Maoist Cultural Group: A Vital Link in the Party’s Mass Line
Posted by Member-WPRM (Britain)

The district of Kailali is situated in the far west of Nepal. Bordering India and playing host to the cantonment occupied by the PLA 7th Division, the district had until the Constituent Assembly elections, been dominated by CPN(M) and Nepali Congress. Now, all the seats are filled by Maoists in spite of the fact that the area continues to be very traditional in outlook.

The building that serves as the headquarters of the Manjur-Juna-Ramesh cultural group, a name chosen to honour three Maoist martyrs, stands alone by the roadside, on the outskirts of Dhangadhi, the district capital. A white building, with an entrance painted in red and bearing white hammer and sickles, it is a short trip by cycle-rickshaw from the city centre, along a narrow country lane plagued by speed bumps.

Having been invited, as WPRM activists, to visit with and talk to the cultural group, we were ushered down a narrow corridor and into one of the main rooms where we were directed to sit on a large double bed that also served as a couch. Joined soon afterwards by seven male members of the group, these were quick to apologise for the fact that all their female comrades were not present at that time.

Also in the room were a number of the group’s instruments: double-sided drums, a six-string acoustic guitar, a Casio keyboard and two accordion-keyboard hybrids. These led to an impromptu jamming session, a western punk song being followed by a revolutionary song entitled, ‘The First Step’.

In the discussion that followed, the members revealed that there were fifteen of them living and working from what was, a rented house. Although they do receive some help from the UCPN(M), they strive for self-sufficiency through donations received during the many cultural programs that they carry out.

Stressing their need to maintain close contact with the masses, the group conducts numerous programs in the surrounding villages, these taking the form of songs and street drama. The songs that they themselves compose, they say, are real songs, taken from the people and inspired by their problems. Also, because Kailali is situated far from the Constituent Assembly itself, it is necessary to go among the people to educate from the roots upward, agitate for a people-based constitution, and inform the masses of events and decisions within the Assembly.

Aside from this, we were told, it is not uncommon for local people to come and visit the group, seeking help with their problems as individuals. Now that the PLA members reside in cantonments, it is people like these who are crucial to the party’s practice of the mass line.

Although complimenting the work of the YCL, the Cultural Group consists of UCPN(M) members. When asked what had drawn them into the Maoist movement, all said that the Maoist program had impressed them, when it had been presented to them in their villages. During the People’s War, the Cultural Group’s function was in many cases, to help bolster the morale of the revolutionary fighters, encouraging them to stiffen both their resolve and inner strength.

Consisting of people from several ethnicities, the Manjur-Juna-Ramesh group is one of many such cultural groups working within the Maoist movement in Nepal. Taking its inspiration from similar cultural formations that were used in the service of the revolution in China during the Anti-Japanese War, the Chinese Revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, revolutionary cultural groups attempt to counter the reactionary culture of the feudalist and comprador-capitalists promoting the culture of the masses. It was groups such as these that were crucial to the carrying out of the mass line in revolutionary China.

As we left the group on the steps of the house that they occupied, giving the Lal Salam (Red Salute), we were filled with a deep sense of comradeship, impressed by these youths deep commitment to the Nepali masses and their revolution.