Former Prime Minister of Nepal and Maoist leader Dr Baburam Bhattarai was recently in India to understand, among other things, the phenomenon of the Aam Aadmi Party and its brand of alternative politics. An acclaimed Marxist theoretician who spent 10 years underground waging an armed struggle and then emerged out of the bush in 2006 to embrace democracy, he is a matchless authority in South Asia to speak on the meaning of alternative politics. Ajaz Ashraf met Bhattarai, who spoke about his meeting with AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and what he and his party should be cautious about. Excerpts from the interview:
You are said to have been enthused at AAP’s victory in Delhi. What do you think is significant about its landslide triumph?
In Nepal, we too fought for alternative politics and, specifically, alternative democracy. Traditional democracy, or representative democracy, has been bureaucratised and monopolised by that section of the society which is rich and powerful. They have reduced democracy to just formal democracy, and consequently the masses of people don’t have a sense of participating in, or belonging to, the system. That is why in Nepal we waged a 10-year people’s war for doing away with the old formal democracy and introducing real democracy, people’s democracy, which is more developed than the traditional one. This is what we are now trying to institutionalise through the Constituency Assembly.
In that sense, what has happened in India over the last few years, in the form of AAP, has naturally attracted our attention. In fact, one of the purposes of my current visit to India is to learn and gain firsthand knowledge of the AAP phenomenon in Delhi.
Did you meet AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal?
I met Kejriwal and had a fruitful, interesting exchange of ideas with him, specially on direct democracy, or direct participation of masses of people in the functioning of the state system. I told him that we should learn from each other’s experience. In Nepal, we are trying to promote a form of democracy whereby the oppressed classes of people – the oppressed nationalities, the oppressed regions, the oppressed gender, and Dalits – can participate in the management of the state. We are facing our own difficulties in Nepal. In Latin American countries – Brazil and Venezuela, for instance – they are trying to find their own model of participatory democracy. In Delhi, you have the AAP experiment. My suggestion to Kejriwal was that we should all share our experiences and try to evolve a model suitable to each country.
When you say participatory democracy, what exactly do you have in mind?
In Nepal, it should be manifested in two areas. One is the restructuring of the state along federal lines, in which the oppressed nationalities, like the Madhesis and janjatis (ethnic groups), which constitute two-third of the population, are dominated by the hill Aryan-khas nationalities, who account for one-third of the population. A genuine restructuring of the federal system will give the oppressed nationalities a sense of participation and autonomy.
The other area is to change the electoral system. The traditional first-past-the-post system benefits only the rich and the powerful and the weaker sections of the society – the women and Dalits – never get elected. This is because only the rich can fight elections. It is they who possess the millions of rupees required to be spent. But the poor workers and peasants, women and Dalits, can’t afford to spend that kind of money and therefore can’t get elected. If you have the proportional system of representation, then all these different sections will get represented. Therefore, in Nepal we are trying to introduce the proportional system of representation.
Marginalised groups not being adequately represented in the system is also India’s problem. Should we too embrace the proportional system of representation?
In fact, in most of South Asia where there is tremendous diversity in population in terms of class and nationalities and caste, these issues need to be addressed. Pursuing a formal form of democracy, as in Europe and America, won’t benefit the real masses of people. It is, obviously, for the Indian people to decide whether they want the system of proportional representation. But, theoretically, in my personal view, India should also try to improve upon the model of democracy they have been practicing for decades.
Do you think AAP’s ideas could lead to an improvement upon the model of democracy we have?
I don’t know exactly what programmes and policies AAP is trying to evolve. But, definitely, questions of good governance and anti-corruption that it has raised are very important. This is because traditional democracy has become so degenerated, leaders have been so corrupted and cut-off from electors, that the issues AAP has raised is valid for all of us.
There’s a view that AAP’s success is because it doesn’t have a well-defined, sharp ideology. Do you think having a sharp ideological position becomes a handicap in the form of democracy we have today?
I am neither well-informed about AAP’s ideology nor would it be proper for me to comment on that. Theoretically, though, any political party or organisation represents interests of a particular segment of the society. No party can represent all sections at the same time. From this perspective, alternative form of democracy would mean that all those oppressed sections which have been deprived of their genuine rights by the old political formation should have a real democratic participation and a fair share of the system.
Does it mean that ideologies not having a cross-class appeal encounter problems in our kind of democracy?
