Guerrilla History - Women in Nepal’s Civil War w/ Hisila Yami

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we are joined by Hisila Yami to talk about The People's War in Nepal, and the role of women in it. Hisila Yami was a leader in The People's War, a three times minister of Nepal, a former member of the Constituent Assembly, and the author of People's War and Women's Liberation in Nepal.  She can be followed on twitter @HisilaPost.      Guerrilla History is the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history, and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present.  If you have any questions or guest/topic suggestions, email them to us at [e-mail]. Your hosts are immunobiologist Henry Hakamaki, Professor Adnan Husain, historian and Director of the School of Religion at Queens University, and Revolutionary Left Radio's Breht O'Shea.   Follow us on social media!  Our podcast can be found on twitter @guerrilla_pod, and can be supported on patreon at https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory.  Your contributions will make the show possible to continue and succeed! To follow the hosts, Henry can be found on twitter @huck1995, and also has a patreon to help support himself through the pandemic where he breaks down science and public health research and news at https://www.patreon.com/huck1995.  Adnan can be followed on twitter @adnanahusain, and also runs The Majlis Podcast, which can be found at https://anchor.fm/the-majlis, and the Muslim Societies-Global Perspectives group at Queens University, https://www.facebook.com/MSGPQU/.   Breht is the host of Revolutionary Left Radio, which can be followed on twitter @RevLeftRadio and on Libsyn at https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/, and cohost of The Red Menace Podcast, which can be followed on twitter @Red_Menace_Pod and on Libsyn https://redmenace.libsyn.com/.  You can support those two podcasts by visiting by going to patreon and donating to RevLeft Radio and The Red Menace.     Thanks to Ryan Hakamaki, who designed and created the podcast's artwork, and Kevin MacLeod, who creates royalty-free music.                                                

You remember den, Ben, boo? The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to guerrilla history. The podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present.

I'm your host, Henry Hockamacki, joined by my co-hosts, Professor Adnan-Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queens University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you? I'm well. Thanks, Henry. And Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. Hello, Brett. How are you doing? Hello, I'm doing good. Yeah, so we've got a pretty early recording time today because we have a guest from a little bit of a different time zone than we live in a rather distinguished guest.

So today our guest is going to be Hissila Yami, who is the former president of the All-Napal Women's Association Revolutionary Group, former minister of physical planning and works, former minister for tourism and civil aviation, former member of the Constituent Assembly and former member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Nepal Maoist as well as a current member of the Janada Samaj Body Party and the author of the book that we read

in preparation for this interview People's War and Women's Liberation in Nepal. So the conversation that we're going to have is going to be really interesting in a topic that I think that most of the listeners are not particularly aware of, which is the civil war in Nepal.

So Nepal for a long time was a monarchy. And beginning in about the 1990s, so 1990s specifically, there was sort of an uprising against this monarchic regime led by the communist, well, it became the Communist Party of Nepal, Maoist faction. And over the course of 1996 to 2006, it was just over 10 years, there was a civil war between, the Maoists in Nepal and the monarchy of Nepal with the stated aim of overthrowing the monarchy. So before we get into kind of what we're hoping to get out of our conversation with Hesila, I figured I'd lay out kind of a timeline of what was happening for the listeners who perhaps are unaware of what was happening in Nepal at this time. So as I said, the monarchy had been longstanding in Nepal. In 1990s, some left-wing groups began joining

together with the aim of overthrowing the monarchy and instituting a democratic rule of the country. Once 1996 came around, there was a split in the party, between the leftist groups, rather. And the revolutionary wing of that group wanted an armed uprising against the government because they saw that they weren't getting the results that they wanted from non-armed uprising. early on the monarchic regime of Nepal began using the police that tried to police the Maoist group into basically falling back in line but after a little bit of time they began using the Royal Nepal Army once it became clear that the police alone were not going to be not going to be sufficient for putting down dissent after some more time so I'm skipping through time a little bit. One of the more interesting events that happened during this

timeline was in 2001. There was a massacre of the royal family in Nepal. So again, something that I think that most of our listeners are probably unfamiliar with, but basically the entire royal family was massacred by a member of the royal family. Something like 10 members of the royal family were killed by one of the princes. And the prince also killed himself, although he was in a coma for three days before dying and was the king for three days while in a coma, which is just kind of an interesting historical fact. He died, and one of the king's nephews then became the king. After some more time, so in late 2001, the United States started sending money and weaponry to the monarchy and the army, the royal army of Nepal. In 2002,

The new king, so this is the nephew of the king who was murdered, dissolved the government, dissolved parliament, reinstated a new prime minister. And then later on, he basically completely took power. So in 2005, instead of just dissolving parliament and putting another prime minister in power, the king decided to seize all of the power in the country to try to put down the insurgency. because he said that democracy and progress contradict each other. And by having the auspices of democracy, it was preventing them from being victorious

against the Maoist insurgency. Around this time, the United Kingdom and India stopped sending support to Nepal, but interestingly, India and China, basically were supporting the monarchy of Nepal, despite perhaps having more in common with the Maoist insurgency at that. time. Then over the course of the next year or so, after that consolidation of power by the

king, there was negotiations that led to a peace accord that ended the monarchy and allowed the Maoists to enter parliamentary elections. And after that civil war was done, the Maoists eventually came up to power and became the dominant party within Nepal. So that's kind of our brief overview of the of the historical events that happened but of course we're going to get a lot more in depth with our with our guest to silla so guys what uh what kind of thoughts did you have on this book that you know what kind of questions did the book raise and what are we hoping to get from our conversation with hosilla today yeah i'm i'm particularly interested in you know as many might know from where i've worked a lot in the in the maoist realm on ideology and the history of

movements and this is one that I haven't fully covered. This is one that I haven't explored yet. I have a very close friend who's actually an immigrant from Nepal and has talked to me a little bit about it, but I've always been curious to do a dive into this. And it's also worth pointing out the historical context. You know, this is post-Soviet Union. This is in the years after the fall of the Soviets, places like Cuba are going through a tough time, but we're also seeing the ongoing people's struggles in places like India and the Philippines. We have the Zapatista movement just a few years prior to the Civil War and Nepal popping off in the southern state of Chiapas in Mexico. So there is this global sort of context in which this particular fight manifests. But I'm

specifically really interested in learning about the struggle, the emphasis put on women's role and what women had to gain through a revolution and the sort of brutality and like the sexual violence they faced in the process of standing up for themselves, etc. And so I think this is a misunderstood, little known fact of proletarian history. It's messy, right? We're going to talk about ever since the end of the Civil War and what has happened because splits and whatnot have occurred since then. So this is a snapshot in time sort of, but I'm excited to explore this and get this piece of history out to people precisely because I think it has relevance for us today. Yeah, and just one quick thing to add, just for the listeners to know, as you said, this is kind of an under-understood or under-talked-about piece of proletarian history, but this was one of the more successful movements of proletarian history.

We always talk about movements that, you know, they had good intentions, but they failed, or they came into power, but only transiently before they were crushed by counter-revolutionaries. The thing that the listeners should understand is that the Maoists are still in charge in Nepal. This is 14 years after the Civil War ended. Of course, they didn't come into power immediately after the Civil War, but for almost the entirety of the time post-Civil War, the Maoists have been the dominant party within Nepalese politics. And despite the fact that this is one of the more successful proletarian movements, it's just underreported.

Adnan, what do you hope to get out of this conversation? Well, I think Brett raised a lot of the really key context and interesting issues that I hope we'll get into with our distinguished guest. I think this is a really exciting opportunity because most of the time we might be talking with people who are historians who write a history that they investigate and are themselves not involved or connected to in a very direct way. And what we're getting here is a different form of historical knowledge and experience, which is quite interesting about somebody who was a participant in this struggle,

has reflected on it, written about it, and continues to be engaged in the political transformation and contestation, you know, in the politics of the country. So that's a kind of interesting situation. And this book that we were reading about women's liberation and people's war in Nepal is written right after the end of the Civil War, and it's that snapshot in time. It's related to that context of the organizing and taking of power by a new government based on the success of the People's War,

the Civil War struggle. And as you point out, Henry, that's very uncommon that we get opportunities to see moderately success, control by left-wing movements of governments and their fate, as we know, from a previous episode of guerrilla history when we discussed Washington Bullets with Vijay Prussia, that there are a lot of ways in which these movements get derailed before they can take power, and governments once in power that might have people's intention and progress and social transformation on behalf of the populace are often brought down and undermined by imperialist forces by the

U.S. So this will be a very interesting case study to look at. And so what we're doing is really in a way a kind of oral history, which is fascinating and exciting to be engaged with. So I'll be interested to hear what our guest thinks was accomplished. as a result of the people's war, what transformed in Nepal's society as a background to the continuing transformation of that society? And I want to then state that the focus of this conversation, of course, it's going to be a wide-ranging conversation, everything from what the conditions were like before the civil war in Nepal to what's transpired since the civil war and everything in between. But I think what the focus of this conversation is going to be is the role of

women in the Civil War. So this is, again, something that isn't highly covered and a lot of people don't think about. But women had a massive role within the Nepali Civil War, particularly within the Maoist side of the conflict. It's estimated that up to 40% of the individuals within the Maoist side of the Civil War were women, which is an incredibly high amount, given that this was an armed conflict that lasted for 10 years and around 40% of the individuals within that movement were women. And this includes having leadership roles on the battlefield itself. Now, of course, they were underrepresented on the battlefield in leadership positions compared to men. And that's something that comes out in the book is that despite their aims of having women's leadership, they weren't immediately successful.

but that was one of their absolute goals within the armed struggle of the Civil War was to push for not only women's liberation as a goal of the Civil War itself, but advance women's leadership in the context of the Civil War and use that as a springboard for women's leadership after the Civil War. So I think one of the big things that we're going to talk about during this interview, and of course this is particularly relevant with our guest, who was, as I said, the former president of the Al-Napal Women's Association, Revolutionary Group, we need to understand why it was that so many women were involved

and what the effect of having so many women involved were. And this being a successful revolution in Nepal, if we can take some of these lessons that they had in analyzing other movements that perhaps weren't successful or how to basically strategize future movements and whether or not the focus on trying to get women in leadership roles and women's liberation as a goal, but also as a strategy to reaching that goal, if that's something that needs to be undertaken in the modern context of movements. Either of you guys have anything that you want to have?

