curtain closed and all questions open.

---

On September 4 of this year, the Nepalese government announced its intention to block most social networks in Nepal, as they had not registered in Nepal and thus would not follow local regulations – including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but not TikTok and the WhatsApp-like Viber.

At the same time, a trend spread on Nepalese social media where party functionaries and their children (“Nepo-Kids”) flaunted their wealth in a showy manner.

A trend that, given the deteriorating living conditions since last year, sparked strong backlash and digital protest. Against this backdrop, the impending blocking of social media was perceived by many younger Nepalese as an attempt at digital censorship of the resistance against the decadence of the ruling class.

Thus, hundreds of thousands of young Nepalese from Generation Z gathered on the streets of Kathmandu. Their protest was met with massive repression – yet they managed to topple the Nepalese government within a few days. And all because of social media – “When online blockades trigger a revolution” (FAZ).

This or something similar was how much of the Western coverage of the protests in Nepal read in recent days. For us – as for many others – the notion that a blockade lasting barely 24 hours was responsible for the fall of the government seemed rather absurd.

On the other side are mostly Western leftists, who previously apparently hadn’t really engaged with Nepal’s material conditions, who see in the ‘overthrow’ (which actually isn’t one – we’ll get to that in detail) a ‘Colour Revolution’, i.e., a seemingly illegitimate, imperially steered political upheaval. While it’s understandable that the overthrow of a government that calls itself ‘communist’ quickly raises suspicion of foreign influence, we will also refute this notion in the following.

So, in recent days we have spoken with numerous Nepalese, evaluated extensive literature, and built upon our existing knowledge of the situation in Nepal to place these events in a more meaningful context – and to situate them within the socio-economic context since 1996 and 2006.

---

Nepalese People’s War

Material Conditions

Before the outbreak of the People’s War in 1996 (Jan Yuddha), a large part of the Nepalese population lived in extreme poverty: around 71% were considered to be living below the absolute poverty line, more than 60% were illiterate, and about 90% of the population resided in rural areas, where agriculture as the dominant sector generated only minimal incomes.[1]

Agriculture employed about 81% of the workforce, but also exhibited high underemployment and hidden unemployment; official unemployment figures were given at about 10% completely unemployed, while a significantly larger proportion of the workforce was de facto underemployed.[2]

46.5% of the national income went to the richest ten percent, and according to the 2001 census, 58.97% of the peasant class, i.e., about 48% of Nepalese, owned less than 0.5 hectares of land, meaning a large part of the population was considered functionally landless; 75% of rural households had less than one hectare, which was insufficient for self-sufficiency.[3]

Semi-colonial relationship with India

With the Treaty of Sugauli (1815), Nepal (under Prithvi Narayan Shah, “Unifier of the Gorkha Principalities”) was taken under British (-Indian) possession and remained so until India’s independence in 1947:

“[…] prior to that period, Nepal was self-sufficient in basic industrial production, e.g., cotton fabrics, copper and brass utensils, domestic instruments, military armaments (including modern rifles), sugar, etc., and foodgrains. But after this, with the penetration of factory-made goods from India and concomitant decline of Nepalese industries, Nepal has now been reduced to a total dependency.” (Bhattarai 1998: 2.2)

The semi-colonial relationship continued to develop even after India’s independence with the Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship (1950). Thus, trade with India accounted for “about 95 percent” of Nepal’s foreign trade until the 1950s:

“Nepal’s export/import ratio with India before the Sugauli Treaty was 5 times more in favour of Nepal and that remained 2 times even more during the period of 1923 trade treaty, and after the 1950 treaty it went 2 times against Nepal and today in the 1990s it has become almost 7 times against Nepal.” (Bhattarai 1998: 2.2)

Due to the massively asymmetric trade with India, on which the Nepalese peasant class depended due to the semi-colonial relationship, capital accumulation and stable domestic markets failed to emerge – national capitalism could not develop due to this contradiction between the developed domestic productive forces and the backward semi-colonial relations of production.[4]  

The resulting economic fragmentation and the persistence of feudal land relations – insecure tenancy rights, high rental burdens, and the bondage of many small farmers through high-interest loans – created a materially backward situation of poverty and imperialist domination that persisted into the 1990s.[5]

Panchayat and parliamentary rule

In 1960, Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, son of the previously deposed King Tribhuvan of the Shah dynasty, put an end to Nepal’s parliamentary democracy, which had only been established eight years earlier in the context of Indian independence.

Subsequently, Mahendra established the “Panchayat System” in 1962, which lasted until 1990 – a peculiar variant of an absolute monarchy with ideological similarities to today’s Hindutva movement:

“It re-established medieval courts rife with intrigue; it stifled fledgling civil liberties and aborted nascent civil institutions. Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah used the Panchayat to turn Nepali citizens back into subjects. It made the country languish and made us all lose years.” (Thapa 2005: 104)

After Mahendra’s death (1970), his son Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev took over rule of the Panchayat. Birendra continued his father’s policies more or less unchanged, but in 1980, following the growing pro-democratic student movement, he approved a (questionable in its legitimacy) referendum on the “admission of multiple parties,” in which 54% voted to retain the absolutist system.

This seemingly positive attitude towards the Panchayat system changed rapidly when in 1989 a massive, internationally controversial Indian economic blockade against Nepal, justified by India’s “uneasiness over Nepal’s growing closeness with China”[6], led to a dramatic economic crisis and lasting indebtedness to the World Bank.

Establishment of the Maoists

In the decades prior, an extremely capable and, compared to other nations, highly fragmented communist underground movement had developed in Nepal. The ban on all political organizations under the Panchayat system, combined with material conditions similar to those in pre-revolutionary China and proximity to the Naxalite guerrillas in the Indian state of Bihar, led to Maoism becoming the dominant communist current in Nepal.

