Among Asian nations, Nepal is not high on Washington’s list of foreign policy priorities. The mountainous nation, which is consumed by the massive Himalayas, is mostly known for its Buddhism and its Gurkhas—a warrior people who still provide mercenary services for the British, Indian, and Singaporean armies. Overall, Nepal produces very little that Americans consume. Nepal is also not the home to a large American military contingent, nor is it seen as an important ally in America’s never-ending quest to be the major hegemony in West and East Asia. Nepal, to put it bluntly, is not important to American interests.

This view will almost certainly change, however. The reason for this is that a powerful Communist party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) recently acquired the levers of power in Kathmandu after a democratic election. According to all international observers, the Communists in Nepal have close connections to the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. This all but guarantees that rustic and rural Nepal will become a Chinese satellite on the border with India, a close American ally and a long-time opponent of China owing to a border dispute that once erupted in violence.

Democracy, Civil War, and Insurgency

In order to appreciate the importance of this victory, one must understand the history of communism in Nepal. Himalayan Communists are not the typical neckbeard professors that one encounters in the West; they are experienced guerrilla fighters who waged a war against the central government for almost two decades.

The Communist Party of Nepal is led by two former prime ministers, K.P. Sharma Old and Pushpa Kamal Dahal (both of whom fought against the center-left government during the 2000s). These two men managed to unify two competing factions of the far-left party in order to sweep the country’s Parliament and Provincial Assembly. With this mandate, Nepalese Communists are expected to both follow a harder line against India and be more cooperative to Chinese business interests in the country. It is predicted that one of the first orders of business for the new government is to pass through the Chinese hydropower project that the former prime minister, Kamal Thapa, cancelled less than a month before the election.

In 1994, the government of prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, the first democratically elected leader of Nepal and a member of the center-left Nepali Congress Party, suffered a vote of no confidence. That same year, new elections brought the Communists into power. Communist leader Man Mohan Adhikari became the prime minister and briefly led a minority government. That same government dissolved less than a year later. After that, Nepalese Communists, especially the Maoists among then, began their long insurgency.

A brief paper written by Yurendra Basnett in 2009 laid out the reasons underlying the vicious civil war that rocked Nepal between 1996 and 2006. Basnett writes that Western scholars were baffled by the far-left insurgency given that “Nepal enjoyed [an] unprecedented level of economic and political freedom” at the start of the rebellion.[1] The Maoists themselves argued that their war began because of economic inequality, rural poverty, and chronic landlessness in the country. Basnett argues that these invocations of economic disparities do not amount to much given that they have been “omnipresent” since the formation of modern Nepal.[2]

What Basnett’s critique of the Maoist movement misses is that Communist movements rarely come from times of economic disparity. Except for the rise of far-left movements during the Great Depression of the 1930s, most of the seminal Communist movements have sought to obtain power just at the time when their respective nations have achieved some form of unprecedented growth or stability. When the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 erupted, the Russian Empire that they overthrew was far more liberal, progressive, and economically advanced than Western liberals and socialists realized. According to UNZ Review writer Anatoly Karlin, the Russian Empire of Tsar Nicholas II was even more “progressive” than such typically modernist bastions as London, Paris, and Berlin:

“Access to higher education was actually more meritocratic in the late Empire than in contemporary Germany or France by a factor of 2-3x. Women constituted about a third of Russia’s total numbers of university students, a far larger percentage than in any other European country—and Russia by 1913 had the largest number of university students in Europe (127,000 to 80,000 in Germany, around 40,000 in France and Austria each). Likewise, they constituted an absolute majority in grammar schools, many decades ahead of most of the rest of Europe. In 1915, restrictions on co-education were dropped across a range of Russian universities by decision of the Tsar and his Council of Ministers.”[3]

Tragically, this liberal attitude allowed a radical student body to fester and become many of the same Bolsheviks who oversaw the genocidal regime that would rule Russia until 1991. Such a scenario played out in China as well, for when the Chinese Communist Party began life in the aftermath of World War I, China was modernizing at a rapid pace. Thanks to World War I, which did not damage China, Chinese exports rose and the nation’s trade deficit dropped by an astounding 80 percent. While this success proved temporary, China before Mao was politically unstable but considered one of the world’s greatest jewels. Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s was a cosmopolitan city beloved by Asians and Westerners alike.

Maoism in Nepal follows a discernible pattern—as prosperity increases or stabilizes, discontent grows as well. Like Marx, the social leech who had servants and never worried about earning a dollar, many of today’s Communists are full of the same greed that they constantly accuse capitalists of harboring deep in their benighted chests.