I just think that that will be a very interesting question to pose ourselves is how successful was the revolution. Obviously, on a military and a political level, they were able to take power, form a government. So I'll be interested to hear from a dissident against the monarchy who also participated in forming the new government and who was subsequently, you know, had critiques and criticisms of the direction that Nepal has taken since the, since forming a government in the mid-2000s. It'll be interesting to hear what was successful and what wasn't and what we can learn from that experience. So when we say a successful revolution, I think what we mean is one that was able to take power, which is not often the case for leftist struggles, and then it had to face these new challenges. It will be fascinating to hear about what those challenges were and how women's empowerment

over the course of the struggle involved, even in military dimensions, whether that had a consequence or an effect on the shaping of political struggle and the political future of Nepal, subsequently. It's social and it's economic and political consequence. That'll be very interesting to hear about. Yeah, and bouncing off of that, another thing that I'm particularly interested in, and hopefully this interview will shed some light on, is how does a revolutionary movement get transformed through the process of taking power, right? There's the revolutionary movement that's fighting the revolution, picking up guns and going to war, and then when that has some level of success and there's now a shift to taking over the responsibility of government or joining a

government. How does that actually transform not only the behavior but the ideology of the movement that it is the vehicle for? And I'm just always interested in that. Even going back to the Bolshevik revolution, there's the revolution and then that trying to wield power and how that transforms and morphs things, I think is a fascinating element of this. And I think in the Nepalese case, it's particularly relevant because of the subsequent. splits that occurred. Any other comments on things that we hope to get out of our conversation or things that we want to learn from Hissila? Well, I think it is very significant that the concept, we might call it a civil war from outside the country, and I think that's how it's

been characterized. It would be interesting to understand what the concept of people's war was for those who are participants that, you know, we might highlight the insurgency, the military dimensions, but it clearly involved a lot more. And I would imagine that some of the success or not of subsequent developments hinged a little bit on how they developed a concept of the people's war beyond just the military dimensions of it, the ideological struggle, the social transformation, the incorporation of ideas at the community level, empowering people democratically in their villages to make decisions. That will be very interesting also to hear about how that's part of a full spectrum of resistance to an oppressive system for it to be successful. So I'm eager to

hear about that as well. Yeah. And the last thing I'll say is interested in, of course, the urban rural divide, especially in the history of Maoism. You think India, you think China, you think Peru, you think the Philippines. There's always this deep connection with the in India, the Maoist movement, and the rural area versus the city centers and what that represents. Going back to Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, I think is relevant here as well. So I'm just interested in the intricacies of that particular dynamic as well. Excellent.

I think that those are all things that I also want to learn about. And I think that the listeners can both learn a lot from as well as take a lot of lessons from when we're trying to utilize history when advancing the, future. So I think that that'll help us wrap up this introduction. And now we'll just come back in one second with Hesila for our interview with Hesila Yami. So stay tuned. We'll be right back. history and politics might find these definitions of terms and identifications of people whom Hissila mentions somewhat useful. So one of the first terms she refers to is Rana, which was the name of a political dynasty that autocratically ruled Nepal from 1846 to

1951. It was both simultaneously isolationist and pro-British. The Treaty of Sugaoli. It was a treaty signed after the Anglo-Nepoli's War of 1814 to 1816, and it established the present borders of Nepal and prevented Nepal being colonized by Britain, as a result of which, however, it had to cede large portions of their former territory to the British East India Company. Communist Party of Nepal Masal. That's the branch of the Communist Party of Nepal, CPN, led by Mohan Bikram Singh, founded in 1983. Several splits from Masal occurred, such as the Mashal branch splitting in 1984, and another group splitting in 1991, to join CPN Communist Party Nepal of Nepal, Unity Central. before eventually entirely merging with Unity Center in 2002.

Communist Party of Nepal, Mashal, which we just mentioned, is an offshoot of Masal, led by Kiran, whom we'll mention a little bit later, that had a more nationalistic line. After splitting from Masal in 1984, Mashal merged with another communist group to form Unity Center in 1991, as I just mentioned. So Unity Center.

That was a coalition of several communist factions that formed in 1991. The CPN Maoists, led by Babram Batarai and Prachanda, were an offshoot of this group that formed in 1994. Unity Center merged with the remainder of Masal in 2002, led by Mohan Bikram Singh, and after several splits, particularly after the four, fall of the monarchy in 2006, Unity Center eventually merged with CPN Maoist in 2009. CPN Maoist, whom we've mentioned, was founded by Babram Batarai and Prachanda.

They were a coalition member of government led by Prachanda twice as the largest party during the period 2008 to 2013 and as third largest from 2017 to 2018, at which time they merged with the CPN United Marxist-Leninist to form the Nepal Communist Party. The Nepal Communist Party has been in control of the government since then. People's War is a term that she uses, and this was the revolutionary movement initiated by the Maoists in 1996 with the goal of toppling the monarchy and allowing for parliamentary rule and to upend the caste and class system within Nepal. Rayamaji. Keshar Jung Rajayamaji was a communist leader in Nepal, who was former general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal but led a line within the party of royalists.

He eventually was kicked out of the Communist Party for his ties to the royalists in 1962 before becoming head of the party in 1967, then being kicked out yet again in 1983 and from another country. communist party in 1986. She also mentions Pushpa Lal. Pushpa Lal Shresta was founding secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal in 1949. He had friendly ties with the Nepal Congress, a social democratic party, and continued to lead the communists until his death in 1978. Kiran, a name I've already mentioned, also was the name or title. of Mohan Baidya, former leader of Mashal branch of communists. Kiran was a product of the Raya Majhi line of royalists and led the nationalist branch of the communists in Nepal. Prachanda, also known as Pushpa Kamal Dahl, chairman of the Nepal Communist

Party and Prime Minister from 2008 to 9 and 2016 to 2017. Prachanda was also lead to of the Maoists during the Civil War period as well. Oli. This is K.P. Sharma Oli, current Prime Minister of Nepal, since 2018 and former Prime Minister from 2015 to 2016. He was said to have agreed to a power-sharing agreement with Prachanda during the current governmental term but has not ceded any power to Prachanda since the arrangement was made. Bidya Bandari, current president of Nepal.

been in the position since 2015. Prior to that, she was a member of the CPN Unified Marxist-Leninist party. RNA is just an abbreviation that stands for the Royal Nepalese Army, the military forces aligned with the monarchy. PLA, abbreviation for the People's Liberation Army, the Armed Forces aligned with the Maoists. And Sita, who is the legendary wife of, Rama, the central figure of the Sanskrit Hindu epic, the Ramayana, and she is a paragon of purity and traditional feminine virtues in the story. Now look forward to our conversation. Welcome back to guerrilla history. We've now been joined by our very distinguished guest, Hesila Yami. Again, a very brief biography of Hesila. She's the former president of the All-Napal Women's Association, Revolutionary Group. She was the Minister of Physical Planning and Works, Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation, was a member of the Constituent Assembly and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Nepal Maoist, and is now a member of the, again, as I said in the introduction, Janada Samaj Badi Party Party, which, as she in me. In English is the People's Socialist Party of Nepal and also is the author of the book,

People's War and Women's Liberation in Nepal. Hicilla, welcome. It's nice to have you join us on the show. Surely. I'm also very happy. This is my first podcast. Actually, I've never been into any podcast kind of interview so far. We're very happy to have you. And I'm sure that I speak for the guys when we say that it's an honor to have you. Let's get right into this interview then. I think that a good way of starting the interview would be asking you how you're feeling. You and your husband, former Prime Minister Baburam Bararay, both recently contracted COVID as of the time of recording. And I believe you said that this is your last day in relative isolation. How are you and your husband feeling?

Yeah. So today is actually the third weekday, I mean, 21st day that we and before that we contracted. So today only we went to get ourselves checked, and both of us have come more than 30, which is supposed to be a stage where actually even if any remnant of the viruses remain, it cannot affect me as well as others. So I've been told by a doctor to you can go out, you know, because now you're in a safer position. So we are still very kind of confused because we would expect ourselves to be negative before we go. But then doctors say you can now go around, you know, and all that.

So we're still confused as such, whether we should be still in a home isolation and wait for the negative result to come or go out. So we are in that kind of. Otherwise, we're quite healthy and happy. Wow, it's good to hear that you're feeling well. So let's move on then into the interview itself. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, kind of a brief autobiography of your life where you came from

you know, kind of your education and how you got involved in left politics in Nepal? Yeah. Actually, I come from a very political family which I myself didn't know about it actually because out of them, we were seven children and I was the youngest, okay? So being a youngest, you know, I really grew up in a very free kind of environment

because my parents were quite unusual in the sense that, you know, like they were very much against religion, religious kind of all kinds of, you know, celebrations and all that, all that. And they were very much inclusive in their kind of outlook. And in fact, they were the product of anti-Rana movement, you see, which there was 104 years of oligarchic rule of Rana regime. So, in fact, my mother was also imprisoned along with my father.

But being the youngest child, I was never given that political kind of teaching as such. I mean, I knew kind of somehow that my parents, my father particular, you know, he had all kinds of people coming at home and all that. But I was never, you know, politicized as such. So my, you know, like the first 10 or 12 years, or you can say, my first period till 16 years old, I just had a very lovely, free kind of life, you know. So from there, when I went to do my architecture from Delhi School of Planning and Architecture, that's where I met Babram Buttray.

