Twenty-five years after the death of seminal Communist leader Mao Zedong, Nepal's Maoist rebels are one of world's last remaining movements to use the Chinese leader's ideology. But the rebels, campaigning to overthrow the monarchy in Nepal are only paying lip service to Mao's principles of working for the people, analysts in Kathmandu say.
The Maoists in Nepal are Communists only in name and they are committed to the principles of a guerrilla movement as a means to capture power, human rights activist and political analyst Professor Kapil Shrestha said. The Nepalese Maoist principle is merely superficial because the Chinese Maoists, while launching a guerrilla war, never used terror and intimidation as their method.
The Maoists in Nepal have adopted killing, intimidation, and terrorism as their favoured weapon.
Shrestha, also a member of the Nepal Human Rights Commission, said Nepal's Maoists had never made a commitment to work for the masses, even though they had adopted populist measures. As a matter of fact, Mao's thoughts now have become irrelevant and redundant. They are disowned by his own followers in China, Shrestha said.
Commenting on the difference between Chinese and Nepalese Maoist ideologies, human rights activist Padma Ratna Tuladhar said China's communists never called their party a Maoist.
The Chinese have not accepted Maoism but only accepted Maoist thoughts, Tuladhar said.
Bureau Report