The Communist Party of Nepal, which was to experience the first of many splits following the Sino-Soviet split, had been organizing worker cells, peasant organizations (“Kisan Organization”), and militant support against “traditional tax-collectors and other feudals.“[7] since its founding (1949).

In many areas, the Maoists established people’s governments (“jana sarkars”) that took on all the roles of a state locally. This included the establishment of educational institutions, worker self-management, their own tax system, and democratic-centralist political administrative organs.

The Communists of Nepal were particularly successful in the “Red Zone”[8], the former districts of Rolpa and Rukum – the communist base here often consisted of marginalized castes and indigenous groups; especially the Tharu minority in Nepal almost entirely turned to the Maoists for a time.[9]

Besides local self-organization, revolutionary guerrillas repeatedly carried out attacks on institutions and representatives of the Panchayat system, including against feudal lords in Jhapa in 1971, and repeatedly cooperated with the organizationally superior Naxalite Maoists of India.

Thus, the communist movement established itself precisely through massive state repression as a disciplined and highly resilient subject, which, through 40 years of successful survival and fighting underground, was primed for a coup d’état.

End of the Panchayat System

Driven by the economic crisis and the “incompetence of the king,” the “People’s Movement,” led by the social democratic Nepali Congress and the communist United Left Front, brought an end to the Panchayat System in 1990 and a return to parliamentary democracy[10]:

“Confronted by various challenges to its authority, most notably the student movement and the referendum of 1980, the regime had grown primarily anxious to perpetuate itself and the privileges of its elites. It maintained a secret police and deployed groups of violent youth – popularly called mandales – to identify and crush subversive activity. But the system was inefficient and had lost legitimacy, leaving plenty of space for banned political parties to spread their networks among the urban population.” (Adhikari 2014: 18)

The new constitution established Nepal as a constitutional monarchy with a multi-party system and political rights, but only limited the power of the king, who retained influence over the army.

It further defined Nepal as a Hindu state, Nepali as the national language (around 40% speak local languages and dialects), and prohibited political parties based on “religion, community, caste, tribe or region”; a prohibition that disillusioned many indigenous people regarding political engagement and would play an important role in the People’s War for the mobilization of the Maoists. [11]

There was a constant power struggle between the palace and the elected governments over control of the army, whose leadership mostly came from aristocratic Thakuri-Chhetri castes and wanted to shift the balance of power in favor of the monarch.

Politically, the 1990s were dominated mainly by the social democratic Nepali Congress, which won the first parliamentary elections in 1991, and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML). More radical Maoist groups like Mashal, the Fourth Convention, and parts of Masal merged to form the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre), whose political wing, the Samyukta Jana Morcha (SJM), was able to win nine seats in the elections. [12]

Despite the reorganization of the superstructure by the new constitution, Nepal’s material problems remained largely untouched. In many regions of the country, semi-feudal conditions continued to prevail, the peasant population continued to suffer from exploitation primarily by Indian corporations, and needed land reforms failed due to resistance from those social groups who could continue to benefit from the close ties between financial and political capital:

“An elected government led by the UML did establish a land reform commission in 1994, which in 1995 recommended abolishing tenancy and lowering the ceiling on landholdings. But due to the alliance of the landowning classes with the dominant political parties, and the rapid turnover of governments hampering stability and policy implementation, these recommendations were not immediately taken up. Land obtained through land reform efforts amounted to a total of 29,124 hectares, a mere 0.85 per cent of cultivated land. Of this, only about half was redistributed; the rest remained in the hands of the original proprietors” (Adhikari 2014: 28)

Newars, the indigenous group of Kathmandu, held almost all key government positions, “Women, too, were almost invisible in the government. More than 90 per cent of the country’s population, therefore, found no representation at all.” (Thapa 2005: 53).

The Nepalese writer Manjushree Thapa described the parliamentary democracy from 1990 onwards in her work Forget Kathmandu as: “[…] a democracy that looked like a democracy, but that functioned as an elite class and caste cartel, a democracy lacking democracy, a postmodern democracy. All ethical issues were conceded to power struggles and realpolitik. Most people had of course expected some turbulence.” (Thapa 2005: 124).

While the CPN-UML accepted parliamentary democracy and contested elections and formed governments within the system, the Maoists and their respective parties rejected participation in bourgeois democracy as reactionary and instead demanded a constituent assembly, as they saw no possibility within the bourgeois state apparatus to overcome the semi-feudal structures and social inequality – a demand rejected by all other parties. + (revise here)

The Tanakpur Agreement with India intensified the conflict, as the Maoists interpreted the CPN-UML’s consent as a sell-out of national interests – At the same time, state repression, police violence, and arbitrary arrests, particularly in strongholds like Rolpa and Rukum, led many people to join the Maoists, who presented themselves as defenders of the oppressed.

Who are “the Maoists”?

When referring to the People’s War of “the Maoists” in the following, this term refers exclusively to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) under the leadership of Pushpa Kamal Dahal (“Prachanda”) and Baburam Bhattarai, which from 1996 to 2006 waged war against the Nepalese state with its armed organization, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). It emerged in 1994 as a split from the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre) and united various Maoist cadres who had previously come from smaller groups like the CPN (Mashal) or the CPN (Masal).

Other simultaneously existing Maoist parties, including the CPN (Masal), the CPN (Mashal), or the CPN (Unity Centre–Masal), did not participate in the People’s War. On the contrary: they often criticized the uprising as adventurism and revisionism, while the CPN (Maoist) branded their rivals as reformist and capitulating. The term “Maoists” in the context of the People’s War thus does not refer to the entire Maoist movement of Nepal, but precisely to that current which initiated and militarily carried out the People’s War.