In Nepal, Maoist violence reached a terrifying apex in November 2001, when more than one hundred people were killed in violent confrontations between rebels and government forces. As a result, the central government declared a state of emergency. An absolute monarchy returned to power amidst the chaos. All told, almost 20,000 people were killed and another 2,000 remain missing.

From Monarchy to Democracy to Communism

A reactionary analysis would find that Nepal’s troubles began with the decline and fall of its monarchy. When this stabilizing force fell, chaos came in its wake.

Nepal was unified into a central state ruled by a hereditary monarchy in 1768. The kingdom first began to falter due to military incursions by the British East India Company, which already had a sizable foothold in India by the late 18th century. Between 1814 and 1816, Nepalese forces lost the Anglo-Nepalese War to the soldiers of the East India Company and their Indian allies. Although the Kingdom of Nepal retained its independence, one third of the country would be a protectorate of British India until Indian independence in 1947.

When King Birendra came to the throne in 1972, political parties were banned in the country. However, this did not mean that the king could rule by fiat or whim; a system of regional councils called panchayats helped to disperse and decentralize authority. Because he ruled during an age of interventionist democratic liberalism, King Birendra often told the international press that he was a democrat rather than an autocrat. Still, the king wisely told his critics that due to Nepal’s “backwardness,” mass democracy would be a recipe for disaster. The political violence that often accompanies the rise of political parties would ruin the country, the king argued.

King Birendra would rule Nepal in this way for decades. Despite the relative peace and harmony, there were pro-democratic movements designed to bring down the monarchy. In 1980, King Birendra had the leaders of the center-left Nepali Congress Party arrested in order to keep the panchayat system in place. The king then called a referendum in order to see if Nepalese citizens would prefer a non-party government or one that allowed political parties to exist. Nepalese voters favored non-party politics by a score of 55 to 45 percent.

Ten years later, the People’s Movement used strikes to disrupt the monarchical state. This movement proved harder to suppress than one political party, as it was composed of several political parties, including the Nepali Congress Party and a unified group of Communist parties called the United Left Front. In February 1990, the government began arresting the leaders of the People’s Movement and shut down most of their media organs. A series of deadly confrontations between the Nepalese state and People’s Movement protesters followed this. For example, in the city of Bhaktapur, police killed 12 protesters in late February. Out of anger and frustration, approximately two million protesters descended on the capital of Kathmandu. On April 8, King Birendra removed the ban on political parties. A few months later, in November 1990, a constitution written by the People’s Movement forced King Birendra to remove the panchayat system and to democratize the government. Marxists were soon elected to office.

Although 1990 is often seen as the year when democracy came to Nepal, the continued existence of the royal family helped to maintain fears that an absolute monarchy could return at any time. These fears gained substance thanks to Crown Prince Dipendra, the king’s eldest son and heir. Unfortunately, he proved to be a murderous psychopath. On June 1, 2001, Dipendra consumed large amounts of alcohol and hashish at a dinner on the grounds of the Narayanhity Royal Palace. After misbehaving with a guest, the King told him to leave. He returned an hour later with a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun, an H&K MP5 submachine gun, a Colt M16A2 rifle, and a Glock 19 9mm pistol, which he used to kill nine members of the royal family: the King and Queen, his sister, his brother, the King’s brother, two of the King’s sisters, the husband of one of the King’s sisters, and the King’s cousin. Dipendra then turned a gun on himself, dying after spending three days in a coma during which he was King. While many Nepalese citizens continue to question the official story of the massacre, there is no doubt that the future of the Nepalese monarchy ended on that late spring night in 2001.

The throne passed to Gyanendra, another brother of Birendra who briefly re-established the absolute monarchy due to political violence in the country. King Gyanendra blamed Nepal’s political parties for failing to form a government after the dissolution of the parliament. After taking direct control of the state, Gyanendra dismissed three prime ministers for failing to call for new elections. Interestingly for an autocrat, King Gyanendra demanded that Nepal acquire some form of democracy or parliamentarianism in order to legitimize the state in the eyes of foreign critics. King Gyanendra’s promises of “peace and effective democracy” were undermined by the Maoist rebels who continued to carry out their bloody war against the Nepalese monarchy. Like Bavarian minister Gustav von Kahr, King Gyanendra all but admitted that a “cell of order” must exist before democracy can take hold. Personal liberty is nothing if public safety cannot be guaranteed.

