The April Uprising: How a Nonviolent Struggle Explains the Transformation of Armed Conflict in Nepal

Abstract

A plethora of literature explains how armed conflicts terminate in nonviolent political settlements. However, little is known about how and why nonviolence functions as a mechanism of conflict transformation. Using the case study of the 2006 April Uprising (Jana Andolan II) in Nepal, this paper shows how the nonviolent struggle was a vehicle for the termination of the armed conflict that ravaged the country for a decade (1996–2006). The collaboration between the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) and the Communist Party of Nepal Maoist (CPNM), erstwhile enemies, led to nonviolent collective action, driven by the convergence of interests of these two key actors towards fighting a common enemy: the royal Palace. The paper argues that the nonviolent struggle also transformed strategies, attitudes and behaviour of key actors, including the CPNM, which ultimately transformed conflict issues into peace issues and induced structural changes in the long run. Thus the processes of actor transformation, issue transformation and structural transformation catalysed by the April Uprising explain why and how the nonviolent struggle functioned as a catalyst for the termination of the armed conflict.