We recommend taking a look at this Wikipedia entry – it should be clear why we unfortunately cannot go into every part of the (completely surreal) fragmented communist movement in Nepal.

People’s War

Against this material background, the initiation of the People’s War by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) on February 13, 1996, is to be situated; the movement had already presented a concrete set of demands to Prime Minister Deuba (Congress Party) on February 4, 1996, calling for comprehensive structural reforms, including the convening of a constituent assembly, the abolition of royal privileges, comprehensive land expropriations in favor of the landless, and the annulment of semi-colonial treaties with India[13].

The demands came immediately after the signing of the “Mahakali Treaty” between India and Nepal, which gave India de facto full control over Nepal’s water supply.

Concretely, the list included, among others, the following demands:

• “The domination of foreign capital in Nepali industries, business and finance should be stopped.”
• “An appropriate customs policy should be devised and implemented so that economic development helps the nation become self-reliant.”
• “Nepal should be declared a secular nation.”
• “All racial exploitation and suppression should be stopped. Where ethnic communities are in the majority, they should be allowed to form their own autonomous governments.”
• “All languages and dialects should be given equal opportunities to prosper. The right to education in the mother tongue up to higher levels should be guaranteed.”
• “Academic and professional freedom of scholars, writers, artists and cultural workers should be guaranteed.”

The list of demands ended with an ultimatum:

“We would like to request the present coalition government to immediately initiate steps to fulfil these demands which are inextricably linked with the Nepali nation and the life of the people. If there are no positive indications towards this from the government by 17 February, 1996, we would like to inform you that we will be forced to adopt the path of armed struggle against the existing state power.”[14]

On the part of the government, there wasn’t even the appearance of serious engagement with the demands; Thomas A. Marks of the United States Army War College describes in INSURGENCY IN NEPAL how the entire attention of the rulers was directed towards the internal survival of the chronically unstable, corruption and factional strife-dominated political rule.
Within the six years since the re-establishment of bourgeois democracy, the rule went through six governments, all of which deepened the bond between financial and political capital:

“Self-interest was the order of the day, illustrated by rampant corruption, and administrative drift meant than even substantial foreign development assistance was not incorporated in a systematic manner. The appearance of an insurgency, therefore, was seen as but one more minor factor among many and parceled out to the security forces for action, which in pre-November 2001 meant to the police.” (Marks 2003: 19)

The initial actions of the party, beginning shortly before the end of the ultimatum (it was probably obvious that the government would not seek dialogue with the Maoists) included attacks on banks, the burning of land deeds as a symbol of the expropriation of credit securities, and targeted attacks on state representations in rural districts like Rolpa, Rukum, and Gorkha; these acts of violence targeted state infrastructure and the economic symbolism of land relations.[15]

Ideologically, many of the Nepalese Maoists were oriented towards the Peruvian guerrillas of Sendero Luminoso (“Shining Path”) around Abimael Guzmán (Gonzalo). Through the membership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Mashal) in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, there was direct contact with this movement. From Mashal, via the merger into the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre), finally emerged the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which later became known as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre).

In the early years of the war, the conflict was initially underestimated in the capital; the state response consisted predominantly of police measures, whose arbitrary and repressive character, exemplified by operations like the so-called “Operation Romeo,” caused broad anger in the affected districts and expanded the Maoists’ recruitment base.[16]:

“2,200 policemen descended on Rolpa and Rukum to suppress what the minister called ‘anti-monarchy and anti-democracy activities’. They ransacked houses and arrested, according to the police’ own estimate, over 300 people ranging in age from twelve to seventy-five. Women were sexually assaulted; many were raped. Men were tortured. Over 6,000 people from Rolpa and Rukum fled to other districts or went into hiding. State brutality was not a new phenomenon for people in these districts, but the scale of Operation Romeo – the government’s term for this police action – was unprecedented.” (Adhikari 2014: 40)

The Maoist strategy focused on the rural areas of the hill and mountain regions of Western and Central Nepal (“Red Zone”, see above), where they established local power structures, introduced parallel forms of administration, and implemented restructuring measures that promised immediate material benefits for the dependents; these included the abolition of usurious interest rates, institutionalized people’s courts (Jan Adalat) with jurisdiction over local disputes, bans on high dowries, and cultural-political measures like the ban on Sanskrit instruction as a symbol of “Brahmin hegemony.”[17] This policy aimed at creating local legitimacy and appealing to marginalized castes, ethnic minorities, and landless peasants through a combination of land reform promises, redistribution rhetoric, and the construction of an anti-feudal, anti-imperialist consciousness.[18]

Significant attacks by the Maoists occurred in September 2000 on Dunai (Dolpa district), and in November 2001, when the Maoists for the first time attacked an army base in Ghorahi (Dang), killing military personnel and capturing larger weapons stocks; consequently, the government declared a state of emergency on November 26, 2001, and deployed the army (RNA) to suppress the offensive.[19]

In the areas taken by the Maoists, they established People’s Democratic Councils and administrative organs that from the moment of their establishment replaced the state institutions:

“Elected deputies would include members of the party and the Maoists’ Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) as well as civilians representing various sections of the population. The House of Representatives at the village and town levels would elect members to the district [House of Representatives, HoRs], and the district HoRs would elect the HoRs at the level of the autonomous region. The jana sarkars [people’s governments] would then work to engage people in local governance so as to give them a greater sense of autonomy and control over their destiny, and thus sow feelings of gratitude and loyalty towards the party. To that end the Maoists mobilized people to build roads and other infrastructure, and establish cooperatives and cottage industries.” (Adhikari 2014: 126)

