INSURGENCY IN NEPAL

Thomas A. Marks

December 2003
ii

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ISBN 1-58487-148-2
iii

FOREWORD

 Insurgency―the use of protracted low intensity violence and 

political warfare against a government―has been one of the most 

pervasive and strategically signifi cant forms of asymmetric confl ict 

for the past century. In some instances, it actually has succeeded in 

overthrowing regimes or forcing occupying powers to withdraw 

from a state, thus redrawing the strategic landscape and altering the 

course of history. Few other forms of asymmetric confl ict can make 

this claim.

Just as HIV is a particularly dangerous pathology because it 

integrates with other diseases, insurgency tends to meld with other 

forms of confl ict, be they terrorism, ethnic struggles, separatism, 

class struggle, ideological confl ict, narcotraffi cking, or other forms 

of organized crime. This makes it both a complex and a particularly 

dangerous opponent, always challenging to the strategist who must 

deal with it.

The United States is once again challenged by insurgencies, this 

time connected to the Global War on Terrorism. But 21st century 

insurgencies are different than the Cold War era ones that generated 

existing doctrine and strategy, and which shaped the way that most 

American strategists think about insurgency. The beast has mutated 

and evolved. So, too, must those who confront it.

To help Army and Department of Defense leaders master these 

new challenges, the Strategic Studies Institute publishes a special 

series entitled “Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the 21st 

Century.” This study, by Dr. Thomas A. Marks, which assesses the 

growing insurgency in Nepal with its potential to further destabilize 

an already volatile region, is a path-breaking and an excellent 

inaugural effort in this new series.

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

THOMAS A. MARKS is the author of Maoist Insurgency Since Vietnam

(London, 1996), considered the current standard on the subject of 

“people’s war.” A former U.S. Government offi cer who is a member 

of the editorial board of Small Wars and Insurgencies (London), he 

has recently served as the Oppenheimer Chair of Warfi ghting 

Strategy at the Marine Corps University (Quantico), where he taught 

“Insurgency and Operational Art.” He is an Adjunct Professor at the 

U.S. Joint Special Operations University (JSOU, Hurlburt Field, FL) 

and a consultant for several fi rms specializing in political risk and 

personal security, to include RAND, where he is a member of the 

Insurgency Board. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, 

and in his Ph.D. work at the University of Hawaii focused on the 

relationship between popular upheaval and revolutionary crisis 

(published as Making Revolution: The Insurgency of the Communist 

Party of Thailand in Structural Perspective, Bangkok: White Lotus). In 

recent years, Dr. Marks has, in a variety of publications for a variety 

of clients, analyzed confl icts as far-fl ung as those in Nepal, Sri Lanka, 

Colombia, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Laos, the Philippines, and 

Northern Ireland. His scholarly and journalistic works number in the 

hundreds. His latest book is Counter-Revolution in China: Wang Sheng 

and the Kuomintang (London: Frank Cass, 1997); his latest monograph 

is Colombian Army Adaptation to FARC Insurgency (Carlisle: Strategic 

Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2002). 
v

SUMMARY

A decade has passed since the end of the Cold War, and insurgency 

remains a major factor on the world scene. Whether driven by 

separatism, religious alienation, or ideological desire to restructure 

the state, insurgents are as active now as in the earlier Cold War era 

of state support. Indeed, forced to rely more upon their own devices, 

insurgencies have posed increasingly complex problems for the 

globe’s numerous weak states which fi nd themselves challenged by 

a growing array of development and population issues.

This reality has driven continuous and extensive U.S. military 

involvement, thus a renewed need to focus upon the realities of 

internal war. Upheavals in once-obscure spots such as Nepal have 

come routinely to demand our attention. The study of such cases 

will prepare military practitioners for effective engagement -- in 

strategies, operational art, and tactics. 

Insurgency in Nepal has existed for perhaps 5 decades but 

burst into the open only with the declaration of “people’s war” on 

February 13, 1996, by the Communist Party (Maoist), or CPN(M), 

the most radical offshoot of the leftwing spectrum in Nepali politics. 

Desultory action ended when the “Maoists,” as they are universally 

termed, unilaterally abrogated talks with the government and 

launched a nationwide general offensive in November 2001.

Since that time, a steadily increasing level of violence has left 

as many as 8,000 Nepalis dead, a majority of them in little more 

than a year. Terror has been integral to the Maoist campaign. US 

involvement has played an important role in assisting this minor but 

strategically-located democratic state to meet the challenges posed 

by ruthless radical actors. 
vi

DARCHU LA

BAITADI

DADELDHURA

KANCHANPUR

K

DO

AI LA LI

TI

BAJHANG

HUM LA

BAJURA

ACHHAM

BARDIA

SURKHET

BANKE

DANG

SAY LAN

RO LPA

RUKUM

DO LPA

MUGU

JUM LA

KALIKOT

JAJARKOT

DAILEKH

PYUTHAN

MUSTANG

MANANG

MYAGDI

BAG LUNG

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LAMJUNG

GORKHA

TANAHU

PALPA

KASKI

ARBA P T

SYANJA

NAWALPARASI

RUPANDEHI

KAPI LBASTU

ARGHAKHANCHI

RASUWA

DHADING

NUWAKOT

CHITAWAN

PARSA

BARA

MAKAWANPUR

SINDHUPALCHOK

DO LAKHA

RAMECHHAP

KAVRE

SINDHU LI

DHANUSHA MAHO ARI TT SARLAHI RAUTAHAT

SO LUKHUMBU

SANKHUWASAVA

TAPLEJUNG

OKHALDHUNGA

SIRAHA

SAPTARI SUNSARI MORANG JHAPA

I LAM DHANKUTA

UDAYAPUR

KHOTANG

BHOJPUR PANCHTHAR TERHATHUM

LALITPUR

BHAKTAPUR

KATHMANDU

FAR WESTERN

DEVELOPMENT REGION

MID WESTERN 

DEVELOPMENT REGION

WESTERN

DEVELOPMENT REGION

CENTRAL

DEVELOPMENT REGION

EASTERN 

DEVELOPMENT REGION

Figure 1. Political Map of Nepal
1

INSURGENCY IN NEPAL

A decade has passed since the end of the Cold War, and 

insurgency remains a major factor on the world scene. This has been 

entirely predictable, given the inevitable drive of man to improve his 

lot. Whether driven by separatism, religious alienation, or ideological 

desire to restructure the state, insurgents are as active now as in the 

earlier Cold War era of state support. Indeed, forced to rely more 

upon their own devices, insurgencies have posed increasingly 

complex problems for the globe’s numerous weak states which 

fi nd themselves, more than ever, challenged by a growing array of 

development and population issues. 

This reality has driven continuous and extensive U.S. military 

involvement, thus a renewed need to focus upon the realities of 

internal war. Upheavals in once-obscure spots such as Nepal have 

come routinely to demand our attention. The study of such cases 

will prepare military practitioners for effective engagement―in 

strategies, operational art, and tactics. 

Insurgency in Nepal has existed for perhaps 5 decades but 

burst into the open only with the declaration of “people’s war” on 

February 13, 1996, by the Communist Party (Maoist), or CPN(M), the 

most radical offshoot of the leftwing spectrum in Nepali politics.1

Desultory action ended when the “Maoists,” as they are universally 

termed, unilaterally abrogated ongoing talks with the government 

and launched a nationwide general offensive in November 2001. 

Since that time, a steadily increasing level of violence has left as 

many as 8,000 Nepalis dead, a majority of them in little more than a 

year.2

Known as a premier tourist destination, the site of the mighty 

Himalayan Mountains, the tallest being the majestic Mt. Everest, 

Nepal would hardly seem a candidate for a raging communist 

insurgency. Indeed, if anything, its population was recognized not 

as rebels but for its loyal service as Gurkhas, perhaps the single most 

legendary infantry in the world.

The combination, though―dominant peaks and service as 

infantry in foreign armies―actually goes to the heart of the matter. It 

is not an accident that over the past nearly 2 centuries, a small, land-
2

locked mountain kingdom has sent hundreds of thousands of its 

young men into combat for others. To the contrary, Nepalese have 

fl ocked abroad not due to martial bent or any other characteristic, 

rather for the oldest reason known to recruiters: need.

Parameters of the Old Regime.

Far from being a Shangri-la, Nepal is 24 million people competing 

for livelihood in a country but the size of North Carolina (which 

has just 8.2 million). Roughly one-third of the national territory 

is the Himalayas, and consequently it has a mere .7 percent of the 

population. The lower approximately one-third of the country, the 

tarai, scrub jungle now largely cleared, holds 32.1 percent of the 

populace. It could not even be settled until the 1970s when several 

virulent strains of malaria were conquered. This has resulted in 

a popular concentration, 67.2 percent, in the central one-third, or 

the hill country. Lest the point be lost, some 16 million people are 

sandwiched into “one-third of North Carolina.”

According to a World Bank study made 3 decades ago (1973), 

“population density per square kilometer of arable land is probably 

as high as 1,000, a concentration similar to that found in certain 

Asiatic deltas, but where, in contrast, the soil is more fertile and the 

climate allows two to three crops a year.” Conditions of livelihood―

among the worst in the developing world3―were exacerbated, 

because an effective lack of any industrial base meant 90 percent 

of the population was rural, with 80 percent of the total population 

working directly on the land. Though 90 percent of farmers were 

classifi ed as owner-operators, this impressive fi gure was achieved 

only by severe division: 50 percent of all households endeavored to 

engage in agriculture on plots of less than half a hectare; 7.8 percent 

were completely landless.4

Thus the economy has a current Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 

of only US$5.5 billion, an annual budget of just US$1.1 billion. In 

contrast, the 2003 public school budget for Fairfax County, Virginia, 

outside Washington, DC, was passed at US$1.3 billion. The offi cial 

leading source of foreign exchange, tourism, in a banner year 

interjected the purchasing power of just 250,000 visitors annually, 

a limited trickle-down tap. It should come as no surprise that the 

United Nations lists Nepal as among the poorest countries in the 

world; 80 percent of the populace, surveys consistently fi nd, must do 
3

outside work to survive. 

Limited development, however, ensures that such work is scarce. 

The result is a skewed distribution of resources, in which some have 

and others do not. The only solution readily available has been outmigration and participation in the global economy. Historically, for 

certain hill tribal groups, this has meant enlistment as soldiers in 

the British Indian Army. Such opportunities, though they declined 

substantially in British service since Indian independence in 1948, 

have continued in the forces of India, but still have no possibility of 

absorbing even a sizable fraction of hill tribe job-seekers, much less 

others.5 Indeed, Nepalese of all communities seeking relatively wellpaid expatriate work have largely opted for service work abroad, 

with the largest single employer being Japan, if India itself―which 

has an open border with Nepal―is not considered.6 Regardless, most 

job-seekers are unable to obtain external employment, regardless of 

destination, and so fi nd themselves mired in poverty. Statistics show 

that at least 20 percent of the population lives in extreme, abject 

circumstances.

Considering only economic matters, Nepal would be a candidate 

for serious dislocation. Exacerbating the situation further, though, 

are social parameters: issues of caste, ethnicity, and language. 

On the surface, Nepal is a picture of unity, the world’s only 

offi cial Hindu kingdom. The constitutional monarch, a living god to 

much of the population even in the 21st century, sits atop a society 

86.5 percent Hindu and 9.0 percent Buddhist, a society in which 

every aspect is dominated by the caste system.

In reality, beneath this picture of unity, is division. There are 60 

recognized caste and ethnic groups; only slightly more than half the 

population, 56.4 percent, is actually embraced by the caste system. 

