Video link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1VaQrBPEg9/
I saw in Ma Dougong’s most recent video inflammatory anti-communist rhetoric. Not only quoting the words of revolutionary traitors, sounding the death knell for the armed struggle of Maoist India, but also offering subjective idealist views that “young people do not want to be defined by the identities left by their parents, so they can instead transcend current social identities to make choices.” He also uses amateur “identity politics” theories to explain social movements—“in the past Maoists assumed only party members (especially senior cadres) could betray their class; the masses must wholly accept identity politics.” In short, Ma Dougong’s rhetoric, while arguably well below historical standards and beyond any serious critique, remains a common and widely spread anti-Communist narrative online and should be condemned.
Because there are many Nepalese and Indian contexts I don’t fully understand, I opened this discussion thread. What do you all think of Ma Dougong’s remarks?
To facilitate discussion, here is the transcript of Ma Dougong’s video:
Hello everyone, Tuesday, March 24, 2026. Welcome to the 1033rd episode of Bedtime News. First, a follow-up on important happenings from past episodes. The Bedtime News episode 920 introduced the situation of Indian Maoists, i.e., the Naxalite movement. In May last year, Indian authorities announced that in Chhattisgarh they killed 27 Maoists, including a Maoist general secretary, and effectively wiped out a portion of the Maoist generals, which included a portion of the Naxalite leadership—the portion representing Modi’s government. In the first quarter of SL2006, i.e., CP31, the resolution of the Maoist guerrilla issue was to be addressed. It has now returned to week 1199, 514, 544 episodes of the program. I cited Chairman Mao’s essay [Why the Chinese Red Power Could Exist?] The conclusion is that Indian Maoists have no future. Modi’s plan could likely be completed on schedule.
The Maoist organization in India has continued to collapse since 2025; this reflects not a single battle or campaign’s mistake, but the Maoists’ social base is disappearing. I gave three reasons: first, comprehensive urbanization; cities, in technology, economy, and even population, have overwhelmed rural areas. Therefore the rural encirclement of cities’ land revolution strategy must fail. Maoists’ immediate task is not to attempt to build new rural bases but to move young people to the city, understand the new era of society, and at the same time hide a few senior party members to write party history and leave a lesson for history.
In the past few months, Maoist organizations and military power have continued to crumble. In February this year, Indian authorities announced the arrest of four senior Maoist leaders, including a Politburo member and a Central Committee member. After the Maoist general secretary died in battle last year, military head Deva Goj took over the central leadership. This time he and most of the cadres who have descended from the hills were not captured by police in battle but surrendered with prospects. The surrender bonuses were also paid officially. For example, two central cadres who surrendered each received 2.5 million rupees; two regional cadres each 2 million rupees. With the current rupee to yuan exchange rate around 13.5:1, the general secretary’s surrender subsidy post-tax is about 185,000 yuan. Considering India’s rural current economic level, this equates to about the Chinese 1990s. It’s not a small sum. The surrendering people must provide intelligence on their organization, personnel, and sources of funding to help the Indian government pursue remaining members. Central leader Deva Goj, representing the down-hill cadres, expressed his position: He did not defect but resigned due to health reasons and will continue to fight within the legal field, maintaining faith. Some cadres who descended with him said that although they descended, they did not surrender their weapons; weapons remained on the mountain. They gave themselves a bit of face. Politically, it would have been better to surrender on the battlefield. Maoists who have not descended insist they did not fail; they stress that Deva Goj is not a Maoist leader, because there has never been a central conference election—only a temporary administration of this matter. But the problem is that not convening a central conference already indicates battlefield total failure.
In March, Modi, to fulfill the first-quarter promise to eliminate Maoists, continued to intensify the siege. The remaining Maoist armed forces could not withstand the offensive, and in the past few weeks nearly every day there were surrenders with rifles. On March 7, 130 central institutions and remaining field units surrendered collectively. Police said they would distribute land to the younger people among them. More importantly, whether in government press or leftist organization news, in the past one or two months there has been no clear evidence of a siege’s losses—occasional injuries, almost no battlefield deaths. Maoist resistance has become very weak. Since Maoists cannot convene a central conference, they cannot formally appoint central cadres. Public information shows that the Indian Maoists have, according to procedure, dissolved their central committee; there are no members who died in battle or surrendered, except for one, the former general secretary Janaapati, who resigned in 2018. Please read a passage from Janaapati’s 2019 interview: The mass base was eroded, the movement’s reach diminished. We failed to broaden class struggle to the plains, rural areas, and cities. Due to enemy offensives, due to subjective misjudgments and weaknesses, we lost many leadership cadres and important forces. We lacked experience in understanding the core tasks and other urgent tasks and the work areas associated with them, but we failed to construct a new program and strategy for class struggle based on social investigation.