At the same time, the United States began training and equipping the Nepalese army, including through deliveries of 5000 American M-16 rifles and the stationing of hundreds of military advisors.[20]

India’s role was more complex: For Indian capital interests, stability in Nepal paired with capital-friendly rule was the top priority. At the beginning of the People’s War, however, India seemed to be aware earlier than Nepal itself that the Maoists would pose a danger to the rule in Kathmandu – so they seemingly tolerated the presence of Maoist leadership cadres in their Indian retreats to gain leverage against the rule in Kathmandu; “By supporting and supply- ing both sides of the civil war in Nepal, New Delhi has perfected the imperial art of divide and rule. This is not the first time it has done so.” [21]

After the Maoists’ attacks and cooperation (in training and armament) with the Naxalite Maoists intensified, especially from 2001 onwards, this ambivalence on India’s part ended; in November 2001, India delivered helicopters and weapons to the Nepalese army and undertook training missions for the RNA along the border areas.[22] Great Britain participated in Indian and American training missions.

“While it was understood with considerable clarity how socio-economic-political shortcomings had produced the insurgency, it was not grasped how to respond. Consequently, a comparatively weak insurgent movement, which drew its combatant strength from minimally armed tribal revolt and could expand beyond core regions only through terror orchestrated by voluntarist action, was allowed to go unchecked for want of application of any systematic counter.” (Marks 2003: 20)

While the top leadership of the RNA often remained loyal to the royal house, at the level of individual units there was repeated reluctance against political control and a lack of willingness to consistently apply military means, further weakening state coherence and responsiveness.[23]

The “Palace Massacre” of 2001, in which King Birendra was murdered, as well as the increasingly authoritarian course of his brother and successor, King Gyanendra – including the dismissal of elected governments and the declaration of a state of emergency with de facto (“right-wing”) military rule in February 2005 – served as advertising for the Maoists:[24]

“For several years already, Nepal had the highest number of ‘disappeared’ people in the world. This remained the case under Gyanendra’s military rule. Reports abounded about death squads—members of the security forces disguised as civilians, and even as Maoists — arresting and executing people at will. The government armed village-based vigilantes to rise up against ‘Maoists’—and such vigilantes displaced and even killed those against whom they bore personal or caste- based grudges. Because the media was forbidden to report on the insurgency, we lost our ability to ascertain the truth of what was happening. The official media fabricated its own, often quite unlikely fictions, and enforced them as facts.” (Thapa 2005: 269)

The re-establishment of absolutism by the king led to a convergence between the hitherto rivaling parliamentary parties and the Maoists: In September 2005, seven democratic parties in exile in India agreed on a Twelve-Point Agreement with the Maoist leadership, which laid the foundation for a joint, non-violent movement to restore democratic order – This agreement paved the way for the nationwide mass protests in the spring of 2006 (“Loktantra Āndolan Jana Andolan II”), during which millions demonstrated against autocratic rule; on April 24, 2006, King Gyanendra effectively gave up political power, and the formal transition towards a peace process began:

“The Maoists were forced to make a number of concessions. They notably had to give up their demand for the establishment of a republic, because the parliamentary parties and India did not favour the idea of abolishing the monarchy altogether. As a compromise, the document left the future status of the king ambiguous, stating only that the goal of the SPA–Maoist alliance was to ‘establish full democracy by ending autocratic monarchy’” (Adhikari 2014: 169)

The peace process led to negotiations that ended the armed conflict and allowed the Maoists to participate in formal political institutions.

In the 10 years of the People’s War, 17,800 people died, including 4,500 Nepalese state troops and 8,200 guerrillas. The Nepalese “Truth Commission” established after the end of the People’s War for the reappraisal of the war received around 63,000 complaints against state violence, including 3,000 “Enforced Disappearances”.[25]

End of the People’s War and “Betrayal”

The end of the People’s War in 2006 and the subsequent entry of the CPN-M into the parliamentary process are viewed by many former supporters, cadres, and observers as a profound betrayal of the original revolutionary goals.

This perception stems from the Maoists’ compromises, the insufficient and perceived humiliating integration of their People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the failure of the promised socio-economic transformation, and the rapid adaptation to the corrupt bourgeois politics they had once sworn to overthrow.

The Maoists initiated the “People’s War” with the goal of smashing the existing state structure and establishing a “New Democratic” system.[26] Their agenda included the establishment of a People’s Republic, the abolition of the monarchy, the end of capitalist and feudal exploitation, and the elimination of discrimination based on caste, ethnicity, and gender – the heart of these goals, namely the establishment of revolutionary rule, was abandoned in favor of cooperation with the “democratic parties”.[27]

The alliance established with the 12-point program was sharply criticized by hardliners within the party, such as Mohan Baidya, as “corruption” and “deprivation of revolutionary sharpness,” as it endangered the realization of a radical constitution.[28] For the fighters of the People’s Liberation Army, who formed the backbone of the rebellion, the peace process represented the “ultimate betrayal”[29] – The agreement for the integration of the PLA into the national Nepalese army stipulated that the majority of fighters would not be admitted and only a small number of officer positions would be created for former Maoists (Adhikari 2014: 215-217).

Many found the offered compensation packages insufficient and accused their leadership of embezzling funds intended for their upkeep in the cantonments. The symbolic peak of betrayal was reached when Maoist chairman Prachanda instructed the Nepalese army to suppress internal unrest in the Maoist camps.[30]

Prachanda’s credibility was further undermined when a video from 2009 surfaced in which he admitted to artificially inflating the number of PLA fighters to deceive the other parties (Adhikari 2014: 216).