More than one-third, 35.5 percent, are classifi ed as ethnics, tribal 

groups who are outside the caste system. The four largest of these 

have just over one million members each: Magar, Tharu, Newar, 

and Tamang (Magars supply a plurality of Gurkha manpower in 

the British system7). A further 3.6 percent of the people are classifi ed 

as belonging to religious communities (e.g., Sikhs, Muslims); 4.5 

percent are “others.” 

Signifi cantly, half of the caste fi gure is comprised of the top two 

castes, Brahmins and Chhetris, the historic priestly and warrior castes, 
4

respectively, 16.1 percent and 12.9 percent of the total population. 

Ergo, 29 percent of the populace is structurally positioned, by 

religious mandate, to dominate. This they have done and effectively 

control all positions of power and infl uence.8 Not surprisingly, 

this leads to charges of unfair advantage, where disproportionate 

infl uence and possession are replicated by religious sanction. 

Linguistically, there is also severe division. According to the 

1991 Census, Nepal’s people speak 32 languages, with only 50.3 

percent claiming Nepali, the national language, as their mother 

tongue. Though the second language, Maithili, at 11.9 percent, 

is a distant second, the Census notes that some ethnic and caste 

groups, which have their own tongues, are not even refl ected in the 

32 fi gure. Needless to say, it is the top castes which are brought up 

and totally at ease with Nepali, while other groups often struggle, 

even as linguistic competence is a key factor in access to coveted 

bureaucratic employment, whether in the government or private 

sector. 

Given such socio-economic division, it would be expected that 

politics would play a signifi cant role in mediating contending 

demands. For the country is a functioning parliamentary democracy. 

Here again, there is more than meets the eye. A democracy only since 

1990, Nepal suffers from the, by now, all-too-familiar problems of 

the genre “emerging democracy”: corruption, ineffi ciency, and lack 

of focus.9 Compounded by a lack of state integration, the political 

system has been able to foster little save a lack of legitimacy.

Nepal emerged as a country in 1774-75. As it reached its present 

boundaries, then sought to expand into territory claimed by British 

India, it found itself bested in an 1815 war with the East India 

Company. As a consequence, most of the tarai was lost, and Nepal 

was forced to agree to what effectively was British suzerainty.10

A prime ministerial coup of sorts led to more than 100 years of 

hereditary Rana rule, 1846-1950, during which Nepal was closed to 

the outside world, save limited British representation. This ended in 

November 1950 when India, which desired a greater role in Nepal’s 

affairs for defense reasons, supported a royal restoration.11 The king 

assumed direct control in December 1960, and only in 1990-91 did 

democratic forces emerge triumphant.
5

This proved a mixed blessing. The era of Rana rule was not 

improved upon by the subsequent 10 years of chaotic transition and 

the 30 years of monarch-guided democracy, the so-called panchayat

system. Thus, even as Nepal had all the organization and bureaucracy 

of a modern nation-state, in reality it remained a backwater. The writ 

of its administrative apparatus―fi ve regions (plus a capital region), 

75 districts (each roughly the size of a North Carolina county), and 

3,913 Village Development Committees (VDC)―barely extended 

beyond district capitals, and most areas of the country could be 

reached only on foot. Development was at a primitive level. Little 

changed.

Heightened expectations that democracy would make a 

difference in the lives of the populace were dashed.12 Though 

there were improvements, particularly in the areas of health and 

education, these were minor bright spots in an overall dark picture 

of self-absorption by the major political parties. The Nepali Congress 

(NPC) ruled for all but roughly a single year of the democratic era, 

with the legal leftist coalition, the United Marxist-Leninists (UML), 

the major opposition. The monarch, who might have been expected 

to serve a mediating and leadership role similar to that played so 

effectively by King Bhumipol in Thailand, was killed in June 2001 

in the so-called “Royal Massacre” and was replaced by his brother, 

who therefore, to many, lacked legitimacy.13

Communist Opposition to the Old-Regime.

Into this dynamic, the left had early interjected itself as an active 

player, even heading the government for slightly less than a year. 

Yet, as happened in Peru with the restoration of democracy in 1980 

(after 12 years of attempted military “revolution from above”), the 

expectations and passions unleashed, which surfaced particularly 

vigorously within the left, saw the proliferation of ever-more radical 

options. The result, in the early 1990s, was the Communist Party 

of Nepal (Maoist), or CPN(M), a body that in its formative stages 

consciously modeled itself on Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). 

Committed to “Gang of Four” Maoism, as had emerged during 

the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution―which convulsed 
6

China with its attempt to “internalize” the dialectic―it demanded 

a solution to Nepal’s problems by the establishment of a Maoist 

“people’s republic.” Politically, this necessarily meant an end to the 

monarchy, to be achieved through a constituent assembly which 

would rewrite the constitution. The party also demanded an end 

to “Indian imperialism.” Economically, there was to be an end to 

capitalist exploitation; socially, an end to caste, ethnic, religious, and 

linguistic exploitation. Since the system would not simply accept 

these demands, “people’s war” was to be used to force the issue. 

People’s war, declared formally by the CPN(M) on February 13, 

1996―but explicitly discussed and planned in the early 1990s, if not 

before―was by that time, considered in global perspective, a welltested and effi cient mechanism for seizure of state power. It may be 

assessed to consist of fi ve elements:

• Mass Line: organizing an alternative society through the 

construction of clandestine infrastructure. Local socio-economic 

grievances and aspirations are to be addressed by cadres, who 

then connect solutions to the political mechanism of the party. 

As its principal targets, the party worked in hill tribe areas, 

especially in the Mid-Western Region, and among dalits, or 

untouchables, the lowest caste in the Hindu system. 

• United Front: making common cause with those individuals 

and groups who shared concerns but not necessarily goals of the 

party. 

Issues of education, for instance, allowed mobilization of 

students who, though apparently not formally CPN(M) 

members, nevertheless acted as virtual wings of the party. Tribal 

fronts, ostensibly seeking more equitable treatment, were also 

very active.

• Military: the new alternative society, existing as it does illegally 

and clandestinely, necessarily relies upon armed action to 

maintain its security within and without. The “liberation” 

struggle progresses through three strategic phases, which are 
7

quite logical. Initially, the revolutionary movement will be on the 

defensive, then achieve stalemate, and fi nally go on the offensive. 

During each phase, a particular form of warfare will drive the 

dynamic, though not necessarily quantitatively. During the 

strategic defensive, terror and guerrilla actions will lead. During 

the strategic stalemate, mobile warfare (also called maneuver 

warfare) will be dominant. This will see insurgent “main force” 

units, equivalents of government formations, take the fi eld but 

not seek to hold territory. The fi nal phase, the strategic offensive, 

will see such seizure of ground, the so-called “war of position.” 

The CPN(M) felt it was entering Phase 2 with its general offensive 

(November 2001). This was then solidifi ed through the actions 

which led to government reverses.14

• Political Warfare: using nonviolent methods, such as participation 

in legal political activity or negotiations, as an adjunct to 

violence. 

CPN(M) has emphasized that it favors a “political solution” to 

the issues in dispute, by which it appears to mean it is open to 

negotiating the terms whereby the old-order will disassemble 

itself. The Maoists used their earlier participation in “peace 

talks” as a cover for military preparations prior to launching 

their November 2001 general offensive. There is a possibility the 

recent ceasefi re was used in a like-manner, but this is not clear, 

since the Maoists saw themselves as negotiating from a position 

of strength.15

• International Action: Though not a salient element during the 

Chinese Civil War itself, this had become ever more prominent 

as people’s war has developed. In confl icts such as the war of 

liberation in Algeria by the FLN and the insurgency of the Viet 

Cong in the Vietnam War, international pressure upon the 

counterinsurgents played a decisive role. 

The CPN(M) recognized early that in South Asia and within 

Western society it had allies: Maoist bodies yet committed, 
8

whatever the outcome of the Cold War, to radical restructuring 

along the lines advocated by the so-called “Gang of Four,” the key 

adherents to radical Maoism. To that end, regular coordination 

was effected in the West with the constituent members of 

the Maoist umbrella group, Revolutionary Internationalist 

Movement (RIM); they provided a variety of services, such as 

seeking to block assistance to the Nepalese government. Closer 

to home, a Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and 

Organisations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) was created in July 

2001 after a meeting of nine South Asian Maoist parties in West 

Bengal.16

In implementing this approach, the CPN(M) examined the 

numerous “people’s war” struggles which had been carried out in 

the post-World War II era. The two insurgencies which exercised 

the most infl uence early on were Shining Path in Peru,17 already 

mentioned, and the so-called “Naxalites,” or Indian Maoists.18

Shining Path is fairly well-known in the West. Its extraordinary 

level of violence had Lima on the verge of collapse by 1992, when 

the capture of the leadership, combined with an array of other 

counterinsurgency moves, all but destroyed the movement. The 

Naxalite phenomenon, though a virtual icon among international 

leftists, is less known among scholars. It began as a minor Maoistinspired upheaval in 1967 in the small Indian district of Naxalburi, 

which sits up against Nepal’s southeastern border, was snuffed out, 

but then revived in “copycat” left wing upheavals throughout India, 

some of which eventually required deployment of the military. 

Remnants remain active in at least six Indian states.19

Signifi cantly, what both of these key infl uences share is that they 

are distinguished by their brutality. Mao himself did not shy away 

from violence against class enemies but held that only the most 

die-hard elements would have to be “struggled” to the extreme; 

i.e., killed. Most opponents could be neutralized and brought into 

support of the revolutionary endeavor through the mechanisms 

of the united front. Neither Sendero nor the Naxalites followed this 

approach, instead taking “elimination of class enemies” as a literal 

charge for action. The result was an impressive level of terror, 

with actual numbers being much greater in the Peruvian case. The 
9

practical result was that the CPN(M) initially looked for inspiration 

to two of the more radical insurgent movements to have appeared in 

recent years.

There is some irony in this, since the CPN(M)’s leadership, like 

that of both Sendero and the Naxalites (not to mention the Khmer 

Rouge, another Maoist group which adopted extreme violence), is 

drawn overwhelmingly from the very “class enemies” attacked by 

the party’s doctrine. The two key fi gures in the 9-man Politburo, 

Pushba Kamal Dahal, “Prachanda,” and Baburam Bhattarai, for 

instance, are both Brahmins with educational backgrounds.20 (The 

party’s Military Wing head, Ram Bahadur Thapa, “Badal,” is 

apparently ethnic Magar and hence an exception.) 

That leaders of a revolutionary movement should come from 

the elite is consistent with global patterns, whether insurgent or 

terrorist, throughout the 20th and now 21st centuries. So, too, is the 

prominence of leadership fi gures with an educational background.21

Followers, as might be expected, are drawn from altogether different 

strata, the marginalized of society, those who become the so-called 

“grievance guerrillas.” That the CPN(M) has had little diffi culty 

tapping such individuals stems from the abundance of socioeconomic-political contradictions discussed earlier compounded 

by issues of gender. Women have been prominent in the recruiting 

profi le.22

Prior to going underground and becoming illegal, prominent 

members of what is now the CPN(M), guided by their “progressive” 

ideology, focused their political efforts among just such strata, even 

sending a number of representatives to Parliament in the early period 

of transition to democracy.23 The areas of this electoral strength, the 

same Mid-Western Regional hill districts which form the subject of 

so much development literature, remain the Maoist heartland.

