List: Useful books on Nepal

[S. Zetor]

Hi all,

I thought I might post a list of books I've found useful for my studies on the background for and developments during the people's war in Nepal, in case others too are interested in material that's not available on the internet.

Deepak Thapa & Sijapati Bandita: A Kingdom under Siege. Nepal's Maoist Insurgency, 1996-2004. (Zed Books 2004.)
A good sympathetic overall view of the developments up to the end of the second ceasefire in August 2003.

Anirban Roy: Prachanda. The Unknown Revolutionary (Mandala Book Point 2008.)
Another good and sympathetic view of the maoists, focusing first on how Pushpa Kamal Dahal became Prachanda, and later how the people's war went on, up to the Constituent Assembly Elections and immediately after it in 2008.

Uddhab P. Pyakurel: Maoist Movement in Nepal: A Sociological Perspective. (Adroit Publishers 2007.)
While including an overall look on the people's war, this book also includes lots of numerical data on what the population of Nepal consists of and what the maoists built their support on. Information e.g. on different castes, how they are represented in the leadership of different parties etc.

Michael Hutt (ed.): Himalayan People's War. Nepal's Maoist Rebellion. (Indiana University Press 2004.)
A collection of papers presented in a seminar on Nepal. Several very good ones, like 'The Path to Jan Sarkar [people's government -SZ] in Dolakha District: Towards an Ethnography of the Maoist Movement' and 'Gender Dimensions of the People's War: Some Reflections on the Experiences of Rural Women'.

S. D. Muni: Maoist Insurgency in Nepal. The Challenge and the Response. (Observer Research Foundation 2003.)
Pretty much the same stuff as Thapa & Bandita's book, still useful as they fill each other's empty spaces somewhat. Overall I found the former book more informing though.

Li Onesto: Dispatches from the People's War in Nepal. (Pluto Press 2005.)
A collection of journal entries of an American journalist made during the time she travelled with the guerrillas in 1999. A very useful perspective to what takes place on the ground, though it must also be said that I found her account a bit polished and putting a positive spin on things, an approach which I attribute to her own maoism. Still useful reading alongside material that's not at pains to explain shortcomings away.

After having read these books I noticed that The Worker #9 (the party's publication) had reviewd two of them, namely Thapa & Sijapati's, and S. D. Muni's.

The anonymous reviewer criticizes Thapa et al. because "The presentation is too descriptive and lacks analytical depth" and "This volume, too, contains a lot of distortions of historical facts. For instance, it is claimed that the then rebel ‘Masal’ group had broken away with Mohan Bikram in 1991 on the issue of participation in or boycott of the parliamentary elections. But any number of documentary evidences and bare historical truths prove that the main dispute was on the question of whether or not to shift the focus to rural peasant struggle
and have unity or not with other revolutionary forces."

Of the Muni book, the reviewer says that he "provides a fairly accurate account of the events, except for some factual errors, and is surprisingly not very biased against the revolutionary movement." and that "It is, however, quite unbelievable that a research scholar of Muni’s caliber should repeat such unsubstantiated claims about the socalled ‘Compact Revolutionary Zone ‘(CRZ) supposedly planned by the CCOMPOSA to link Nepal with Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. This is just a figment of imagination by some journalists".

Personally I would recommend reading all these materials alongside The Worker (for example), and then making up your own mind.. It's probably better than taking either source as the unabridged truth, because none of them really stands on its own. For example, I'm very much interested in knowing about all the shit the guerrillas did too (whether or not that is to "miss the ‘forest’ and harp about individual ‘trees’ in their own narrow perspectives" as The Worker's reviewer says), and not just all the glorious victories and the big picture which often is used to sweep the shit (whether or not it was more or less necessary at the time) under the carpet.

HTH,

[The Vegan Marxist]

Hi all,

I thought I might post a list of books I've found useful for my studies on the background for and developments during the people's war in Nepal, in case others too are interested in material that's not available on the internet.

Deepak Thapa & Sijapati Bandita: A Kingdom under Siege. Nepal's Maoist Insurgency, 1996-2004. (Zed Books 2004.)
A good sympathetic overall view of the developments up to the end of the second ceasefire in August 2003.

Anirban Roy: Prachanda. The Unknown Revolutionary (Mandala Book Point 2008.)
Another good and sympathetic view of the maoists, focusing first on how Pushpa Kamal Dahal became Prachanda, and later how the people's war went on, up to the Constituent Assembly Elections and immediately after it in 2008.

Uddhab P. Pyakurel: Maoist Movement in Nepal: A Sociological Perspective. (Adroit Publishers 2007.)
While including an overall look on the people's war, this book also includes lots of numerical data on what the population of Nepal consists of and what the maoists built their support on. Information e.g. on different castes, how they are represented in the leadership of different parties etc.

Michael Hutt (ed.): Himalayan People's War. Nepal's Maoist Rebellion. (Indiana University Press 2004.)
A collection of papers presented in a seminar on Nepal. Several very good ones, like 'The Path to Jan Sarkar [people's government -SZ] in Dolakha District: Towards an Ethnography of the Maoist Movement' and 'Gender Dimensions of the People's War: Some Reflections on the Experiences of Rural Women'.

S. D. Muni: Maoist Insurgency in Nepal. The Challenge and the Response. (Observer Research Foundation 2003.)
Pretty much the same stuff as Thapa & Bandita's book, still useful as they fill each other's empty spaces somewhat. Overall I found the former book more informing though.

