Violence

No matter how much the Maoist party try to avoid violence during their protests, it isn't a sustainable proposition: if you add hundreds of thousands of people to Kathmandu, and at the exact same time also cut off all means that bring food into the valley, something is going to give at some point. On one hand, their rural cadres need to return home as soon as possible because it has started raining, and therefore is the perfect time to sow maize corn; on the other hand, hundreds of thousands of laborers in Kathmandu are dismayed that their livelihood has been temporarily held hostage by the Maoists.

Last night, in Gongabu, Maoist demonstrators tried to capture and burn a motorcycle that had ventured out at 6:30 PM. At its rally in Khula Manch, the Maoist leadership had said it would "grant" the people the freedom to go out to shop for essentials between 6 PM and 8 PM. The motorcycle owner must have been operating under the impression that he was free to ride out between 6 PM and 8 PM. The police had to intervene. 5 rounds of warning shots were fired into the air.

Today, there have been three separate incidents where Newars of certain enclaves around the city have beaten up men, specifying the reason: they are YCL members. This is purely hatred, mob becoming a vigilante mob. In the evening, thousands of YCL cadres will return to their designated dormitories, passing through the area where the incidents have occurred [serious enough injuries were sustained that at least one person had to be taken to the Neuro-Hospital in Maharajgunj], and confrontations are very much possible.

You can't have a "revolution" whose most salient feature is a stalemate. And, for a party that has unabashedly used violence to get its way, it is hypocritical to insist that it will refrain from violence.

There must be rancor among the ranks because a lot have chosen to abandon the revolution to tend to their farming necessities. There is no support from Kathmandu inhabitants: this fact is very easily read in the vacant and incurious gaze that meets the protesters each evening as locals crowd around shops, waiting to open them or for them to open.

The leaders had better reach an agreement quickly. It is specially beneficial for the Maoists, because, if there is violence on a large scale from the locals towards the Maoists, the leaders will lose face.