‘Only officials and the rich eat good rice’: Why there was a decade-long Maoist rebellion in Nepal

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

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