He had finished his architecture from Chandigar in India. And he had come to my institute, School of Planning and Architecture, to do masters in architecture. And it was he who, he actually introduced my father politically. And, you know, because, and suddenly my social awakening got transferred into political awakening. Okay. So we were very much active amongst the Nepalese workers as well as Nepali's students who were studying in India. And so we were involved in, in fact, bringing up this all-India-Napley students association and in which he also became a president.

And at one point, I became a general secretary. And then we got involved with the workers, Nepal, workers working in India who were actually organized by the Communist Party Massa. Okay, so that's how we got introduced to left politics. And then having done that, of course, then from Massal we became part of Unity Center. Then Unity Center became Maoist and then we joined people's war. And so for 10 years we were very much underground. underground. And then after that, as you say, I became, actually, I became minister

thrice, not twice. So after that, we left the party and then now we are part of people's socialist party in Nepal. Excellent. That was a very good overview of your life. And I think that one of the things that we should talk about before we talk about the civil war itself and your role within it and women's role within it. Let's talk about what Nepal was like before the Civil War. I'm just going to pull out a quote from your book here in regards to women's role before the Civil War. So I'd like you to speak what Nepal was like generally before the Civil War, but also what it was like specifically for women. So you said women are the backbone of subsistence rural agricultural economy because women are marginalized

at the household level. They are paid less, sometimes as low as half the amount paid to men for the same job and the same amount of farm work. That sounds familiar to many people. But you also say the position of women in urban areas is no better. If women in the rural areas are suffering because of backwards medieval feudal oppression, then women in urban areas are suffering under the modern imperialist oppression. They're underpaid and are often sexually exploited in sweatshops run by bureaucratic capitalists backed by imperialist and expansionist forces, such as in garment and carpet factories, etc. This sounds pretty harsh for women.

And so what was Nepal like before the Civil War? You know, we know that it was a monarchy, but what were the conditions like in Nepal before the Civil War? The thing is that you see, they are the main sustainer of the... Actually, overall, if you see the economy of Nepal, before the people's war, and of course, to some extent, even now it's the same. So it is really based on sustainable, I mean, you know,

based on sustainable, you know, like, you know, like, we don't have any kind of extra produced or you may say, surplus which we would we would kind of then export to others very less amount in fact earlier we were exporting many things to Nepal to India we were the exporters before you know 18 14 as as I have said you know there was the Sugoli Sunni and so before that we were exporting many things to India and after we had that treaty 1814 19 16 or 1816 So, you know, actually, we had a, we had a fight against the British, which was ruling India. Okay.

You see, while we were expanding, you see, we were actually, you know, multiple, we had principalities, okay. And that was united into one by Britain, Aran Shah. So while uniting, you see, we had a fight against the British, which was also trying to come towards the, you know, like the hill. and in Hill itself we were expanding and all of that. So we had a fight against them and so we lost. So we had to have this very humiliating kind of treaty. So from then onwards, you see, our economy started going down. Now we are in a situation where we are exporting many things,

but we are not able to, you know, we're importing many things, but we are not exporting much. And in fact, with COVID now, things are getting really bad now. what I'm trying to say is that sustainable, what do you call that economy? I forgot the word actually. Subsistence? Huh? Subsistence? I'm sorry. Thank you so much, Hussein. So subsistence economy, I'm talking about it. So it's the women where the mainstay of subsistence kind of economy here. But if you see legally, you see, even if she's co-wired, you know, with very little punishment on the husband, the second wife or the third wife, in fact, becomes legal

after he goes through, he has to pay some $2,000 or maybe even in addition to that, he might have to stay in the locket. I mean, he may be jailed for one year or so like that. So eventually what happens that the co-wife, you know, it becomes legalized. So that's one point. Second is that they had no kind of parental property they had no say in it you see second is that and even culturally if you say particularly the arians i mean you know the way they have been brought up in such a way that you know even when in her before marriage she's told again and again that this is not your house your house is actually somewhere else and once you get married you know you're you are not supposed to come back.

So that kind of a kind of preparation, you know, mental preparation for women, whereby she's not the part where she's born. And she's, you know, by virtue of being a wife, and she's also, it's very unstable there, you know, because in absence of any property kind of thing to, you know, kind of even owe or, you know, once you owe, then the defense of it comes into picture.

So, you know, the males, they are taught right from womb or right from their birth that, look, you have to secure this house. You have to secure or you have to expand this land, you know. And so naturally he's allowed to, that's how his leadership is tested, you see. But for women, there's no test for leadership because she doesn't have any property to defend or to acquire, to show any leadership quality. And so naturally, you know, you are not born to be a leader. And so this has a repercussion on, you know, like political parties as such.

So these are the things, you know. So women's position was, you know, like politically and even those days, you see, only even in terms of even political participation, what was there, only five percent of what was actually was what was required for any party not to win, but only to contest for election. you know, so the political party can be illegalized if they are able to show 5% of women contesting the election. It's not necessarily that they will be know something. So that kind of thing is there at one end. At economic level, as I said, she had no right over the parental property. Yeah.

And culturally, she's in fact, there's a saying that before her marriage, she's under her father. And after marriage, she's under her husband. and after she becomes without, she's under her son, you know, that kind of. So she's never allowed to be autonomous on her own as such. So that was the position. And on top of that, many women were actually being kind of sold, particularly, as I think I mentioned in a book also, that, you know, particularly women who come from tamang, you know, people,

and there's also one section, which actually historically they were working as an entertainer for the kings and all that. And now they have kind of transformed themselves into a, you know, kind of trafficking or kind of a prostitution, which is actually safeguarded and guided by the parents themselves. So they are called bodies, you see. So this is the situation before the people's war started. Was that a situation that you've just described of the courtesans? Is that how we would describe it?

You mean these entertainers for the kings, this sort of feud? noodle situation where there were women who were entertainers, courtesans kept in the, yes. So those actually, the men used to make an instrument of dancing and all that, all that. And females just to dance and all that. So that was up. Right, right. You mentioned in describing this pre-people's war period a few different ethnic or national communities. For our listeners who may know very little about Nepal, you've described women's oppression, but I wonder if you could tell us a little bit just what the country was like from a demographic and social perspective, what different ethnicities and national communities or linguistic groups

were there, and what is the religious character? And you've alluded a little bit to the social structure that women were under a very difficult patriarchal system and didn't inherit property from their families and so on. But anything else you can tell us about the social structure would be very helpful. That's a lovely thing. Actually, our country is multilingual, multinational, multi-religious country. I mean, even in today's statistics, you'll find that one third of the people actually come from the ruling class, which is actually aria-chus.

and one third is actually the Tarayans, the Madasis and the Madasis and Tharoos who are actually inhabiting the southern part of Nepal, which is Tarai, which is flatland. And one third actually come from ethnic groups, who are predominantly on the eastern and central part of Nepal. You see, if you go to the western part of Nepal, you see if you go to the western part of about far western part, it is inhabited by particularly the Khas area. And at once, the point, there is also a kind of majority of Dalits, particularly they live in Karnali area.

So we have Dalits. Then we've got ethnic groups. And then we've got taray-based or Madhis-based Aryans who are actually oppressed in terms of their karmes. culture, their religion, their kind of language is not recognized, you see. So as before the people's war started, ours, our country was actually Hindu country, and it's centrally ruled, you know, and it believed in one kind of a dress-up, one religion, one language.

So it was a monolithic kind of, you know, state as such, which encouraged one language, one dress-up and one religion, you see, and also one ruling class, you know, like Ariqas. Okay, they would say, who are Nepalis? Aracus, they would say. That kind of projection was there. So you're saying that there was a very diverse country in many ways, but the predominating and ruling class made kind of a national culture

and religious culture under Hinduism and the caste system that it tried to use as the predominant identity of the nation, which suppressed a very diverse population that had very different ethnic and linguistic. He had a parliamentary system, but it was a monarchical parliamentary system. So there was still the king which had the executive power, you see, because he was above the law, okay? and he was also the head of the army, Royal Nepal Army.

So, you know, like in form you have a parliament to kind of hoodwing the people that there's a democracy. But actually, above that was the scheme, which was actually which had extra legal power. And of course, being the head of the Nepal army, you could imagine, you know, basically it was the executive head. I want to add one quick thing for the listeners in regards to. to the monarch being above the law. This is just kind of an anecdote. So we described in our introductory segment how there was a massacre of the royal family in 2001

committed by one of the princes who became the king for three days while he was in a coma after shooting himself in the head. But what I thought was interesting when reading about that event was that when he was in a coma, other members of the royal family said that it was an accidental firearm discharge that murdered the,

the majority of the royal family. And that was because as he was the king in the coma, if they would have charged him with doing it intentionally, he wouldn't have been able to be charged with murder because the monarchs were literally above the law. It's not just above the law in the context that we typically think of rulers of country being able to do what they want without repercussion.

But literally the law did not apply to him in that case. And so they were trying to get out in front of that with some alternate explanations so that people wouldn't be outraged about, hey, he murdered, I believe, 10 people, but because he's the monarch, we literally cannot raise charges against him. So I just thought that that was something that was interesting and that the listeners might be interested in. Brett, do you have anything that you want to ask regarding the pre-Civil War context of?

