KIRAN PANDAY

On
the concluding day of discharge process, the disqualified PLA
combatants received flower garlands in a customary farewell from their
supreme commander in Dahaban, which they threw away angrily. The
combatants, still young and enthusiastic were bitter about being asked
to leave the cantonment after dedicating their lives for the
revolution. While children of their leaders whiz through Kathmandu?s
streets in slick cars, they were?disqualified?. Those who fought for
equality were startled to find the reality.

Prachanda then went
to Sunsari in the east. Before the disqualified combatants had even got
home, astrologers discovered scientific facts about the Chairman being
under the negative influence of Saturn, the planet of bad luck. He
worshipped a female buffalo to appease the enraged god, then announced
that religion and astrology had a scientific basis.

This was the
same leader, who had ordered his cadre to slaughter cows and forced
people to eat beef during the conflict. He doesn't seem to see the
irony in worshipping a buffalo now. Those who slaughtered cows were
given a couple of thousand rupees and sent home.

The worst thing
in human life is to be disqualified. In the presence of their revered
leaders, the combatants were declared disqualified in front of the
Nepali people, political parties and the UN. It is because they
survived the war. Had they been killed, they would have been declared
?great martyrs?.

Worshipping a buffalo to appease the planets is
a new dimension in communism. Had they found this enlightenment before
and told their cadres, thousands of books of the Sanskrit University
would not have been torched, people in mourning would not have been
killed and priests would be spared. Pundit Narayan Prasad would be
alive. Thousands of cows would not have died in vain.

Karl Marx said religion was the opiate of the masses. Our Maoists were inspired by Marx, but they forgot to take into
account
that there should be a different political system in a multi-lingual,
multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country like Nepal.

Senior
Maoists leaders have been hobnobbing with many holy men lately: the
high priest of Gorakhnath, Manakamana Mata, Pilot Baba, Yogi
Kamalnayanacharya, Chandra Swami. If only Babaji and Swami Maharajas
would indoctrinate the disqualified and qualified combatants, it would
be a fusion of spiritualism and materialism assuring the great leap
forward in the revolution.