Nepal Communist Party

Covid-19 pandemic, working class people & responsibility of the socialist forces

Madhav Kumar Nepal Chief, Department of Foreign Affairs Former Prime Minister & Senior Leader Nepal Communist Party (NCP)

The pandemic of COVID 19 has hit hard the work-91 ing class people around the world. We all are impacted. But we are not silent. We are continuing our task of organization, mobilization, service delivery and support. If we miss to reach and support the people who are our strength during this time of crisis, we will not win our class struggle. It’s important to work at grassroots and continue our struggle while following health protocol and staying safe.

We are not only fighting against pandemic, we are fighting with bigger crisis of neo-liberal capitalism, imperialism and regional hegemonic forces. As we know that the global imperialism, regional hegemony and many other forces are trying to use this crisis to suppress the masses, take away people’s right and freedom and come up with false solutions.

It is crucial time for us. The humanity has encountered one of the biggest challenges of our times. While Socialist countries like China, Cuba, Vietnam and others have been fighting pandemic in a very efficient manner, havoc have been created in many capitalist countries like USA, UK etc. It is already clear that without global co-operation, broader solidarity and internationalism, our fight with this Pandemic will not be effective. But some people and countries are busy in creating myths and rumors as well as conspiring against humanity even at this time of crisis.

The ugly face of imperialism was exposed when there was outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan. They tried to isolate and attack China during the need of cooperation, encouragement and support. Actually the present world crisis and country-specific crisis of pandemic is the result of negligence of the western capitalist regimes. After the failure of capitalist centers in dealing with the pandemic, it was almost predicted that there will be a big paradigm shift in our concept of many things. That is why there are attempts to divert attentions of people about the failure of neo-liberal and capitalist model of development. Imperialism is cruel and war is their ultimate weapon. But they are using all tools of sanctions, trade war, cold war, threats etc. to coercively intervene the sovereignty of people and states. Brave People in Palestine, Iran, Venezuela etc have been tirelessly resisting the imperialist aggressions.

There are two truths not acceptable to global bourgeoisie regime. One is that countries ruled by Communist and Socialist parties,with better public health services are effectively dealing with pandemic. Second is that very soon, China is going to be the

92 centre of world economy. Similarly, the pandemic has also shown that privatization & liberalization has weakened states capacity to deal with crisis. Therefore, it is expected that capitalist aggression after the pandemic is likely to increase. We have to prepare ourselves for this. Therefore, what we see our Central task ahead should be, it is the time to be more organized and active. It is the time to be more visible. It is also a time to call for the reform in public policies. It is also a time to learn from public services, education system, public health care system, planned economy and better public policies of socialist, left and other countries. It is time to discuss the failure of WTO and neoliberal trade regime. We have to say that it is not the time of conspiracy and nuclear tests. It is not the time of blaming each other and having skepticism and cynicism. The world demands internationalism, collectivism, social reforms and new world order.

There is no alternative of socialism. That is what our party and government is also trying to do in Nepal. In this regard, we can learn of countries with socialist governments and Internationalist efforts of

Chinese and Cuban comrades who sent the militant of frontline doctors in many countries even during pandemic. The number of infected people has reached to 2, 89, 37,241 and 9, 24,504 deaths as of September 12, 2020. In Nepal, number of infected people is 53,120 and 336 deaths. It shows that pandemic is spreading rapidly in the whole world but in our region, it is still spreading rapidly. But even during crisis, few regimes, in our region, are trying to divert the issue of pandemic which has largely impacted the live and livelihood of people. Growing tension in the region, especially between India-china is a big threat to peace and tranquility in Asia and the world. Trade war between and among the countries has already started. A lot of provocation is created by imperialist in the war. We need to call for regional and global peace and people’s solidarity. The millennium challenge corporations compact (MCC) has also created disputes in Nepal. It is clear that our country will not sign any compact of military nature or such any alliance, which is against our national interest and will always adhere with the principle of Panchasheel and nonalignment. The imperialist intervention has also increased in

Nepal and they are trying to penetrate in the country with the objective of degenerating and defaming communist movement. But we are fighting against all sorts of opportunism and capitulationism. We are now witnessing the deepening of capitalism’s crisis. It is right time for us to develop concrete strategy to move forward. COVID-19 has taught us many lessons and now we are moving forward a bipolar world. Therefore, I hope that we should be able to critically analyze the post COVID-19 context and clearly formulate the tactics and strategies of left and socialist movement of the world.