Well, maybe just for that last question, what was the motivation behind that, that royal massacre? That might help us understand a part of it before we dive into the Civil War proper. see well while everybody was saying that this is actually the internal problem of monarchy as such okay it's actually people are saying that actually the the the prince was not allowed to marry the one he had fallen in love with and all that you see even within the you see even in the runners there are two sections you know one runners are actually very autocratic another section was actually a bit liberal so from what I came to know is that you know actually the queen comes from a very autocratic, the Rana, which stands for autocratic kind of a rule. And this woman whom she fell in love, she comes from another section of Rana, which is actually a bit liberal and as such. So, you know, while everybody was kind of, in fact, even the, I think the media was also trying to, we went beyond that and we said it's not as simple as that. in fact it is something to do with the monarchy not able to the present monarchy which is not able to kind of problem solve the problem of marist you know and which is embroiled in their own kind of internal kind of a tug-of-wall for the power and all that so it's it's actually beyond that in fact it has been kind of calculatedly done kind of in combination with the indian expansionist and the imperialist so it's not just a kind of

of a home affair or it's a kind of internal conflict as they are trying to show, it's beyond that. And so in fact, we use that occasion, in fact, to kind of change the whole paradigm shift from, you see, being, because in communist movement you should understand that there is a two trend in communist movement in Nepal. One is called royalist communist, which is actually being kind of propagated by Rayamazi. You know, there's this guy who was actually he's, he comes from a very well-to-do family and he did his, he's actually medical field. He did his doctorate, medical doctor.

And he became later on, though he became the general secretary of Communist Party, but he always kind of cited with the royalist saying that they are more nationalist. And there's this another group. which is actually headed by Pushpalal. And Pushpal-Lal-Lal's line has always been that because the main contradiction is with the king, so we should align with Nepali Congress, which is actually liberal, democratic kind of a party.

So there has always been two kind of a trend in Communist Party. Even that kind of thing is still prevalent now. In the present Nepal Communist Party, also you have that trend. So I don't know. So what I'm trying to say is, say is that so what how we brought that whole paradigm shift was that now it is high time we should now align with the democratic kind of political parties and we should now try to hit against the king the monarchy as such so that's where in fact this whole episode helped us in you know kind

of navigating the whole political kind of line against the monarchy. I think that that's a good transition into the next topic, which is during the Civil War. So you're talking about being against the monarchy, but during our introduction, we only basically ran through kind of a brief timeline of the events of the Civil War. But can you tell us what the Civil War was like? What was Nepal like during the Civil War? What was the Civil War like personally for you? And what kind of societal things, what kind of societal effects did the civil war have on the people within Nepal?

Okay, if I say starting with my own transformation, I would say that because the way I had been brought up in my childhood, of course, I was feminist, but I was more liberal kind of feminist then, you know, like before even meeting Baburam Batra, I was already interacting with people in India who were running this magazine called Manushi. Okay, so from liberal feminist, I think I became a socialist feminist. It helped me in transforming myself into that. And for me, it was very exciting in the sense that I was kind of seeing myself how women were being transformed, you know? You know, the transformation is not only kind of political, it was physical, it was cultural, it was political, it was political, it was political. And later on when we started having our own government in base areas, we also see their potentiality in terms of their economic power. So, you know, what I had been wanting to see in women, you know, I was saying these are the possibilities things, you know, possible kind of result one can see. And actually, I was seeing that in the whole thing, on whole process, you know, while I was.

you know, like head of the front, women's front, and later on I became head of the department, women's department. So it was very exciting period for me, you know, because I was, you know, what I was dreaming, I was actually seeing, you know. So it was a very exciting thing for me. But if you see it from a holistic point of view, which you are also saying it, so we actually, politically, we saw two-line struggle within the political party. And that was based on, as I told you, there was one section which was very nationalistic,

and that India is the main enemy and then you know they should be fought so that that kind of thing would come and there was another I mean in one way you can say I mean roughly you know Baburam came was in more of a pushpalal kind of line okay and Kieran was more Raya Mazi line and Prachanda would always you know like side here or there to make sure she he gets the majority and that he becomes the main kind of leader because to become a main leader you have to have numbers okay so he would always you know switch from here to there and that's how you know like things had been going and we had as you would say that in 2005 we both of both of us along with other people we had a two line struggle whereby we had to go undergo six months of kind of internal kind of political kind of you could say imprisonment you know even during the people's war as such yeah so so before I let the the guys ask their questions I you mentioned a character of the story that I think that it would be beneficial for you to clear up who he is because we haven't

mentioned him yet, which is Prachanda. Who is Prachanda? Who was he during the period pre-Civil war and during the Civil War? And who is he today? Just briefly, because, you know, we're going to talk more about what Nepal has been like post-Civil War shortly. But who is Prachanda? Actually, Prachanda is actually, you know, he, just like us, like just like Bavramat, right, his own parents had at one time, you know, had gone to Tarai region, especially the inner Taraisal, where particularly most favored place is Chitwan, okay, Chitwan, Chituan district. So even Baburam's father had gone to Chituan to get land, you see.

And then, but he came back again. But even his father, you see, they come, he comes from Kasky district. Bavram comes from Gorkha district. okay so both of the so so what happened is that he uh because he had less land in his in caski so he settled there despite all kind of hardship okay so he had actually present had seen his own father being very humiliated by rich kind of landlords there and um he had to actually leave uh chiton to go all the way to in the assam area or some way to to earn money and then he had to come back and so you know like prachanda actually became communist due to two reasons one because he actually even

in chiton you know there's one river so you know if you are in one side of the river you automatically became a communist because the majority were there and the other part you know if you happen to be there you know you have this liberal democratic communist party in this nepal congress no pali congress so he happened to be born in that area which was left oriented so that gave him that kind of a, you know, environment as such. And second, because he himself was selling, second was he, it was a revolt against the humiliation his father went through, you see. So that element also played into it.

So he became communist while he was teaching there, okay? And actually he wanted to join Nepal army, which is, and if you read his biography, you will see that. He wanted to join Nepal army, but he couldn't do it, okay? So he studied and he studied science also, okay? But he was not that good in the sense that it is the first division, because first division is supposed to be one of the best one, and he was not getting that also. So as a result, he took this agriculture kind of as a subject.

And then later on, he actually, he was part of this American-sponsored, Rapti development this thing. So he worked briefly for that also and then later on he went to Gorhah to teach and that's where he became, you know, he became all the more active and all that. And then at the age of 10, he already

became the general secretary of Massa. You see? So there are two massals. One Massal is being led by Mohan Bikram Singh, in which we were also parted. We were, we were in Musa, Mohan Bikram led Masa. And there was another called Mashal, which is M-A-S-H-A-L. The one which we were is M-A-S-A-L. The one which he was into is M-A-L.

So M-A-L is being led, was being led by Kieran. You know, Kieran, which is, I think you know that he was also one of the things. So he later on became general secretary of that party by replacing Kieran. Okay. And then at one point, he was instrumental in bringing all the other parties to form united like as a unity center so by the time unity center was made so we had uh from masal we broke up and we formed alternative kind of uh massal and so we became part of in which he was also there so he and we and then we had uh another uh section of communist party which is uh unity it's called fourth congress okay and there was another which is called proletariat parties so there were four

five parties came together to become unity center okay now when unity center was made there was a two-line struggle so one line was said that we must go into now people's war and there was a first gradualist he said no no no you shouldn't die it's not time is not ripe and all that so you know the the the real who wanted people's war to take place was actually him his party and our party and our party and of course Kiran was one of them so that's how the people's war started okay now so when so when the people's war started Pratanda because you know he he studied a lot about military because he wanted to be part of he wanted to study you know he wanted to become RNA so in that process he had learned a lot about the military strategy and all that

So he had a good knowledge about that. That knowledge was kind of augmented with looking at the history of Nepal in a Marxist way. So at one end he had that technical knowledge. At another end, Bhavram Bhattray had been done his PhD on the regional aspect of Nepal. Why it became poor, you know, internally as well as externally. So he knew the topography of Nepal very well. He knew the economic situation, because his PhD was on that. So he had, and being a student in Jaini, he had a good Marxist kind of a background also.

So these two became such a good kind of alliance. You had a technical knowledge from him, and he was a very pragmatist also in many ways. And that pragmatism was also required in the kind of people's war, in terms of trying to play with the parliamentary parties versus the king, you see? Many times in the beginning, before the five years, the first five years, we did not touch monarchy. We were against the political parties

who were coming directly against us. And it was after the massacre that, then our whole line shifted to aligning with the political parties to weaken the monarchy as such. So what I'm trying to say is that, so that unity, so what we would see in people's war as such that whenever there was a political alliance, you know, when Prasanda took Baburam's line,

there was kind of acceleration in the offensive, both political and economic. And when he sided with this nationalist, which is kind of represented by Kiran, And, you know, so that kind of dialect is, was there between the three leaders, you see. As a result, at one, of course, at the end of it, Barbaram's line prevailed, and then how the peace process came into being, and 12-point program, till 12-point understanding was being kind of done between the Maoist and the seven parties, and all that, all that comes. Prachanda right now where he is is that as I told you that

his line always had been the line more than the issue, more than the kind of political ideology, he would always look at the number game. See he was power centric and as a result now what happened he aligned with

the AML, the UML where the first where they're really in the in the garb of left, they were actually very much against Maoists. And now today he's aligning with them. And today he's nowhere because the prime minister and he's also the head of that party. He is giving him, I mean, he's in such a humiliating

situation right now in the sense that he's not even allowed to play as the president of the party. And of course, because he's not now nowhere, I mean, of course, he won the election, but then he's neither, he wanted to, of course, there was this understanding when they were united, that they would share the both in party as well as in the governance, they'll share it by half and half. And now it is in the third year, you know, five years, whenever they would, you know, otherwise, after two and a half years, he should have given his, given prime ministership to Prasanda. And now Prasanda is nowhere because in political party also, he is not able to excise his power as a president of that party. And of course, he's nowhere in the government, you know, except that he's a parliament train as such. So his position is really shaky now. So I know we want to move on to the discussion of women's role in the Civil War. But Brett, you have one quick question to add into this section before we talk about women specifically.