I don’t know what the new program and strategy Janaapati spoke of means, but from the recent activity of India’s left, the political forces sympathetic to and supporting Maoist armed struggle are busy opposing US airstrikes on Iran and opposing India-EU free trade agreements, as well as opposing US-Israeli wars in the Middle East. I can understand this as a consistent stance against imperialism, but opposing India-EU free trade agreements and even opposing European capital coming to India to set up factories, I’m not sure what they are thinking. Indeed, some EU farm products would become duty-free into India, affecting farmers’ incomes, but considering the differing production costs, India’s cities would obviously create more employment and provide more avenues for rural labor. Maoists and their sympathizers in India have unconditionally chosen to defend farmers’ present interests, and according to historical inertia prefer to keep rural status quo, which objectively means rejecting gaining more supporters in cities and thus giving up the future. Therefore I say Maoist armed forces’ collapse is not due to increasingly strong government siege power but because they themselves gave up the opportunity for 21st-century transformation.
There are reports that Janaapati is now hiding in Nepal; his health is not good. For the world, Janaapati’s most important value is to lay down the past decades’ successes and failures and write a memoir for future reference.
The Indian Maoist general secretary rumor moved to Nepal; one reason is Nepal also has Maoists and once ruled. But Nepal Maoists’ situation is not good either. The pre-tax issue 971 episode’s headline is The Global Era Revolution: How Long Can the Pirate King flag fly? The first example of the Pirate King Revolution was Nepal. Last September, because Nepalese government officials’ children flaunted wealth on the internet, young people shared widely, the Nepalese government cut off the internet, closed Facebook, YouTube, and other social platforms, and youth protest offline, burning the prime minister’s residence, leading to government collapse. Nepal’s Parliament has 275 seats: 165 are district seats, and 110 are non-district seats allocated by nationwide support. A party or alliance with 138 seats can form a government; 184 seats is a two-thirds majority to pass laws. Since abolishing the monarchy in 2008, Nepal’s parliament has been dominated by Maoists and the Unified Marxists-Leninists, with the conservative Nepal Congress also self-styled as democratic socialist. Maoists participated in elections by giving up public land reform and armed struggle, but still pledged to protect vulnerable groups, low castes, and farmers’ interests. In the 2022 election the conservative Congress party won the most votes but only 89 seats. The Maoists and Nepal Communist Party alliance won 32 seats, and the Nepal Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) won 25, etc. Weighted proportionally, Maoists could not come to power, but Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachar) bypassed other leftists to form a coalition with the most right-wing Nepal Congress, becoming Prime Minister. Nepal’s Marxists and Congress later realized they didn’t need Prachanda as mediator and could cooperate directly. In 2023 they removed Maoist leadership from office and reformed the government. Then the Pirate King Revolution in 2026. Two weeks ago Nepal held new general elections. The ethnic independence party won 182 seats, close to a two-thirds majority. The old guard Congress party and Nepal Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) won 25 seats. The Maoists and other groups’ United Nepal Communist Party had 17 seats, plus 9 more core votes from small districts—only 8 seats come from nationwide non-district support. In other words, Maoists’ nationwide support is about 8 of 110, roughly 7%.
The biggest winner was the Ethnic Independence Party, Barrensa A, 35 years old. Domestic media describe Barrensa generally as a rapper, but for Nepalese, he is first and foremost a civil engineer with a Master’s in engineering from India. After the 2015 8.1-magnitude earthquake, Barrensa participated in post-disaster reconstruction, composing songs criticizing Nepalese politics. In 2020 Barrensa had a rap song criticizing Nepal’s government corruption with over 10 million views. Nepal’s population is only 30 million. The song’s lyrics say: All who defend the country are fools; all leaders are thieves, plundering the country. The country’s employees have a powerful government; salary is 30,000 rupees; there are 30 houses; the central market has 20 holes; no one speaks for the poor. In 2022 Barrensa ran for mayor of Kathmandu and said he would solve slums and provide affordable housing for residents of Kathmandu, reducing city garbage.
