Ahuti’s Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist: A Marxist Study | 1

Introduction:

Amazingly blunt and revolutionary in expression yet plain and precise in its verbal texture, Bishwa
Bhakta Dulal (aka.Ahuti)’s Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist is an overt exposition of the
fundamentals of Marxism. The best way to recapitulate the essence of this long poem is perhaps to cite
the concluding paragraph of the Communist Manifesto (1848): The Communists openly declare that
their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the
ruling classes tremble at the Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their
chains. WORKINGMEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! (Engels & Marx, 1948)

The Manifesto ends with a call for revolution, and throughout the history of Marxism, socialism and
communism, ‘revolution’ is seen as the principle means of liberation. Ahuti gives voice to his
revolutionary spirit through the narrator of this poem and the key thematic issue of the poem that the
social injustice suffered by the underprivileged people of Nepal will be answered by a violent
revolution, a ‘forcible overthrow’ in Marxian terms, is conveyed powerfully in this poem.

From the very title onwards, the dialectic nature of the central conflict of the poem is presented, and
the terms ‘red terrorist’ and ‘white terrorist’ can be interpreted in light of their political meanings in
order to catch a glimpse of the idea of the poem. Historically the term ‘red terror’ refers to the ‘regime
of terror’ in Soviet Russia where ‘a series of mass arrests and executions’ (Walker and Gray, 2007,
p.137) were conducted by the Bolshevik government but here, the term has been used loosely to refer
to those who represent the socialist movement and use violence as part of their mission to liberate
themselves, because the dominant ideology is that use of violence against the government is terrorism.
On the other hand, the term ‘white terror’ is commonly used to refer to violence used against socialist
forces. The narrator of the poem views his enemy, the tyrannical monarch and his so called democracy
as ‘white terrorists’ because they too use violence to control the people’s liberation movements by in
dominant political hegemony, they will not be classed as terrorists because their form of terrorism is
state sponsored and used in the interest of their ‘democracy’, their ‘law and order’. However, for a
detached observer, there seems to be little difference in the two parties and the conflict therefore is
between two different ‘terrorisms’; one coming from the oppressed, the other from the oppressor.

Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist as a treatise of Marxism:

From a Marxist perspective, the best way to understand this poem is to view it as an overt exposition
of Marxist principles since the poem can be read in light of the fundamentals of Marxist theory.

Ahuti skilfully presents the class conflict in contemporary Nepali society that has haunted the
subservient proletariat for generations. The socio-economic disparities between the dominant
oppressive class and the subservient oppressed class are brought forward through various
juxtapositions and these juxtapositions illustrate the dialectical and materialist concept of history that
Marx speaks of explaining how the history of the humankind has developed and can be perceived as a
perpetual struggle between the conflicting classes. The ‘terrorist’ narrator in the poem, in his bold
 Ahuti’s Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist: A Marxist Study | 2

address to the Nepali monarchy, maintains that they did not ask for the luxuries of regal life, the crown
jewels, their magnificent palaces, their expensive schools etc but for the basic amenities to survive
such as ‘a hot meal’ and ‘a warm shelter’, and plainly “a small free life as part of human beings”.

Another significant pillar of Marxism is the critique of capitalism and it is explained how a minority
with economic and political power manipulate and exploit the proletariat majority of a society. Ahuti’s
poem is a prima facie assertion of this aspect of Marxism and we are given a full understanding of the
vicious form of capitalism in Nepali society where children of the privileged class are sent to
expensive foreign schools while the underprivileged children cannot afford ‘cheap copy and pen’ to go
to school among many other injustice of which some are presented in the poem.

Along with the critique of capitalism, the issues of exploitation and alienation of labour is given a
significant place in the poem. The red terrorist twice questions his white terrorist enemy, the Nepali
Monarchy:

“After spilling buckets

of sweat and blood
did my father not retain
this much right? ...”

“After giving over to your rule

all of life's creations
did I not retain?
this much right?”

Both Marx and Ahuti perceive the exploitation and alienation of the labour of the proletariat as a
terrible failure of the human civilization throughout history and while the bourgeoisie or the dominant
class uncompromisingly flourish upon the ‘sweat and blood’ of the proletariat.

“To build a Taj Mahal

upon the fresh blood of slaves
in memory of a stale love
is not the custom of my lineage.”