Yeah, just really quickly zooming out a little bit to examine the regional and the, international dimensions of this conflict. I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about the relevance of India and China in the Civil War, what their interests were in the conflict, and sort of which side that those two large regional powers assisted in the Civil War. Okay. See, because as I told you that our, actually, when we started our people's war, we had very categorically said that our internal enemy is the main enemy, especially,

when you see the Baburam's line is that, you see, there's a confusion on the main contradiction, you know, who's the main person, who's the main enemy? So in the Communist Party also, you know, there's also one line in which the main element is both, you know, the king as well as the external, which is the Indian expansionist. Okay. Now, we did buy that, you know, to some extent, we also cited, when we were with this masal headed by Mohan Bikram, whose line is actually this, you know, like he never demarcated, which is the main contradiction, you know, and then. So we moved away from him precisely on this point that you have to point up, which is the

main opposition, you know, main contradiction that we have to fight against. So we've always said that it is the internal first. So as I told you that even within our party, you know, At one point, of course, in people's war, we had even, you know, tunnel war, as I said, you know, there was this dugging of tunnels in many parts of our base area to prepare war against India as such. Now, that was not our actually line as such. It was, that was the time when Kieran's line was prevailing and that's what happened. So with India as such, as I told you that with the people, we had a good relation. Okay.

And particularly with the mouse there in, in India, we had kind of a political relation with them. In fact, to many extent, you would know that it was we who helped in bringing MCC and people's war group together to form the Maoist group that now is existing here right now. And so we also had this Kamposa, whereby we had all the Maoists from the reasons to come together. And so we were able to use India's kind of cultural and also the open border and all. So Indian government as such was watching us wait and see to a certain extent. But later on when they found that it, in fact, it was affecting them, that's when they started arresting us and they started taking us in a more serious way. So before that, we took all advantage of our, because for us, it was a rare area,

which was very important to sustain our base area, And, you know, it was expanding, as you know, that out of 75 districts, except two districts, which fell beyond a trans-himalian reason, except those two reasons, which is two districts, which is actually Mustang and what I forwarded. So, these two, except otherwise people's world was spread on all the rest 73 districts. Okay. So now when you say about China, we had no. relation with China, frankly. In fact, many times when we tried to buy some of the kind of weapons from China, in fact, those who were caught there were actually, along with the I'm told later on that, those who assisted, the Chinese who assisted in selling some of those weapons, when they were caught, they were given death sentence. And when we, when our people

were caught, of course, they were kept in the prison for quite long time, even after we came into power. After many years, they left, I mean, they released them. So with, you see, because Nepal is basically India locked country. Okay. On the Chinese side, the whole thing is sealed. Okay. So the open border in the three sides helped us, you know, spreading our political line and even our defensive line that way. Yeah, and I just want to also raise one other point before we move on to women. This is just as an aside for the listeners, but as early as 2001, the United States was providing money and weaponry to the monarchy, the Royal Nepal Army, in order for combating the Maoists

in the conflict. And I think it's important for the listeners to understand that even in this conflict, a world away from the United States with very little bearing on U.S. affairs, the United States was providing millions and millions of dollars and thousands of weapons to the forces of the monarchy. But let's move on to women within the Civil War. So as we mentioned within the introduction, women were a huge force during the Civil War in Nepal, particularly on the side of the Maoists. They constituted roughly 40% of the force. And, And they had a lot of leadership positions, though they were underrepresented, as you stated in your book, they were underrepresented in leadership positions and all of the different components of the Maoist movement within the People's Liberation Army, the Mass Front, etc.

But why were there so many women in the Civil War and what affected having so many women play on the Civil War? first of all what you should understand is that you know before the monarchy got kind of out of the power so you know when particularly it was only in 1990 that you know the parliament is monarchical parliamentary system came before that you see all the political parties were banned so actually when political parties were bent so their work was being kind of done through the mass movements, you know, mass organizations like women's organizations, students' organizations, youth organizations, you know. So these were very active. They were, in fact, being active on behalf of the parties. So from that point of view, I would say that when we were students

in India and when we made this all-India-Naplea Students Association, we prepared, we created a lovely platform for the political parties to come and participate in our debate, you see. So we to have political debate you know every year we used to have conference so in that conference so the political parties would come and voice their kind of their whatever say okay and so from that point of view so you know and then the uh the the left you must know that in Nepal there is uh there is still a lot of ground for left uh kind of ideology there's attraction for left ideology and as a you have right now the Communist Party of Nepal is leading the government is you know it's more than nearly two-third and all that so it's a very strong and stable party right now

which is being headed by Communist Party of Nepal CP and so so what they were able to do was to kind of attract women to kind of mobilize them to in the process and then politicize them using some of the very cultural fields like these as i said i think it's mentioned in the book also you know and and eight march was always very very very very vigorously kind of kind of because that was allowed to uh you know kind of that kind of program was allowed to be made you know kind of so we always use that platform to you know kind of uh go against the monarchy as such and we used a platform of T's to kind of expose the feudal culture as such. So that way we were already making a kind of an environment for them to come.

But once we made it a mandatory, because we looked at the women's question as a very strategic question, you see, right from the beginning. So now when I look back, now when I look back at people's war, I think we still lagged was that. Whereas in PLA, we made it mandatory for, women to be there, at least two women, mandatory, at a base level. Similarly, in the URC, which is the government actually in the base area,

40% women's presence was made mandatory. But we never made it a mandatory in the Communist Party. So now when I look back, that was a big mistake, you see, because when we are saying that women are strategic partners at one end, we're saying that, And we are saying that women are actually counter-revolutionary. They are very good at kind of fighting against a counter-revolution. And not only that, we are saying they are a stable force for continuous revolution. Okay.

We are making three statements. One is that we are saying that they are a strategic partner. Second, we are saying that they will fight against the counter-revolution because it goes against them. And third, we are saying continuous revolution. because it is only after the abolition of private property that women's actual kind of liberation will play into a situation where the difference between male and female in terms of exploitation will be kind of removed and all that. So having said that the main vehicle is the political party, the main vehicle is the Communist Party. So there should have also been kind of compulsory, mandatory, this much percentage that should be there in the Communist Party, which was never kind of, in fact, even I didn't realize him, like, I should have fought for that, but it never, you know, kind of came into my mind. But now when I look back, I say, well, that's one thing, that's one place, where we were missing, and how come we didn't do it, you know, right now I'm asking that way.

so the women got good position in military they got good position in the government that also helped and then on top of that also a very very important aspect is the judicial part you see so there was we recruited women at district level at local level to be part of the people's court so you know that also gave a lot of confidence to win because women were always always at a receiving end, you know, whenever there was, you know, like domestic violence or any kind of thing. So, you know, they could just see that, you know, like even as I told you that physically they could see the transformation, socially they could see, and later on it was economic also. So it became a holistic kind of a movement, you know. So, I mean, you must

understand that the people's war was not a, it was not a fight against colonialism as such. It was actually It was not also a fight for some resource, kind of grabbing resources as such. It was actually an economic, social, political, holistic movement as such, you know. So that attracted, I think, the most oppressed domestic from womb to tomb, you know. Yeah, that's a really interesting reflections that you have looking back on it. In reading your book, you also had some very interesting things to remark about. about how class conflict and the struggle for women's liberation overlap and what some of the kind of contradictions are.

And I know issues and complexities related to that. And I know that this is something that has happened in left movements around the world is how do you deal with the cultured, historical division of labor under patriarchs? you know this is something that we've inherited these ideas and it's difficult to overcome them with the kind of absolute adamant you know idea from the very beginning that they must be absolute equality that also overlooks some of you know the sensitivities as you put it to women's particular conditions and requirements and needs that there are two extremes in a way that you were suggesting had to be negotiated somehow. And so I was

wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on how that can be done successfully and what the pitfalls are. You know, if you don't foreground class at the outset, you know, you end up having, you know, the possibility, as you point out, of, you know, upper caste or upper class. reaction that takes just a feminist sort of perspective but doesn't really integrate, you know, a class analysis. And yet at the same time, if you demand absolute kind of equality, you're also not taking into account some of the particularities or unique conditions of women coming back from periods of, you know, being mothers or giving birth and so on. And so there needs to be some kind of way of adjudicating this in a consistent and clear way

to keep the continuous revolution going on, as you said. So I'm wondering, you know, what do you think about that? What were the successful measures? You mentioned something that you wish you had, you know, put in place, which was Communist Party membership being, you know, established at a minimum of 40% for women. But what are some of the things that you thought, I think, helped transform the position of women as a result of the people's war? See, one thing is like we had two, as I said that, you know, at the policy level, we had

this women's department. And at the ground level, you had this revolutionary, you know, this women's front. Okay. So at the departmental level, we had this advantage of having kind of exchange of ideas through RIM. So we had women. I particularly remember there was this, I forgot her name, but she was actually Iranian woman who was actually based in America. Okay. And she was very much in touch with the Turkish movement there. P2R and then it's just actually P, I forgot, you know, the most part of the left movement in Turkey. The P-P-K? One is P-P-K, which is actually not what, there's T-P-K or something, I forgot. Oh, okay, yes. So she, she would, I would ask, because, because I was also in the international department. So whenever I had a domestic problem, you know, it is a problem we are facing. So we could always, I might talk with her and then she would kind of, kind of

of suggest me and all that, all that. So we had this, and then also we had this becomes part of, I was there in India. So we would exchange our, you know, kind of experiences and all that. So at one end, we had this international remand, which was also giving us good feedback, you know, about international movements

and how they are dealing with the women's question. At the ground level, we had, of course, the revolutionary front. So we were able to kind of amalgate a two and then go ahead with the most progressive kind of move. Like I told you, you know, we had at the beginning of the war itself here, we had one after another, there was this problem of our male leaders getting involved with other women, you see. and then so that was affecting our movement so we didn't know how to kind of deal with that and then so in that also we had asked them and also we had also another at one point you see we had also you know as i think i mentioned in the book also in about how how to deal with you know martyred families whether they should be allowed to remarry or not and if they are remarried whether they should still you know kind of be proud of the fact that they are a marty family and then all that so you know these kind of things you know so there was an international kind of a kind of interaction as well as and you know whatever

contradiction that was coming from the ground level we were able to kind of synthesize brett do you have anything that you want to ask in regards to the question of women regarding the civil war i don't have anything on that front i have some questions about post-civil war splits but if there's anything you want to touch on before we head in that direction, you guys can do that first. Yeah, I mean, there's, of course, this book is largely about women within the Civil War. And I think that it's a very important thing for us on the left to understand when trying to advance our own causes and other contexts outside of Nepal.