Li Onesto: Dispatches from the People's War in Nepal. (Pluto Press 2005.)
A collection of journal entries of an American journalist made during the time she travelled with the guerrillas in 1999. A very useful perspective to what takes place on the ground, though it must also be said that I found her account a bit polished and putting a positive spin on things, an approach which I attribute to her own maoism. Still useful reading alongside material that's not at pains to explain shortcomings away.

After having read these books I noticed that The Worker #9 (the party's publication) had reviewd two of them, namely Thapa & Sijapati's, and S. D. Muni's.

The anonymous reviewer criticizes Thapa et al. because "The presentation is too descriptive and lacks analytical depth" and "This volume, too, contains a lot of distortions of historical facts. For instance, it is claimed that the then rebel ‘Masal’ group had broken away with Mohan Bikram in 1991 on the issue of participation in or boycott of the parliamentary elections. But any number of documentary evidences and bare historical truths prove that the main dispute was on the question of whether or not to shift the focus to rural peasant struggle
and have unity or not with other revolutionary forces."

Of the Muni book, the reviewer says that he "provides a fairly accurate account of the events, except for some factual errors, and is surprisingly not very biased against the revolutionary movement." and that "It is, however, quite unbelievable that a research scholar of Muni’s caliber should repeat such unsubstantiated claims about the socalled ‘Compact Revolutionary Zone ‘(CRZ) supposedly planned by the CCOMPOSA to link Nepal with Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. This is just a figment of imagination by some journalists".

Personally I would recommend reading all these materials alongside The Worker (for example), and then making up your own mind.. It's probably better than taking either source as the unabridged truth, because none of them really stands on its own. For example, I'm very much interested in knowing about all the shit the guerrillas did too (whether or not that is to "miss the ‘forest’ and harp about individual ‘trees’ in their own narrow perspectives" as The Worker's reviewer says), and not just all the glorious victories and the big picture which often is used to sweep the shit (whether or not it was more or less necessary at the time) under the carpet.

HTH,

I've got the book 'Himalayan People's War. Nepal's Maoist Rebellion', & although it's a good read, wasn't the book a bit against the Maoist rebellion?

[S. Zetor]

I've got the book 'Himalayan People's War. Nepal's Maoist Rebellion', & although it's a good read, wasn't the book a bit against the Maoist rebellion?

I wouldn't say so. Among the 13 articles in the book IMO there's.. maybe three or four that can be said to have a negative attitude towards the maoists to one degree or another. Most I find are just scholars trying to understand what's going on, without declaring too clearly whether what is going on is good or bad.

The only really useless article is Pratyoush Onta's Democracy and Duplicity. The Maoists and their Interlocutors in Nepal, which plays on the concept of "duplicity". Basically Onta just finds that more or less every political player in Nepal engages one or another form of "duplicity".

The other not-so-good article is Saubhagya Shah's A Himalayan Red Herring? Maoist Revolution in the Shadow of the Legacy Raj which suggests that the Maoists are fighting for India's aims in Nepal. The author even suggests that the maoists have something in common with the BJP because both have expressed wishes for establishing some sort of South Asian / subcontinental federation..!

In Shah's case it's not so much the negative attitude but the total cluelessness that makes the article not very useful. In comparison Judith Pettigrew's article taking the side of the ordinary villagers and their distress between the guerrillas and the security forces is really good though it's not the most flattering description of the maoists around (like you find in Onesto's book).

Holding a negative view on the maoists (or their actions) doesn't necessarily make any article worthless by itself, and IMO that's not good enough a reason not to read anything anyway. I'd say Onta's article is the only one that contains absolutely nothing useful, but apart from that, I find the book overall a good source of information (warts and all).

[The Vegan Marxist]

I wouldn't say so. Among the 13 articles in the book IMO there's.. maybe three or four that can be said to have a negative attitude towards the maoists to one degree or another. Most I find are just scholars trying to understand what's going on, without declaring too clearly whether what is going on is good or bad.

The only really useless article is Pratyoush Onta's Democracy and Duplicity. The Maoists and their Interlocutors in Nepal, which plays on the concept of "duplicity". Basically Onta just finds that more or less every political player in Nepal engages one or another form of "duplicity".

The other not-so-good article is Saubhagya Shah's A Himalayan Red Herring? Maoist Revolution in the Shadow of the Legacy Raj which suggests that the Maoists are fighting for India's aims in Nepal. The author even suggests that the maoists have something in common with the BJP because both have expressed wishes for establishing some sort of South Asian / subcontinental federation..!

In Shah's case it's not so much the negative attitude but the total cluelessness that makes the article not very useful. In comparison Judith Pettigrew's article taking the side of the ordinary villagers and their distress between the guerrillas and the security forces is really good though it's not the most flattering description of the maoists around (like you find in Onesto's book).

Holding a negative view on the maoists (or their actions) doesn't necessarily make any article worthless by itself, and IMO that's not good enough a reason not to read anything anyway. I'd say Onta's article is the only one that contains absolutely nothing useful, but apart from that, I find the book overall a good source of information (warts and all).

I thought the last article, "Living Between the Maoists & the Army in Rural Nepal" by Judith Pettigrew, as quite demeaning against the Maoist rebels as well, because it calls for at the end for the villagers to disarm the Maoist rebels if any real change is to come in Nepal. And it being the last article/chapter, I feel this would put in a bad taste for those that are supporters of the Nepalese Maoists, such as myself, & probably would put in the wrong message about who these people really are & what they're fighting for.