On January 3, 2006, Kshitiz Magar, vice-commander of a battalion under the Maoist army’s Fifth Division, joined a large contingent of his comrades at Narikot in Pyuthan district. Born on December 30, 1978, in Rolpa’s Jelbang VDC, he had, like so many young people of the region, encountered the Maoists while still at school. He had completed his SLC exams in the same year that the Maoist rebellion began and had not so much made a conscious decision to join them as been socialised into their culture. Sixty-eight people from Jelbang’s 519 households were killed during the conflict, which made it the village with the highest number of wartime casualties. Like many other Maoists, Kshitiz Magar spent the early days of the rebellion scrambling through jungles and villages under the cover of darkness, seeking refuge in people’s homes in far-flung settlements where he hid for days on end. Afraid to even step outside, he would excrete into plastic bags and ask the household members to dispose of them. Over time, he grew bolder and found his place in large groups that, in his words, “broke the legs of scoundrels and eliminated informers”. He went on to participate in many attacks on the police and army, including the one on Beni. Now, along with fighters from the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh divisions of the Maoist People’s Liberation Army, he was marching eastwards on the Gandak campaign.

The Gandak Campaign was part of the Maoists’ latest military strategy. In September 2005, at a meeting of the party’s central committee in Rukum’s Chunbang, the leadership had reiterated that they were engaged in the “strategic offensive” phase and reorganised their army into seven divisions. The twelve-point agreement stated that the Maoists and the Seven Party Alliance would “launch attacks upon the autocratic monarchy from their respective positions”. The Maoists interpreted this to mean that while the parliamentary parties would organise protests in urban areas, the rebel army, moving out from villages, would attack the state security forces. According to Mao’s military doctrine, rebel forces, having brought the villages under their control, must concentrate their forces for the final attack on the capital. Prachanda termed the new strategy “Climb on the back and strike at the head”. The “head” referred to Kathmandu and other district capitals that formed the nerve centre of the regime. The ‘back’ referred to those areas that surrounded “the head” – the regions around Kathmandu and the highways that connected to urban centres.

The Maoists envisaged that their army would move towards Kathmandu from both the west and the east; the march eastwards from Rolpa was termed the Gandak Campaign. The three assigned PLA divisions were to spread across the Gandaki, Lumbini and Dhaulagiri zones. These areas, with a relatively strong state presence, lay adjacent to the Bagmati zone, at the heart of which stood Kathmandu. Their task, as understood by Kshitiz Magar, was to ‘destroy the remnants’ of the state, engage the RNA’s active forces in combat and rouse the local populations to launch a mass uprising against the regime.

At the time, Gyanendra was preparing to hold elections to municipal authorities. While the king claimed this was a first step towards re-establishing democratic institutions, the political parties perceived it as merely a ruse. If they participated in the elections, it would allow the king to claim he was doing his best to accommodate them. But they would still be excluded from the all-powerful central government. In addition, if the municipal elections came off successfully, Gyanendra might claim to have achieved what previous governments had failed to do, and thus gain legitimacy. Desperate to foil the king’s plan, the major parliamentary parties declared that they would not participate in the polls and appealed to the electorate to boycott them. GP Koirala and other political leaders tacitly agreed that the Maoists, through acts of violence, should create an atmosphere of fear that would prevent local politicians from registering their candidacies and intimidate people into staying at home on election day. This was the more immediate goal of the Gandak Campaign.

During the three-month campaign, Kshitiz Magar crossed the hills of Arghakhanchi, Palpa and Nawalparasi districts on foot. He marched with his comrades in formation and hid when army helicopters flew overhead. He stayed at houses where the local party committees had arranged food and lodging. Being new to these areas, he kept a diary recording his impressions. In Dewalchaur, Arghakhanchi, he was surprised by the high-quality rice the rebels were served. “Apparently this kind of rice is widely available here,” he noted on January 9. “Only officials and the rich get to eat such good rice in Rolpa.” He recalled the coarse, thick grain people had to eat in his home village, which he blamed on unscrupulous traders: “The people are badly cheated by the traders. Shame on traders who are willing to do anything for money.”

Through the radio, Kshitiz Magar received news of the unrest that was spreading across the country. Each day brought reports of skirmishes between Maoists and the RNA, of mass meetings and rallies organised by the parliamentary parties, of the government’s attempts to foil these gatherings by imposing curfews and deploying the police. He was jubilant when he heard that the rebels had killed state security forces and captured weapons, whereas news of the death of comrades ignited a ‘fire in my heart’ and filled him with the desire for revenge. But even in grief and anger, he remained philosophical: “It is necessary for us to accept that the dialectical rule of war includes both victory and defeat.”

On the night of January 31, four of the seven Maoist army divisions, led by deputy commander Janardhan Sharma “Prabhakar”, attacked Tansen, the headquarters of Palpa district. To the consternation of the town’s inhabitants, they burned down the century-old palace in the town centre that housed government offices. Kshitiz Magar was among the attackers. The next day was the first anniversary of the royal takeover. In his address to the nation, King Gyanendra boasted that security conditions in the country had improved over the past year. “[In Kathmandu, the king claimed that] the Maoists are losing,” Kshitiz wrote in his diary. “Here in Tansen smoke is rising. How hollow are the king’s words. In reality, his head must be spinning over what has happened in Tansen. Even the Election Commission must be trembling.”

The elections were scheduled for February 8, 2006. As the day approached, the national mood grew increasingly hostile towards the regime. People also feared an outbreak of violence. Only parties with an insignificant support base had registered for elections. On January 22, Maoists assassinated Bijay Lal Das, a leader from a royalist party who had planned to run for mayor of the southern town of Janakpur. Many other candidates subsequently withdrew from the race. In the streets of Pokhara and Kathmandu, protestors paraded dogs and oxen with “Vote for me” signs on their backs. The night before the elections, the Maoists burned down government offices in the eastern town of Dhankuta and set off bombs in a number of other towns. Voting day was quieter. Thousands of security personnel were deployed at polling centres across the country. There were reports that RNA and police personnel had stamped ballots and stuffed them into ballot boxes. Even according to official figures, only 20% of the electorate voted. Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times, told Reuters: “These municipal elections were a referendum on the king’s takeover a year ago. The message to the king is that 80% of the people don’t support him.” India, the US and the UK all issued statements doubting the elections’ credibility. The king’s gambit to legitimise his rule had failed.

Excerpted with permission from The Bullet and the Ballot Box: The Story of Nepal’s Maoist Revolution, Aditya Adhikari, Aleph Book Company.

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