One of the things that you mention in the book, and I'm just trying to pull up the quote right now, You say that in economic activities, women have been providing a constant source of levy through money or kind. Although individually, women may appear poorer, right? But organizationally, they're richer than most of the other mass organizations. Being able to pull women into a mass organization is going to massively increase the likelihood of that mass movement being successful by organizing around causes for women. Because even though in many places, women are either poorer economically or in terms of, of political capital, collectively, there's such a large group that by advocating for their liberation and their leadership, by pulling them into a movement, you're really allowing for

the best chances for that revolution to succeed because you're bringing in such a large and powerful group of people. I don't know if there's anything that you want to comment on that facility. Yeah, actually, even when I look back, I was very surprised to know that actually of all the mass organizations, women's organization was being much better. They were running, you know, like small shops and, you know, like they were, in fact, investing in some of the projects which the party was kind of doing and all that. So I would, as I said, I saw the potentiality of their economic kind of potentiality. which the party was using it very well.

You know, we had also, as I say, communes, you see. So in commune also, they were quite active. So there is, there is, I mean, like, if you, see, I'll tell you, political line is very, very important. Okay. Now, if you look at the political line of the present Communist Party of Nepal, which now, you see, you'll be surprised that when there was kind of, I don't know whether you know it, no, this Mahara case, I don't know you have heard or not.

He became minister many times. He was one of the Maoist leaders. There was a charge against him by one of the Maoist women against him saying that, you know, he had been kind of using her sexually and everything. Okay. And when this issue came right now, if you see. the mass organization of their party just didn't say anything about it, okay? And then you take another example of Dalit.

There was a very sensualized, sensational case of a Dalit man who wanted to marry a non-Dalit women, okay? And, you know, they were killed. I think you must have heard about this thing that took place recently in Rukum. Rukum is supposed to be one of the base areas. And you'll be surprised that, you see, the women, non-Dalit, of course, her family is actually Maoist family. Okay? And the ward, the head of the ward is also mavest, okay?

And that, what do you call? municipality the head of the municipality is most okay and the man the the Dalit he comes he is actually his family is related his family is near to UML of course now they have become one party but during the people's war they belong to UML okay and what happened their whole group was killed you I don't know whether you have read this but this became quite sensational news And see, see, where has this Maoist party has gone, you see? You take example, Mara's case. You take example of this man, I mean, this, the woman who comes from a Maoist party.

Where have they gone? I mean, what has happened to this Dalit upliftment? Where has happened to this female women's upliftment? It's all gone to dogs, you know, you know. I mean, I feel so sad that in 10 years, what we have achieved, you know, with the present. only who was never for Republic. In fact, for him he never dreamt that there would be federalism.

And his all actions are going to dogs right now. In fact, he truly represents the Raimazi path. And the royalists are really enjoying to the hilt under his kind of premier show and the way. He's, you know, doing like this to the Maoist within that party. it's i mean we just don't know what's happening you know like how could it happen and it's it's to do with the political line you know see this guy prachanda he he was out he was

he you know he aligned with the uml particularly to win in the election and now what he's getting out now i mean it's it's there him like i don't have to kind of analyze or maybe give information this Yeah, well, that's a really good transition point into the kind of the final topic or two that we're going to cover. I just want to read one quote first in regards to women's role in revolution. So you wrote, and I thought that this was a particularly important line. In war, it is said, is the wisest tactic to attack an enemy on his weakest point. In a bourgeois state, particularly a feudal state like in Nepal, the women's question is the weakest link.

So it was a tactical as well as a ethical point. But I guess let's move on to our final topic of discussion, which is what has Nepal been like after the war? So, of course, the Maoists were in, have been in power for the majority of this time after the war. So how has Nepal changed positively with the ushering in of the Maoists in power? And maybe what are some of the contradictions that we've seen that maybe they didn't live up to the promise that we thought that they were going to? Okay, that's a good question. Positively, if you see, positively if you see, so one of the good thing is that when we were saying that 40% is mandatory in a URPC, okay, now that same 40% is being made mandatory in the local level. First of all, it has gone into federalism because of us, okay, and also because of Madasi movement.

okay so secondly it's a republic country which is because of us and it's federal because of us and it is not I mean though we

we claim ourselves to be secular country okay but there's a very tricky kind of word which has been used there a country of all right but then And depending upon, you know, there's one word, which is that Paramparagat, Rukma, Ida haiku culture, from time onwards the culture that we have been,

you know, we have been practicing, using that as a kind of an appendix with the secularism. Okay. So with that appendix, actually, it's not secular as such, but the word secular has been used. And right now, I would say that when Prachanda went to India, right now, the Hindu extremists are ruling India, you see. So when Prachanda went to India, he said, I'm not for secular, because they were trying to put words into his mouth to look, to go for freedom of religion instead of secularism. And he agreed to that, you see. And actually for secularism, Bauram fought tooth and nail and he had to compromise to that point, as I said, you know, adding that, you know, that appendix which actually dilutes the thing. So that compromise, you have to do it because, you know, you had to work with other this thing. But while that was taking place, in fact, Prachanda was saying that let it, let you, you know, you write freedom of,

religion which he did not agree okay so then so from that point of view okay relatively at least our country has not been declared as Hindu country you know which which again there's a lot of pressure on people on all parties to kind of go for Hindu religion as such so that also is because of our people's war as such okay so there is also input of these at this you know compulsory representation of Dalits in the local level that is also because we had also given special rights of women and Dalits in our base area so that has been translated to many extent in today's constitution okay so we've got many

Dalits also in at a local level so these are positive things okay but negative you have to say as I said because Prachanda has you know He's mad after the power, and he's doing it at the cost of all the achievements which we had got it during the people's war. And people may think that, you know, Prachan, that Baburam left that party all of a sudden. That's not true. Before leaving the party, two years before he left the party, he had been telling Prachanda that you have to now, because now we are in a different phase. You see, you have to change. many things within the party and you should change it but he did not agree and as a result now

what he has done for the sake of party and for power for the sake of power he's aligned with the most kind of reactionary and most harmful party which which never accepted people's war and that too under person like only who was in a person like only who was actually, you know, he is a product of jhapa movement, which was actually off-street of a nexus-slite movement in Nepal.

And he had opposed japa movement. Although he was incarcerated there for 14 years, but he went against this movement. And if he went against that movement, how could he be for people's war?

He wanted to bring people's war into mainstream him, but he's successful, he's successful from that point of him. Brett, do you have a question? We have just a little bit of time left in the interview, so I think we have enough time for each of you to ask one more question. But Brett, what do you have for Hesila? Sure, yeah. In the light of all your critiques of where the Maoist party has gone since the ending of the Civil War, you created, as we mentioned earlier, the People's Socialist Party of Nepal. Can you talk a little bit about why you created that party and what it's

political line is given the importance of a solid political line that you've mentioned throughout this interview so far? That's a very good question. See, what we say is that, okay, Maoist movement was good in the sense that in finishing the old resign, it was successful. But now we are in a stage whereby we have to now create a new society, a new Nepal, okay? And it's like, you know, Like, it's like building a new house. When you build a house, your whole mentality, your outlook changes, you see. When you have to destroy an old house, you said the mentality of destroying the old house and making a new house is totally different.

When you are making a new house, you are always going to different parts of the store to look for what color combination is there for good coloring, what furniture will, you know, fit in with what and what is the size and all so your whole outlook is changed yeah has to change when you are making out something new you can't go with the same old uh instrument the same old same perception same this thing you have to change you have to be more open you have to more open to new surrounding and new requirements and availability and all that so from that point of view You know, we started particularly the class issue, now, the non-class issues which we raised, even the federalism, which should have been properly addressed as really what federalism should have been.

There also we had a struggle with Prashanda, you see, we were saying that, look, we've already practiced federalism during the People's War. So why don't we translate it into action? And he was not willing to. He was listening to what Maoist, with what Nepali Congress was saying. He was listening to what UMLO is saying. As a result, we are in a position where federalism, we have come to a situation where it's neither the old centralized kind of situation, not the kind of, you know, identity based with the right of self-determination that we practiced.

It's neither that. So as a result, what's happening is that we have seven. provinces which has been made and if you see their naming and if you see the capitals of that totally does not follow with what federalism is demanding it's like if you take example of two you know one even in Kathmandu if you see the names of all the what you call municipalities it's based on religions even if they're to put religions there were many buddhist this thing which which could have been followed but it was all hindu religions okay it it was not sounding to what the local things was demanding and all that

and can you believe in in two numbers in two province they are asking that place to be named after sita you know which sita is actually you know in during people's war we said she's the worst kind of an example for women's empowerment and they are saying that that two Nambar Pradesh should be a kind of named by Januka or Sita and all that. So, I mean, where have they gone, you know? I mean, I just cannot kind of understand how that 10 years, you know, experience has been kind of lost within two years of, you know, present government. Excellent.

Adnan. This has been so interesting. I just realize how much I don't know that I need to learn more about to really understand this fascinating case. But just you started answering this. I just wanted to pick up on the last point that you just made that it seems that Hindu religion is still clearly the dominant one, even in official circles, and that the diversity of different religious orientations is not necessarily being captured in the structure of the federal kind of compromise that you're talking about. It also reminds me that you were just in your previous points talking about the influence of India and a lot of pressure being put on undermining the secular character of the Nepalese state. So I'm interested. Maybe you could tell us a little bit more about what that appendix says and what are the implications of this kind of policy. and what does secularism mean in the Nepalese context for you and for and for the political culture that you're that you're advocating for.

