UNDERSTANDING THE NEPALI COMMUNISTS
HT’s editors offer a book recommendation every Saturday, which provides history, context, and helps understand recent news events
Nepal has taken an aggressive position against India over a border dispute. A key reason for the shrill response is the nature of the Nepal Communist Party, which holds the reins of power in Kathmandu.
This week, we recommend Aditya Adhikari’s The Bullet and the Ballot Box: The Story of Nepal’s Maoist Revolution. While the book’s focus is on the years of the civil war in Nepal (1996-2006), it is instructive in the current context because it studies the discourse that permeates Nepal’s Left movements. Through a reconstruction of the evolution of the communist parties, review of party documents, interviews with activists, and a dive into Nepali literature, it gleans what motivates the Nepali Left.
Besides domestic issues, a constant theme in the Nepali communist movement has been opposition to “Indian expansionism”. Exaggerated fears about Delhi are drilled into the minds of activists. This is what Nepal’s leadership is now opportunistically stoking. Adhikari’s book explains why the Nepali communists think the way they do.