Nepal | Battle-hardened

ALONG THE DEEPLY RUTTED ROAD that slices though the vast expanse of paddy fields in Chitwan district in south-central Nepal, life moves unhurriedly. In the small settlements that punctuate the landscape, girls cycle, women bathe under open taps—a certain slowness permeates nearly everything. After driving for hours from the town of Narayanghat—close to the headquarters of the Third Division of the Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the biggest of the seven PLA cantonments spread across the country—we arrive at Shaktikhor, a dusty bazaar at the foot of the hills. Here, since the end of the decade-long Nepalese Civil War in 2006, more than 3,000 former Maoist fighters have been idling.

Janak Bista ‘Kuber’, a spokesman for the PLA, requests I confirm my visit with the Special Committee officials tasked with dividing the 19,000 Maoist combatants into three groups: those opting for integration to the Nepalese Army (NA), those choosing voluntary retirement, and those accepting a rehabilitation package. For most of these former rebels, waiting has not been easy. Five years after abandoning their revolutionary “people’s war”, the promise of a new Nepal seems more distant than ever.

We park our car on the dirt track and face a bamboo barrier. Peeking into a wooden cabin, I find a young man and a woman, both in military fatigues, glancing through the day’s Kantipur newspaper. The former fighters are busy in discussion, Bista warns when I call him once more, and media persons are not allowed inside. He is adamant. Don’t I know that the programme has been changed?

We keep waiting. In a situation like this, there’s no other option. A posse of PLA combatants walk out of the gate and head to a nearby tea shop. We cast envious glances and, after some prodding, the commander gives in. The big gate, adorned with a painting of a mountain crossed with two rifles (a PLA symbol), is flung open and we come across a sandbagged foxhole guarded by a PLA soldier who points the barrel of his gun menacingly towards the road.

The cantonment looks faded. The red banners and hammer-and-sickle flags are torn and weathered. Left to fend for ourselves and with nothing much to do but watch, we climb to a hilltop where preparations are in full swing for the “regrouping” of combatants slated for 19 November. Makeshift tents have been built and dozens of monitors, dressed in blue jackets, are busy preparing for the occasion.

The day of reckoning begins by mid-morning. Under a tent, sitting crosslegged with a group of young rebels in newly stitched green camouflage is Man Bahadur Chhetri ‘Prakat’, a 28-year-old man of slender build. Chhetri, who comes from the country’s remote far-western region, has spent nearly half his life as a Maoist. He joined the Maoist rebels after his uncle and his nephew, suspected of being insurgents, were killed by the Nepalese Army. “My uncle was a dedicated member of the party [Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)]. The army killed him and left his dead body in the village,” he says. The event did not terrify him. But, at age 15, lured by its promise of eradicating poverty in Nepal, he became involved in the party. “I fought for my country and the people,” he says.

Although he is a veteran of half a dozen battles against government forces, Chhetri says two incidents left a lasting impression on his psyche. In February 2005, he was taking part, along with thousands of other Maoists, in a training session in southwestern Nepal when the Nepalese Army’s Ranger Battalion, a US-trained elite counterinsurgency force, attacked them in the evening. The battle ended in the wee hours of the next day and Chhetri lost nine fellow rebels. He estimates that two dozens NA soldiers were killed in the battle. A few months later, during the battle of Khara in the Maoist heartland of Rukum district in midwestern Nepal, Chhetri saw his best friend, Amar Budha, die before his eyes. “I still feel sad when I remember that day,” he laments as a shadow runs over his face.

He too was seriously injured—on his head and leg. “It took me three months to recuperate,” he recalls, and honours my request to remove his cap, which has a red star on it. Scars are visible on his head. Chetri, who says he will opt for the voluntary retirement package and return to his village, took part in two more battles, the last one just before his party ended the armed insurgency in November 2006 to join parliamentary politics.

The insurrection, the most powerful attack against the state in Nepal’s recent history, was carried out under the charismatic leadership of Pushpa Kamal Dahal—better known by his nom de guerre, Prachanda—who claims the struggle was necessary to dismantle feudalism in the country. During the decade-long insurgency, the Maoists launched attacks against the state security forces and eliminated those they call “local feudals, cheats and spies”. The war cost at least 16,000 lives and displaced tens of thousands from the rural hinterland.

As the brutal insurgency approached its 10th anniversary, Maoist ideologues realised that the ultimate capture of state power was still beyond their reach. King Gyanendra’s bloodless coup of 1 February 2005 emboldened them and paved the way for their eventual realignment with the parliamentary parties. The Maoists pledged to end the violence and the parties reciprocated by agreeing to vote for the end of the country’s beleaguered 240-year-old monarchy.

The issue of the integration of Maoist fighters delayed the peace process; at times, the entire political framework seemed to collapse. But on 1 November 2011, the Maoists signed a new peace deal in which they agreed to integrate, within one month, 6,500 former guerrillas into a yet-to-be-formed directorate to be headed by a top Nepalese Army official. The rest were to choose between a retirement package worth up to R500,000 or a rehabilitation scheme that includes vocational training.

We descend to a wooden cabin where a Bollywood film is being shown on an old television set. Half a dozen fighters are huddled on a bench, their gazes fixed on the screen. A while later, the Hindi song ‘Munni Badnaam Hui’ blares from a stereo. Another group is having a lunch of a Nepali staple: boiled rice, boiled pulses and vegetable curry.

Sitting under a tree, I speak to Sunita Gautam ‘Sirjana’, a 30-year-old battalion commander married to a brigade commander of the PLA. As I was to discover later, theirs was not a love marriage. Her future husband had seen her at a party meeting. Soon after, a marriage proposal arrived via party headquarters; she could not refuse it.

At the outset, Gautam defies every image of an army commander. A soft-spoken woman, she looks demure. But as the discussion progresses, her steely determination emerges. “During the war, I was my party’s soldier. In peacetime, I want to serve in the national army,” she says.

In 1999, three years after the Maoists launched their revolution, Gautam left her impoverished village in northeastern Nepal and joined the insurgents. “There was social oppression and my family could not afford my education,” she says. I probe her more, curious to know how the revolutionary rhetoric she espoused translated into real-life terms.

Her 30-year-old brother, who had returned home after falling ill, was killed by the army in front of his mother and wife in 2003. “He could not even meet his wife,” she says, the lingering bitterness still visible upon her face. In yet another incident, while she was meeting a group of fellow rebels, one of whom was carrying a baby, “a group of soldiers gheraoed our shelter. I was the commander and the challenge was to save them,” she recalls. She helped the woman and others escape the looming attack.

Fed the dream of revolution and an equal society, teenaged combatants like Gautam had believed the party’s promises before the war began. But halfway through, when the campaign was abandoned for a protracted peace process, those aspirations were betrayed. Now, she and the 9,690 others who have opted for integration are faced with an army that continues to insist it can only absorb 6,500 former guerrillas. While the overwhelming choice for integration gestured at their desire to forget the past and join the force they once bitterly fought against, murmurs circulate that the deal was a sell-out.

When I ask if she thinks the war was necessary, given that people are now increasingly finding themselves in the same system that the Maoists fought to end, she dodges the question, saying it amounts to a heated political debate. But as we speak, she begins to open up. She laments that life in the countryside is still the same, if not harsher: “This is the biggest challenge for the Maoist party.”