So you should understand that when we were making the constitution, okay, there was a lot of pressure from India. You know, because by then, BJP had already come in power. So some of the parliamentarians and some of their leaders would come and then try to kind of, you know, explain, even they came to Baburambat, right, that you should go for freedom of revolution, of religion, not secularism. So there was a lot of pressure, you know. And in fact, now if you see even the one big, huge chunk of Nepal Congress

are already saying that there's what's a harm in making Nepal Hindu country and such. And also you will see that the present president, to Bitya Bhandari, who's actually one of the main women leader of a communist party of Nepal, she openly kind of sides with the Hindu religion. And she goes to all these religious, Hindu religious places as the chief guest, you see. And there's a lot of question on him that. Why are you only going there? I mean, being a secular country, why don't you go to other people, if you are at all?

So that question is there. So, you know, so, I mean, like, I mean, even your name is Communist Party, but then they are Hindu. I mean, and then you take example about, you know, that saying that just recently is, you know, actually Ram was born. Ayoda is actually in Nepal, not in India. So that question, you know, it also shows, you know, where he's trying to divert when, amidst this pandemic and amidst all that, you know, he's trying to divert the whole thing into us. another point and all that. So this, you know, if you see that, it's really unfortunate. Well, excellent.

I think that I speak for the guys when I say that we really enjoyed the conversation with you. And we want to thank you for coming on. So our guest, again, was Hicili Yami, former president of the All-Napal Women's Association, three-time minister in Nepal, a former member of the Constituent Assembly, and a current member of the People's Socialist Party of Nepal. Hicilla, thanks for coming on. How can the listeners find you on social media or your website if they want to follow up and find more of your work? I have my Twitter. I'm quite active in Twitter, although I also post some of my things in Facebook.

But I'm more active in Twitter. I have my own Gmail address also where they can come to. And how can our listeners find you on Twitter? Oh, it's actually, in a day, actually, I haven't changed the same. symbol of our party because now the symbol of our party, the socialist party when we were, we had hand as our as our election symbol.

Now we have we have umbrella but I haven't changed that. Actually there are two three names in my, in Hissila Yami people have also made a fraud kind of for this thing of my this thing. So Hizila Yami with

hand right now. That's my Twitter. Okay, great. So I'll link to your Twitter page in the show notes for the listeners to find. I want to wish you and your husband, again, former Prime Minister, Baburam Batarai, good health in your continued recovery from having COVID. And so, yeah, guys, let's say thanks to Hissiliami for coming on the show. Thanks so much. We really enjoyed meeting you, and we wish you all the best. And we wish you. Nepal and the people struggle all the best. Absolutely. It was an honor and a pleasure to speak with you, solidarity. Thank you so much. Thank you. I mean, for me, I mean, it's lovely to see how the whole world has shrug to this flat world as such. So I'm really impressed by the digital world

and digital revolution. And I think that has really, let me tell you one thing. You are from America right now, okay? Now, America is in a crisis, aren't you? You have this two system. it's not working. You really have to think beyond that. You know, being a typical communist is also not working. It's not sustainable. And of course, liberal democracy is not taking you anywhere. So I think an alternative way of thinking. And that is actually alternative. When I say alternative, I think if Marx was born today, he would be saying the same old things. I think he would develop Marxism to a much higher level whereby inclusive development, inclusive politics will have to come into position whereby the world is now become one with all these digital revolution.

So I think an alternative way of looking at the politics also needs to be kind of looked through. So I would request you also to go beyond what has been given by the traditional left or traditional Communist Party has given. Thank you so much. Thank you. That sounds like the beginning of a great conversation. A lot to think about there.

Thank you, Isilla. Yes, and listeners, we'll be right back with a brief wrap-up. We're back with a brief wrap-up. We've read her extensive biography multiple times before, so we'll skip that for now. I thought that was a really interesting conversation and it was on a topic that we don't get to talk about very often in popular discourse because the Nepali civil war is almost never discussed even within left wing circles in popular media.

So this was really an interesting conversation with somebody who has a very distinguished background within that fight. So I'm going to pitch it over to Adnan and Brett to lead the discussion on how we thought the interview went, how it tied into the book and kind of maybe future things that we personally would want to learn about Nepal and the conflict that happened in Nepal. But before I pitched over to them, I just want to read one more quote from the book because this quote, it was quite funny and it deals with women's liberation and women's empowerment in Nepal. And I think that this really drives at the heart of the matter while

also being a rather humorous quote. So, His Silla writes, The People's Liberation Army not only transformed women in essence, but also in form. Essentially, it has given meaning, value, respect, and dignity, not only to their lives, but to their deaths as well. Women have been taken for granted for too long. Today, hooligans, gundas, womanizers, cannot dare to come near Maoist women unless accompanied with an armed reactionary force. And I think that that really gets to the heart of the matter that of course they were, this was a class struggle first and foremost, but the women's liberation role of the civil war in Nepal was absolutely integral to both the ideological push of the force itself, but also one of the reasons that made it so successful to the point where the Maoists are still in control in Nepal. So now, Brett Adnan, I'll pitch it over to you guys. and let's just have a discussion about what we thought about the interview and about the book

and perhaps future things to look into on this front. Sure, I'll start really quickly, which by bouncing off that quote you read, which is just the utter importance of women in these successful revolutions. You know, Mao said women hold up half the sky, and he wasn't just saying it because it sounded nice or because it was a pretty thought to have, but because it was strategically utterly necessary in order for the people's movement to succeed. And we've seen women play crucial roles in every major revolution throughout history. The ones that jump to mind right now are like in Ireland and in Algeria,

these national liberation struggles are absolutely dependent on the participation of women. And here we have yet another example of that playing a crucial role, the Sandinistas, right? That's another one that jumps to mind. So this is a long history. And again, it's not something where it's just like this empty rhetoric paying homage to feminism, but it really is this materialist understanding of the role women play in society and the necessary role they must play in any revolutionary movement if it is to be successful. And that point was really driven home throughout this entire book and interview.

That certainly was the case. I think it's such an important and huge issue in revolutionary contexts. And it's sad that despite a progressive eye, ideas and ideals that even in left-wing circles, very often we see movements reproducing patriarchy in a lot of subtle and not so subtle ways. So the fact that in the Nepalese people's war and in their Communist Party, they did make an attempt very seriously to advance women's liberation and integrate their skills, experience. and abilities on a more equal level from everything to support services to even the military

waging the fight against the feudal monarchy. It's very inspiring and it's very important to appreciate and understand it. And I think we got a sense also how some aspects of that work were really unfinished. Hesila looked back and thought there were were opportunities to have pushed that agenda further even than she had thought at the time and that there were certain measures that would have been really useful. And I think also the experience after the end of the war bears out that there was a lot of unfinished work because it seems that there has been regression, reassertion of patriarchy in various ways. And that's concerning this idea that they had of continuous revolution is clearly something that's important

because it's very easy for the reassertion of some of these reactionary habits of culture and mind when given an opening to return and undermine the progress that people have made over the course of costly struggle. So that was a sobering kind of dimension of what she mentioned. If I think that there's one area that I would say was interesting that it came out was how important, both in her book and also in the conversation, was how important ideological development was as well as just other aspects of material participation. It seemed that she felt and identified that there are historic consequences of patriarchy and the division between the public world and private worlds in a traditional society like Nepal was, maybe is, but certainly was before the people's war, that really make it difficult for women to advance because,

they haven't developed the mental labor skills because of their experience, even though I think it's very clear that she pointed out in the book that there are so many resources that women's experience brings that makes them absolutely powerful, you know, in the struggle, more patient and, you know, they may join later, but when they join, they're so incredibly committed and they're resistant to reactionary, you know, forces of counter-revolution and so, so they bring so much. But in terms of their path within the party and making advances to really live out the equity that is an ideal, she felt that ideological training was really important. And so I think that's something what guerrilla history is good for in a way is taking episodes from history and that

experience and then reflecting on it and seeing, well, what are the ways in which we can enhance struggle? And also this podcast really tries to develop our understanding of history and both the ideas and the practices together. So hopefully efforts like this are useful in encouraging, you know, everyone to advance on an ideological level in their commitment to struggle. I agree entirely. I just want to posit a question to both of you because as you mentioned Adnan, one of the things that we want to do with this podcast is to take lessons from history and use them to formulate methods for the future. And I was thinking about from our last episode with Halil Caravelli about why Turkey is authoritarian and why the left has struggled so much there versus in this conversation that we just had with Hesila about why the struggle in Nepal was so significant. at least in overthrowing the monarchy and coming into power,

what was one of the differences between these left-wing movements that caused the, you know, of course, there's many things that could cause why one was successful and one has been historically a relative failure. And I think that one of the lessons, at least for me, is that we really have to emphasize that we need mass support. One of the things that I think was key from our episode on why Turkey is authoritarian is that the left has historically been a failure at bringing in the pious, religious community in Turkey into their movement. And by excluding them, by holding up secularism as enlightenment, they basically inhibited themselves from ever developing a sort of mass support or mass appeal amongst large groups of the population.

Whereas in Nepal, in this conversation that we just had with Hesila, we see that they consciously made the decision to embrace, women in their movement. They tried to embrace women as leaders of their movement. And as Hisilla wrote and said, individually, women in Nepal, in feudal monarchic Nepal, had very little individually. They were poor. They were subservient to men based on the, you know, the conditions of the society that they were in. But of course, women are half the population. And collectively, they have an unbelievable amount of power. They have an unbelievable amount of knowledge, of skills, and by just bringing in the women into that movement, you almost instantly have a mass movement on your hands.