Organizationally, there is nothing unexpected in the CPN(M)’s 

approach in those areas. Using the mass line in areas where they are 

present in strength, the united front in areas of government presence 

(especially urban centers), cadre have emphasized winning the 

allegiance of the people by tapping into local grievances and then 

connecting solutions with membership in the CPN(M). Logically, 

this has meant there oftentimes are contradictions between the 

subjective pronouncements of Maoist publications and objective 
10

realities on the ground.24 Where the population has hesitated, terror 

has been used to ensure compliance. This increasingly has been the 

case as the party has moved out of the areas where it previously 

had an electoral base. Statistical analysis of casualties shows a nearmajority to be upper caste victims, an expected result in a society 

where those castes are dominant.25

As a mass base is mobilized, it is incorporated into a clandestine 

infrastructure, the alternative society of the CPN(M). This structure 

to date has essentially replicated that of the government, merely 

standing up a radical alternative. In at least six Mid-Western 

districts, government presence is now limited to only the district 

capitals, so the Maoists are effectively the ruling structure. The 

Politburo issues directives with the assistance of an approximately 

25-member Central Committee. The precise relationship between 

this infrastructure and the so-called “Military Wing” is a matter of 

some conjecture, but the degree of independence ostensibly enjoyed 

by the latter from the party is undoubtedly overemphasized.26 The 

main armed component, for instance, six guerrilla battalions, may 

only launch military action in response to instructions relayed 

through their individual Chief Commissars (one per battalion), 

who are Central Committee members.27 Similarly, the united front 

apparatus, while also existing as a separate entity, appears to be 

under fi rm party control.28

Leaders and followers, then, are mobilized, in the fi nal analysis, 

by the same “causes,” but approach the issues quite differently. 

Leaders, drawn overwhelmingly, even at this point in time, from 

elite strata, seek structural change to deal with issues. Followers, 

while also seeking solution, want direct, local redress.29 Preliminary 

systemic response involved sending ill-prepared police, both from 

local stations and regional response units, into affected areas, where 

their behavior, actual and perceived,30 thrust self-defense into the 

equation as a major theme for Maoist recruitment.31

The heartland of the early Maoist position was the area straddling 

either side of the border between the districts of Rolpa and Rukkum 

in the Mid-Western Region. There, Kham Magars responded to 

CPN(M) guidance and became guerrillas generally supported by the 

population.32 Further expansion proved more diffi cult, and the level 

of popular involvement was commensurately lower. Indeed, even as 
11

the Maoists were able to dominate the six districts in the Mid-Western 

regional heartland, an area as near to the epicenter of the uprising as 

western Rolpa, Gharti Magar territory, witnessed infrastructure so 

thin that mere handfuls of cadres maintained control only through 

their ability to call upon guerrilla manpower for enforcement of their 

writ.33

Though the Maoists themselves did not claim as “base areas” the 

human terrain they thus were able to dominate, the districts in the 

Mid-Western Region served that role as outlined in key “people’s 

war” documents authored by Mao Tse-tung. Within them, social 

transformation could serve as a basis for popular mobilization, with 

the result that the movement could project itself outward into new 

areas. Necessarily, a contradiction glossed over in Maoist theoretical 

literature emerged for the CPN(M) in terms of resources, because 

the base areas were among the very poorest regions in the country―

due not to the issues of exploitation posited in party literature but 

for more mundane reasons of overpopulation, poor techniques 

of agriculture and animal husbandry, and limited soil and water 

regimes. The result was the relative absence of the sort of social 

engineering one would expect to fi nd in a “liberated area”―and very 

limited resources available to the liberation movement. 

In the absence of external input, as provided, for instance, by 

drugs in the cases of FARC in Colombia and Sendero Luminoso in 

Peru, CPN(M) was forced to rely upon the more traditional but 

limited insurgent methodology of criminal activity, especially bankrobbing, kidnapping-for-ransom, and extortion,34 for generation of 

funds. These, though they could at times produce windfalls, were 

not able to meet the demands of rapid expansion.35 Neither could 

external links make up shortfalls, since the allied movements of 

CCOMPOSA were actually in an inferior position logistically to 

their Nepalese compatriots. These stark realities left the movement 

with a character, in many areas, as much jacquerie as disciplined 

insurgency.

Dynamics of “People’s War.”

Progress thus was steady but more a product of government lack 

of capacity than insurgent power. Methodology was predictable 
12

and mirrored that of other insurgent movements following the 

people’s war approach. While “winning the hearts and minds” was 

important in the base areas, terror was indispensable for expansion 

into contested populations. This was supplemented by guerrilla 

action and ultimately, with the launching of the November 2001 

general offensive, the mobile warfare phase. 

The basic pattern of mobile warfare may be conceptualized 

thus: Terror facilitates or establishes the “space” necessary for the 

insurgent political campaign. It eliminates societal rallying points, 

the synapses such as local gentry and minor government offi cials. 

Terror further generates demands for protection. Answering this 

demand, police forces respond. Once they predictably spread 

out, they are attacked in guerrilla actions, with small patrols and 

stations overwhelmed. Unable to defend themselves, the police 

invariably consolidate forces, thus exposing still larger swaths of 

the population to insurgent domination. Behind the scenes, certain 

guerrilla units (i.e., a proportion of guerrilla combatant strength) are 

“regularized,” to use Mao’s term, turned into mobile warfare units―

“main force” guerrilla units. They are “conventional” but only in 

the sense of established tables of organization and equipment (TOE) 

and specialization. When the government inevitably deploys its 

military to reclaim “lost” areas, these units (normally the army) fi nd 

themselves, fi rst, harassed by guerrilla action, which demands small 

unit saturation patrolling, then, defeated in detail by the mobile 

warfare units (which fi ght using “guerrilla tactics”).36

Doctrinally, political cadre should enter an area and gradually 

mobilize clandestine infrastructure which produces violent action. 

Some movements, such as the Communist Party of the Philippines 

(CPP) and Sendero Luminoso itself prior to its 1980 declaration 

of people’s war, have essentially followed this approach. More 

common, though, as illustrated by the Naxalites in India and FARC 

in Colombia, is to lead with violence, “capturing” a target population 

and then reorganizing it according to ideological dictate. This is the 

approach CPN(M) has relied upon since 1996.

In a typical action, in Muchook, a small village 4 hours walk from 

the district capital of Gorkha (the capital is also Gorkha), a Congress 

Party representative and Maoist opponent, a “big landlord” (two 

hectares), was awakened at 2230 by a knock on his door. Confronted 
13

by seven Maoists, armed principally with agricultural implements, 

he was dragged from his home and told he was to be made “to 

suffer the way you made the people suffer.” His legs and feet were 

then systematically broken with hammers. Carried to a hospital in 

Kathmandu, he survived, but his absence deprived the village of a 

natural rallying point, for there existed no government presence in 

Muchook, no police station, for example. Police who did venture to 

the area found nothing, but they could not stay, and so the Maoists 

effectively took control of the village and its surrounding area, one 

of Nepal’s 3,913 basic building blocks, or VDC.

This process was repeated time and again. Complementary moves 

were carried out to neutralize completely the state. District and VDC 

offi ces, for example, were systematically razed, their records and 

equipment destroyed. In Gorkha, the single month-and-a-half period 

prior to May 2002 saw 34 of the district’s 66 VDC offi ces completely 

eliminated. The 60-odd police stations, with their approximately 500 

men spread out over the size of a U.S. county (3,610 sq-km), with 

more than a quarter of a million people to cover and no real means 

to do so save on foot (the only paved road in the district connected 

Gorkha town to Kathmandu), were helpless.37 Nationwide, then, 

by the beginning of 2003, more than 1,400 VDCs no longer existed; 

and virtually all no longer functioned, their personnel, elected 

locally, having almost universally fl ed.38 The infl uence of terror 

was illustrated by the reality that fewer than 30 VDC Chairmen had 

actually been assassinated (again, of a theoretical 3,913 total).39

All other elements of the state likewise found themselves 

attacked. Roads were cut; bridges, dams and hydropower facilities, 

aqueducts, telephone towers and electric lines, and airport control 

towers were systematically destroyed. By the same early-2003 date 

noted above, more than 440 post offi ces, most but rudimentary 

facilities, had been gutted.40

Such action was the essence of the approach of Sendero Luminoso

(which Nepalese Maoist documents claimed to be copying 

consciously) and the Khmer Rouge.41 To all appearances, the goal 

was to sever links with the existing system, isolate the population 

into a self-contained entity, and return society to the proverbial 

revolutionary “Year One,” when the remaking of the new world 

would begin. The guide for this transformation was to be the 
14

thoughts and dictums of the leader, “Prachanda Path,” a deliberate 

echoing of Sendero Luminoso’s “Gonzalo Path” (“President Gonzalo” 

was party leader Abimael Guzman Reynoso). 

Though the essence of the campaign was rural-based, as would 

be expected from the “people’s war” approach (as it had evolved, 

particularly through the Vietnam War experience), urban action 

was not eschewed. Just as Sendero eventually extended its campaign 

into urban space, so did the CPN(M). Such areas, in any case, were 

limited in Nepal, so the main targets were the three most important 

cities and their surrounding productive lands: Kathmandu, the 

capital; Pokhara, to the west, on the doorstep of the Mid-Western 

Region; and Nepalgunj in the tarai. There, united front activity of the 

CPN(M)’s United Revolutionary People’s Council (URPC) was most 

important, supplemented by a terror campaign of bombings and 

assassinations initiated in August 2002.42 The most prominent victim 

was Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mohan Shrestha, commanding 

offi cer of the police fi eld force (Armed Police Force or APF), killed in 

January 2003.

Even as terror forced society in upon itself, the principal target 

of guerrilla action was the 46,500-man police force, the fi rst line of 

armed defense―for Nepal possessed no local forces of any kind.43

An essentially unarmed “watcher” force, two-thirds of whom 

carried nothing heavier than a patrol stick, the police were quite 

unprepared for the demands of counterinsurgency. Emergency 

response units, who in any case were armed with the 1941 version of 

the .303 Lee Enfi eld (a bolt action rifl e), were likewise found lacking. 

Patrols sent to the scenes of incidents were ambushed; numerous 

small police stations were overrun, attacked in the dead of night in 

assaults initiated with homemade explosives, then overwhelmed by 

human wave assaults. Efforts to stand up a more properly armed 

and equipped APF of 15,000 men44 made slow progress under the 

pressure of operational demands. By January 2003, the Civil Police 

had suffered 985 dead, the APF, 108 dead.45

Predictably, the only possible police response was to abandon 

outlying stations and consolidate in defensible mass. In the hills, 

where terrain, lack of communication, and diffi culty of movement 

favored the guerrillas, this process was inexorable across the entire 

breadth of the country. Rolpa, in the insurgent heartland, was 
15

typical.46 In 1996, there were 33 stations in the district, with the 

largest but 75 men, most less than 20.47 When the post at Ghartigaun 

in western Rolpa was attacked in 1999, for example, it had a 

complement of 19. Fifteen were killed, the others wounded; the 

station was totally destroyed and not regarrisoned. In 1998, two such 

stations were abandoned; in 1999, a further 16; in 2000, six more; in 

2001, another four; and in 2002, three―leaving a total of just two for 

the entire population of nearly 211,000.48

Such was the lack of national integration that, once the police 

presence was eliminated, the insurgents became the state. All that 

remained to serve as a reminder of far-off Kathmandu were the 

minor functionaries, who could not fl ee lest they lose their meager 

salaries: the likes of teachers, postmen, and VDC personnel. Heads 

of VDCs, as mentioned previously, almost universally fl ed;49 but 

school staffs and postmen generally stayed. Had the approach of 

Sendero, the Naxalites, or the Khmer Rouge remained the dominant 

ethos of the Maoists, not only would one expect such personnel to be 

eliminated but a new order instituted. Allowing for local exceptions, 

this was not the case. Indeed, in most areas, once the initial spasm 

of destruction had been completed, it ended―with comparatively 

lower levels of destruction in those areas where the Maoists held 

sway and made use of facilities, such as VDC offi ces. Land was not 

systematically seized or redistributed, and even schools were not 

directed to change the normal, centrally determined curriculum 

(though private schools were generally closed). Maoist combatants 

carried out civic action projects of sorts (such as improving trails and 

constructing bridges) even as government development personnel―

charged with doing the same tasks―were refused entry. Only in 

those core areas of longstanding insurgent presence did anything 

“new” surface, though various people’s governments and projects, 

in reality, were but efforts to make earlier forms more equitable and 

responsive. 

