Madhav Nepal was for launching armed struggle against Panchayat from bases in India

Sujit Mainali / April 18, 2017

UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal                                                                           Photo: Wikipedia commons

In the talk show “Tough Talk” aired on Kantipur TV on April 12, program host Dil Bhusan Pathak asked the following to CPN-UML leader and former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal:

“Radha Krishna Mainali, who is a worker of your party itself, in his book titled “Nalekhiyeko Itihas”[unwritten history] has stated that you had, during the 1990 movement, proposed bringing in Indian Army soldiers to fight the king’s Panchayat system.”

In reply, Madhav Nepal said:

“Nobody made any such proposal. We were underground during that time. We knew very few Indian leaders including those from the CPI-ML and CPM. So nobody in India would listen to us. Even in Nepal, we were unknown. So this whole thing is baseless. He [Radha Krishna Mainali] knew nothing [about party activities] because he was in jail. We were running the entire movement. During the movement, we had planned to organize laathi julus [stick demonstrations]. And this plan was made by our base in Birgunj.”

South Asia Check has examined whether the following two points mentioned in this statement are fact-based or not.

First: During the 1990 movement, Radha Krishna Mainali was in jail.

Second: To intensify the movement, Madhav Kumar Nepal had proposed organizing stick demonstrations only, and he had not proposed bringing in Indian army soldiers to launch an armed insurgency in Nepal.

First Statement: During the 1990 movement, Radha Krishna Mainali was in jail.

During the1990 movement, Radha Krishna Mainali was associated with the Unified Leftist Front (ULF) on behalf of his party CPN-ML (John Whelpton, A history of Nepal, pg 115, Cambridge University Press). After police arrested ULF President Sahana Pradhan, Radha Krishna Mainali became the acting president of the ULF and led the front in the movement. He was not put in jail during the movement.

Therefore, Madhav Nepal’s first statement is wrong.

Second Statement: To intensify the movement, Madhav Kumar Nepal had proposed organizing stick demonstrations only, and he had not proposed bringing in Indian army soldiers to launch an armed insurgency in Nepal.

South Asia Check could not find any document to confirm or disprove whether Madhav Nepal had proposed bringing in Indian Army soldiers to fight the Panchayat system. But from his earlier remarks, his claim that he had proposed organizing only stick demonstrations to intensify the movement proves wrong.

In an interview with the Chaitra/Baishakh 2048/49 edition of Mulyankan, a monthly magazine, Madhav Nepal has said that they had planned to set up headquarters in India and launch an armed insurgency against the Panchayat system. In the interview he has made the following remarks:

“Due to suppression [by the state], we were being compelled to launch an aggressive form of struggle. We had started making plans on using arms and ammunition to counter the suppression…We had developed a network of protestors from Nepal to man the bases along the areas bordering India. Our headquarters was in Raxaul where our Narayani zonal combat force was stationed. The headquarters also coordinated with the other bases in Jayanagar and Jogwani. These bases also had arrangements to provide both ideological and physical training. We had already approached the Indian Maoists for these [trainings].”

Therefore, Madhav Nepal’s second statement is also wrong.

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