Death – a concept of ‘martyrology’: references from Maoists people’s war in Nepal

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the post-conflict Nepali society, death is discussed in subjective terms. The Maoists equated death with sacrifice. The dead person was seen as a sacrificing revolutionary and the dead was discussed in the pretext of a political and social movement. Consequently, while the security forces used the notion of death to protect the nation state, the Maoist revolutionary used it to defeat the existing power structures, the reactionary and feudal forces. In this paper, while drawing from ethnography carried out during 2009–2010 and a followup in 2018 in Nepal, I explore various narratives that seek to frame death as a concept of ‘martyrology’ - liberation from socio-cultural and political inequality. Martyrdom occupy a significant place in the Maoist revolutionary ideology Death – mrytu is exalted as ‘the image’ that revolutionaries adhere to, as a by-product of the process of revolution and to place oneself in a category of the self-actualised being. The Maoists framed this within the ideology of ‘martyrology’ where death and destruction were seen as creative strategies for revolution to continue and dying for social cause was a means to self-actualisation. Death during Maoists conflict was thus argued meaningful in terms of political martyrdom.