The critical component at the local level, of course, was the cadres. 

These, too, were remarkably uneven in quality and presence. It 

would be expected that the level of ideological knowledge would be 

low among movement “followers,” but this generally has proved the 

case for the cadres, as well. Participation in the movement resulted 

from a variety of local and personal factors,50 and cadres generally 
16

did their best to reproduce the procedures and symbology of the 

movement; but outside the core areas, they held sway only through 

terror, through their ability to call upon guerrilla formations to act as 

enforcers.51

This reality revealed a peculiarity noticed by virtually all 

observers: the dependence of the Maoist campaign upon tribal 

manpower, especially Magars. That guerrilla formations were 

dominated numerically by Magars stemmed from the ethnic 

composition of the core areas in which the Maoists had long 

worked, such as the Rukkum-Rolpa border corridor. That entire 

tribal communities would become involved in the insurgency was 

predictable once government miscues allowed the CPN(M) to tap 

the self-defense dynamic. A staple of Maoist agitprop in such areas 

remains skits featuring blue-clad “policemen” burning villages 

and brutalizing the villagers, only to be routed by them under the 

leadership of the party. That tribal links were being exploited was 

further illustrated by Magar dominance of guerrilla formations as 

far away from the core Mid-Western areas as Dolakha District, the 

“Rolpa of the East,”52 where Magars were less than 2 percent of the 

population (as per census).53

If this dynamic fi ngered the CPN(M), in a sense, as a tribal 

revolt, a different process was at work in more mixed areas. In these, 

cadres were the movement, and they, as indicated, were a product 

of local realities and thus of mixed ethnic and class composition. 

Though they did participate directly in terror actions, especially in 

villages targeted for movement expansion, within their own areas 

of responsibility, they were more likely to call upon outsiders, the 

guerrillas.54

These guerrillas, who initially were in small units, eventually 

(certainly by early 2003) were overwhelmingly assigned to six main 

force units, battalion facsimiles of 400-600 men each. Single battalions 

were found in the Eastern and Central Zones (as per the Maoist 

framework), four battalions in the Western Zone.55 Their weaponry 

was similar to that possessed by the Nepalese government, a mix of 

the old and the new. The latter were primarily captured pieces and 

those bought on the black market using looted funds.56 For training, 

ex-servicemen were both coerced and hired. 

Even were terror not the most salient issue in the minds of 
17

villagers, contact between them and the guerrillas would be a 

recurring factor in life, since the combatants depend upon the 

villagers for the necessities of life. All movement, for instance, must 

occur through the preparation of caches of necessities, ranging 

from food and water to fi rewood, and such activity occurs through 

orders issued to villagers by the cadres at the behest of the guerrilla 

chain-of-command. Similarly, mandatory attendance by villagers 

at political rallies is enforced by the combatants, with the cadres 

issuing the orders and fi ngering those who resist or malinger.

The end product is a high level of popular fear but an inability to 

do anything save reach accommodation―unless fl ight is adopted as 

a course of action. At the time of the ceasefi re, a growing number of 

villagers appeared to be opting for this choice.57

Systemic Response to the Maoist Challenge.

Only with the November 2001 general offensive by the Maoists 

did Nepal take the necessary step of reinforcing the overwhelmed 

police force by committing the 54,000 troops of the Royal Nepalese 

Army (RNA)58 and passing anti-terrorism legislation. Spread 

throughout areas of the country which could be reached by road, 

quartered in battalion but more often company cantonments, the 

RNA was a largely ceremonial force better known for its contribution 

to UN peacekeeping missions than for martial prowess. Indeed, 

even companies did not deploy as such. The result was a number of 

serious reverses as the RNA went through the painful transformation 

required for dealing with guerrilla warfare. In several instances, 

company-equivalents were overrun. By January 2003, the RNA had 

suffered 244 dead and 345 wounded.59

Faced with the Maoist campaign, the Nepalese state reeled. 

Though the number of dead was not as severe as that of many 

other insurgencies―the highest total fi gures for the entire period, 

February 13, 1996, to the present, are put at some 8,00060―they were 

concentrated in the year-plus which followed November 2001. A 

majority of all war dead, therefore, came in the space of just over a 

year, a powerful shock to Nepal.61

Response was hampered by the political shortcomings already 
18

detailed. Not only did governments change with startling rapidity, 

on average one per year, but governance was only possible due 

to the formation of various intra- and even inter-party coalitions. 

Self-interest was the order of the day, illustrated by rampant 

corruption, and administrative drift meant than even substantial 

foreign development assistance was not incorporated in a systematic 

manner. The appearance of an insurgency, therefore, was seen as but 

one more minor factor among many and parceled out to the security 

forces for action, which in pre-November 2001 meant to the police.

Under some enlightened commanders, local police operations 

could have passed for those that had proved successful for the British 

in Malaya. Others, though, were more repression than development 

in thrust. One advantage for the state was that numerous individuals, 

both civilians and security force, had served abroad with the United 

Nations in peacekeeping situations.62 Thus they were well-versed 

in the “hearts and minds” approach to internal pacifi cation as 

opposed to pure repression. It was in a sense predictable, then, that 

approximately a year before the Maoist general offensive, the RNA, 

though still in its barracks as concerned stability operations, was 

nevertheless deployed in limited fashion in support of a government 

Integrated Security and Development Program (ISDP).

The RNA, it was intended, would serve as the security shield 

for bringing government presence to underdeveloped areas, which 

would then see an interjection of activity designed to improve 

conditions and promote livelihood. As matters worked out, the RNA 

was the only element of the government which actually fulfi lled its 

role. Though six districts were designated, with Gorkha as the pilot 

project, and RNA battalions deployed in area domination patrols, 

the civilian input was limited to selection of the projects by local 

government bodies. The result was that the RNA itself used its 

limited assets to build roads, dig wells, and provide rudimentary 

medical attention to villagers. Yet none of this was done on a scale 

which made the slightest difference in the actual situation on the 

ground.63

With the November 2001 offensive, the ISDP was suspended, 

and the RNA deployed to engage in area domination. The highest 

formation for command and control was the brigade, but this 

gradually gave way to divisions and a planned corps, both of 
19

these more area commands than deployable military entities. Solid 

individual training could not be channeled into results-oriented 

operations due to shortfalls of arms and equipment, as well as severe 

shortcomings in leadership and technical skills.

A critical weakness was intelligence, the linchpin of any 

counterinsurgency effort. Nepal’s various sources for information 

gathering and processing―the police, APF, RNA, and National 

Investigation Department (NID)―were quite unprepared for the 

demands of internal war and generally defi cient in both information 

gathering and intelligence production/dissemination.64 Exacerbating 

the situation, these bodies functioned as separate entities with little 

coordination or data sharing. Only at the very highest levels of the 

bureaucracy was raw input brought together for analysis, but this, 

too, was provided for in an ad hoc and undermanned fashion.65

Still, dramatic strides were made in standing up the command 

and control architecture necessary for counterinsurgency. With the 

Prime Minister in the lead role, the National Security Council was 

charged with actually prosecuting the campaign. Because the council 

itself consisted of top government leaders, its Executive Secretariat 

undertook planning and coordination tasks. At various levels, but 

especially in the districts, coordinating committees―comprised of 

the local police, RNA, civil, and intelligence representatives―met 

to determine policy and implementation. A unifi ed command, 

with the RNA having authority over all elements of the armed 

response, eventually came into existence, giving fi ber to the ad hoc 

but functioning coordination cells that had been formed at RNA 

headquarters. APF platoons were deployed as if they were “light” 

RNA units, and the police were given primacy in the defense of most 

urban areas.66

But diffi culties occurred in overcoming the substantial baggage 

of past political inadequacies. The police, for instance, were not 

trusted by the RNA, being seen as corrupt, ineffi cient, and bullyboys 

for the ruling party, which normally had been the Nepali Congress. 

The new APF, in turn, had received a good portion of its initial 

manpower draft from various Nepali Congress youth groups and 

so likewise was not trusted by either the Civil Police―who did have 

a good many within the offi cer corps who were well-trained and 

had substantial experience―or the RNA. For its part, the RNA was 
20

viewed as loyal fi rst and foremost to the palace and as a possible 

threat to fl edging democracy. A highly centralized decisionmaking 

machinery meant that even the best of motives could often not 

overcome bureaucratic inertia or implement decisions when they 

were forthcoming. 

Foreign support hence became crucial in addressing these fl aws. 

Britain, as might be expected from its long and deep involvement 

in Nepal, played an important role in training of all sorts. India, 

concerned lest it see another security headache develop on a crucial 

border (Nepal was a buffer between New Delhi and Beijing), 

responded initially with training and material support, eventually 

moving vigorously to suppress substantial Maoist activity within 

India’s own borders. Ironically, China, having moved in its foreign 

policy beyond supporting “Maoist insurgents,” also provided 

equipment. Finally, the United States, which long had been a 

major development actor through its U.S. Agency for International 

Development (AID), moved vigorously in all areas, from supplying 

arms and equipment to training. An emergency appropriation 

brought the combined military aid (Foreign Military Financing) 

for Fiscal Years 2002 and 2003 (FY02/FY03) to US$17 million. 

Assessment teams from all three of the countries just named (absent 

China) were supplemented by personnel for actual training, to 

include U.S. Special Forces.

Where no amount of foreign input could compensate, though, 

was in overcoming the shortcomings of a traditional system, which 

organizationally manifested themselves in extreme deference to 

authority and a consequent lack of initiative. Such, combined with 

the intelligence problems cited above, resulted in a failure to tackle 

the struggle operationally and tactically―even as general strategic 

grasp of overall parameters could be judged reasonably accurate. 

While it was understood with considerable clarity how socioeconomic-political shortcomings had produced the insurgency, it 

was not grasped how to respond.67 Consequently, a comparatively 

weak insurgent movement, which drew its combatant strength 

from minimally armed tribal revolt and could expand beyond core 

regions only through terror orchestrated by voluntarist action, was 

allowed to go unchecked for want of application of any systematic 

counter. 
21

Further, even as this uncoordinated, haphazard, armed response 

moved forward, political realities made a bad situation worse. 

Virtually the entire post-November 2001 period saw the government 

in a state of crisis, with the Nepali Congress splitting into two rival 

factions, and the UML reportedly refusing to accept the reigns of 

government. Finally, in October 2002, circumstances became so 

bad that the King, using extraordinary powers granted to him by 

the Constitution―but highly controversial nevertheless―disbanded 

Parliament and appointed a government made up predominantly 

of members from minority political parties.68 As the King’s own 

legitimacy was not secure, this made the government’s even less 

so, and the ousted parties wasted no time in endeavoring to test 

through mass action the staying power of the new administration. 

So tainted were the political parties by their own corruption and 

ineptness, though, that they were unable to rally a viable challenge. 