Ideology should be so developed that it should take into account this diversity, not only the class factor, but other aspects of oppression. The main thing is that there should be no form of oppression, whether in form of class, caste or gender or anything. Ideology needs to be developed to reflect this.
The Maoists won elections in 2008, but then lost out in the next one. From your experience in Nepal, what should you tell AAP to be cautious about?
My advice to AAP would be that you shouldn’t overestimate your own strength, you should be very humble. This is because the traditional forces are very powerful and the habit of tradition and gravitational pull of status quo is very strong. So the revolutionary, progressive forces should be on guard and be very careful that the party and the leadership shouldn’t get detached from the masses. Nor should a bureaucratic system develop within the organisation and its functionaries begin to operate in old style.
The judiciary, bureaucracy or the security organs of the old state apparatus are by nature very conservative. When you have to operate within that system and with their assistance, then mostly likely they would overpower you if you are not careful from the very beginning. You would then get sucked into the regressive mode.
The Maoists in Nepal witnessed a split. The AAP, too, is witnessing convulsions. Why do progressive forces split so often and traditional forces do not?
The traditional forces are united because of their personal interests. For their personal interests, they compromise on principles. But revolutionary or progressive forces are more idealistic and they want to keep intact the absolute purity of their ideas. They, therefore, constantly indulge in ideological debates and struggles. That is indeed good. But they should also be careful, and ensure, they don’t split on the smallest of issues. For fighting for the broader cause they espouse, they should learn to work together with differences. This the revolutionary forces tend to forget and split. This weakens the organisation and hampers the struggle. From the bitter experiences of the revolutionary Left forces, AAP too should learn to manage differences within the organisational setup.
You used the phrase “purity of ideas”. In the representative system of democracy we have, doesn’t pragmatism have to come into play at some stage?
A successful leadership should bring about a judicious mix of idealism and pragmatism. If you just stick to pragmatism and forget idealism, then you will be slowly sucked into status quo. But if you harp on idealism and forget pragmatism, you will be totally isolated from the masses of people and won’t be able to deliver anything.
This would be your advice to AAP?
I do hope AAP would draw correct lessons from the bitter experience of history.
Isn’t the very structure of political parties, all of which have hierarchies, anathema to the ethos of participatory democracy? If yes, what is the way out?
This is exactly what I discussed with Kejriwal. On the one hand, we want to promote direct democracy and, on the other hand, we have an organisation. By definition, an organisation is a bureaucratic, centralised structure. There is indeed a contradiction between democracy and centralism – for organisation means a form of centralised authority – yet if you don’t have centralism then you can’t run an organisation. But if you have excess centralisation and authority, then that will lead to bureaucrat-ism and you will get detached from your support base and the cause of direct democracy will suffer. So the correct combination of democracy and centralism is another challenge on organisational issues.
What was Kejriwal’s response?
We both agreed we should learn from past experiences. In the communist movement, this was raised during the debate between Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. Lenin emphasised on a more centralised party system, which he called democratic centralism. Rosa, from another angle, questioned Lenin and thought it could lead to bureaucrat-ism and the creation of a new exploiting class. That debate needs to be revisited.
The Maoists lost in the last election in Nepal. The Left, too, has been shrinking rapidly in India. Isn’t it ironical that the Left’s appeal has diminished in South Asia, a veritable cradle of poverty?
We are concerned that the Left has declined all over South Asia and, particularly, in its heartland, India. In Nepal, though, we are in a better position than the Left is in other parts of South Asia. This is also one of the areas I have been trying to look into on my current visit to India. I met some of the Left leaders and intellectuals in India to understand the real cause of the decline. But, as a matter of general theory, I’d say Marxism is not a dogma. It is a guide to action. So through practice you should always develop your own theories suited to the concrete conditions. Maybe, the communists of the present-day world have not been so successful in evolving concrete practices and developing upon the Marxist theory to make it suitable for the 21st century.
Democracy, theoretically, allows people to exercise their choice. Yet, as we see so often, there is always an attempt to manipulate public opinion through the corporate-owned media and expenditure running into billions of rupees. How do you think this problem can be countered?
Politics generally deals with the superstructure. But politics is determined by the economic base. The economic base in the capitalist system is unequal, in which a few people monopolise the wealth of the society. In addition, there are also social and cultural inequalities in South Asia. So if we just have formal political freedom, then this formal equality is manipulated by the wealthy and the powerful and democracy gets distorted. This is exactly the question we have to grapple with. If the social and economic bases of the society remain the same, replete with class and other inequalities, and you are given just political freedom, then that won’t work. This was the bitter experience of the past. AAP and other new forces trying to develop alternative politics should try to grapple with this complex question.
