This interview was originally posted in Nepali on weeklynepal, an online Nepali news portal, then translated into English. There is a minor edit for clarity. 

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Are you an anti-India leader?
I’m not anti-India but inimical to the Indian oppression and hegemony.  I’m not against India and the normal Indian people. Those who call me an anti-India are seriously flawed. We are internationalists and patriotic at the same time. Therefore, we have no antagonism with India and the normal Indian people. Our belief is that Nepal should not face Indian oppression.  Alongside this we have opposed Nepalese puppets as well.

Who are the puppets in the nation, today?
Nepal is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. Post WW-II, the usual practice of direct colonisation has come to an end. In these modern days oppression and exploitation is widely maintained by inducting domestic puppets within oppressed nations itself.

Has your protest against India benefited Nepal?
Lets not take the issues that we have raised as simple as a protest. There are problems, how this government will act upon to solve these problems is the principle theme. CPN-M is a political party. We have raised issues through surfacing the problems. In the past Baburam had raised the same issues himself. If there are problems, they need to be resolved. Now, we still need to see what happens between Indian oppression and the Nepalese government. We come across problems almost every day, like the border encroachment, removal of original border pillars, installation of new border pillars in wrong places etc.  Don’t we need to look at these things?

So a protest against India will resolve the problem?
We have not just opposed India. We have opposed the Indian oppression as well as its Nepalese puppets. This is an opposition to the Nepalese government as well; or else let the government resolve the problems or warn Indian expansionism. We have problem of unregulated vehicular movements, revenue and custom etc. These are issues that need to be resolved.

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These questions and answers are from the press conference that was organized on the 19th of June 2012 by the newly formed Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, which finally ruptured from the then Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) after a long history of fierce two-line struggle in the party preceding a 2 day long National Convention held in Kathmandu, Nepal. Chairman of the newly formed CPN-M, Comrade Kiran (Mohan Baidya) answered the questions raised by journalists during the press conference. There is a minor edit for clarity.

The uncut-hour long audio of the press conference question and answer session can be found here . Only useful to Nepali listeners.

Thanks to Comrade Pooja  for taking her time to make this audio available in English transcription.

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Q: – How do you justify the formation of the new party? How should general people understand this?

A: - Communist party is a party for the benefit of the proletariat and the people. In the case of Nepal, the aim of a communist party remains to move forward, raising the issues of safeguarding national sovereignty; people’s democracy and livelihood then ultimately leap towards socialism and communism. This is self-proven. In the process of attaining this aim we went through people’s war, and did considerable amount of work among and with the people. We built our base areas, practiced our newly formed people’s power but then conciliation took place amidst as we moved forward to build a new Nepal.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t compromise, we should but while compromising, the act of abandoning our entire basis (achievements) has happened. The act of slipping down from our mission and objectives has happened. The dream we carried was of a constitutional assembly but where is the constitution? How did the constituent assembly function? Talking about people’s livelihood, how has the corruption been mounting-up? That fact is clearer. In the process of making a constitution there was an agreement to move forward institutionalizing the rights of the working class, indigenous people, ethnic minorities, women & dalit; including the rights of all oppressed class, region and gender but ditching all these primary issues of constitutional thematic committees it is apparent that ex-chairman, Prachanda surrendered everything to Congress & UML by forming a dispute resolution sub-committee under the constitutional committee. Read the rest of this entry »

This interview was initially appeared in Red Star Nepal.

They wanted to derail the peace process and constitution drafting so they asked for integration of People’s Army as their pre-condition. After the process of integration they easily derailed the process which means new efforts have to be organized. They have underestimated the verdict of the people.

Red Star: How will you analyse the latest development in the Nepalese political scenario?
Badal: After the dissolution of the Constitution Assembly CA plotted by the external power, there are many illusions about the movement, anarchy and eruption among the people. As the status-quo could not utilize CA for their interest, they wanted to dissolve it. Thus an unconstitutional step had been carried out which invited the confusion and political disorder in Nepal.

Red Star: Very often, your red faction had said that pro- people constitution could not be given through CA. Is it justified?
Badal: From beginning of the CA election, there have been many conspiracies plotted by the reactionaries. At that time also, we said that pro-people constitution and peace process couldn’t be made through it. What we said has been proved. They wanted to derail the peace process and constitution drafting so they asked for integration of People’s Army as their pre-condition. After the process of integration they easily derailed the process which means new efforts have to be organized. They have underestimated the verdict of the people.

