From civilian to combatant: armed recruitment and participation in the Maoist conflict in Nepal

Abstract

Although combatants played a vital role in the People's War (PW) waged by the Maoists in Nepal, there is a dearth of knowledge about what motivated or compelled people to join the war, as well as what made the Maoists so successful in recruiting and mobilising committed insurgents. Engaging with these questions, this paper aims to understand the causes and drivers of combatant recruitment in the PW. The existing literature demonstrates that armed recruitment and participation in conflict is a phenomenon driven by structural and environmental factors in addition to other conditions, including class-based oppression as well as caste and ethnic grievances. This study, however, contends that in the Nepalese context, while such structural inequalities and disparities created favourable conditions for the PW to escalate, these factors alone cannot sufficiently explain: (a) how and in what ways the Maoists radicalised people or coerced them into becoming combatants and (b) what role the insurgent organisation and the state played in the recruitment dynamics. It argues that an understanding of armed recruitment and participation in the PW should also take into account certain mobilising factors, such as the Maoists' ideology and radicalisation campaigns. Furthermore, it situates the recruitment of combatants within the security paradigm and establishes that the insecurity and violence, caused by both the insurgent organisation and the state, explain voluntary as well as involuntary modes of armed recruitment in the PW.