Following the success of the People's Movement and collapse of the Gyanendra autocracy in late April, a delicate experiment is underway in Nepal. An attempt is being made to draw a violent insurgency into open politics. Far-reaching changes have been initiated over the past two months to put the country on the track of full democracy and peace, and the process of integrating the Maoists into the mainstream has begun with their emergence on the stage of open politics. To what extent will they change the terrain of Nepal's polity, and how much will they themselves will be transformed in the engagement with open society?
A jittery international community, India among them, feels that a fast-talking rebel leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is extracting excessive concessions from the political parties without submitting to an immediate process of 'management of arms', a route towards the demobilisation of Maoist fighters. While a section of civil society could not be more pleased with the inroads made by the Maoists into the national sphere, the political party rank-and-file wants disarmament to proceed immediately so that they can return and revive politics in the districts. They also fear a chasm between what the Maoists leaders say from the national pulpit and their ability to deliver a transformed cadre at the ground level.
The assumption is that the Maoist leadership is indeed committed to multiparty politics, which ipso facto carries with it the need for them to begin the process of laying down arms. To what extent can the rebel supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal push the agenda, given that the political leaders have acted with sagacity in meeting him halfway?
As things stand, all over the country, the rebel combatants retain control of their weapons even as their people's war has been abandoned. And therein lies the most critical challenge facing the Maoist leadership – of keeping the flock together so that when the time comes, the guns are laid out for inspection by United Nations decommissioning experts in a process leading to ultimate demobilisation. This is a hiatus, dangerous but also full of possibilities.