The Maoists chose this moment to offer, in January 2003, a ceasefi re 

and renewed negotiations. The reason already had been provided by 

Bhatarrai in December 2002: “The situation is now peaking towards 

a climax after the fratricidal and regicidal ‘king,’ Gyanendra, and his 

notorious son, Paras, have staged a retrogressive coup d’etat against 

the supine parliamentary democracy on October 4 and restored 

autocratic monarchy in the country.”69 Such vitriol notwithstanding, 

the country eagerly embraced the proffered respite.70

Earlier negotiations, as detailed above, had been unilaterally 

terminated by the CPN(M) in November 2001 in order to go over 

to the offensive. Yet links had never been broken. The UML, in 

particular, because its stated ideology continued to incorporate 

the notion of “revolution,” had kept channels of communication 

open, as had any number of other actors. Human rights groups, for 

instance, endeavored to act as mediators. Eventually, these channels 

were used by the palace and its appointed government to renew 

discussions. Just how these would fare remained anyone’s guess, 

because neither side showed any sign of altering its basic positions. 

These, to be clear, were irreconcilable on such basics as the nature of 

the state and the position of the monarchy. Both sides continued to 

train, re-equip, and acquire armaments.

In this situation, the Maoist position was of most moment. From 

the previous ceasefi re, captured documents and pictures, to include 
22

video footage, together with interrogations of prisoners, showed 

cadres telling the mass base that negotiations were but a tactical 

gambit, that the cause of the revolution would never be betrayed 

or given up until a “people’s republic” was established. The real 

question was whether the new talks were seen by the party as but a 

pause for regrouping or a more serious effort to gain by nonviolent 

means that which thus far it had been unable to gain through 

violence; a standard political warfare technique, to be sure, but one 

that did not produce the level of societal dislocation attending the 

Maoists’ effort to become, to borrow a phrase, “the New Sendero.” 

Signifi cantly, the latter course seemed likely, with the CPN(M)―

in its own calculations―moving from a position of strength into 

fractured Nepali politics. Analysis, however, pointed to two possible 

interpretations of Maoist designs.

• “The Leninist Scenario”: The CPN(M), given the circumstances, 

felt it could not lose and would be able to defeat the enemy in 

detail, much as Lenin did in the chaos between the ouster of 

the Czar and the fi nal Bolshevik coup.71 Directly and through 

its front organizations, as in 2001, it aggressively used political 

space, within which it could operate freely, to further divide 

its foes. In closed-door meetings, it made common cause with 

both the political parties and the monarchy (through the sitting 

government), the end-game being to use one against the other, 

then to out-maneuver the survivor in the organizational contest 

to follow. Crucial in this strategy was the “constituent assembly,” 

through which the monarchy was to be neutralized, in particular 

separated from its armed base, the RNA―in the name of 

establishing a “republic.” Integration of the CPN(M) combatants, 

as was demanded, would further ensure the inability of the 

RNA to respond to provocation. In such an environment, cooptation would serve in place of armed confrontation. Indeed, 

the CNP(M)’s “75 Points”72 were structured as such a multitude 

precisely so that no one or minor grouping was objectionable. It 

was the totality of the platform, to be achieved by persistently 

emphasizing that the smaller, “moderate”73 compromises 

provided the only route to a “lasting peace,” that was intended 

to produce a totally transformed whole. 
23

• “The PIRA Scenario”: The CPN(M) had not changed its basic 

positions but, like the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) 

in Northern Ireland, saw the moment as ripe for pushing ahead 

with nonviolent means even as violence was held in reserve.74

This formulation was theoretically of particular interest, because 

it held that a substate actor held the same rights as the state. 

In particular, the state was no longer granted a monopoly of 

legitimate force. To the contrary, having lost this status by 

illegitimate action, the state, it was claimed, had to negotiate 

with the substate actor―which had access to its own purportedly 

legitimate force. Hence the Maoists claimed to have emerged, 

through the use of violence, as an equal to the Nepalese state. The 

state controlled the urban areas, argued the CPN(M), the substate 

actor controlled the rural areas. The clash between the thesis and 

antithesis, hitherto a violent affair, had given rise to the demand 

for the realization of a new synthesis through nonviolent 

negotiation. Violence had been necessary to arrive at the point of 

“political solution,” but violence could be superseded by political 

warfare. The destruction wreaked principally in the hinterland, 

therefore, though having various tactical and operational goals, 

such as area domination, strategically was intended as political 

communication, irrefutable evidence for the old-order that the 

CPN(M) was a force that could not be ignored.75 No doubt of 

marginal interest to those affected, such a mindset would not be 

that of Sendero Luminoso or the Khmer Rouge but of PIRA: not 

the destruction of the old-regime in all its manifestations but 

destruction utilized as a weapon―to infl ict pain to achieve the 

“political solution.” 

Neither of these two interpretations would have precluded 

inclusion by the Maoists of more immediate concerns, though 

Bhattarai, as the head of the Maoist negotiations team, emphasized 

that the CPN(M)’s “75 Points” was a document of strategic goals 

rather than tactical demands. He claimed for the Party a willingness 

to accept intermediate steps (e.g., a “bourgeois republic” with a 

constitutional monarchy), a determination to move beyond an early 

attraction for the approach of Sendero Luminoso or the Naxalites in 

order to arrive at a unique, situationally-appropriate “Nepalese 
24

Maoism.”76 Specifi cs of application for the building of a new Nepal 

were to be found in an expansion of Bhattarai’s Ph.D. dissertation 

released in May 2003.77

Even if this formulation were accepted at face value, there were 

grounds for pessimism. Maoist excessive rhetoric, especially attacks 

upon the RNA, and a bargaining emphasis upon broad, often utopian, 

declarations at the expense of specifi cs, soon led to a situation where 

the two sides talked past each other. Undoubtedly, the RNA saw 

little but a cynical effort to weaken it. In the fi eld, Maoist cadres and 

combatants had been briefed that the major goal of the new round 

of talks was the “national army.”78 Simultaneously, the Maoist 

representatives in Kathmandu focused upon ending international 

assistance to the government (which, as indicated above, has been 

crucial in enhancing the capabilities of the security forces), all the 

while demanding an RNA “return to barracks.” Under no such 

restrictions themselves, Maoist forces continued to move and train, 

funded by undiminished criminal activity. 

Further, unsure of their position vis-à-vis Nepal’s international 

supporters in the era of the U.S.-led “War on Terrorism” (WOT), the 

Maoists stridently attacked them, in particular the United States. 

This furthered the impression of Machiavellian maneuvering, 

though it would seem more correct to fi nd the inspiration for such 

CPN(M) verbiage in the party’s parochial origins and operational 

environment. Put simply, the Maoists had a painfully limited 

understanding of the global forces and processes presently in 

play.79 This lead to a degree of paranoia and mistaken bargaining 

positions. 

It should be further noted here that the representatives of the 

CPN(M) present in Kathmandu were among the most worldly 

and well-educated in the Party. This lead to questions as to both 

the scope of their authority and the degree to which their positions 

accurately refl ect those of the entire leadership. Though CPN(M) 

decisionmaking is apparently a collective enterprise, Prachanda 

dominates through majority support in the Politburo. His views―

especially concerning the extent to which compromise may be 

exercised in negotiations―were not known―despite the claim by 

Bhattarai that he and his peers were but a refl ection of the party 
25

will. 

The diffi culty of the situation was compounded by the movement, 

in May 2003, of the estranged political parties into a phase of active 

resistance against the state―which led to the resignation of the fi rst 

“caretaker” government in June and its replacement by a follow-on 

administration. Though the parties continued to voice support for a 

favorable outcome in the government/CPN(M) negotiations, they 

committed their own efforts completely to confrontation with the 

palace and its appointed government. This action, the Maoists joined 

but haltingly, instead focusing upon using their fronts to increase 

dramatically their infl uence within what hitherto had been the 

government’s rear area.

In such an environment, the only real surprise came when the 

Maoists, on August 27, 2003, abruptly terminated the ceasefi re 

and resorted again to a variety of armed actions, to include 

targeted assassinations against important government personnel 

in Kathmandu. The surprise came from the obvious: government 

disorientation and lack of focus seemed to be providing the 

CPN(M) with ample leeway to make progress, through “political” 

means, progress that would surely be more diffi cult in a state of 

armed confl ict. Indeed, faced with renewed Maoist assassination 

efforts, the government promptly restored legal prohibitions and 

asked international organizations for assistance in apprehending 

leadership fi gures. Thus “people’s war” is again in full swing. 

Recommendations.

As the situation has lurched from crisis to crisis, the concern of 

external powers has grown commensurately, particularly that of 

the United States. For the dangers of peripheral areas that come to 

be dominated by hostile, radical actors have been driven home to 

Washington by cases as diverse as Afghanistan, northwest Pakistan, 

Yemen, Georgia, Jammu and Kashmir, Colombia, and the southern 

Philippines. The latter two have been particular examples of the role 

tardy or misdirected U.S. action can play in allowing a local situation 

to grow into a security threat to us. Lest Nepal prove similar, it is 

imperative that Washington proceed with an adroit mixture of 

reasoned advice and adequate material support and training. Given 
26

the nature of the foe, the existing U.S. military role seems destined to 

increase in prominence. 

To improve its position, Kathmandu should logically look to the 

following (with U.S. input as appropriate):

• National mobilization is necessary, as appropriate for grappling 

with the most serious crisis to confront Nepal since its transition 

to democracy in 1990-91. No matter how serious that earlier 

upheaval, it pales in scope and casualties to what presently 

is occurring. Yet the counterinsurgency remains essentially a 

matter delegated to the security forces. There are, for instance, no 

local forces of any sort. Neither, at the other end of the spectrum, 

has there been a clear articulation of “why we fi ght.” 

• A key component in this national response must be a strategic 

plan, with operational components delimited and responsibilities 

assigned. This will necessarily involve all elements of national 

power and drive a multifaceted, coordinated response to the 

insurgency. Jointness is critical, but thus far even the police have 

been marginalized, much less civilian components of the state. 

The heart of the plan must be domination of human terrain rather 

than focus upon insurgent combatants. Local security remains 

the key to restoration of normalcy. 

• Socio-economic-political reform must assume pride of place 

in any such plan. Though the operational driving force behind 

insurgent expansion is provided by terror, it is the strategic 

environment of the failed state that is Nepal which has thrown 

up the historic moment the Maoists seek to exploit. Democracy 

has been corrupt and ineffective, the political class distracted and 

self-absorbed. Consequences in the economic and social spheres 

have consequently been exacerbated. Leadership must set in 

place solutions that can provide the inspiration for mobilization. 

• Intelligence must continue to improve, with greater emphasis 

placed upon coordination and timely dissemination. Basic 

analytical techniques appropriate to internal war in a lowtech environment will provide a foundation upon which other 

capabilities can be built. Nature of the battle space and of the 
27

insurgents, though, dictates that human intelligence (HUMINT) 

must be the dominant activity. 

• Information warfare (IW) must be moved from its current 

unfocused, weak state to the status of force-multiplier. Generally 

favorable disposition towards the system by the populace 

demands this, even as the insurgents provide the human material 

for their own demise by continuing to rely upon terror as the 

lynchpin of their campaign. The only meaningful IW activity is 

coming from the RNA. This must be elevated to a government 

activity.

• Special Operations capabilities must be made more robust and 

integrated into the overall approach. Present arrangements are 

ad hoc. They are decentralized due to the lack of mobility assets 

but have not been utilized in the most appropriate manner. Deep 

penetration reconnaissance, running of pseudo-gangs, and direct 

action have all been successful but uncoordinated and reactive.