The above lines highlight the historical nature of the exploitation and alienation of the proletariat
labour; the valuable labour of thousands of proletariats has been used to build these huge monuments
like the Taj Mahal but only the names of the rulers who ordered the labourers to build these
monuments are recorded in history; the history being written at the interest of the economically and
politically powerful. The implied question of the narrator is ‘who is the real terrorist?’ the one who
fights for his or her rights or the one who has deprived people of their right at the interest of
themselves through the divine right of kingship or through the economic or military power?

Marxists believe that no human society can achieve any further development without the elimination
of private ownership of the means of production, thereby bringing the productive capacities of society
under a collective ownership. This is the rationale of the Maoist movement and of any
communist/socialist liberation movement. This socio-economic liberation that Marx spoke of is the
implied rationale of Ahuti’s poem but as a result of the means through which the Maoists including the
 Ahuti’s Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist: A Marxist Study | 3

narrator choose to achieve their goal, they are branded as terrorists by the dominant social hegemony.
The law of the land would not acquiesce their course of action as a liberation movement but the term
‘terrorist’ will be used because they violate the laws which are created at the interest of the dominant
socio-political forces:

“But today
all requests are at an end
Not one
plea of mine for mercy
lies before you now
Make all preparations!
gather explosives, leg-irons, handcuffs or loaded rifles
make speeches, conspire, propagandize fully against me
Laying down all requests
I've come to murder you”

The revolutionary force which is present throughout the poem is best expressed in the above lines
where the Monarchy or the white terrorist is openly challenged and threatened of the revolutionary
where the long oppressed masses will turn into revolutionaries and murder their oppressors in their
quest for freedom.

According to Marxism, the social and economic injustice suffered by the proletariat due to fetters of
private property and exploitation can be defeated through the seizure of political power by the means
of a forcible overthrow of the bourgeoisie; a proletarian revolution. Ahuti’s poem ends with the hope
of such a seizure of power through a revolution where the ‘red terrorist’ will murder the white
terrorist.

Ahuti challenges the authority of dominant social forces such as the institution of religion and the
democratic establishment of the state that are trying to control the oppressed masses and reject the
liberation movement of the Maoists at the interests of the dominant economic and social forces. The
‘red terrorist claims that he has:

“... Come to challenge your god

who would write the fate of my lineage”

Marxists believe that religion is a form of spiritual oppression of the people and is referred to as the
“the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions....
the opium of the people.” Throughout the history of the humankind, religion, shaped into a socio-
political institution is manipulated by the oppressor to deceive the people and Marxists explain how
theological concepts such as God, fate, destiny, retribution, contempt, hell and heaven inter alia are
used to deceive the masses, further disempowering them. Ahuti challenges this religious institution
that is used as a mallet by the dominant socio political hegemonies to undermine the liberation of the
proletariat mind. The term ‘god’ has been qualified with the second person passive adjective and this
depicts the terrorist-narrator’s rejection of the hegemony.

In general understanding, God is for all but within the institutionalised form of religion found in
reality; god too is manipulated by the economic power. In societies like that of Nepal, the religious
 Ahuti’s Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist: A Marxist Study | 4

institution severely promotes social evils such as ‘caste discrimination’ and the people of the so called
low castes are barred from mainstream religious functions. The rationale for such discrimination is
well worded through the manipulative interpretation of the scriptures; that these people are
untouchable because they are born from the feet of Brahma the creator, or because they are punished
for the sins of a previous birth.

The poem captures Marx’s critique of liberal democracy when the terrorist narrators say that he has:

“ ....come to murder your beautiful 'democracy'”

Democracy is a form of government where people rule themselves and where the sovereign power of
the state remains with the people yet Marxists, being the most incisive and rounded critiques of
democracy, believe that such a democracy in the very sense of the term is not a practical reality in a
capitalist society where the so called democracy too can be manipulated as a tool by the oppressor;
therefore Democracy becomes a ‘”democracy for an insignificant minority, [a] democracy for the
rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society” (Lenin, 1917 Ch.5) . According to Marx, genuine
democracy can only be achieved if it is extended beyond the political to both the social and economic
spheres. This is why the poet uses the word democracy within inverted commas. The white terrorist
justifies all what he does in his own interest in the name of democracy.