After entering the government, the Maoist party made “little progress”[31] in implementing those revolutionary goals. In many areas formerly controlled by them, the old social hierarchies returned after the end of the war, the promises to ethnic minorities, particularly the Madhesi, were not kept. Although they had been assured autonomy within a federal state structure, the interim constitution contained only a vague reference to a “progressive restructuring of the state”.[32]

Leading representatives of the Madhesi, who were excluded from the negotiations, rejected the constitution, leading to weeks of protests (Adhikari 2014: 189).

The rapid adaptation of the Maoist leadership to parliamentary politics in Kathmandu destroyed their revolutionary credibility. They formed alliances with the same parties they had previously condemned as lackeys of “Indian expansionists”: The attempt to ignite an urban mass movement through a general strike in May 2010 failed miserably, as the population of Kathmandu rejected the disruptions.

Fragmentation of the Movement

The years after 2010 were marked by a struggle for a new constitution and permanent political instability. The first constituent assembly, in which the Maoists (then UCPN-Maoist) were the largest party, failed due to insurmountable differences over the form of state, particularly regarding federalism and ethnic autonomy.

The failure to pass a constitution led to the dissolution of the assembly in 2012 and deepened the rifts within the Maoist party (Adhikari 2014: 210-212).

A group of hardliners under the leadership of Mohan Baidya split off in 2012 and founded the CPN-Maoist (we know: terribly confusing). They accused the party leadership led by Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai of betraying revolutionary principles, “parliamentary corruption,” and abandoning the goal of “New Democracy” (Adhikari 2014: 206).

This split deprived the party of its ideological hardliners and many committed cadres and triggered a chain of further fragmentations.

The Baidya faction later split again, and in parallel, the prominent ideologue Baburam Bhattarai left the party in 2015 to found a new political force that attempted to offer an alternative to the left-right scheme.

The political landscape after 2013, especially after the elections for the second constituent assembly, in which the Maoists fell to third place, was characterized by changing and unstable coalitions: The Maoists, now known as CPN (Maoist Centre), became the “kingmaker” and entered into pragmatic alliances both with the Nepali Congress and with the other major communist party, the CPN-UML.

Prachanda himself held the office of Prime Minister multiple times during this period, but always at the head of fragile alliances. An attempt to unite the communist movement through a merger with the CPN-UML into the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) in 2018 failed after almost three years due to internal power struggles and was judicially dissolved again. By 2025, the Maoists had established themselves as a medium-sized but strategically important party whose main goal was to gain and maintain political power within the parliamentary system.

Achievements of the Movement

The social successes of the Maoists in government responsibility fell far short of their original promises. The most significant, albeit controversial, achievement was the adoption of the new constitution in 2015.

The constitution established Nepal as a federal, secular, bourgeois democratic republic and contained provisions for the inclusion of women, Dalits, Janajatis, and other marginalized groups:

“After the new Constitution was enacted in Nepal in 2015, there was immense hope that the broad left would be able to advance the social situation of Nepalis. Therefore, in 2017, the various communist parties won 75% of the seats in the national parliament.” (Peoplesdispatch)[33]

The promised socio-economic transformations largely failed to materialize – The core promise, to confiscate land from “feudal” large landowners and redistribute it to landless peasants, was never systematically implemented.

The Maoist leadership, once part of the establishment, showed little interest in fundamentally touching property relations (Adhikari 2014: 222). Despite the emancipatory language of the constitution, material social hierarchies and economic inequalities persisted.

The hope for a fundamental change in living conditions for the poorest strata of the population gave way to deep disillusionment.

GDP increased by 150% between 2000 and 2023, GDP per capita grew by 171% from 2006 (1969 USD to 5348 USD). Indian dominance over the Nepalese economy continues: 67.7% of all exports go to India (2023-24). Import dependency on India also remains massive: in 2023/24, exports were about 2.13 billion USD, imports were 11.8 billion USD.[34]

With an HDI development of 0.010 and a development from 0.503 (2006)[35] to 0.601 (2024)[36], Nepal is significantly above the average global development (0.004), but still records structural poverty and hunger: “according to the World Food Programme’s Fill the Nutrient Gap analysis (2021), 23.1% of the population does not consume a nutritionally adequate diet and 33% of pregnant women suffer from anemia.”[37]

61.9% of Nepalese work in agriculture, forestry, and fishing; that agriculture, whose expansion accounts for 70% of public expenditure on agriculture, and which is described by Nepalese experts as playing a “crucial role in poverty reduction”[38], is politically completely left to capital and neglected.

70% of all agricultural subsidies serve private capital development, only 7.7% of resource-poor farmers have access to state subsidies – Agriculture is thus firmly integrated into the capitalist value chain, sustained by the trade balance surplus:[39]

“Findings also revealed that extension programs disproportionately favored elite groups, distorting market prices and adversely affecting women, marginalized communities, and resource-poor farmers.” (Gadal et al. 2024: 173)

The production of forestry and agricultural products as well as textiles like carpets and clothing is explicitly intended for the world market – In return, more value-intensive goods such as petroleum products and machinery are imported, which prevents independent industrialization and leaves the contradiction between productive forces and relations unchanged from before the People’s War.

At the same time, remittances from Nepalese migrant workers are a central instrument of the Nepalese economy – These remittances function similarly to a “wage” flowing from the global capitalist periphery to Nepal, which stabilizes the national economy and at the same time compensates for the super-exploitation of labor power abroad.