Red Star: Do you meant to say the tactics of peace and constitution is wrong?
Badal: Through it, the party had wanted to go ahead, But it had been failed so new tactics is essential. Read the rest of this entry »

Question: In recent weeks one has seen statements by the Government of India and leaders of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) saying they are in favor of dialogue and talks but each side seems to lack seriousness. There has also been an element of drama or more precisely, theatre, with Kishenji and P. Chidambaram exchanging statements through the media. Our first question is whether Kishenji’s statements can be treated as authoritative pronouncements of the CPI (Maoist) central leadership in pursuance of a national strategy? Or are these tactical announcements by him keeping only the specifics of the Bengal situation in mind.

Azad: It is true our Party leadership has been issuing statements from time to time in response to the government’s dubious offer of talks. But to generalize that there is lack of seriousness on both sides does not correspond to reality. To an observer, exchanging statements through the media does sound a bit theatrical. And it is precisely such theatrical and sensational things the media relishes while more serious things are swept aside. Now the stark fact is lack of seriousness has been the hallmark of the government, particularly of the Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram. It is Mr. Chidambaram who has been enacting a drama in the past  four months, particularly ever since his amusing 72-hour-abjure-violence diktat to the CPI (Maoist) in the course of his interview with Tehelka Magazine some time last November. As regards Kishenji’s statements, they should be seen with a positive attitude, not with cynicism. Though our central committee has not discussed our specific strategy with regard to talks with the government at the current juncture, as a Polit Bureau member, comrade Kishenji had taken initiative and made a concrete proposal for a ceasefire. Whether comrade Kishenji’s statements are the official pronouncements of our Central Committee is not the point of debate here. What is important is the attitude of the government to such an offer in the first place. Our central committee has no objection to his proposal for a ceasefire. But as far as the issue of talks is concerned, our Party will pursue the guidelines given by our Unity Congress-9th Congress held in early 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

This interview is published on Sanhati.  Thanks to David Pugh for bringing this into our attention.

Far inside the jungles of the Eastern Ghats we met the general secretary of the CPI (Maoists) Ganapathy aka Mupalla Laxman Rao. After welcoming us and inquiring from us whether we, in particular Jan Myrdal, faced any problem having to travel the rough terrain, the interview began. Following is the summary of the interview with him. We have retained the interview in the form in which it was given, read and approved by him with some minor language changes.  In particular we draw attention of readers to the General Secretary laying down concisely his party’s stance on the issue of talks in light of the disinformation spread by the Union Minister of Home P Chidambaram that CPI(Maoist) had “scoffed” at the Indian Government’s offer for talks. Indeed he told us:

To put concisely the main demands that the party has placed in front of the government [of India] for any kind of talks are 1) All-out war has to be withdrawn; 2) For any kind of democratic work, the ban on the Party and Mass Organizations have to be lifted; 3) Illegal detention and torture of comrades had to be stopped and they be immediately released. If these demands are met, then the same leaders who are released from jails would lead and represent the Party in the talks.

However, we consider the full text of the interview of importance for all those who want to know more about the policies of the party which the Government of India considers its main internal security threat.

Q: How do you envisage the linking of this struggle with a general struggle in India in terms of class ? Chairman Mao after 1935 took the Long March to Yenan created a base for national level and part of which was the united front with the Chiang Kai-Sheik. Thereby it became the main national power in China. How do you envisage becoming to a national power in India?
A: In China, in which condition Long March to Yenan took-place and created a base and a part of it formation of a United Front with Chiang Kai-Sheik for national level is different to our present situation of New Democratic Revolution(NDR) of India. Chinese revolution had took-place in first half of the 20th century. Since then several significant changes have occurred in the world. Those are, firstly emergence of a Socialist Camp and its subsequent down fall, secondly downfall of colonialism and emergence of neocolonialism, thirdly emergence of so-called parliamentary system as the common political system throughout the world, fourthly, a long gap emerged in the revolutionary upsurge after success of revolutions in Vietnam, Kampuchea and Laos in-spite of some upsurges and significant struggles in several countries. If we look into the entire world history, after emergence of working class on the globe, it is confronting with the bourgeoisie class and all other reactionary forces and seized power from them in Paris for a short-while and then in Russian, China and several European countries for a long time and shocked the entire globe. In this trajectory, there were various ups and downs in the World Socialist Revolution but nonetheless the struggle continuous. It is like waves at times and it slowed down, but it never ceased. So we have to see any revolution of a country in the light of historical context.

In relation to our revolution, first of all I would like to introduce our history in a short account to understand the present condition correctly. Our unified Party, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) was formed on 21st September 2004 by merging two Maoist revolutionary streams of India, the Communist Party of India(Marxist Leninst) [CPI (ML)]and Maoist Communist Centre (MCC). Our great beloved fore-founder leaders and teachers, Comrades Charu Mazumdar(CM) and Kanhai Chatterji(KC) who led an ideological and political struggle ceaselessly for a long time against revisionism and modern revisionism of Communist Party of India and CPI(Marxist). Read the rest of this entry »