Unlike the Congress Party’s left-wing alliance, Barrensa abandoned old-school politicians’ campaigning methods, refused media interviews, and only used his own media channels to speak to voters, even using profanities. A few months earlier Barrensa posted on Facebook cursing the United States, India, and China. Barrensa does not give long speeches in public; his speeches are typically two to three minutes, repeatedly pushing political slogans. This youth-oriented approach allowed Barrensa to win overwhelmingly as mayor. After becoming mayor, Barrensa continued to use live streams on his network accounts to explain urban construction issues with his civil engineering knowledge. At that point Barrensa’s political influence remained limited to Kathmandu; as mayor he hadn’t achieved major results. After the Z-generation revolution, Barrensa did not directly go out to support it, but among the youth he is seen as relatively young, internet-savvy, anti-corruption, and knowledgeable about urban construction, thus seen as one of their own. After Nepal’s former Prime Minister Orry stepped down, the Z-generation began supporting Barrensa’s ascent to prime minister. Barrensa resigned as mayor to run for prime minister. In this election Barrensa won the support of all young people. In political terms, it’s hard to classify Barrensa as traditional left or right, or clearly pro-China or pro-India. His greatest strength lies in maintaining professional capability while using emotive propaganda to explain his policies.
Maoists used to rely on nationwide grassroots organizations to explain policies and boost support. Now with the internet, the advantages of grassroots organizations have depreciated.
Additionally, among Maoists and other traditional leftist factions, there is an implicit assumption that everyone remains part of modern class and occupation, making political choices. Earlier mentioned, India’s left and Maoists together called on peasants to oppose EU free trade agreements—this is an expression of identity politics. But the new generation of youth first must leave the countryside; secondly, the young do not want to be defined by their fathers’ identities, so they can transcend current social identities and make choices. The old Maoists defaulted that only party members, especially senior cadres, could betray their class; others must fully accept identity politics.
This setup has failed in Nepal and India. The Barrensa who is now in power in Kathmandu, by lineage is an Indian immigrant to Nepal; as for positions, he opposes Indian nationalism. Previously, Maoists leveraged small groups to win district votes; they simply had no way to criticize his identity. Including the suburbs of Kathmandu, the population is five million, less than a sixth of Nepal’s total. By demographics, Nepal remains a place where rural encirclement of cities is possible. Barrensa can win Kathmandu, but not necessarily the entire country.
But Nepal’s main economic source is remittances. In 2025, Nepal’s total remittance was 4.8 billion USD, about one-tenth of GDP. This makes foreign exchange earnings large and smooth, even though the remittance figure is officially about 10 billion. For most regions, a single external hard currency income can circulate domestically to sustain three to four times GDP. Moreover Nepal has sizeable agricultural sector. In proportion, many rely on migrant workers’ remittances from China’s agricultural regions; Nepal’s economy and financial stability are not as strong as Nepal.
Earlier we introduced the Middle East issue, noting many oil-rich countries hire workers from India. India’s workers are valued for their hard work, and to prevent cross-cultural settlement, to avoid displacing native citizens. Nepalese also went to the Middle East for work. Now 40% of Nepal’s emigration permits are for the United Arab Emirates. Also Nepal and India have visa-free travel between them. The 10 billion remittance figure overlooks Nepalese working in India. UAE obviously cannot grant Nepalese citizenship; India does not want Nepalese to have too much power.
Thus Nepal’s young people must settle domestically while working abroad and focusing on domestic politics. This is like bringing foreign urbanization back to Nepal, causing Nepal’s agricultural society to rapidly disintegrate, producing modern urban culture at a rate higher than the national economy.
Maoist and other traditional leftist ideologies in an urban cultural setting are completely outdated. Barrensa’s experience in Kathmandu’s governance could radiate nationwide. In this parliamentary election Barrensa did not run in Kathmandu but in the southeastern rural Japa district. Oli, a Marxist-Leninist, also contested in this district. Barrensa won 68,000 votes; Oli only 19,000. The left’s reliance on traditional community identities in small districts was decisively broken by Barrensa. In the coming years Barrensa may not succeed, but Nepal’s Maoists or other traditional leftist parties have no prospects. So I say if India’s Maoist last leader seeks asylum in Nepal, the only thing he can write is a memoir.
There’s also a simplified Chinese version on the internet.
The current Ugandan President Museveni was originally an opposition figure in Uganda; to oppose the dictator Amin, he joined the foreign-trained force of Obote to overthrow the regime. After Amin fell in the early 1980s, Museveni joined the new government as a minister, but dissatisfied with the political system, he asked Xinhua reporters for 250 English copies of the Mao Zedong selection as study material, aiming to set up a new path. Mao Zedong had been dead for several years; China’s diplomatic corps did not have that many propaganda materials. All in Uganda’s institutions gathered only five copies of the Mao selections. Museveni and more than twenty subordinates brought these five copies and more than twenty subordinates into the mountains to wage guerrilla warfare. Four years later, in 1986, Museveni returned to the capital and became president at the age of 42. In 2019, Museveni visited China and Shou-shan to see Mao Zedong’s former residence; he confirmed the five Mao selections’ story in person, but Mao selections were obtained in 1981, and in 2019 he was still visiting China as president. Sounds a bit off.
