PUSHPA KAMAL DAHAL ‘PRACHANDA’ talks to PRASHANT JHA
Matter of pride: Nepalese caretaker Prime Minister Madav Kumar Nepal (left) and Unified Communist Party of Nepal Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal (right) exchanging documents at the Shaktikhor cantonment site at Chitwan on January 22, 2011. Nepal’s Maoists formally relinquished control of the People’s Liberation Army. PHOTO/AFP
Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ is the central figure in the country’s political process. In a wide-ranging interview to Prashant Jha at his residence on Friday afternoon, he talked about the peace process, the constitution and relations with India. Excerpts:
Till a few years ago, you were the supreme commander of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at war with the national army. Now, you have handed over control of the PLA to the army it fought against. How has this journey been?
It is not about handing the PLA to the army it fought against. The war was against the Royal Nepalese Army; now integration is happening with the Nepal Army (NA). That was a royalist army; this is a republican army. That is a qualitative difference. We are a political party that through the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections, through the democratic process, emerged as the biggest party. As a party now leading the government, the way we view the NA and the PLA has changed. The NA is also a national army, and the PLA which is going for integration is also going to get a chance to be a part of the national army. This is a matter of pride, and a happy moment. As the chairman of the party which led the process, I feel I got an opportunity to fulfil my responsibility. The journey that began in Delhi with the 12-point agreement has now arrived at a conclusion.
There is criticism that you made the decision not out of commitment, but compulsion, since there was discontent within the PLA.
To say that I acted out of compulsion is completely baseless. For the past one year, out of my own initiative, I have taken the peace process forward. I was protected by PLA security personnel and weapons. I sent them to the cantonments, and came under state security. When the Baburam Bhattarai-led government was formed, we took a decision to start regrouping combatants. Now I felt I had to take a bold decision and conclude the process. If I was under compulsion, I could have said the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) did not agree to integration, that they tried to stir up trouble in the cantonments, and that we should get ready for a movement.
The Hindu for more
(Thanks to Feroz Mehdi)