Can it be said that the use of media to manipulate people’s choices tantamount to booth capturing by other means?
In traditional democracy the three Ms – muscle, money and media – are determining factors and together distort representative democracy. We should find ways whereby the role of three Ms, if not totally eradicated, is at least minimised.
You were underground for 10 years. And you have been in open politics for nine years now. Looking back, what would you say were some of your big mistakes?
It is not always that we were always engaged in underground politics. Before 1996, when we started the people’s war in Nepal, we were in open politics. Only when the peaceful, open politics didn’t work, we went underground to wage an armed struggle. At a certain point in the armed struggle, the power equation within the country changed. It was then that we decided to come into the peaceful process. The idea was to create a new democratic system whereby there will be real democracy for all the oppressed sections of the society. With this understanding and agreement, we joined the system.
But over the past nine years, with the passage of time, the old regressive forces have started reasserting and are trying to capture or retain the old state as it was and re-impose it on the people through the Constituent Assembly. This has been the bitter experience of the last eight years. But we haven’t abandoned our revolutionary goal – we want to bring about a progressive change through peaceful and democratic means. If that is blocked, we may be forced to agitate.
Not go underground?
Of course, we didn’t go underground by choice, we were forced underground. Next time we hope we won’t be forced into going underground. We will try to wage a peaceful and democratic struggle, but in case the other side uses force, things may change. As of now though, we don’t have any plan to go underground or wage an armed struggle.
You often said that Maoists have not joined the mainstream but will create a new mainstream. Did the mainstream change you quicker than you could change the mainstream?
The agreement when we joined the peace process in Nepal was that we will create a new political mainstream. In the 12-point understanding this is specifically written. It wasn’t that we were going into the old political mainstream. That is why through the Constituent Assembly we are trying to institutionalise the new political mainstream.
To what extent have you been successful?
With the passage of time the old political forces are going back on the past agreement. Our understanding was that the state would be restructured in such a way that the oppressed nationalities will get a federal state based on their identity and due democratic rights. They are now going back on that. Our understanding was that we will have an electoral system whereby the oppressed masses will have a proportional representation in all spheres of the state system. They are going back on that too. In this manner the old forces are trying to re-impose the old political mainstream on Nepal. This we have been resisting.
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You are said to have been enthused at AAP’s victory in Delhi. What do you think is significant about its landslide triumph?
In Nepal, we too fought for alternative politics and, specifically, alternative democracy. Traditional democracy, or representative democracy, has been bureaucratised and monopolised by that section of the society which is rich and powerful. They have reduced democracy to just formal democracy, and consequently the masses of people don’t have a sense of participating in, or belonging to, the system. That is why in Nepal we waged a 10-year people’s war for doing away with the old formal democracy and introducing real democracy, people’s democracy, which is more developed than the traditional one. This is what we are now trying to institutionalise through the Constituency Assembly.
In that sense, what has happened in India over the last few years, in the form of AAP, has naturally attracted our attention. In fact, one of the purposes of my current visit to India is to learn and gain firsthand knowledge of the AAP phenomenon in Delhi.
Did you meet AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal?
I met Kejriwal and had a fruitful, interesting exchange of ideas with him, specially on direct democracy, or direct participation of masses of people in the functioning of the state system. I told him that we should learn from each other’s experience. In Nepal, we are trying to promote a form of democracy whereby the oppressed classes of people – the oppressed nationalities, the oppressed regions, the oppressed gender, and Dalits – can participate in the management of the state. We are facing our own difficulties in Nepal. In Latin American countries – Brazil and Venezuela, for instance – they are trying to find their own model of participatory democracy. In Delhi, you have the AAP experiment. My suggestion to Kejriwal was that we should all share our experiences and try to evolve a model suitable to each country.
When you say participatory democracy, what exactly do you have in mind?
In Nepal, it should be manifested in two areas. One is the restructuring of the state along federal lines, in which the oppressed nationalities, like the Madhesis and janjatis (ethnic groups), which constitute two-third of the population, are dominated by the hill Aryan-khas nationalities, who account for one-third of the population. A genuine restructuring of the federal system will give the oppressed nationalities a sense of participation and autonomy.