By 2026, Museveni remains Uganda’s president. This identity nearly caused his family to suffer the fate of Nepal’s Pirate King Revolution. From 1986 to 1996, Museveni led a revolutionary regime, then opened elections every five years. In the 2026 election, the 82-year-old Museveni’s vote share was 71.6%. The military’s support was pivotal to his high approval, openly acknowledged as the condition for maintaining elections. Uganda’s military leader is Museveni’s son, Muhuzi Kaineruga. Muhuzi enlisted in 1999, rose to major general within ten years, served as Army commander, then chief of staff, and recently resigned from the military to pursue political roles. Muhuzi’s sons have joined the military, preparing for a third generation of national leadership. Before, Muhuzi had two famous quotes on Russia-Ukraine: attacking Russia is attacking Africa; and after this year’s election, mocking opposition with 24% of the vote and demanding opposition leaders to surrender within 48 hours or else be killed. The opposition leader is Bobby Wine, who has a similar resume to Barrensa in Nepal. He is also a rapper. Wine’s songs focus on urban slums. Online, he is dubbed the “slum president.” In 2021, Bobby announced his candidacy and was quickly arrested by Uganda’s military. In September last year, Bobby announced again to participate in elections, but Museveni cut the internet nationwide, banned protests, and even deployed his son’s troops to arrest people nationwide. Under this backdrop, Bobby Wine managed to get 24% of the vote, indicating that about a quarter of the population is willing to push against the Museveni family.
Nepal’s so-called left-wing government cut the internet; Uganda’s Museveni family cut the internet and still achieved 71%. The reason is different economic bases. Although both are highland land-locked agricultural nations, Nepal’s foreign exchange from remittance is spread among ordinary people, while Uganda’s foreign exchange is heavily controlled by the government. Uganda’s GDP is about $54 billion, with $5.8 billion in annual gold exports, similar to Nepal’s remittance scale. In addition to gold, Uganda’s top export is coffee; good years yield several hundred million; normal years only one to two hundred million.
Now, please read aloud a segment from Xinhua News Agency’s 2016 report: A United Nations Security Council 2002 report accused the Ugandan company Saransen of training steel-shell-backed anti-government armed groups; but that did not hinder the company’s growth in Uganda. One of the founders is General Salim Salih, a senior Ugandan army officer; the current president is Li Museveni, his younger brother. Saransen provides about 3,000 jobs in Uganda, including bank and mall security. Yet the most coveted positions are in Somalia and Iraq, usually provided by multinational security firms such as SOC. Saransen as a subcontractor recruits over 500 conscripts to go to Iraq with SOC; monthly salary about $900.
Africa’s population is exploding, especially in Central Africa’s Great Lakes region, including Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania. These countries are modernizing, building business cities, to avoid collapse in competition. If a country needs to maintain backward agricultural communities to provide legitimacy and needs hereditary rule for stable power transfer, that country will gradually fall behind. So although it is now possible to grab gold abroad, and oil revenues may come in the next few years, I am not optimistic about Uganda’s ruling regime.
By the way, Uganda’s hereditary regime has an unexpected ally: India. In the 19th century, Britain’s strongest colonies were around the Indian Ocean; Britain brought large numbers of Indian workers to its colonies. Therefore Uganda’s official language includes English, and business resources are mostly controlled by Indian merchants. The former dictator Amin expelled Indians, but Museveni invited them back. India is thus willing to befriend Museveni’s regime and provide extensive support in various fields—for example, India provides Uganda with a military advisory group to train senior officers and maintain Uganda’s Su-30 fighters bought from Russia; India annually provides over 1,000 scholarships for Uganda to study in India; economically, India and Uganda have a local currency settlement agreement to bypass the dollar in business; politically, India never discusses Museveni’s election or his century-long question. But even with external support, Indians wouldn’t care about whether Uganda’s president is named Museveni or not. Whether the Museveni regime can stabilize depends on its ability to transform and adapt to the new era.