The heath system was so deficient and fragile at the time of outbreak that there were very limited masks, gloves, ventilators, doctors, nurses, hospital and other facilities available in the US and other European capitalist countries. As a part of structural deficiency, the death rate among the poor and most disadvantaged community has been extremely high. It was hardly thought that countries so advanced with mighty wealth power would have passed through such a state of conditions. Even the lockdown in many instances were enforced halfheartedly by many countries by compromising with rapid spread of virus and dying of patients in a mass scale. Importantly, neither there was a well thought overall plan to deal with the pandemic nor effective coordinated attempts were made by the central governments in number of countries including the US. No institutional and leadership responsive system was enforced at different levels leading to a tendency of escaping from the responsibilities. With enormous rise in cases in some European countries, some governments were forced to take some drastic steps including more strict lockdowns amidst frustration and anger of the people. It is to be noticed that had there been an urgency of war preparation, no shortage of guns, bombs, submarines, fighter jets and the like would have been in such countries as trillions of dollars is spent each year for military purposes.

Another characteristics of the ruling class of capitalist system exposed by the pandemic is that while introducing relief and fiscal stimulus programs, the priority has been given exclusively to safeguard the interest of oligarchic and monopoly capitalists. Under the fiscal stimulus, trillions of dollars have been spent as a direct support more overwhelmingly to the big companies and business houses. Similarly, massive concessional loan has been provided to the same class or group. These mainly have been funded through excessive deficit financing added by continuity to the quantitative easing leading to enormous rise in already very high level of debt outstanding. The end result is such that despite historical deceleration in real sector growth and employment, the stock prices have exceeded the pre-pandemic level. In the second quarter of this year GDP growth in the US has slowed down by about 33 percent. During the

same period, UK and Euro Area faced more than 20 and 12 percent deceleration in the GDP respectively. Such a downturn is raising unemployment problem massively. The misery of the jobless, poor and other vulnerable people has intensified pervasively in all capitalist countries. Though some relief programs were launched after lockdown and people’s movement restriction, the amount was low with narrow coverage for limited period. The facility has been curtailed drastically despite a second wave of virus and added suffering of the people. More broadly, even during the period of pandemic while oligarchic and monopolists are reaping higher profits and accumulating financial wealth, the working population either is dying in large proportion or suffering from starvation and hunger.

As an offshoot of above, added feature of the capitalism during the pandemic has been such that by undermining the threat of rising cases and ensuring protection from the endemic, the economies have been opened up for restoring economic and business activities. In the US, for instance, states are being forced to open the economies despite massive rise in cases again every day. In many European capitalist countries also, the tendency is quite similar. This simply means that economy is more precarious than the life of the people in the capitalist system.

It is equally noticeable that most of the developing countries, as a part of globalization route, are pursuing the economic system which is rooted in neo-liberalism led market fundamentalism. Among them also, the governments of the most rightist political parties are more aggressively dismantling the welfare role of the state. As such, at a time when there was outbreak of the virus, the health system was in disarray. As a result, in such countries the spread of virus and death toll has been very high. This is true in Asia, Latin America and Africa. In these continents some countries have performed relatively well due to albeit responsive left leaning or left centric governments. More broadly, the responsive system in majority of the developing countries has been quite similar to the capitalist countries. From lockdown to coping with pandemic, relief packages and opening up of the economies, the approach has been almost the same. As such, given the fragile health system added by weak institutional, technical and resource capacity, apart from daily increase in the cases and death of people, starvation and hunger and more broadly suffering of the people has been much more devastating. This has magnified both poverty and inequality in a massive way.

Under such circumstances, in both capitalist and developing countries, the left political parties, progressive forces, various people centric organizations and social activists through statements, mobilization of people, mass protests, social networking and communication are expositing non-responsive governments and building pressures to pay highest attention on the lives and livelihood of the people including rescuing the small farmers, businesses and enterprise at the same time strengthening the supply chain and public distribution system. As an offshoot, the regional political and others forums, people’s alliances, media and academicians are playing catalyst role to expose the failure of political and economic system and advocating the relevance and importance of alternatives. All these are exerting some incremental positive impacts. But overall impact to correct non-responsive and anti-people measures has been less pronounced. Within the rightist forces, those aligned with the ruling parties and governments are defending the government’s steps and other rightist forces are trying to expose not on ideological but on religious, anti-migration and anti-globalization grounds to catch the anti-establishment sentiments of the people. With no strong net working at the global, regional and country specific levels by representing the voices of the downtrodden in an organized way, strengthening the role of the leftist forces to counter the capitalism is still a big challenge.