The other area is to change the electoral system. The traditional first-past-the-post system benefits only the rich and the powerful and the weaker sections of the society – the women and Dalits – never get elected. This is because only the rich can fight elections. It is they who possess the millions of rupees required to be spent. But the poor workers and peasants, women and Dalits, can’t afford to spend that kind of money and therefore can’t get elected. If you have the proportional system of representation, then all these different sections will get represented. Therefore, in Nepal we are trying to introduce the proportional system of representation.
Marginalised groups not being adequately represented in the system is also India’s problem. Should we too embrace the proportional system of representation?
In fact, in most of South Asia where there is tremendous diversity in population in terms of class and nationalities and caste, these issues need to be addressed. Pursuing a formal form of democracy, as in Europe and America, won’t benefit the real masses of people. It is, obviously, for the Indian people to decide whether they want the system of proportional representation. But, theoretically, in my personal view, India should also try to improve upon the model of democracy they have been practicing for decades.
Do you think AAP’s ideas could lead to an improvement upon the model of democracy we have?
I don’t know exactly what programmes and policies AAP is trying to evolve. But, definitely, questions of good governance and anti-corruption that it has raised are very important. This is because traditional democracy has become so degenerated, leaders have been so corrupted and cut-off from electors, that the issues AAP has raised is valid for all of us.
There’s a view that AAP’s success is because it doesn’t have a well-defined, sharp ideology. Do you think having a sharp ideological position becomes a handicap in the form of democracy we have today?
I am neither well-informed about AAP’s ideology nor would it be proper for me to comment on that. Theoretically, though, any political party or organisation represents interests of a particular segment of the society. No party can represent all sections at the same time. From this perspective, alternative form of democracy would mean that all those oppressed sections which have been deprived of their genuine rights by the old political formation should have a real democratic participation and a fair share of the system.
Does it mean that ideologies not having a cross-class appeal encounter problems in our kind of democracy?
Ideology should be so developed that it should take into account this diversity, not only the class factor, but other aspects of oppression. The main thing is that there should be no form of oppression, whether in form of class, caste or gender or anything. Ideology needs to be developed to reflect this.
The Maoists won elections in 2008, but then lost out in the next one. From your experience in Nepal, what should you tell AAP to be cautious about?
My advice to AAP would be that you shouldn’t overestimate your own strength, you should be very humble. This is because the traditional forces are very powerful and the habit of tradition and gravitational pull of status quo is very strong. So the revolutionary, progressive forces should be on guard and be very careful that the party and the leadership shouldn’t get detached from the masses. Nor should a bureaucratic system develop within the organisation and its functionaries begin to operate in old style.
The judiciary, bureaucracy or the security organs of the old state apparatus are by nature very conservative. When you have to operate within that system and with their assistance, then mostly likely they would overpower you if you are not careful from the very beginning. You would then get sucked into the regressive mode.
The Maoists in Nepal witnessed a split. The AAP, too, is witnessing convulsions. Why do progressive forces split so often and traditional forces do not?
The traditional forces are united because of their personal interests. For their personal interests, they compromise on principles. But revolutionary or progressive forces are more idealistic and they want to keep intact the absolute purity of their ideas. They, therefore, constantly indulge in ideological debates and struggles. That is indeed good. But they should also be careful, and ensure, they don’t split on the smallest of issues. For fighting for the broader cause they espouse, they should learn to work together with differences. This the revolutionary forces tend to forget and split. This weakens the organisation and hampers the struggle. From the bitter experiences of the revolutionary Left forces, AAP too should learn to manage differences within the organisational setup.
You used the phrase “purity of ideas”. In the representative system of democracy we have, doesn’t pragmatism have to come into play at some stage?
A successful leadership should bring about a judicious mix of idealism and pragmatism. If you just stick to pragmatism and forget idealism, then you will be slowly sucked into status quo. But if you harp on idealism and forget pragmatism, you will be totally isolated from the masses of people and won’t be able to deliver anything.
This would be your advice to AAP?
I do hope AAP would draw correct lessons from the bitter experience of history.
Isn’t the very structure of political parties, all of which have hierarchies, anathema to the ethos of participatory democracy? If yes, what is the way out?
