state similarities and differences between popular struggle in Nepal and Bolivia.. state the answer in 10 points each..
Answers
Nepal became a constitutional monarchy in 1990. King Birendra, who had accepted this transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, was killed in a mysterious massacre of the royal family in 2001. King Gyanendra, the new king of Nepal, took advantage of the weakness and unpopularity of the democratically elected government. In February 2005, the king dismissed the then Prime Minister and restored monarchy. All the major political parties in the parliament formed a Seven Party Alliance (SPA) and called for a four-day strike in Kathmandu. People defied curfew and more than one lakh people gathered almost every day to demand restoration of democracy.
On 24th April 2006, the last day of the ultimatum, the king was forced to concede all the three demands. (a) Restoration of parliament. (b) Power to an all-party government (c) New Constituent Assembly.
The SPA chose Girija Prasad Koirala as the new Prime Minister of the interim government. The restored parliament met and passed laws taking away most of the powers of the king.
The SPA and the Maoists came to an understanding about how the new Constituent Assembly was going to be elected.
Struggle in Bolivia -
Bolivia is a poor country in Latin America. The World Bank pressurized the government to give its control of municipal water supply for the city of Cochabamba to a multi-national company. The company immediately increased the prices of water by four times. This led to a spontaneous popular protest. In January 2000, a new alliance of labour, human rights and community leaders organised a successful four-day general strike in the city. The government agreed to negotiate and the strike was called off. Yet nothing happened. Another strike followed in April and the government imposed martial law. But the power of the people forced the officials of the multi-national company to flee the city and made the government concede to all the demands of the protesters. The contract with the company was cancelled and water supply was restored to the municipality at old rates. This is known as Bolivia's water war.
Similarities -
1) Both the struggles are instances of political conflicts that led to popular struggles.
2) In both the cases the struggle involved mass mobilisation.
3) There was a critical role of political organisations in both the cases.
Differences -
1) The movement in Nepal was to restore the democracy while the struggle in Bolivia involved claims on an elected democratic government.
2) The struggle in Nepal was related with the foundation of the country's politics while the struggle in Bolivia was related with one specific policy.
There were similarities in the mass struggles of Nepal and Bolivia. They were both struggles for establishing or restoring democracy. There was mass mobilisation in both countries, and the resolution to struggle had come from the people.
(i) Both the struggles were against the people who exercised power. In Nepal, it was the monarchy, in Bolivia, it was against the elected government.
(ii) In both cases, public demonstrations of mass support clinched the dispute. Finally, in both cases, it involved a critical role of political organisations.
In Bolivia, the power of the mass uprising and the people forced the government to concede all their demands. In Nepal, the king had to step down. From an absolute monarchy, Nepal became a republic.
In Nepal, the call was given by the SPA or the Seven-Party Alliance. It had members of big parties and some members of the Parliament. The Nepalese Communist Party (Maoist) also joined, though they did not believe in parliamentary democracy. Non-political groups like all the major labour unions, their federations, teachers, lawyers and human rights movements also supported the movement. The protest against water privatisation in Bolivia was not led by any political party. It was led by an organisation called FEDECOR. It comprised professionals,engineers, environmentalists, federations of farmers, factory worker unions, students from the
university of Cochabamba and city's growing population of homeless children. The movement was supported by the Socialist Party, which came into power in Bolivia in 2006