Nepal’s economy thus corresponds to a typical peripheral capitalist economy – Development is not driven by the inherent logic of a national planned economy but is subject to global capital, which is reflected in the strong dependence on foreign capital and labor reserves.

Change in Public Opinion

While the Maoists were for many a hope for radical change and social justice during the war and shortly thereafter, over the years they were increasingly perceived as part of the problem.

The failed general strike in May 2010 was an early sign that especially the urban population rejected the revolutionary rhetoric and perceived the Maoists as a disruptive factor for daily life.[40]

The devastating electoral defeat in 2013 confirmed this trend and showed that voters punished the Maoists for the political chaos and lack of government performance. By 2025, the image had solidified: The Maoists were no longer seen by the Nepalese public as a revolutionary vanguard, but as just another pragmatic, power-oriented party – so much for the mass line.

Their reputation was damaged by the constant political maneuvering, participation in unstable governments, and corruption allegations also leveled against their leadership. Their voter base has stabilized, but they no longer mobilize the masses.

A comprehensive representative survey (n=3000) by the Nepalese market research institute Sharecast Initiative Nepal from last year[41] (or 2081 according to the Nepalese Bikram Sambat calendar) shows the departure from the mass line as a political leadership concept quite clearly:

The overwhelming majority (68%) responded “to the question of whether Nepal’s politics is going in the right or wrong direction, […] that it is going in the wrong direction” – only 16 percent believed it “is going in the right direction.”:

“54.5 percent said the country is moving in the wrong direction due to corruption, 42 percent said it is moving in the wrong direction due to weak political leadership. 35 percent said it is moving in the wrong direction due to political instability.”

When asked about the “most urgent problems of the country and the reform priorities,” they answered…

“61 percent with unemployment. 30 percent named poverty and deprivation and around 27 percent road maintenance. Around 25 percent considered corruption the main problem. When asked which profession attracts Nepalese most domestically, 72 percent answered employment abroad and immigration. And when asked about the main reason for Nepalese to go abroad, 82 percent answered lack of employment opportunities.”

Natural disasters and IMF: Context for the Social Media Ban

As with any profound societal development, external factors also stood in a dialectical relationship to the internal ones in Nepal’s upheaval. However, it is crucial to emphasize that the influences from outside could have been averted if the domestic revolution and its leading forces had not carried out a capitulation of the propagated goals for the sake of power.

One of these external forces was the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose conditions in the form of fiscal regulations interfered with Nepal’s national decisions. As part of the four-year “Extended Credit Facility” program that Nepal adopted in January 2022, the government committed to a noticeable increase in state revenues with the aim of reducing national debt and stabilizing the balance of payments.

The proposed measures included higher value-added tax rates and the introduction of a digital tax on foreign electronic services – a levy specifically targeting global platforms and services like Google, Meta, or Netflix, which was expected to channel significant revenue into the strained state coffers in the medium term:[42]

“Corruption, inequality, and inflation could not be contained by the government, which made very poor deals for trade and for finance (the return to the IMF’s Extended Credit Facility narrowed its fiscal possibilities).” (Peoplesdispatch)[43]

That the implementation of such requirements could also be politically instrumentalized is shown by the Nepalese government’s reaction to the registration requirements for foreign platforms: Failures to register were not only treated as administrative violations but served as a pretext for access restrictions and temporary blocks.

In a situation where the digital field was already permeated by an anti-corruption trend, these measures offered an instrument to control part of the digital information flow – the emerging online protests and hashtag campaigns (#NepoKids) could thus be curtailed in their reach and impact.

This dynamic can only be understood against the backdrop of recurring exogenous shocks that have further burdened Nepal’s fiscal situation. The severe earthquake of April 25, 2015, and its aftershocks left massive destruction of infrastructure, housing, and agricultural production and bound large funds for reconstruction and humanitarian aid. [44]

In addition, there are regularly recurring monsoon floods, landslides, and the growing danger of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), which both create immediate humanitarian crises and increase long-term state investment and insurance needs. Such natural disasters increase the budget deficit in the short term, worsen the balance of payments (e.g., through falling exports and rising import needs), and reduce fiscal capacity – circumstances that make the use of external credit and thus dependence on institutions like the IMF politically and economically plausible.

The combined effect of external conditionalities and internal socio-economic vulnerabilities leads to a double restriction of state sovereignty: economic constraints dictate reform paths, while domestic tensions and legitimate protests simultaneously politicize the enforcement of these paths and occasionally lead to more repressive measures.

Protest and Government Overthrow

So the social media ban was the last straw that broke the camel’s back for the youth, permeated by unemployment and insecurity, regarding the corrupt, completely alienated Nepal:

On September 8, thousands of demonstrators gathered on the streets of Kathmandu – The protests began peacefully but escalated when security forces used tear gas and, according to reports, also live ammunition. The situation worsened further when demonstrators occupied several government buildings, including the parliament building, and attacked political offices.

On September 9, the protesters stormed the International Convention Centre in Kathmandu, which serves as the parliament building, and set it on fire. As a result of the clashes, a total of 72 people were killed, including 59 demonstrators, 10 prisoners, and 3 police officers, while more than 2,100 people were injured:

“With 72 people killed, last week’s protests were the deadliest unrest in the Himalayan country in decades. Official buildings, residences of political leaders and luxury hotels such as the Hilton, which opened in July 2024, were torched, vandalised and looted. The wife of a former prime minister is fighting for her life after their home was set ablaze.” (BBC)[45]

The protests led to the resignation of Prime Minister Sharma Oli (CPN-UML) the following day – The new interim prime minister, Sushila Karki, who was elected through an unconventional election procedure via the messaging service Discord, is no stranger to Nepal. She was the first female Chief Justice of Nepal from 2016 to 2017 and was considered here as “strict and anti-corruption.”[46]

“Ghimre, 24, said the decision was motivated by the young protesters researching Karki’s background and career. He pointed out how Karki has previously said during interviews that “many ministers came to her and they asked for some favour” but that she had refused to comply with their demands.” (Aljazeera)[47]

Previously, she had worked in the judiciary for decades and had distinguished herself through decisions against corruption and abuse of power.

