When you hear news about Nepal these days, it seems it’s never good. In 2001, the Crown Prince killed 10 royal family members in a shooting spree, including his father, King Birendra, before turning the gun on himself.
In 2008, after a civil war that killed thousands, a “Maoist” insurgency brought down the monarchy and briefly put its leader Prachanda into power. Earlier this month, the Maoists finally ended a massive shut-down of Kathmandu — like nothing the capital had seen before.
As local journalist and political analyst Mana Ranjan Josse explained to The Daily Caller, this was supposed to be “their final battle.” But it turned into a massive flop.
“Kathmandu looked like a ghost town,” Josse said. “On the main streets, no shops, except drugstores and newspaper stalls, were open.” The Maoists did allow some stores to function between 6 and 8 p.m., but it didn’t help much.
“Naturally prices soared,” Josse said. ”With supplies cut off, soon only stale and rotten stuff [was] available.” The Maoists made sure businesses got the message. Reportedly at least one major hotel was threatened with bombs for trying to stay open. In the streets “traffic was mostly limited to trucks, vans etc. flying the Maoist flag.”
Maoists have been boycotting and causing strikes in Kathmandu for years, using their guerrillas against government forces and putting political pressure on the ruling party. Just a few years ago Kathmandu was surrounded by military checkpoints – you couldn’t drive into the city on a main road without coming across barricades.
They were manned by soldiers in tattered uniforms holding enormous guns. They’d peer into the cars and eventually wave people through.
But this strike was supposed to be unlike anything before, an “indefinite” general shut-down or “amm hartal.” The Maoists had announced at a May Day rally that there was “no going back.” This would be an ultimate show of force and of the people’s support for the Maoists.
“[They were] principally calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister Madhave Humar Nepal, and a new ‘national unity’ government led by Maoist supremo Prachanda,” Josse said.
So for more than a week, ordinary Nepalis were stuck in their homes under threat of attack, the country’s economy shut down and tourists, who bring in much of Nepal’s money, were unable to leave their hotels. No trekking to Mount Everest for them.
Unsurprisingly, people were not happy with the Maoists. “From the start it was apparent that the ‘locals’ were not joining in to support [them].” With nothing running, no food to buy and no freedom to leave their homes, Josse said people were gradually getting angrier and more frustrated.
But the Maoists were getting angry, too. This was meant to be a “people’s movement,” after all, but according to Josse, “there was no support for them from people who were not already Maoist supporters.” So they got people from outside the city to fill up their rallies. Rural schoolteachers and farmers supporting the Maoists were brought into the city to keep up the numbers.
They were organized to help keep order among supporters, who were camped out in the streets. Josse described how “street junctions were commandeered by Maoist mobs,” and, like something out of a Soviet film, they recited revolutionary poems, “screaming and loudly proclaiming the virtues of their philosophy.”
But even these people did not give the support the Maoists expected. After days of striking, they started running out of supplies and wanted to return to their villages. As Josse wrote in an op-ed in Nepal’s English daily the Peoples’ Review, “With the most welcome pre-monsoon rains of recent days, many of the rural poor who made the organized journey to the capital were desperate to return to their fields and farms.” So much for the people’s support.
Eventually, Josse was brave enough to venture out “to get my supply of newspapers, to see for myself what was going on.” When the power wasn’t out because of Nepal’s rolling blackouts, “I was glued to the TV… and to the phone, though many advised not to talk too much.” Josse is not afraid to speak out, but journalists have been beaten up and driven into silence: “The big boys of the media clearly feel threatened.”
To the Maoists, journalists are “elitists” and “intellectuals” who threaten “the people.” And Josse thinks it’s working. “There’s an effort not to offend the Maoists with tell-it-like-it is reportage.” During the strike, two cameramen were severely beaten as they tried to get footage of Maoists picketing at Singha Durbar, Nepal’s government palace.
So how did Josse get through it? “We had stocked up with essentials long before the strike was announced.” Nepalis have learned to expect shut-downs and shortages, whether it’s because the economy has ground to a halt or because of the politics.