• Leadership and other skills at all levels must be sharpened as 

per the demands of internal war. Doctrine, training particulars, 

and basics (to include Rules of Engagement) have not been made 

focused or systematic as demanded by the challenge at hand. 

Small unit leadership has revolved around hazing rather than 

inspiration. Offi cers frequently are defi cient in the rudiments 

of tradecraft, much less the mechanics of unit maneuver. Even 

rapid overland movement remains a challenge when solutions 

are readily available. Nepalis must look to low-tech, indigenous 

solutions and not be seduced by the lure of high-tech, expensive 

measures and systems―which, in any case, are unavailable. 

ENDNOTES

1. For a sympathetic treatment of historical context, see Arjun Karki and 

David Seddon, “The People’s War in Historical Context,” in Karki and Seddon, 

eds., The People’s War in Nepal: Left Perspectives, Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 2003, pp. 

3-48.

2. The closest thing to an “offi cial” fi gure for the confl ict is 7,362 dead as of the 

end of 2002, Informal Sector Research & Study Centre (INSEC). See Attachment 1. 
28

An updated count through May 12, 2003, raises this slightly to 7,424. Less formal 

estimates regularly place the total in the 8,000 range. The latest publication, with 

complete statistics for 2002, is Nepal: Human Rights Yearbook 2003, Kathmandu: 

INSEC, 2003. Latest data puts the death toll for the single month following August 

27, 2003 at astonishing 1,080.

3. In 1971, when Nepal’s population was but 12 million, average life 

expectancy was 37 years, and the infant mortality rate (per 100,000 births) was 

a staggering 172. Adult literacy was 13 percent. By 1998, despite substantial 

improvement, a Nepali could still expect to live but 58 years; the infant mortality 

rate was 72; and adult literacy was 38 percent. Civics in Nepal, grade 12 textbook, 

Contemporary Society Course, Kathmandu: Creative Press, 2001. Such trends 

became still more pressing as a rapidly growing population produced an age 

distribution whereby, as per 2001 census estimates, 50 percent of the population 

was 19 years or younger. 

4. For discussion of structural issues engendered by traditional patterns 

of landholding, cf. Mahesh C. Regmi, Landownership in Nepal, Delhi: Adroit 

Publishers, 1999 (1st Indian ed.), and Shanker Thapa, Historical Study of Agrarian 

Relations in Nepal, 1846-1951, Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 2000. 

5. The United Kingdom establishment has been run down to just two infantry 

battalions and limited support units, with another battalion-equivalent (3 rifl e 

companies) assigned to round-out under-strength British infantry battalions. 

Brunei, where one of the two UK battalions is based on a rotational basis, has two 

Gurkha battalions of its own, though they apparently have declined in strength 

after agitation concerning pay and allowances. Manpower for these two battalions 

comes from prior-service British Gurkhas who are recruited upon separation from 

UK service. Singapore Police have a Gurkha battalion which is recruited as part of 

the normal British scheme. India apparently has at least 42 battalions of Gurkha 

infantry and some 10-12 battalions of other formations, such as Assam Rifl es, 

which, though not nominally “Gurkha,” are in fact manned by them. At a May 11, 

2003, presentation in Kathmandu, Major (Ret) Deepak Gurung presented fi gures 

which placed 35,000 Nepalese in the Indian Army, with over 115,000 receiving 

pensions, and 3,500 men in the British establishment, with 26,000 receiving 

pensions. If the number of “other formations” is included, it would appear that 

the number of Nepali citizens serving in the Indian armed and paramilitary forces 

is possibly as high as 50,000. Field Notes, April-May 2003. 

6. As of the end of 2001, there were offi cially 1,870,000 Nepalis working abroad, 

though the numbers cannot be considered accurate, as there is no way to measure 

returnees. Perhaps as many as 500,000-700,000 were thought to be in Japan. 

More purportedly precise fi gures stated that Saudi Arabia had 71,895 working 

there, with another 44,226 in Qatar. More than 53,000 Nepalis apparently sought 

employment in Malaysia the same year. Statistics for Nepalese working in India 
29

are unreliable, but one data set puts the fi gure at 587,243 in 1991, with a further 

418,982 Nepalese born in India. See Harka Gurung, Nepal: Social Demography and 

Expressions, Kathmandu: New Era, 2001, pp. 16-18. For a comprehensive look at 

a particular community, see A. C. Sinha and T. B. Subba, The Nepalis in Northeast 

India, New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company, 2003. Independent estimates fi gure 

at least US$1 billion is remitted to Nepal from overseas annually. Field Notes, 

November 2002. 

7. Useful is Gary Shepherd, Life Among the Magars, Kathmandu: Sahayogi 

Press, 1982. Particularly good for the situation in the Nepali hills generally is J. 

P. Cross, The Call of Nepal, Series II/Vol 17 of Bibliotecha Himalayica, Kathmandu: 

Mandala Book Point, 1998 (1996 original); on the Gurkhas themselves, see Cross, 

In Gurkha Company, London: Arms and Armour, 1986. For details of recruiting, 

a variety of sources are useful; see particularly two works by Lionel Caplan, 

Warrior Gentlemen: “Gurkhas” in the Western Imagination, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 

1995; and Land and Social Change in East Nepal, 2d ed., Kathmandu: Himal Books, 

2000; as well as Tony Gould, Imperial Warriors: Britain and the Gurkhas, London: 

Granta Books, 1999. For insight into the “Victorian Mentality,” see a reprint of 

a 19th century work, Ministry of Defence, Nepal and the Gurkhas, London: Her 

Majesty’s Stationary Offi ce, 1965. For the present Indian forces, the best readily 

available work is Rajesh Kadian, India and its Army, New Delhi: Vision Books, 

1990. For historical recruiting patterns of Nepalese, see Purushottam Banskota, 

The Gurkha Connection: A History of the Gurkha Recruitment in the British Army, New 

Delhi: Nirala, 1994; and Kamal Raj Singh Rathaur, The Gurkhas: A History of the 

Recruitment in the British Indian Army, New Delhi: Nirala, 1987. 

8. British presentation to June 2002 Donors Meeting in United Kingdom: 

“In 2000 upper castes accounted for 35 percent of the population, but 95 percent 

of the civil service, 98 percent of army offi cers, 78 percent of political leaders, 

including―ironically―the Maoists.” Less dominant fi gures may be found in the 

literature, but even the most favorable see the two upper castes represented in all 

major areas in proportion at least double to their societal fraction. Cf. the extensive 

data presented in Harka Gurung, especially the tables in the appendices. 

9. See, e.g., Martin Hoftun, William Raeper, and John Whelpton, People, 

Politics, and Ideology: Democracy and Social Change in Nepal, Kathamndu: Mandala 

Book Point, 1999; and Dhruba Kumar, ed., Domestic Confl ict and Crisis of 

Governability in Nepal, Kathmandu: Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS), 

Tribhuvan University, 2000. In the latter, Ch. 6, Pancha N. Maharjan, pp. 163-196, 

deals specifi cally with the Maoist challenge and contains a wealth of data. 

10. A lasting result was the treaty, signed with the “King of Goorkha,” that 

allowed Britain to recruit from certain Nepalese hill tribes for armed service; thus 

the Gurkhas. 
30

11. The Indian political left played an important role in this process. Useful 

for what it has to offer concerning later trends discussed in this monograph is 

Santwana Tewari Chaube, Democratic Movement in Nepal and the Indian Left, Delhi: 

Kalinga Publications, 2001. For a more general discussion of the crucial role 

India played ideologically, see D. P. Adhikari, The History of Nepalese Nationalism, 

Kathmandu: Jeewan Printing Support Press (personal imprint), 1988. 

12. Useful for a discussion of this issue at the local level is Ganga Bahadur, ed., 

Promoting Participatory Democracy in Nepal: An Assessment of Local Self-Governance, 

Kathmandu: Political Science Association of Nepal, 1998. 

13. The entire royal family was shot and killed by the elder son, angered 

at his inability to secure parental consent to marry the woman of his choice. 

He subsequently turned his weapon upon himself but did not die immediately, 

presenting the country with the bizarre situation where a murderer was, prior to 

his death, the crowned king, which occurred even as he was in the intensive care 

unit. For further details, see, e.g., Jonathan Gregson, Massacre at the Palace: The 

Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepal, New York: Hyperion, 2002.

14. As stated by Baburam Bhattarai, the CPN(M)’s chief ideologue and the 

head of the International Department of the party: “The revolutionary people’s 

movement (which is popularly known as People’s War) undergoing for the past 

7 years has now created a parallel people’s power, army, economy, and culture in 

large parts of the country, except the cities, and a situation of strategic stalemate 

has developed in the overall sense.” See interview conducted via the internet by 

Chitra Tiwari with Bhattarai, “Maoists Seek a Democratic Nepal,” The Washington 

Times, December 14, 2002.

15. Bhattarai in ibid.: “We have always remained amenable to a negotiated 

settlement of the problem, but it is the feudal autocratic monarchy that has 

sabotaged all our earlier attempts. The ‘ice’ will be hard to break unless the 

monarchy is made to realize that its days are now numbered and it has to make a 

graceful exit from the stage of history.”

16. From India: Communist Party of India/Marxist-Leninist, People’s War 

(or CPI/M-L, PW), based in Andhra Pradesh and known generally as “People’s 

War Group” (or PWG); Maoist Communist Centre (or MCC), based in Bihar, the 

large Indian state on Nepal’s southern border; the Revolutionary Communist 

Centre of India (Maoist); and the Revolutionary Communist Centre of India, 

(Marxist-Leninist). From Bangladesh: Bangladesher Samyabadi Dal (M-L); Purbo 

Bangla Sarbahara Party (CC); and Purbo Bangla Sarbahara Party (MPK). From 

Sri Lanka: the Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist). The ninth attendee, of course, 

was the CPN(M) itself. More recently, a Bhutanese Communist Party (MarxistLeninist-Maoist) has emerged and called for “people’s war” to overthrow the 

reigning monarchy. This organization is not yet a CCOMPOSA member but can 
31

be expected to seek such status. Field Notes, May 2003. It remains unclear whether 

this hitherto unknown party is an ethnic Bhutanese phenomenon or an outgrow 

of CPN(M) efforts to penetrate the ethnic Nepalese community of the country. 

The latter has been in a state of turmoil since the late 1980s as a result of offi cial 

Bhutanese efforts to promote nationalism through a variety of socio-economicpolitical measures. Cf. Michael Hutt, Unbecoming Citizens: Culture, Nationhood, and 

the Flights of Refugees From Bhutan, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003. 

17. Particularly useful in discussing this movement: David Scott Palmer, 

ed., The Shining Path of Peru, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992; and “The 

Revolutionary Terrorism of Peru’s Shining Path,” in Martha Crenshaw, Terrorism 

in Context, University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, pp. 

249-308; Steve J. Stern, ed., Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980-

1995, Durham: Duke University Press, 1998; Gordon H. McCormick, From Sierra to 

the Cities: The Urban Campaign of the Shining Path, Santa Monica: RAND, 1992; and 

Gustavo Gorriti, The Shining Path: A History of the Millenarian War in Peru, Chapel 

Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999. For my own work, see, e.g., 

“Making Revolution: Sendero Luminoso in Peru as Maoist Conclusion, 1980-,” 

Ch. 5, in my Maoist Insurgency Since Vietnam, London: Frank Cass, 1996, pp. 253-

284, and “Making Revolution With Shining Path,” Ch. 10, in Palmer, The Shining 

Path of Peru, pp. 191-205. Possibly the single most cited essay comparing the cases 

of Peru and Nepal is R. Andrew Nickson, “Democratisation and the Growth 

of Communism in Nepal: A Peruvian Scenario in the Making?” The Journal of 

Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Vol. XXX/No. 3, November 1992, pp. 358-

386. I am indebted to Nickson for an elaboration upon the article’s contents during 

a discussion in Asuncion, Paraguay, August 15, 1993. 