This is exactly what I discussed with Kejriwal. On the one hand, we want to promote direct democracy and, on the other hand, we have an organisation. By definition, an organisation is a bureaucratic, centralised structure. There is indeed a contradiction between democracy and centralism – for organisation means a form of centralised authority – yet if you don’t have centralism then you can’t run an organisation. But if you have excess centralisation and authority, then that will lead to bureaucrat-ism and you will get detached from your support base and the cause of direct democracy will suffer. So the correct combination of democracy and centralism is another challenge on organisational issues.
What was Kejriwal’s response?
We both agreed we should learn from past experiences. In the communist movement, this was raised during the debate between Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. Lenin emphasised on a more centralised party system, which he called democratic centralism. Rosa, from another angle, questioned Lenin and thought it could lead to bureaucrat-ism and the creation of a new exploiting class. That debate needs to be revisited.
The Maoists lost in the last election in Nepal. The Left, too, has been shrinking rapidly in India. Isn’t it ironical that the Left’s appeal has diminished in South Asia, a veritable cradle of poverty?
We are concerned that the Left has declined all over South Asia and, particularly, in its heartland, India. In Nepal, though, we are in a better position than the Left is in other parts of South Asia. This is also one of the areas I have been trying to look into on my current visit to India. I met some of the Left leaders and intellectuals in India to understand the real cause of the decline. But, as a matter of general theory, I’d say Marxism is not a dogma. It is a guide to action. So through practice you should always develop your own theories suited to the concrete conditions. Maybe, the communists of the present-day world have not been so successful in evolving concrete practices and developing upon the Marxist theory to make it suitable for the 21st century.
Democracy, theoretically, allows people to exercise their choice. Yet, as we see so often, there is always an attempt to manipulate public opinion through the corporate-owned media and expenditure running into billions of rupees. How do you think this problem can be countered?
Politics generally deals with the superstructure. But politics is determined by the economic base. The economic base in the capitalist system is unequal, in which a few people monopolise the wealth of the society. In addition, there are also social and cultural inequalities in South Asia. So if we just have formal political freedom, then this formal equality is manipulated by the wealthy and the powerful and democracy gets distorted. This is exactly the question we have to grapple with. If the social and economic bases of the society remain the same, replete with class and other inequalities, and you are given just political freedom, then that won’t work. This was the bitter experience of the past. AAP and other new forces trying to develop alternative politics should try to grapple with this complex question.
Can it be said that the use of media to manipulate people’s choices tantamount to booth capturing by other means?
In traditional democracy the three Ms – muscle, money and media – are determining factors and together distort representative democracy. We should find ways whereby the role of three Ms, if not totally eradicated, is at least minimised.
You were underground for 10 years. And you have been in open politics for nine years now. Looking back, what would you say were some of your big mistakes?
It is not always that we were always engaged in underground politics. Before 1996, when we started the people’s war in Nepal, we were in open politics. Only when the peaceful, open politics didn’t work, we went underground to wage an armed struggle. At a certain point in the armed struggle, the power equation within the country changed. It was then that we decided to come into the peaceful process. The idea was to create a new democratic system whereby there will be real democracy for all the oppressed sections of the society. With this understanding and agreement, we joined the system.
But over the past nine years, with the passage of time, the old regressive forces have started reasserting and are trying to capture or retain the old state as it was and re-impose it on the people through the Constituent Assembly. This has been the bitter experience of the last eight years. But we haven’t abandoned our revolutionary goal – we want to bring about a progressive change through peaceful and democratic means. If that is blocked, we may be forced to agitate.
Not go underground?
Of course, we didn’t go underground by choice, we were forced underground. Next time we hope we won’t be forced into going underground. We will try to wage a peaceful and democratic struggle, but in case the other side uses force, things may change. As of now though, we don’t have any plan to go underground or wage an armed struggle.
You often said that Maoists have not joined the mainstream but will create a new mainstream. Did the mainstream change you quicker than you could change the mainstream?
The agreement when we joined the peace process in Nepal was that we will create a new political mainstream. In the 12-point understanding this is specifically written. It wasn’t that we were going into the old political mainstream. That is why through the Constituent Assembly we are trying to institutionalise the new political mainstream.
To what extent have you been successful?
With the passage of time the old political forces are going back on the past agreement. Our understanding was that the state would be restructured in such a way that the oppressed nationalities will get a federal state based on their identity and due democratic rights. They are now going back on that. Our understanding was that we will have an electoral system whereby the oppressed masses will have a proportional representation in all spheres of the state system. They are going back on that too. In this manner the old forces are trying to re-impose the old political mainstream on Nepal. This we have been resisting.