The diamond jubilee of the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) has brought out an interesting mix of history, ideology and interpretations. The party, founded in 1949, was a monolith organisation of the Nepali communists. Over the years, its history has covered all forms and variations. I consider that a remarkable phenomenon in Nepal’s political history. The foundation and evolution of the CPN had direct guidance from the Communist Party of India, founded in 1925; the CPI (Marxist) that split from it in 1964 did have an important influence on the foundational history of the communist party of Nepal. This is not the subject of this article.

Major political parties, both the communists and the social democratic groups, became operational in Nepali rajniti in the middle of the last century. To mention two important dates, the CPN was founded under the leadership of Pushpa Lal Shrestha in 1949, and the Nepali Congress was established under the leadership of BP Koirala in 1950. However, the communists split into many factions. The bigger and smaller factions articulate a call for unity and the desire to return to a monolith communist party of Nepal.

Perhaps such an operational continuum has become a feature of the communist organisations in Nepal. This call has entered a new major post-political phase this year, which was seen at the diamond jubilee of the foundation of the Communist Prty on April 22, 2024. A decisive approach comes from UML chairperson KP Sharma Oliʼs political paper presented on April 20, in which he rules out the call for communist unity as an immediate need. As reported by the Kathmandu Post, “The chief of the country's largest communist force says that left unity or polarisation is impractical as well as unnecessary”. The gathering of the major leaders of the communist groups of Nepal, also attended by Sher Bahadur Deuba, president of the Nepali Congress, was theatrical. A unique psyche of performance and ideology was dramatised on the occasion.

The histories of these parties and their internal changes have become a commonplace subject in books of history and political studies. Native and foreign interpreters have been writing on this subject. Ideological shifts, crises and confusions have continued to draw the interest of mavericks like us who use the above themes in post-political culture studies and the role of agencies and social changes in some academic exercises and cultural studies. The binary of the Nepali Congress and the Nepali communists, organised under several nomenclatures, is no longer the reality. But the communists’ attempts to come together again are being interpreted variously.

Journalist and columnist Rajaram Gautam has interpreted the present predicament of the Nepali communists as what he calls kanatabijok or a very miserable state (Kantipur, April 22, 2024). A certain sense of disillusionment and some scepticism, not least about a natural process of evolution of party and ideology, has become the topic of discussion.

But we should look at the pervasive influence of the communist ideology in Nepali politics at different levels. King Mahendra's takeover of power by dissolving the people's elected parliament and locking up prime minister, ministers and leaders of all political parties in 1960 became a turning point in Nepali history. Not much is written about the king’s mind. Naturally, his actions and dictatorial modus operandi dominated the majority of discussions. BP Koirala is the only politician or writer who has written about the psyche of the king, though briefly, in his diary entries and short discourses.

The king banned the parties but continued to show his interest in the style and operational mode of the communist party. His liking for the methods of the communists can be seen in his actions. He became very interested in turning the Nepali communists to his side. Nepali communist leader Kesharjung Rayamajhi's support of the king's dissolution of the parliament as a “progressive step” in 1960 is a case in point.

King Mahendra used the style of the communists, especially that of the Chinese communist party and its chairman Mao Zedong. He emulated the style used during the Chinese Cultural Revolution to launch the “Back to the Village” campaign. A small red book with quotations from his ideas and that of the Panchayat ideology was circulated nationwide like the “red book” disseminated during the revolution. King Mahendra was a Hindu monarch who liked any aggrandisement that came with that. But he did not take up the cudgel to project himself as a great Hindu monarch. Instead, he projected an image like that of an all-controlling communist leader spreading his ideologies.

I don't know how much of this side of the king is discussed by analysts, but I have not come across any convincing psycho-political study of King Mahendra's temptation to use the communist methodology, ironically, by maintaining the ban on the communists and the Nepali Congress. The king's successors used “inter-party and intra-elite conflicts once again” to “nurture the monarchical ambition to be fully absolute.” (Lok Raj Baral, The Kathmandu Post, April 21, 2024).

The diamond jubilee of the Communist Party, split into several communist parties, did present an occasion for review, but not of any systematic and pragmatic order. As far as I could understand, the diamond jubilee did not evoke any specific history. The Communist Party documents are more the records of the seminars, plenums and resolutions passed at the end rather than systematic compendiums of them. One remarkable oeuvre running 780 pages is titled Nepali Communist Andolan ra Janakrantika Atihasik Dastabejharu-Part 1 (2071 BS).

A statement in the report of the then general secretary Pushpa Kamal Dahal presented at the central committee meeting of the Mashal group in 2045 speaks volumes. It says, “As the Jhapa minority group…has adopted a method of election, their claims about the armed struggle does not have any meaning and validity.” However, Lokendra Bista, the organiser of this volume, says it presents important communist history anyway. I would mention Puspalalka Chhanieka Rachana (2016) or "Selected Writings" as one important communist ideological document.

The Maoists have produced some ideological documents. But I think it is time for independent scholars to shun the stereotypes of communist party arguments and engage seriously and openly about the origin, spread and academic significance of the communist documents and history.