More precisely, the pandemic has exposed the historic failure of the capitalist system. In the absence of not only prompt political and government responsive system at various levels and institutional apparatus but also due to protracted very irresponsible, pro-rich and common people neglecting system, the threat of bigger human suffering is manifesting. This, along with increased resentment and anger of the working population, is intensifying social contradiction in both capitalist and other countries. Various forms of mass protest and struggles against state and government system jeopardizing the lives and livelihoods of the people are rising.

With some gaps, though almost all countries implemented relief program to the workers and other poor people, the package neither covered the most affected norit was adequate. There were problems in distributing to the intended as well. After removal of lockdown and opening of the economy, such a scheme is either discontinued or limited in terms of coverage, financial support or food supplies. Under the stimulus intended to rescue and revive the economy, largely financial capitalism driven ap-

94 proach was followed by offering interest rebate and rescheduling loan payment. In this case also though rhetorically the priority was given to the small enterprises or businesses, predominant beneficiary have been the big business houses and companies. Fundamentally, the role of government was shifted to the monetary authorities implicitly to ensure that in such a crisis period also the neo-liberalism route is not disrupted. As an offshoot and contrary to the developed capitalist countries, fiscal policy in the name of maintaining fiscal balance and economic stabilization was limited to give some tax and other rebates. Amidst such non-responsive and non-functional state and government system, left parties, progressive forces, human right and workers organizations have continuously organized protests of various forms and pressurized governments to revamp the system and focus on containing the virus, solving livelihood problems and paying attention to strengthen protective system. Intellectuals and people associated with social networking have continuously exposed the failures and have built pressures to the government. In India, wage earners and in that also domestic migrant workers had launched a big movement against government’s complete negligence to their hand mouth problem immediately after abrupt lockdown. In such a parallel movement, the role of rightist parties and their various professional and occupational wings including media have been simply to defend the government and government leadership. More broadly, notwithstanding the role, the left and other movements devoted to people’s justice have been less effective in terms of impact or forcing corrections so far despite bigger room created by the non-responsive government system. The global experience shows that today’s capitalist system rooted in neo-liberalism and intensified in the form of financial capitalism and dismantling the welfare role of the state, among others, has dismally failed to fight against COVID-19 pandemic and address magnifying livelihood and economic crisis simultaneously. It has additionally proven that the dominant world capitalist system which was intensifying unprecedented gap between haves and have not’s through too much exploitation of the working class, aggravating climate crisis through extreme exploitation of nature in an unsustainable way and infusing hate and division in the society for political expediency is incapable to address or resolve multiple crisis originating from a pandemic like coronavirus. More critically, the experience shows that the state and government system and other accompanying institutional and other apparatus are implanted in such a way that they are not responsive to the lives and livelihood of the people. Instead, the system is driven by the economic and financial interest of big business and companies as a part of protecting the interest of financial oligarchic and monopolists. Notwithstanding class character and dominance albeit different as of today, the tendency is quite similar to the capitalist countries in most of the developing countries including South Asia, more so in countries where rightist forces are in the power and dominant.

The suffering of people worldwide due to pandemic and deepening crisis in the capitalist and other countries where rightist forces are in power has further enhanced the prospect of left and other progressive movement. However, this will require more proactive leadership role by the left forces at the global, regional and country specific level by mobilizing working class, progress forces and opinion builders. Most important factor is that the minimum core agenda, one exposing the misdeeds and failures of the capitalists including most reactionary rightist forces and another very robust and convincing issues based alternatives have to be brought into the fore and widely disseminated. In the past, lack of distinct and often confusing agenda contemplating neo-liberalism led agenda has provided space to the most rightist forces leading to weakening of the left movement. Lessons have to be taken from the past mistakes.

Toward such a new drive added by rising hopes, the role of the Communist party of Nepal, as a dominant force with almost two third majority governments, is vital. We are sure that the party remains the vanguard of core socialist agenda and is working for emancipation of working class people.