Baburam Bhattarai: Myth of intellectual elitism

By Bhrikuti Niroula When I see and hear Baburam Bhattarai, I have trouble understanding the meaning of ‘intellectual elitist’ that he thinks he is due to his self-touted academic credentials. What an intellectual person should look and act like? Wise, broad-minded, forward-looking, empathetic, humble, brave, honest, well-mannered, self-disciplined, visionary etc.; isn’t it so? Now the question arises; does Bhattarai possess any of these characteristics? The fact of the matter is just like his former boss Pushpakamal Dahal, Bhattarai is a flawed demagogue, a pathological liar, an egocentric narcissist and a delusional opportunistic politician with no pragmatic vision whatsoever. It has proven to be true, but still, let me explain it why Bhattarai, a fanatic communist ideologue, franchised Peru’s ‘Shining Path’ style of Communist ideology in Nepal and tried to destroy all the functional, well established institutions in Nepal including the Army in the name of progressive revolution. As a result, a peaceful country like Nepal has turned into a chaotic and volatile country, where the innocent Nepalese are still forced to live in terror and trepidation. His ideological movement arbitrarily executed the political opponents in the name of eliminating feudalism and class struggle. His impossible dream of creating an utopian communist state has never been realized. During the years of insurgency, 16,000 innocent Nepalese lost their lives, but he doesn’t regret or repent for the horror he brought to this country. We have never seen him being apologetic, instead, he always tries to defend his failed ideology with his ludicrous and psychopathic logic. By means of revolution, he promised to eliminate all sort of feudalism, expropriate land any property of landlords and radically redistribute them to the poor and peasant, yet, nothing has ever happened as such. He also tried to stir up ethnical hatred using his inciting and divisive rhetoric leading to the social, religious and ethnical disharmony amongst the common Nepalese but he utterly failed to do so. We Nepalese are united than ever before and we will remain united despite his sinister attempt to divide us under any pretexts. His tactic of trying to prey on people’s fears is over. We all Nepalese understand that we are complementary to each other. We will rise together with dignity, mutual-respect and cooperation. Furthermore, he used to blame India that it (India) was in the course of initially ‘Bhutanizing’ and eventually ‘Sikkimizing’ Nepal’s sovereignty. Now, everybody knows that his party was conceived, created, raised, legitimized and mobilized by the then Indian governments with a sole intention of Indianization of Nepal’s affairs. Ironically, Bhattarai once labeled the United States and India as imperialist and expansionist regimes respectively and attacked their interests in Nepal. He even branded the Nepalese Army as Royal American Army, but it was nothing but a psychopathic trait of euphoric communist mentality. In a recent series of political events, he is one of the key figures in promoting and promulgating the ungovernable and impracticable constitution, but he cowardly ran away from the responsibility of facing the consequences. If the constitution was welcomed by the overall Nepalese, he would be the one to take all the credit of it. For a politician, it is a serious abnegation of responsibility. Even after emerging as a political party, Maoists never stopped poisoning the country. Hence, the anarchy prevailed in every sector of Nepalese society. They brought a culture of patronizing their thugs and criminals; a culture which was later on adopted by other political parties as well; at least for the sake of their survival. Amidst anarchy and lawlessness, western evangelical fundamentalists, in collusion with greedy politicians, have exploited the secular nature of Hinduism and Buddhism, which 93% of Nepalese cherish as their way of life since the time immemorial.  More precisely speaking, these evangelists exploited the vulnerability, innocence, ignorance and helplessness of underprivileged and poor Nepali people. With the rise of more secular and educated people in their countries, these Pentecostal evangelists have actually lost their relevance in their own lands. It is a coordinated crime against a fragile country. The consequences would have been inconceivably tragic had they continued their pseudo-evangelism and proselytism in any other part of the world other than Nepal. We can learn from what is going on recently in our neighboring country Bangladesh. This is how Bhattarai wanted to make a new Nepal by allowing the cunning god-addicted foreigners to destroy our socio-cultural values. It is just a common sense that where majority is respected, minority is protected. The great example is the State of Israel, only Jewish State, where the majority of Jews are respected and minority of Muslims are protected. In fact, Israeli Muslims are probably the most protected Muslims in the world. Nepalese people wanted nothing more but peace, security, rule of law, development, fundamental democratic rights, easily accessible education and healthcare, opportunity and a society based on harmony, mutual respect and social justice. We wanted the government to formulate plan and policies targeting especially the poor, unprivileged and marginalized group and safeguard their rights, identity and dignity. That’s it. About 240 pages of present Constitution is nothing but a ‘paper tiger’. Maoists’ outdated philosophy touted by Bhattarai did not have to kill 16,000 innocent Nepalese and destroy billions of dollars worth properties in order to establish these rights. This may be the reason why people are talking about bringing the Maoists leaderships on trial in the International Criminal Court of Justice for their horrendous crimes against humanity, perpetrated by them. We are amazed by the fact that some people are supporting Bhattarai’s new ‘doctrine of impossibility’. Based on his past experience, Bhattarai does not care who joins his team as long as he has plenty of heads to count. Once again, he is trying in vain to identify himself which he is not. He is a dream merchant devoid of political character. His words never matched with actions. He does not bear any Nepalese characteristics whatsoever. His impossible and impractical dream will never be realized because he never tried to understand Nepal in reality. Therefore, his so-called intellectualism has already been debunked. He is manifestly not qualified to be a leader of this country. (The author can be reached at: bhrikutiniroula25@gmail.com)