Ahuti: the poetic voice of the Dalits1

Generally speaking, the Marxist understanding is that works of literature often mirror the writer’s
place in society, and they interpret literary texts in relation to their relevance regarding issues of class
struggle as depicted in a work of fiction. Therefore, discussing Author’s social class, status and
background and its influence on the text is considered one of the key methodological approaches in
Marxist Literary Criticism.

Bishwa Bhakta Dulal (b.1966-) who is popularly known as Ahuti is a contemporary Nepali poet and a
political activist fighting for the rights of the Neapli Dalits. Born into a Dalit family of cobblers in
Kathmandu, he studied to become an engineer but later took politics as a fulltime career so that he
could raise his voice against the social injustice suffered by Dalits like him. Dulal was brought up in a
society where case-based discrimination was serious and pervasive and the painful experiences of
growing up as a Dalit would have shaped his poetic vision to use poetry as a weapon to combat with
social injustice. The principal subject matter of his creative works is this social injustice: the unfair
case discrimination in his society. Like many other Marxist litterateurs, Dulal strongly believes in the
mimetic function of literature that a writer should reflect nothing but the truth as it is without rejecting
or deflecting it and therefore social criticism becomes the keynote of his poetic imagination which is
clearly expressed in concluding lines of his poem, Ascetic's Song:

“I sang not songs only slogans/

not poems only rebellion
But the ravaged nipples of my mother's breasts bear witness
I sang a new way just like the victory of light

1
Dalits: group of people traditionally regarded as untouchable.
 Ahuti’s Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist: A Marxist Study | 5

What have I to fear?

I sang the song of the hungry ones.”

Dulal is therefore successful in taking away literature from the tool box of the superstructure employed
in the interests of the bourgeoisie, and adds a propagandist outlook to his poetry as he perceives poetry
as ‘rebellion’ and ‘slogans’ against injustice and disempowerment of certain ethnic groups based on
their caste.

In Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist, we clearly notice how his personal experiences and Dalit
upbringing has contributed towards the forcefulness of expression in the poem. The first person
narration is noteworthy and the fact that he is honesty capable of speaking of the underprivileged
Dalits as ‘us’. He stands as an agent of the oppressed and of the revolutionary at the same time.

The scanty biographical information available about Dulal reveals that he represents the Maoist branch
of socialism which is largely drawn from the teachings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. He has been
attracted towards communism ‘because of the talk about ending the caste system and treating
everybody as equals’ (Darnal, 2009, p. 34) and there is high probability that he was a member of the
underground communist movement that was labelled as ‘Maoist rebels’ or as a group of terrorists:

“I've come to stir up

an earthquake of terror
in your heavenly joy
I am the 'terrorist' of your heaven
murder me if you can!”

Writng under the pseudonym of Ahuti which stands for sacrifice/oblation in Sanskrit, the poetic
persona boldly identifies himself as a ‘terrorist’ in the ‘heaven’ of the bourgeoisie and warns them of
the ‘earthquake of terror’ that is going to take place.

Dulal’s philosophy of poetry therefore echoes Lois Althusser’s notion that art can instigate the
‘forcible overthrow’ that Marx spoke of Dulal’s use of poetry as a medium of social criticism reflects
how ‘counter-hegemonies’ can come into force through the medium of literature thereby empowering
the poetry as a force against the ideological state apparati used by the dominant classes to undermine
the subservient class. (Althusser, 1971)

Like many other Marist writers, Dulal plays the role of a visionary; the very ‘earthquake of terror’ that
he writes in May, 2001 took place few weeks later, in June, when the Crown Prince mysteriously
assassinated the entire Royal family killing himself as well and hereafter we see how the Nepali
monarchy gradually falls and ultimately becoming non-existent in 2008 with the Maoist movement
coming in to power.

Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist in its socio-political context:

This poem was written in 2001 amidst the Nepali Civil war (1996- 2006) which was called the
‘People’s War’ by Maoists against the corruptive governmental forces with the aim of overthrowing
the Nepali monarchy in order to establish the "People's Republic of Nepal. On 28 th of May 2001, the
 Ahuti’s Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist: A Marxist Study | 6

leader of the leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and Chief Commander of the People's
War in Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal (aka. Prachanda) was interviewed by the Communist Journal, A
World to Win where he maintained that: [t]o all those comrades who are endeavouring to develop
various warfronts within a single campaign of world proletarian revolution, we, from the warfront in
Nepal, would like to convey our well wishes that the comrades will be fully successful in applying the
universal principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the specific conditions of their own respective
countries. However tortuous the road may be, the victory of the world proletarian revolution is
certain. Like Dulal’s poem, Prachanda statement cited above echoes the concluding paragraph of the
Manifesto and is a straightforward exposition of communist principles. The revolutionary voice of
Prachanda is masterfully embedded in Dulal’s poem and therefore it sounds like an Anthem for the
Nepali Liberation Movement. (A World to Win, 2001)