By 2006, King Gyanendra announced that he would give executive authority to a new prime minister. Interim prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala took power in 2006 while Nepalese politicians argued about the role the monarchy would play in the future democracy. That April, Gyanendra reinstated the country’s parliament.

The fall of the monarchy occurred under the watchful eye of the Indian government. Along with Prime Minister Koirala, who supposedly suspected that the monarchy would always threaten democratic governance, Indian officials weakened the King’s power to the point where the royal palace became just the head of the parliament. On May 27, 2008, King Gyanendra was ordered by the parliament to vacate the royal palace within fifteen days. The ruling came as part of peace talks between the transitional democratic government and the Maoists. This is how the Nepalese monarchy fell—as an olive branch given to ultra-left radicals who despise Nepalese traditions.

Lessons

There are several lessons to be learned from these events. First, in the words of Hans-Hermann Hoppe,

“One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society.”[4]

If democrats and communists are permitted to wield political power and advance their goals, they will eventually destroy the traditions and values that make civilization possible. It sometimes begins with something that seems innocuous—the Magna Carta in England, the Constitution in America, or the People’s Movement in Nepal—but the end is always some form of communist takeover, whether overt or covert. Monarchs (or private property owners in a libertarian society) must be willing to use the necessary amount of force to crush democratic and communist uprisings, however unpleasant the resulting bloodshed may be.

Second, it is no measure of health to kowtow to a sick global community, especially when the disease in question is such a virulent one as liberal democracy. Had King Birendra argued a passionate defense of traditional unelected governance, offered an ideological offensive against democratic thought, and called upon foreigners to respect Nepal’s sovereignty, the progress of the Maoists might have been forestalled. King Gyanendra was no better in this regard, and it cost him his crown. Unlike other countries that have had democratic experiments inflicted upon them by Western intervention, Nepal harbors no conceivable threat and has little that imperialist powers could want, so war propaganda would be more difficult to manufacture against them.

Finally, the greatest enemy is always the enemy within. A stable family, let alone governance structure for a nation, must have a means of detecting and removing threats like Dipendra. This could take many forms, from mental health evaluations to keeping inebriated people and deadly weapons away from the King.

What Lies Ahead

For India, the end of official hostilities in Nepal have been of little comfort. After all, India itself is still battling an internal Maoist insurgency that has ties to Nepal’s Communists. India’s war with Communist forces have been going on since 1967, and today, the “red corridor” of the country has claimed almost 18,000 lives. Violence is trending downwards, but there is no end in sight to the insurgency. A Communist victory in Nepal is likely to bolster the spirits of Maoists across the border in India.

For China, a pliant government in Nepal means that they move one step closer to realizing their “One Belt, One Road” dream. This plan, which has already seen China dump billions of dollars in investments in Asian and European ports, as well as investing heavily in the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, is the great issue facing the West. Contrary to starry-eyed Cathedral elites, the Chinese Communist Party is not reformed and has not embraced capitalism. Instead, the CCP is bent on pursuing a predatory economic policy that will make Asia and Africa into colonies of China’s limitless and cheap produce.

In order to achieve “One Belt, One Road,” do not be surprised if China dusts off an old gem from Communism’s history. During the 1930s, when fascism posed a grave threat to Soviet Communism, Joseph Stalin encouraged the Popular Front strategy, which saw Communist parties collaborate with liberal and socialist parties in France, Spain, the United States, and other nations. The elections of May 1936 brought the Front Populaire to power in Paris, and Leon Blum pursued a radically republican, anti-clerical, and socialistic platform thanks to support from Communist-backed labor unions. Across the Pyrenees in Spain, the Frente Popular installed the a rabidly anti-Catholic and anti-capitalist government headed by Manuel Azana. This was the last government of the Second Spanish Republic, for a right-wing coup led by the Spanish Army triggered what would become the Spanish Civil War in 1936. China, in pursuing their economic goals, may begin promoting Communist parties all across Asia. While Nepal is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, its fall to a far-left rabble does not bode well for liberty in Asia.

References:

Basset, Yurendra (2009). From Politicization of Grievances to Political Violence: An Analysis of the Maoist Movement in Nepal. Development DESTIN Studies Institute, Working Papers Series. p. 4. Ibid. Karlin, Anatoly (2017). The Russian Empire: Too Nice For Its Own Good. http://www.unz.com/akarlin/progressive-russian-empire/ Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (2001). Democracy: The God That Failed. Transaction Publishers. p. 218.

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