18. Key works include: S. Banerjee, India’s Simmering Revolution: The Naxalite 

Uprising, London: Zed Press, 1984; E. Duyker, Tribal Guerrillas: The Santals of West 

Bengel and the Naxalite Movement, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987; and A. K. 

Samana, Left Extremist Movement in West Bengal: An Experiment in Armed Agrarian 

Struggle, Calcutta: Firma KLM, 1984. Particularly good at placing the Naxalites 

within regional development context is Partha Chatterjee, The Present History of 

West Bengal: Essays in Political Criticism, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997. 

19. To include West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and 

Maharashta. The most vibrant of these are People’s War Group (PWG) of Andhra 

Pradesh and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) of Bihar, both CCOMPOSA 

members. 

20. Both were born in 1954 and entered politics in their university years. 

Prachanda earned a graduate degree (MA) in agriculture; Bhattarai (Ph.D.) in 

urban planning; his wife, Hishila Yemi, is an architect/engineer and also a member 

of the Maoists. Both have been widely quoted as advocating social transformation 

through violence―Bhattarai is credited with the intellectual authorship of the 
32

“Class Enemy Elimination Campaign” launched in 1996. Asked for personal 

details by Tiwari, op.cit., he replied, 

As per your query about my individual background, you can 

take me as a typical representative of a Third World educated 

youth of peasant background, who fi nds the gross inequality, 

oppression, poverty, underdevelopment and exploitation of 

the overwhelming majority of the population in a class-divided 

and imperialism-dominated world just intolerable, and grasps 

Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the best scientifi c tool to change 

it positively. 

21. Fieldwork in the important district of Gorkha (from which the term 

“Gurkha” is derived) revealed, as per police statistics for the period November 

2001-March 2002, that fully 40 percent of those arrested were teachers, 79 of 196. 

Field Notes, March 2002.

22. Impressionistic analysis of admittedly incomplete data indicates that onefi fth to one-third of the cadre and combatants may be women. 

23. Contesting the May 12, 1991, Parliamentary elections as the United 

Peoples’ Front of Nepal, or UPFN, the Maoists won nine seats of the 205: one 

from the Eastern Region, Siriha; four from the Central Region, Ramechhap, 

Kavrepalanchok, Lalitpur, Chitwan; and four from the Mid-Western Region, 

Rukkum, Rolpa x 2, Humla. This is a fascinating mix of the some of the most and 

least educated areas of the country. By comparison, the Nepali Congress captured 

110 seats, the Nepal Communist Party, United Marxist-Leninist, the “legal left,” 69 

seats. 

24. A “big landlord” in the hills, for instance, may be a man with two 

hectares of land; but objectively this does not fi t the defi nition of such. The 

point is fundamental, for if the essence of the Nepal’s problems lie, as they do, 

in the population exceeding the carrying capacity of the land, no ideological 

restructuring can adequately address issues of livelihood. The result is bound to 

be, as it was in Cambodia, tragedy. 

25. A preliminary analysis of all Maoist civilian victims of terror actions in 

2002 produced 323 names, 145 of which could be identifi ed as Brahmin, Chhetri, 

or 44.9 percent. Of the remaining 178 names, 52 were tribals (16.1 percent), called 

“ethnic community members,” and 82 could not be identifi ed (25.4 percent). 

These four categories amounted to 86.4 percent. Victims are virtually all male. 

Their numbers are exceeded by the number of security force dead, especially the 

police.

26. The tension that does exist appears to stem from a logical source: the 
33

high proportion of hill tribe manpower in combat formations. Many of these footsoldiers see themselves as involved in a self-defense dynamic as opposed to an 

ideological crusade. Thus they must be dealt with carefully by the leadership as it 

engages in the tactical maneuvering so typical of a Leninist organization. 

27. Field Notes, April-May 2003. This conclusion is based upon numerous 

interviews with Maoist combatants in Rolpa. It may be further noted that 

each battalion also has a Vice Commissar with equivalent powers to the Chief 

Commissar. 

28. Student and ethnic liberation groups are most active in the united front 

campaign. The latter have not proved particularly vibrant, but the former function 

openly and appear to execute instructions issued by the CPN(M) leadership. 

Prominent is the All Nepal National Independent Students’ Union, Revolutionary 

or ANNISU-R.

29. For the benchmark work of theory with respect to this dynamic, see James 

C. Scott, “Revolution in the Revolution: Peasants and Commissars,” Theory and 

Society, Vol. 7/Nos. 1 & 2, January-March 1979, pp. 97-134. Scott, of course, is the 

author of the seminal The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in 

Southeast Asia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976. 

30. This is an important issue, because the limited scholarly work produced to 

date has relied principally upon “circular” journalistic accounts of actual events, 

the result being that hearsay has taken on a life of its own. One police operation, 

in particular (“Kilo Sierra II,” June 1998) is now consistently cited as mobilizing 

hill people in self-defense; but its particulars are normally confl ated with other 

operations, such as the earlier “Romeo,” November 1995, which are then arrayed 

as if a consistent pattern of systemic repression. Examination of contemporaneous 

data, though, such as the fi eld reports for “Romeo,” (Field Notes, November 2001) 

raises questions as to what occurred objectively―quite a different issue from what 

occurred subjectively. Subjective issues can not be ignored and may be crucial in 

any insurgency; for instance, what could seem to be limited repression objectively 

might nevertheless subjectively be perceived as substantial. Yet consideration, 

when dealing with a voluntarist movement, must be given to the possibility that 

limited, even unexceptional, actions can be exploited through shrewd ideological 

campaign by insurgents. 

31. Available fi gures on CPN(M) strength do not inspire confi dence, but 

government estimates provided in early 2003 would seem reasonable: 5,500 

combatants; 8,000 militia; 4,500 cadres, referred to in Nepalese English as “cahdres”; 33,000 hard core followers; and 200,000 sympathizers.

32. See especially Anne de Sales, “The Kham Magar Country: Between 

Ethnic Claims and Maoism,” in David N. Gellner, Resistance and the State: Nepalese 
34

Experiences, New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2003, pp. 326-57. There are fi ve 

separate groupings within the general Magar category.

33. Field work, Rolpa, April-May 2003. 

34. Local variations make generalization risky, but extortion, classifi ed by 

the Maoists as “revolutionary taxation,” appears “reasonable” in an objective 

sense. Small shopkeepers in Rolpa, for instance, have cited payments of NPR 50 

per month (about US66 cents); government personnel remaining in “liberated” 

areas (e.g., teachers, postmen) pay amounts equal to one day’s wages per month. 

NPR 100-200 (US$1.32-$2.64) was often cited by teachers who were making 

approximately NPR 7,500 per month, roughly US$98. Reports of excess from 

collecting cadres are comparatively rare. In contrast, kidnapping-for-ransom is 

common―despite efforts by the Maoist hierarchy to deny such activity―and far 

more arbitrary. The amounts frequently are steep by the standards of rural Nepal. 

A case, not atypical, in Rolpa involved a small innkeeper held until ransomed by 

his family for NPR 30,000, or nearly US$400. He subsequently fl ed to India, leaving 

his family adrift. Field Notes, April-May 2003. Equally lucrative for the movement, 

of course, is extortion from businesses associated with the commercial economy. A 

typical trekking group of foreigners, for instance, was stopped in October 2001 but 

allowed to proceed once the guide had paid NPR 2,000 (about US$26), a normal 

amount and an order of magnitude greater than what can be gained in taxing the 

impoverished population. In the case just cited, a receipt was issued, and the trek 

reported no further demands. Field Notes, December 2001. 

35. E.g., government statistics for the fi rst several days of the November 2001 

offensive put losses to CPN(M) bank-robberies at some US$2 million. Field Notes, 

November 2001. No reliable data exists on total CPN(M) funding, but the annual 

intake would appear to be but several millions. 

36. Only in Phase 3―when mobile warfare gives way to the so-called “war of 

position”―do the insurgents endeavor to hold ground. 

37. Field Notes, May 2002.

38. This was not only an administrative blow but a key step in establishing 

Maoist political dominance, for VDC candidates were affi liated with the major 

political parties. The result was that the legal left bore the brunt of the Maoist 

assault, since some 2,600 VDC Chairmen of the 3,913 possible were UML members. 

Ibid. 

39. Field Notes, November 2002. The fi rst year of the Maoist offensive 

(November 2001-November 2002) saw 1,321 VDC buildings completely destroyed, 

according to government fi gures, as per the following breakdown by regions: Far 

West, 316 of 383, 82.5 percent; Mid-Western, 165 of 575, 28.7 percent; Western, 221 
35

of 865, 25.5 percent; Central, 334 of 1,199, 27.8 percent; and Eastern, 285 of 893, 31.9 

percent. VDC continued to be destroyed at such a clip, though, that the statistics 

were already surpassed at time of release. 

40. Ibid. 

41. It is signifi cant that leaders steadfastly maintain no inspiration from (or 

knowledge of) the Khmer Rouge case. It is ironic, then, as per Bhattarai to Tiwari, 

op.cit., to read a claim such as: “There is no independent and authentic account 

of events in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge available so far. Whatever is 

emanating from the Western media appears to be highly exaggerated to us.” Such, 

of course, is an untenable position which ranks with “Holocaust Denial” but is 

representative of many ad hoc CPN(M) pronouncements. Essential reading on 

the Khmer Rouge would include: Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, 

and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79, New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 1996; and How Pol Pot Came to Power: A History of Communism in 

Kampuchea, 1930-1975, London: Verso, 1985; David P. Chandler, Brother Number 

One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992; and 

David P. Chandler, Voices From S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison, 

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999; Kenneth Quinn, “Political Change 

in Wartime: The Khmer Krahom Revolution Southern Cambodia, 1970-1974,” 

Naval War College Review, Vol. 28, Spring, pp. 3-31; Kenneth Quinn, The Origins 

and Development of Radical Cambodian Communism, Ph.D. dissertation, University of 

Maryland, 1982; Karl D. Jackson, ed., Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous With Death, 

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989; Michael Vickery, Cambodia 1975-

1982, Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1999; and Elizabeth Becker, When the War Was 

Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, New York: Public Affairs, 1986. 

42. By the declaration of the recent ceasefi re in late January 2003, an apparent 

21 assassinations had been carried out in the Kathmandu Valley, to include two 

Nepalese security personnel employed by the U.S. Embassy. The goal of united 

front activity, as per Bhatarrai to Tiwari (op.cit.), is transparent: 

In the current triangular balance of forces―namely (among) 

the monarchists, parliamentary democrats and revolutionary 

democrats―if the latter two democratic forces are able to mount 

a joint struggle against the feudal aristocratic forces, there are 

strong chances that democracy will be consummated in the 

country in the near future. 

43. In a move that increased the vacuum of authority in rural areas, the 

authorities systematically confi scated weapons―most for hunting―from the 

populace. Examination of security force statistics citing “weapons captured” 

reveals a predominance of “musket guns.” Best evidence indicates these are 

weapons confi scated from civilians and not pieces actually captured from 

guerrillas. 
36

44. Field Notes, November 2002. The force was rapidly expanding and likely 

has already reached its anticipated strength of 25,000. 