Moreover, Prachanda and the Maoists were branded as guerrillas by the then-Nepali government and
there were serious war crime allegations against the Maoist Movement. In a similar fashion, the poetic
persona of Dulal’s poem openly acknowledges the ‘terrorist’ status attributed to him by the
ideological state apparatus at the interests of the dominant socio-political forces yet he further
qualifies himself as the ‘terrorist of their heaven’ so as to highlight the fact that he is views as a
terrorist by the dominant political forces because he is gainst their oppression of the proletariat.

Upon the perusal of the poem, we notice how Dulal brings the socio-political experiences of the
proletariat to build up his thesis; the injustice that his linage had to suffer as a result of the corruptive
monarchy and the so called democratic governmental forces shaped in the interests of the monarchy.
Dulal explains how his people are deprived of their basic requirements in life such as food, health, and
education while the monarchy and the dominant classes were enjoying their luxurious lives in their
palaces built upon the blood of the proletariat. The Dalit community of which the poet is a member
too, is double-burdened; on the one hand there are severely discriminated as a result of their ‘low
caste’ and on the other hand they are financially disempowered due to the parasitic exploitation of the
more affluent classes including the monarchy.

The poetic technique of Ahuti from a Marxist Perspective:

Ahuti uses a plain and straightforward diction with less stylistic complexities to write him poem and
this is perhaps to make emphasis on what is conveyed rather than on how it is conveyed. This style
may reflect a lack of refinement in his language in the bourgeoisie sense but the motive of Ahuti is to
give voice to the ailing proletariat soul.

The long sentences without punctuation suggest the ever enduring class struggle between the
oppressor and the oppressed the structure of the Hegelian dialectics, i.e. the synthesis is reached from
the comparison of thesis and antithesis is clearly reflected in the presentation of the argument: what
the oppressor had and the oppressed did not want to have; what the oppressor wanted to have but did
not have and finally the synthesis that what the oppressed masses did not have can be and should be
won by a communist revolution.

Universality of the poem:

 Ahuti’s Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist: A Marxist Study | 7

Marxism and Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto with the 19th Century Europe in their mind but
the Marxism has been developed into a universal philosophy that can be applied to any society with a
class struggle. At the same time Marxist critics are often interested in the universality of literary works
‘as a criterion of a formal nature’ and were strongly considered by the prominent Marxist scholar,
Leon Trotsky. (Lunacharsky, 1928) Ahuti’s Red Terrorist Answers White Terrorist is mainly about
the proletariat of Nepal under the oppression of the Nepali Rajs but the politics that Ahuti discuss in
his poem can applied to any state where there is an oppressor and an oppressed class be it a
democracy, a banana republic, a constitutional monarchy, a federation, a dictatorship, or even an
executive presidency.

Bibliography:

Althusser, Louis. 1971. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” in Lenin and Philosophy and
Other Essays. Translated from the French by Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press

Dahal, Pushpa Kamal, 2001. “However tortuous the road may be” in A World to Win no. 27 Available
at: www.humanrights.de/doc_en/archiv/.../170202_interview_pra.htm

Darnal, Suvash. 2009. A LAND OF OUR OWN, Translated from Nepali by Prawin Ahdikari Pulchowk
: Samata Foundation

Engels, F. Marx, K., 1944. The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Communist
Manifesto. Translated from German by Milligan, M. Essex: Prometheus Books

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 1917. State and Revolution, found on A Glossary of Marxist Terms
Available at: http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/e.htm.

Lunacharsky, A., 1928. “Theses on the Problems of Marxist Criticism” in On Literature and Art .
Translated from Russian by Y. Ganuskin. Moscow: Progress Publishers

Tyson, Lois. 2006. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. New York: Routledge Taylor and
Francis Group

Walker, D. Gray, D., 2007. Historical dictionary of Marxism. Maryland: Scarecrow Press.