And then, of course, you have to go about what Adnan was saying, fostering ideological integrity amongst the movement. But by bringing the women in, you really have that mass support. Whereas in Turkey, by excluding the religious community, they prevented themselves from having a mass movement. So I don't know if either of you guys want to reflect on that. Yeah, Brett. Yeah, quickly, just to add to that, because I agree with all of that. And another thing that we see that both in Turkey, the left and in Nepal, the left struggle with, is this question of nationalism. And we see in Turkey where it is sort of unquestionably embraced, right, as part of their tradition. And we see how that undermines their ability to move forward in a lot of ways. And we see that two-line struggle play out in Nepal, where at times, right, that nationalism was always there. It was always in the milieu. But it was

wrestled with, it was contended with, it was put out in the open as an object of critique, and that allowed that movement, along with many other things, to advance forward. And I think that reminds us of the fact that these struggles are inherently international. And while nationalism can play a progressive role in national liberation struggles, right, in colonized contexts, nationalism in a context where there isn't that can be detrimental. And even on the U.S. left, we've seen these sort of pathetic, attempts to weave in some of the nationalism of America, right, whether it's in the aesthetics, the iconography, or making these appeals to the founding fathers. These aren't huge trends on the

left, but there's certainly been attempts at them. And every single time, it's sort of, I think, to our credit as the American left, sort of mocked out of the room, but it's easier to see why nationalism in the American context would be just a wholly negative thing, given the settler, colonial white supremacy nature of it. But in these other areas, maybe there are, there's more subtlety with those questions. And to be able to have a really principled way of engaging with that question and understanding the cultural and historical variables in your context that make that a question to go one way or the other with it, something that we can carry forward and think about. I think that's a really excellent observation, Brett, about the nationalism as an issue

that posed particular problems in both these two contexts. And I think, you know, this is an issue really that we have to consider when talking about the non-Western world where the history of the nation is a lot more recent in terms of its incubation and usually emerges in the context of anti-imperialism. So, you know, there was nationalism vis-a-vis India and trying to kind of protect Nepalese nationalism I gathered from our conversation with Hicilla, but I think there's also this sense of, you know,

the real beginning of Nepalese modernity and the modern Nepalese situation came from, you know, resistance to the British that wasn't successful in the early 19th century, 1814 through 1816, and that therefore nationalism in the non-Western context, just like in, in the case of Turkey, having to preserve the remains of the Ottoman Empire from French and Russian and British incursion, that this ends up creating a different kind of texture to the nationalism that's going to have to be dealt with by appeals on the left for internationalist worker solidarity, is that it's going to have to be inflected in some capacity through that experience. It's hard to just dispense with that sense of the nation.

That was hard fought to create and achieve in more recent modern history. But I think one of the other interesting divergences between these two cases is that in Turkey was clearly secularism and whatever revolutionary process of creating the nation was a very elite, top-down, military-based source for it. That's how it starts under Ataturk. In this case, the people's war and the popular struggle really emerges against the elite, and you have much more of an obvious class-based resistance to this feudal monarchy, to the ruling and land-owning classes that I think is one reason why the character of the struggle

was a little bit different when it came to the relationship to religion, for example. And one of the issues with nationalism in this context seems to me that in a diverse and pluralistic society, there was an attempt to promote an idea of religious and ethnic national identity that erased or suppressed those other differences. And in the case of Turkey, we had seen how the terrible consequences of trying to impose that. And here, it's a case where, you know, even after the success of the revolution, it seems that there are attempts to re-inscribe and reintroduce something that's inherited from that national identity earlier on that isn't necessarily descriptive of the whole society, but is the way in which national identity has been framed and how, thus, it's been inherited. So these are interesting divergences, but there are also a lot of continuities that we can learn from in comparing and contrasting. these two cases. And then, Brett, do you have something that you wanted to add? Quickly just bouncing off that, we're talking about nationalism. You know, even in Fanonian nationalism,

right, Fanon was an obvious defender and advocate of national liberation struggles, and he laid out how the fostering of nationalism is the unifying force in the colonial context, and that's essential. But he also makes clear in the wretched of the earth that it's a means to an ultimately international socialist humanist end. And so, you know, I think he says towards the end of the book, if I remember correctly, like once nationalism succeeds and kicking out the colonizers and building up your own integrity, your own system that you have control over,

then you shift towards internationalism, right? So it's never an end where you stop. It's a means for a more internationalist end. So even in the most robust defenses of national liberation, there's always that internationalism undergirding it. Yeah. So I think that that is a pretty good way. to wrap up our discussion. There's just one last thing that I want us each to do before we get

out there. So there was, of course, so much more that we wanted to talk about with Hysil, if time would have allowed. But there was a lot of things that we didn't get to talk about, but we wanted to. So how about each of us list one thing that we would have liked to talk about during the conversation, but didn't get a chance to, just in case the listeners want to look into some of these things that we were looking at. And I'll start so you can get your thoughts together on that, because I know that I kind of sprung that on you right now, because it just came to my mind. One of the topics that I wanted to bring up was the usage of rape as a method of state repression by the monarchic government in Nepal. Because of course, the focus of the

conversation that we had today was on women's role within the revolutionary movement. And of course, rape is essentially a weapon of terror that's used by more powerful groups of people throughout history. And she has a section in this book called Rape, an Instrument of State Repression in Nepal. And for those of you on our Patreon, I think that I'll do a reading of this section on our Patreon after this episode drops just in case anybody wants to hear this section of the book.

But I think that understanding how rape was used in the context of Nepal might bring to light some of the more hidden aspects of revolutionary struggles. in places such as Nepal, but of course in many other places as well. So do either of you have anything that you would have liked to bring up Adnan? Well, I just, I don't really have too many topics that I would have. There's so much we could have talked with her. And I have to say, I think she is such an impressive and interesting person that I have a lot of admiration for and respect.

And I just feel like there were a lot of references, perhaps. She was talking about a struggle that's very close. to her and not all of us maybe were able to follow all of the specifics and the various references. But she's very engaging and I feel like it would have been great if we could have maybe tried to make it more conversational because then we would have asked her, wait a minute, I don't know that reference and it wouldn't have interrupted her flow and maybe our audience would understand some of the references that I also myself may have missed, I think, not knowing as much as I should about the Nepalese situation.

But I feel really inspired to learn more. And partly it was because she seems like a very impressive person after reading her book and engaging with her. And she really opened up when she had advice for us. And so I would have liked to have tapped a little bit more of that just because then she really became very concrete about, well, what you need to do over there. And I think she opened up some interesting vistas for solidarity.

and learning from one another's experience. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And at the end, you know, her point really was, you know, you in the belly of the beast, you in America, you have to really commit to this open-ended experimental approach. You know, nothing will, you can't just copy and paste some other people's struggles and tactics and make it work in the belly of the beast. And so that's just something we all have to remember. And that hedges against dogmatism, which is important.

I also wanted to reference Adnan was talking earlier, the importance of a political line. And I think, you know, we really got to stress that. It's like, without that political line, you don't make, first of all, you don't know where you're going, right? You don't have a clear picture of what you want to achieve. But also that the clarity of political line allows you to have the necessary line struggles within the movement in the party itself.

If you don't have a coherent political line, those things get wrinkled over. They get obscured and you don't address them. And they're ultimately the Achilles heel of movements in many cases. So just remembering that going forward is important. If there was one thing that I wanted, I wanted to drill down on a little bit more, it would have been like, I would like to know the direct causes and the lead up to the launching of the people's war, right? How do you get the people ready to launch a people's war? And what are the direct conditions that make such a large percentage of the people in a society willing to put it all on the line for such a revolutionary thrust forward? Those things, they kind of got obscured over as we moved through so much history.

it's not her fault it's nobody's fault it's the confines of the of the time and the vast amount of history we're covering but that's something for future a study that i think uh i'll i'll personally be interested in yeah and i think that as she said at the very end she's working on a book right now that'll be published in about a year perhaps after that we'll bring her back on to really drill down on some of these concrete things that we want to tease out that we didn't have time for in this conversation and perhaps having these really concrete points will allow us to really get to the basic points without getting into the detail that, as Adnan said, might be lost on some of the listeners. But I definitely recommend everybody look into this event, the Nepalese Civil War,

as well as what's happened in Nepal since then. So thanks for coming in, guys. It's always a pleasure doing these episodes with you. It's both fun and enlightening. I learn a lot from each of you. So I just want to say thanks. So how can our listeners find each of you on social media or whatever? Adnan?

You can find me on Twitter at Adnan A. Hussein 1S. And also look for the Mudgellus podcast, the other podcast that I'm involved with. If you're interested in the Middle East Islamic world, issues of Islamophobia, and so on. And I feel the same way, Henry. So thank you so much for all that you do and for creating an engaging conversation, both you and Brett. Brett, how do the listeners find you? Yeah, I want to echo the love and solidarity between us three. This has been really fun to do this.

We're only on our third interview. You know, we're going to organically evolve and make little shifts in our approach over time to make sure that we're hitting all the points we want to hit. But so far, it's been a wonderful experiment. And so, yeah, as far as finding me, you can just go to Revolutionary LeftRadio.com, get both the shows, Patreon, shirts, everything. It's on that one website. sure and your Twitter is at Rev Left Radio and it's a great Twitter feed so everybody should follow

that if they're not already. As for me, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995. I also have a Patreon where I talk about science and public health and I'm using that to help me get through this pandemic myself and you can find that at patreon.com forward slash Huck 1995. As for this show, Gorilla History, you can follow us on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod. That's GUE R-R-I-L-A- underscore pod, and you can get a lot of bonus materials at our Patreon, as well as help keep the show up and running by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. Again, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A. So thank you listeners for tuning in.

Hopefully you learned a lot. We welcome your feedback, and we'll see you with our next episode very soon, Solidarity. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.