45. In contrast, a total of 850 civilians are listed as having been killed since the 

declaration of people’s war on February 13, 1996. 

46. Data which follow are from my Field Notes, April-May 2003. 

47. Ibid. Local records could not provide total police strength in the years 

under discussion, but it clearly was but in the hundreds. Even today, there are but 

300 police personnel assigned to the district. 

48. Though such detailed fi gures are not available for the country as a 

whole, my data indicates that of 1,682 stations total, 895 (or 53.2 percent) have 

been “consolidated” with other stations, i.e., abandoned, leaving just 787 stations 

remaining. Field Notes, August 2003.

49. In Rolpa, the VDC heads numbered 51, affi liated with the major parties as 

follows: UML, 23; NC, 18; RPP (the successors to the conservative backers of the 

old panchayet regime, 8; and Independent, 2. Ibid. 

50. In one village studied, there were but three cadres, well-known to villagers. 

They were normally referred to as the Opportunist, the Criminal, and the Young 

Lenin. The fi rst was a former Nepali Congress (NC) member who, following his 

own kidnap and ransom, had become a Maoist, apparently to safeguard the family 

property. Other members of his family, having moved to the tarai, remained 

prominent NC politicians. The second had spent 10 months in jail for his previous 

Maoist activities and had been released under the terms of the ceasefi re. He was 

the most dangerous of the lot and was eager for “payback.” The third was a high 

school student who effected Leninist dress and seemed a true believer. Yet he 

attended classes faithfully and, according to his instructors, caused no diffi culties. 

Field Notes, April-May 2003.

51. The Opportunist discussed above, for instance, had 7 months prior to my 

arrival accused the village postman of being a spy and had summoned a section 

(i.e. squad) of guerrillas who had taken the man away, bound. He has disappeared, 

despite the efforts of his family (a wife and four children) to locate him. Likewise, 

the Criminal worked closely with guerrillas in the area and regularly threatened 

villagers, at one point telling a teacher that but for the ceasefi re, he was dead. 

Finally, the Young Lenin, despite all his admirable characteristics―and probably 

precisely because of his clean-cut, wholesome appearance―had apparently been 

tapped to make regular trips to Kathmandu to work with surveillance teams 

preparing targets for the urban terror campaign. Ibid.
37

52. RNA captain, Field Notes, April-May 2003.

53. Census fi gures (projections) put the 2001 population of Dolakha at 204,229, 

of whom a plurality were Chhetri (58,183), or 28.5 percent. Another 18,791 (9.2 

percent) were Hill Brahmins; 27,619 (13.5 percent) were Tamang; and just 3,392 

(1.7 percent) were Magars. Yet guerrilla units in the area were visibly dominated 

by the latter and drew support from Magar communities. 

54. All communications observed, whether between cadres and guerrillas, 

or within and between guerrilla units, were by hard copy message. There is 

widespread presence in hill areas of transistor radios, indicating lack of familiarity 

with technology is not an issue. Field Notes, April-May 2003. 

55. Field Notes, April-May 2003. It is noteworthy that efforts to draw guerrillas 

into discussions concerning their relationship to terror actions invariably led to 

responses such as: “Lower level party cadres are involved in such actions, not 

the battalions. We just fi ght.” This could well have been true, since it was neither 

possible to establish affi liation of guerrillas observed engaging in enforcement 

activities (during fi eld work in Rolpa) nor to determine the extent of independent 

guerrilla formations outside the battalion structure. It was noted that half-sections 

and sections from battalions were constantly moving through the hills, and this 

accords with villager descriptions of such-sized units carrying out terror actions. 

56. Captured weapons predominate, with the most common high-powered 

fi rearm being the .303 Lee Enfi eld taken from the police. SLRs taken from the 

RNA are uncommon enough to be relegated to leadership fi gures, such as 

Section Leaders. Efforts to tap the extensive arms black market in South Asia 

have apparently met with minimal success. There is evidence of attempts to look 

further afi eld, though. One intercepted shipment of high-powered fi rearms was 

coming from Burma. There have been reports of corrupt Chinese offi cials also 

providing surplus weapons for a price. Ibid.

57. The dimensions of this phenomenon are diffi cult to assess. INSEC’s 

Human Rights Yearbook 2003 (p. vii) lists 17,564 displaced persons for 2002, a 

modest fi gure which would seem too low. As CDO (Chief District Offi cer) Rolpa, 

Tejprasad Paudel, noted, when commenting on the high number of passports his 

offi ce had been issuing daily: “And you do not even need a passport to go to India. 

Lots of people have been leaving.” My own observation in western Rolpa counted 

roughly 20 percent of the houses abandoned in villages. Field Notes, April-May 

2003. 

58. Field Notes, November 2002. Precise fi gure at the time was given as 54,245. 

This has apparently increased.

59. Taking the fi gures detailed so far, the Maoists have killed at least 2,187 
38

individuals; 50 percent (1,093) have been police, another 11.1 percent (244) RNA, 

and the remaining 38.9 percent (850) civilians. Figures (dead) for the “people’s 

war” phase of the Peruvian case, 1980-92 (the latter date marked the capture of 

Sendero Luminoso leader Guzman and other top cadre), are: police, 1,369; armed 

forces, 909; civilians, 10,640. See Palmer in Crenshaw, p. 271. 

60. This fi gure, the present highest estimate, must be used with a great deal of 

caution. Perhaps 3,000 of the deaths are attributed to the Maoists, INSEC counts 

only 2,021 in its 2002 report, the remainder to the security forces. Ironically, the 

5,000+ does tally reasonably with the government’s own released fi gures for 

enemy killed-in-action, but efforts to validate these have run up against a serious 

level of misstatement and exaggeration. In one case, a report of 21 dead Maoists 

was found, upon investigation by Western observers, to involve but two actual 

bodies. The justifi cation for the higher count was that the guerrillas were seen to 

have been hit. Field Notes, February 2002. The irony is that cause-oriented groups 

appear to take the 5,000+ fi gure at face value and then use limited, impressionistic 

evidence to put an actual fi gure to the number of those killed in error―and thus 

having their human rights violated. Amnesty International claims more than 50 

percent are innocents. Regardless, it is signifi cant that in the entire 1980-92 period 

in Peru as cited above, deaths of presumed subversives (10,655) tallied but twice 

the count Nepal has produced in essentially a year. Peruvian fi gures have recently 

been revised upwards, but the Nepalese deaths have likewise leaped.

61. British fi gures for only November 23, 2001, to October 23, 2002, cite the 

following losses: police, 456 dead, 358 wounded; RNA, 208 dead, 189 wounded; 

civilians attacked by Maoists, 304 dead, 191 wounded; and presumed subversives, 

4,434 dead, “heavy” wounded. This total of 5,402, if compared to 8,000 (an 

estimate, to be sure) yields 67.5 percent. Field Notes, November 2002. 

62. Now dated but still useful is Bishwa Keshar Maskay and Dev Raj Dahal, 

eds, Nepal’s Participation in the United Nations Peace Keeping Operations, Kathmandu: 

United Nations Association of Nepal, 1995. 

63. Field Notes, November 2001. 

64. See especially Sukumar Basu, “The Role of Intelligence in Conducting a 

Counterinsurgency Campaign Against the Maoist Rebels in Nepal,” Small Wars 

and Insurgencies, London, forthcoming. My own research has found the police 

consistently to be best informed as to local realities. Indeed, the intelligence center 

set up in 2002 as a section of operations in police headquarters, Kathmandu, is 

as close to that required in counterinsurgency as exists in Nepal. Field Notes, 

November 2002.

65. The concept of an All Source Intelligence Center (ASIC) at the lowest 

possible tactical levels, a staple of Western (especially U.S. and British) security 

force procedures, has not yet entered the Nepalese organizational architecture, 
39

this despite extensive efforts by, in particular, the British. Field Notes, April-May 

2003.

66. Until early 2003, the Civil Police had primacy in the defense of the 

Kathmandu Valley. This has recently been passed to the RNA. Other urban areas, 

though, remain principally a police responsibility. 

67. This is in sharp contrast to Nepalese performance, both of individuals and 

units, in Gurkha and United Nations service. What is crucial, of course, is that 

these experiences occur outside the Nepali cultural matrix as given tangible form 

in societal structure.

68. A step he was forced to repeat in June 2003, when the fi rst “caretaker” 

prime minister resigned.

69. Tiwari. 

70. Background and discussion in SAP-Nepal (South Asia Partnership), Quest 

for Peace, 2nd ed., Kathmandu, 2003. 

71. The CPN(M) draws heavily upon Lenin’s work in its calculations, an 

orientation refl ected recently in what appears to be a conscious effort by senior 

party members to imitate Lenin’s mode of dress, in contrast to earlier efforts to 

imitate Chinese or Khmer Rouge models. This mode stands in sharp contrast to 

more traditional Nepalese forms, especially the use of the worker’s cap instead 

of the ubiquitous topi. For the life of Lenin, cf. Robert Service, Lenin: A Biography, 

Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000; on context, 

Hans Rogger, Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution 1881-1917, New 

York: Longman, 1983. On the revolution, see Richard Pipes, A Concise History of the 

Russian Revolution, New York: Vintage Books/Random House, 1995; and Sheila 

Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, rev. ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 

1994. Specifi c discussion of urban space is Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks 

Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, New York: W. W. Norton, 1976. 

Discussion of the manner in which urban modes of organization and discourse 

found their way into rural space in the years before the Bolshevik coup is found in 

Robert Edelman, Proletarian Peasants: The Revolution of 1905 in Russia’s Southwest, 

Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987. For the civil war, see W. Bruce Lincoln, 

Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War, New York: Touchstone/Simon & , New York: Touchstone/Simon & 

Schuster, 1989. Possibly the best insight into Lenin’s thought comes from a novel, 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Lenin in Zurich, New York: Farrar, Straus and Ciroux, 

1975. 

72. Readily available; see, e.g., “75 Points of the Maoists,” New Business Age

(Kathmandu), May 2003, pp. 28-33. 
40

73. Bhattarai to Tiwari, is instructive in this regard:

Our party, our party Chairman Prachanda, and our various 

publications have time and again stressed that our immediate 

political agenda is to consummate a democratic republic in the 

country. Please note that we are not pressing for a “communist 

republic” but a bourgeois democratic republic. For that we have 

advanced the immediate slogans of a round-table conference of 

all the political forces, an interim government and elections to a 

constituent assembly, which have been increasingly endorsed by 

an overwhelming majority of the population. As the constituent 

assembly is the highest manifestation of bourgeois democracy 

in history, we fail to understand why anybody claiming to be a 

democrat would shy away from this.

74. Particularly useful, amid the myriad works devoted to the Ulster confl ict 

and the IRA/PIRA, is Richard English, Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA, 

London: Macmillan, 2003. His discussion focuses upon insurgent intentions and 

calculations in the struggle.

75. I base this formulation upon discussions with Maoist leadership fi gures 

during fi eld work, April-May 2003, especially an interview with the second fi gure 

in the hierarchy, Baburam Bhattarai, May 13, 2003, Kathmandu. 

76. Interview with Baburam Bhattarai.

77. Baburam Bhattarai, The Nature of Underdevelopment and Regional Structure 

of Nepal: A Marxist Analysis, Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 2003. 

78. Field Notes, April-May 2003. 

79. A telling illustration is provided by the pantheon given pride of place 

at Maoist functions: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Prachanda. That the 

public veneration of (at least) several mass murderers might be taken as chilling 

testimony that a new “Kampuchea” in the making is simply not understood by the 

Maoist hierarchy. The legal Nepalese left, it may be noted, suffers from the same 

myopia.