Today’s program introduces three countries: India, Nepal, Uganda. Their commonality is rapid urbanization and involvement in globalization and mass production. As long as educated, young people can secure modern positions, even rural youths can find urban opportunities. So the main demands of farmers, especially young farmers, have shifted from land distribution to entering cities for modern life. In the Maoist era, the movement relied on nationwide grassroots organizations to explain policies and gain support; with the internet, grassroots advantages are diminished. The traditional left’s class-struggle framework presupposed that everyone would stay in their modern classes and professions to vote. Earlier I mentioned that India’s left and Maoists jointly called on peasants to oppose EU free-trade agreements; this is an identity politics issue. But the new generation prioritizes leaving rural areas; they do not want to be defined by their fathers’ identities and thus can transcend present social identities. The old Maoists believed only party members—especially senior cadres—could betray their class; other people must fully accept identity politics.
This setup has failed in Nepal and India. Barrensa in Kathmandu, in terms of lineage, is an Indian immigrant to Nepal; he opposes Indian nationalism. Previously Maoists used grassroots votes in small districts; there was no way to criticize his identity. With Kathmandu’s suburbs, Nepal’s population is five million, less than one-sixth of Nepal’s total. Demographically, Nepal remains a place where rural encirclement of cities is possible. Barrensa can win Kathmandu but not the entire country.
But Nepal’s main economy is remittances. In 2025, total remittance was $4.8 billion, about one-tenth of GDP. This makes foreign exchange largely stable, even though the official remittance figure is about $10 billion. For most regions, a dollar of foreign currency income can be reinvested locally to sustain three to four times GDP. Moreover, Nepal has a sizeable agricultural sector. In proportion, many rely on remittances to sustain social consumption, similar to China’s agricultural regions; Nepal’s fiscal and financial stability is thus not as strong. Earlier we discussed Middle East issues: oil-rich countries hire Indian workers to reduce the burden on Indian workers and to avoid cultural similarity; Nepalese workers are also going to the Middle East. Now 40% of Nepal’s overseas workers go to the UAE. Also Nepal and India share visa-free travel. The $10 billion remittance figure overlooks the income Nepalese workers earn in India. UAE will not grant Nepalese citizenship, and India would not grant Nepalese too much power.
Therefore Nepal’s youth must settle domestically while working abroad and pay attention to domestic politics. This is like bringing foreign urbanization back to Nepal, causing Nepal’s agricultural society to rapidly disintegrate, creating a modern urban culture at a pace higher than the national economy.
Traditional Maoist and left-wing ideologies are outdated in urban cultural contexts. Barrensa’s governance experience in Kathmandu could radiate nationwide. In this parliamentary election Barrensa did not run in Kathmandu but in the rural Japa district of eastern Nepal. Oli of the Marxist-Leninist Party also contested this district. Barrensa won 68,000 votes; Oli only 19,000. The left’s reliance on traditional community identity politics in small districts was decisively broken by Barrensa. In the coming years Barrensa might not succeed, but Nepal’s Maoists and other traditional left parties have no future. So if India’s Maoist last leader seeks asylum in Nepal, the only thing he can do is write a memoir.
The rest of this transcript continues similarly, comparing Uganda’s and Nepal’s political trajectories, discussing remittances, urbanization, Maoist legacies, and the influence of external powers like India, China, and the United States. The overall theme emphasizes the impact of rapid urbanization and globalization on Maoist movements and traditional leftist politics across India, Nepal, and Uganda, arguing that these movements are losing influence as urban youth pursue modern life and identity politics becomes less relevant.
Today’s program mainly covers three countries’ political situations: India, Nepal, Uganda. Their commonality is rapid urbanization, involvement in global production, and the fact that educated youth can access modern professions, thereby shifting demands away from land distribution toward urban living. The Maoist movements in these countries have gained and lost power in different ways, but none has found a policy that can adapt to modern society, leading to a rapid decline in influence. Kathmandu’s mayor and Barrensa’s slum president in Kathmandu together challenge traditional Maoist regimes, illustrating that urban culture’s superiority over rural culture underpins these changes. I previously explained China’s late 1970s rural electrification and fertilizer-driven growth, which allowed tens of millions of rural youths to see modern society. Reaching this stage means that a society using fixed identity-based communes to restrict population mobility will inevitably disintegrate after Mao Zedong’s death. Since then, Maoist movements in several Third World countries attempted to adapt to agriculture-based societies, repeating Mao Zedong’s experiences and even achieving some success in the 21st century. However, in the stage of urbanization, Maoist regimes encounter common problems. If there are still people studying Mao Zedong’s works today, I hope they study not only the classical texts but also the common issues faced by all Maoist regimes. Thank you for watching. Episode 1033 ends here. See you Friday.
(First post here; more updates tomorrow.)