When the Supreme Court under her leadership overturned the appointment of Jaya Bahadur Chand as police chief, the government accused her of working against them. In April 2017, the Nepali Congress and the CPN (Maoist Centre) initiated impeachment proceedings against her – a step that many observers considered politically motivated.

The proceedings were eventually stopped by the Supreme Court and the parties withdrew their charges. On June 6, 2017, Karki retired regularly from office, as she reached the age limit of 65 – for many young Nepalese, she had since been considered a symbolic figure for the fight against corruption, which, after all, 54.5% of Nepalese understand as Nepal’s biggest problem (see above).

Her new government, which she intends to hand over “within six months,” consists of independents who are to prepare the next election: “We will not stay here more than six months in any situation. We will complete our responsibilities and pledge to hand over to the next parliament and ministers”[48]

So: “Colour Revolution”?

We cannot yet know with absolute certainty whether foreign interests, namely India’s, also played a supporting role in the upheaval in Nepal – but we doubt it.

It is easy (and quite understandable) to see apparent upheavals in a country with a ruling “communist” party, about which one otherwise hears little, and to conclude that such an upheaval is a matter steered by foreign interests. But that is taking the easy way out.

We do not doubt that foreign interest groups, namely US and Indian intelligence services, provided at least minor material resources for the purpose of regime change – However, this does not mean that it wouldn’t have been soon over with the ruling Maoists anyway:

The ruling Maoists of Nepal immediately after the People’s War set aside their ambitions in favor of claims to power. There have been no comprehensive land reforms since 2006, the massive subordination to Indian capital was not broken, state steering was never dominant at any time, not even in key sectors, and even the subsidies in the main agricultural sector only benefited working farmers by 7.7%, 70% went to private companies (see above).

On top of that came massive corruption on the part of politics in the form of close ties between financial and political capital and ubiquitous everyday corruption on the part of the administrative apparatus, and a constant change of political rule, which was never able to break the dependency relationship with India. In addition: The completely absurd, routine splitting of the communist movement.

This resulted in a complete alienation of the population from the political leadership, in which only 16% still trusted last year (2024, see above).

This dissatisfaction naturally arose precisely from the contrast to the revolutionary ambitions that the Maoists and with them most Nepalese shared, and rightly so; even during the People’s War, communes, indigenous self-governance structures, parallel administrative structures to the monarchy, and hope, often tied to actually progressive developments, were established.

The development of Nepal under the Maoists is particularly ironic, where Mao had solidified economic self-reliance as a central line for socialist construction – trade for the development of national productive forces, in order to then proceed on the path to socialist development, but no economic subordination for the purpose of capital accumulation.

And what did the Maoists of Nepal do? The distribution of land to landless peasants for the build-up of self-sustaining agriculture was never implemented. An independent consumer goods industry, to keep the subsistence of Nepalis independent, was never developed. Domestic and foreign large landowners were not only not expropriated but were promoted with massive subsidies for the purpose of export economy.

The result is an economy that is 33% based on remittances from Nepalis living abroad[49], has a youth underemployment and unemployment rate of almost 21%, in which the bond between political and economic capital is crushing (see above), issued 839,266 work permits for work abroad last year, and has the weakest infrastructure in all of Southeast Asia.

So the overwhelming majority (68%) responded “to the question of whether Nepal’s politics is going in the right or wrong direction, […] that it is going in the wrong direction” – only 16 percent believed it “is going in the right direction.” – So no, the upheaval in Nepal is not a simple “Colour Revolution”.

The argument that it was due to Nepal’s difficult geography that the Communists failed to detach from India or implement the promises from the People’s War completely misunderstands Nepal’s situation: Yes, Nepal is one of the most mountainous countries in the world – but, to come back to Mao again (the rulers of Nepal at least refer to his name); that didn’t stop the Chinese Communists in the mountain provinces of Jiangxi and Hunan from carrying out complete land reforms, establishing cooperatives, and completely securing basic supplies.

We know, of course; developments cannot be directly compared, but the frequent claim that the low material success of the Nepalese Communists is due to Nepal’s geography is too short-sighted.

To put it quite normatively: The whole thing is a great shame. During the People’s War, the Maoists established people’s governments (“jana sarkars”) in the occupied areas that took on all the roles of a state locally, including the establishment of educational institutions, worker self-management, their own tax system, and democratic-centralist political administrative organs (see above). Even during the People’s War, large parts of the controlled land were provisionally distributed to the propertyless peasants – only to be given back after the end of the People’s War for the sake of power.

The Maoists had massive popularity among the population before, during, and immediately after the People’s War. The, quite implementable, promises of the guerrillas were welcomed and desired – in the words of Brecht: We stand disappointed and see concerned / The curtain closed and all questions open.

What speaks for a “Colour Revolution”?

To the Reddit question “Is Nepal Experiencing a Color Revolution?”, several users answer; “A key tip off of a color revolution is the presence of signs written in English, made for the international audience who’ll see these signs on the Establishment media.”[50]

And we still take the trouble to write a detailed post – it can be that easy!

The Nepalese economy is in complete dependence on Indian imperialism. It is true that Nepal, among other things with its accession to the Belt and Road Initiative (2017), moved closer to China on paper, but this development is also “slow”[51] and irrelevant for Indian dominance over Nepal’s economy.

