Red is the Colour of Spring

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              "text": "Junmaya Nepali, Thawang, Rolpa. 20 October 2019. Junmaya, a poet who served on the Maoists’ Dalit Area Committee, recalled wandering through the forest with her children for almost a month, eluding the government army. Junmaya is mostly relieved that the war is over, but still believes revolution is necessary, even inevitable. “It’s for the future of our children,” she said. “We have to fight.”",
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              "text": "Comrade Pratirodh, Kathmandu. 26 February 2020. Bhim Bahadur Roka, also known as Comrade Pratirodh, was a soldier in the People’s Liberation Army. He was involved in many battles and became a commander of various ranks, and lost a younger brother, a brother in-law and four vice-commanders during the war. “Had I not been a communist, many people around my village wouldn’t have followed,” he said. Looking at the state of the country and the party, he felt “sad and responsible for the deaths of many soldiers like me.” Having lived through the war and seen so many others die, he opened a home in Kathmandu for the children of PLA fighters who had been killed. He is still proud that he was part of a historic movement.",
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              "text": "Maoist leaflet. On 13 February 1996, Maoists attacked a police post in Holleri, Rolpa. This was one of three coordinated attacks that signalled the beginning of Nepal’s decade-long civil war. Having captured a few weapons, they left shouting slogans and distributing copies of this leaflet. It reads, “March along the path of People’s War to smash the reactionary state and establish a new democratic state.”",
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              "text": "Unfinished monument, Holleri, Rolpa. 15 October 2019. This memorial, still under construction, stands at the site of the police station attacked by Maoist fighters on 13 February 1996. It was attacked again on 12 July 2001, when one police officer was killed and 70 were captured, to be released three months later.",
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              "text": "Mural, Mahat, Rukum. October 20, 2019. This mural depicts the Maoists’ capture of Thule Rai, then the area’s deputy superintendent of police, on 22 September 1999. He was later released in exchange for a top Maoist leader, Dev Gurung, who was in police custody.",
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              "text": "Tara and Ramkali Khadka, Pokhari, Rukum. 22 October 2019. Ramkali’s husband, Laxmi Khadka, a farmer, was shot dead by police near his house on 22 February 2000. The police shot 14 others and set fire to around seventy houses in the area that day. Tara was born to Ramkali three months later.",
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              "text": "Video still of Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, and Babu Ram Bhattarai. This image from the CPN(M)’s Chunbang convention shows Dahal and Bhattarai, the party’s two top leaders, attending a performance of the opera “",
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              "text": "Yuddha Morchabata Farkada",
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              "text": "Plank left to dry, Chunbang, Rukum. 22 February 2020. This was the site where the opera “Returning from the Battlefield” was performed for the Maoist cadre and leadership after the Chunbang convention. The CPN(M) central committee agreed at the convention to combine forces with an alliance of mainstream political parties that had turned against the monarchy. This led to the People’s Movement of 2006, which restored parliament and paved the way to peace.",
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              "text": "Hammer and sickle, Thawang, Rolpa. 20 October 2019.",
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              "text": "Jhankar Buda Magar, Chunbang, Rukum. 22 February 2020. A musician and a member of the CPN(M)’s cultural wing, he performed at the Chunbang convention. He said party leaders used musicians for their gain during the war and cast them aside once they were in power.",
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              "text": "Guna Bahadur BK, Jaljala, Rolpa. 18 February 2020. Guna Bahadur BK, from Thabang, belongs to a caste traditionally considered untouchable. He was not involved with the Maoists but was forcibly taken to various party events, sometimes walking for days to get there. On one such trip, he recalled, “I was assigned a Brahmin house to spend the night. They asked us what caste I was and I said Dalit. They said I couldn’t enter because I was an untouchable and their house would be impure if I entered. I forced my way in. I told them we were fighting against exactly the same thing, caste discrimination.”",
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              "text": "Smoke above Kankri, Rukum. 23 October 2019. The PLA had a technical wing responsible for the manufacture and maintenance of weapons and explosives. They often operated from mobile workshops in the forests. Comrade Suman recalled, “These trees were our protection, and we protected them in turn. Guerrilla warfare happens in the forests, so they were very precious to us. They must be giving us the lal salaam as we walk past them.”",
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              "text": "Martyr’s Road, Rolpa. 16 October 2019. The Martyr’s Road, connecting Nuwagaun to Thawang, was one of the Maoists’ most ambitious projects. It was built with mandatory contributions of labour and cash from families in Rolpa and neighbouring districts.",
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              "text": "Chaitor Bahadur and Gaumala Pun Magar, Harjang, Rolpa. 16 February 2020. Gaumala’s husband, Aibhan Pun, attended a meeting of one of the CPN(M)’s rival parties in Harjang, Rolpa, on 11 March 1999. Maoists locked the house where the meeting took place and set fire to it. Seven people were burnt alive, and Aibhan was shot dead while trying to escape. For Gaumala, the saddest part is that Chaitor, her son, does not even remember his father. Chaitor was only two years old at the time. His brother Nim Bahadur joined the police to avenge their father’s murder.",
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              "text": "Mural of five communist icons, Thabang, Rolpa. 19 October 2019. This mural adorns the main entrance to Thabang, a hotbed of the communist movement in Nepal even before the war began. The area’s rebellious nature prompted numerous state crackdowns, including offensives such as Operation Romeo in 1995 and Operation Kilo Sierra 2 in 1998.",