On this, Liu Zongyi, director of the Center for South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, told the SCMP:

“During periods of turmoil, there will certainly be an impact on the Belt and Road Initiative. However, after the turmoil, if their development and prosperity issues cannot be resolved, only China’s Belt and Road Initiative can help them address problems such as having enough to eat and living better lives.”[52]

Even with a full reconciliation between India and China, Nepal, with its dependence on Indian imperialism, would not be able to play a significant geopolitical factor in the region without massive transformation of its economy through, for example, absurdly high US subsidies. A Taiwan situation is not possible and not to be expected.

The notion of some Western leftists, who haven’t really engaged with Nepal, that now a progressive situation à la Mossadegh, Sankara, Aidit, or Lumumba has been broken by possibly Western (or Indian) intervention because the rule in Nepal falsely calls itself “Maoist”, is naive.

The ruling “Maoists” of Nepal are, according to their material conditions, responsible for the political upheaval. Whether external intervention was involved in this upheaval is unlikely and besides irrelevant.

It must be clear that Interim Prime Minister Karki will only hold office for six months (see above), after which new elections to parliament will follow – with any parties that have run so far.

How this election will turn out is of great interest to us; unlike what we are used to in Western bourgeois democracies, in Nepal the reference to communism was a political “selling point” – whether this continues to exist can only be said in the next elections. We are curious.

---

[1] (Bhattarai 1998; Hutt 2004: 93).

[2] (Bhattarai 1998)

[3] (Bhattarai 1998: 1; Adhikari 2014: 450).

[4] (Bhattarai 1998; Thapa 2005: 13).

[5] (Adhikari 2014: 447; Bhattarai 1998).

[6] https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/from-nepali-press/Remembering-the-1989-blockade,2651

[7] (Gersony 2003: 25)

[8] (Gersony 2003: 94 ff.)

[9] (Adhikari 2014: 83 ff.)

[10] (Thapa 2005: 104)

[11]  “A number of communists from indigenous groups grew disillusioned with this position and left the mother party to establish or join organizations that campaigned for the rights of their communities. There was an upsurge in ethnic mobilization in the 1990s. In the course of their war, the Maoists sought to woo these activists by presenting their party as a vast umbrella organization that represented the demands of the marginalized castes and ethnicities.” (Adhikari 2014: 108)

[12] (Adhikari 2014: 20 ff.)

[13] (Hutt 2004: 285; Adhikari 2014: 504, https://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/nepal/document/papers/40points.htm)

[14] https://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/nepal/document/papers/40points.htm

[15] (Thapa 2005; Hutt 2004: 41)

[16] (Hutt 2004: 18).

[17] (Hutt 2004: 18; Shneiderman & Turin 2004: 79).

[18] (Bhattarai 1998: 1, 92; Adhikari 2014: 449, 470).

[19] (Hutt 2004: 11; Adhikari 2014).

[20] https://web.archive.org/web/20180529120217/https://reliefweb.int/report/nepal/nepals-maoist-cauldron-draws-foreign-powers-closer

[21] (Thapa 2007: 288). Quote from (Marks 2003: 30)

[22] (Adhikari 2014: 104)

[23] (Adhikari 2014: 464, 517).

[24] (Thapa 2005).

[25] https://nepalmonitor.org/reports/view/16752

[26] (Hutt 2004: 11)

[27] (Marks 2003: 15).

[28] (Adhikari 2014: 206).

[29] (Adhikari 2014: 217).

[30] (Adhikari 2014: 219).

[31] (Adhikari 2014: 219).

[32] (Gurung 2006: 52).

[33] https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/11/five-theses-on-the-situation-in-nepal/

[34] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Laender-Regionen/Internationales/Laenderprofile/nepal.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

[35] https://countryeconomy.com/hdi/nepal?year=2006

[36] https://www.undp.org/nepal/press-releases/rich-countries-attain-record-human-development-half-poorest-have-gone-backwards-finds-un-development-programme#:~:text=Nepal’s%20HDI%20value%20is%200.601,of%20193%20countries%20and%20territories

[37] https://borgenproject.org/nepals-poverty-crisis/

[38] (Gadal et al., 2024)

[39] Gadal et al. 2024: 173)

[40] (Adhikari 2014: 202-203).

[41] https://ekantipur.com/opinion/2025/01/24/correctional-alliances-to-win-the-election-another-coalition-and-again-the-frustration-depression-46-06.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawIC0yNleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHT_-r_iH7wfBoRYh0PNHQqcI-h5rR-5VWuXr9J9y6BQ2uvV6c2vteQ-OlQ_aem_IA616gWdFw91gNI-FiC6AA

[42] https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/11/five-theses-on-the-situation-in-nepal/

[43] https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/11/five-theses-on-the-situation-in-nepal/

[44] https://www.welthungerhilfe.de/informieren/laender/nepal/erdbeben-in-nepal

[45] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg9n760gddo

[46] https://www.jstor.org/stable/26367725

[47] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/17/who-is-sushila-karki-nepals-new-73-year-old-interim-prime-minister

[48] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/17/who-is-sushila-karki-nepals-new-73-year-old-interim-prime-minister

[49] https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/09/nepals-gen-z-uprising-is-about-jobs-dignity-and-a-broken-development-model/

[50] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskSocialists/comments/1nco9gm/is_nepal_experiencing_a_color_revolution/

[51] https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3325088/beijing-weighs-risks-social-unrest-rocks-strategic-partner-nepal

[52] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3325088/beijing-weighs-risks-social-unrest-rocks-strategic-partner-nepal