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              "text": "Comrade Suman, Rajya Pokhari, Rolpa. 15 February 2020. Devendra Gharti Magar, also known as Comrade Suman, was a soldier in the PLA. He recounted that he was wounded so badly during the battle of Gam, on 7 May 2002, that his fellow soldiers thought he had died. He survived and was taken for surgery to Lucknow, he said, where he was nearly caught by Indian police. Once back in Nepal, he went on fighting and was wounded multiple times again— he claimed he had taken some twenty bullets in all. His left side is immobile.",
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              "text": "Comrade Suman’s phone, Lisne Lek, Rolpa. 15 February 2020. Comrade Suman shows an old photo of himself in the PLA.",
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              "text": "Weaving hemp, Rachibang, Rolpa. 19 October 2019. Cannabis is one of the most common crops in Rolpa and Rukum. Nothing of the plant is wasted: the leaves, flowers and fruit are harvested to produce hashish and marijuana, oil is pressed from the seeds for use in for cooking and as medicine, and the stems are processed to extract fibre for thread. Experts argue that if cannabis was fully legalised in Nepal, it would greatly profit impoverished and remote districts such as Rolpa and Rukum.",
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              "text": "Nandakali’s hands, Kural, Rukum. 22 October 2019. Nandakali Oli was the only person to witness the murder of five people at the hands of the police on 22 February 2000. The police also shot ten others and set fire to around 70 houses in the area that day. They were on a rampage after one of their officers was killed nearby by the Maoists that morning. The five people murdered were members of the Nepali Congress, the ruling party at the time. Nandakali remembered the police saying as they left, “It’ll be a lot of fun today in this village.”",
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              "text": "Teja Bista Chhetri, Sulichaur, Rolpa. 17 February 2020. During the Chhetri, she was affiliated to the Nepali Congress, which held power through part of the conflict. She had been against the war from the day it started. “They call it the people’s war, but in reality it was an armed conflict,” she said.",
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              "text": "Execution site, Topi Falna Danda, Rolpa. 15 February 2020. Cham Bahadur Thapa, his son Ujar Man and Chane Mahara were shot dead and burnt by the police at this place on 11 December 1998. All residents of Tebang, Rolpa, they were suspected of having information on the Maoists, although they were not affiliated to the party. It was Ujar’s wedding day.",
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              "text": "Comrade Lal, Thawang, Rolpa. 19 February 2020. Man Prasad Buda, also known as Comrade Lal, was affiliated to the communist movement since 1977. From his start in student unions, he eventually rose to the position of a political commissar. When he joined the Maoists, he was responsible for forming affiliated organisations around Rolpa and was involved in the “schooling department,” which taught ideology to PLA soldiers and the general masses. Now he repents: “If the war that was so close to being won can be demolished like this, what use is a revolution?”",
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              "text": "Remnants of a ritual sacrifice, Liwang, Rolpa. 17 October 2019.",
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              "text": "Ramkirne Roka, Gobang, Rolpa. 19 October 2019. Ramkirne Roka is now the vice- chairperson of Thawang Rural Municipality. She was involved with various Maoist-affiliated organisations and actively promoted the party during the war. Her sister Jovansari Roka, a PLA fighter, was killed after her gun misfired.",
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        {
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          "content": [
            {
              "text": "Rajya Pokhari, Rolpa. 15 February 2020. Gyan Bahadur Roka Magar’s body was discovered in this place on 31 October 1998. He was abducted by the police the previous evening while working his field.",
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          "content": [
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              "text": "Comrade Syaula, Thawang, Rolpa. 19 October 2019. Lap Bahadur Roka, also known as Comrade Syaula, was working in the kitchen in Chalabang, Rolpa, on 20 August 2002, as PLA leaders planned an attack for a few days later. The army surrounded them, and a battle ensued. He was wounded and had to have his arm amputated. Disappointed by the direction the party is now heading, he said, “They aren’t real communists, we know now. I think they are communists controlled by imperialist forces.”",
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              "text": "Gyan Bahadur Roka Magar’s grandson carrying the communist flag, Rajya Pokhari, Rolpa. 14 February 2020. More than two decades after Gyan Bahadur was abducted by the police and found dead, his family still waits for justice. The deal that ended the war promised accountability for wartime crimes, but that hope has been reduced to an empty dream.",
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            {
              "text": "Rest stop, Jhyalanga, Rukum. 22 October 2019. The PLA attacked the army camp at Khara twice and was badly defeated both times. This was the way they used to approach the camp, located atop the opposite hill.",
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          "content": [
            {
              "text": "Rhododendron, Putalichaur, Rolpa. 22 February 2020. “Hot-Blooded Vengeance,” a poem by Junmaya Nepali, reads, “Like the rhododendron adorning spring/ You adorned the battlefield/ Martyring yourself for the freedom of your country and your people.”",
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You fought valiantly, comrade,
Sacrificing yourself for the country.
Your blood, now,
Paints the spring red.
– Junmaya Nepali, “Hot-Blooded Vengeance”

For most of my childhood, an old photograph hung on the walls of my grandparents’ living room in Kathmandu. The photograph was of our great grandfather—at least that is what we kids were told. It was only after it was taken down that I found out that the man in it was actually Joseph Stalin, whom my grandfather, a staunch communist in those days, had idolised.

The discovery that it had been Stalin staring down at us all those years coincided with my political awakening. For most of the early days of Nepal’s civil war, in the late 1990s, I had been shielded from what was unfolding in the country. Living in Kathmandu, far from the areas where the fighting was concentrated, there had been only whispers back then: two police officers killed in an ambush, seven villagers shot dead on suspicion of being Maoists. In 2001, after the Maoists attacked a Royal Nepalese Army barracks and killed numerous high-level government officials, the king declared a state of emergency. Now the conflict exploded into everyone’s consciousness—including mine—with more frequent and unavoidable news of attacks, climbing death tolls and curtailed civil rights.