Our comrades are convinced that they have mass support, that their goal is so pure it must have the unquestioning support for the aim and method. But you don't have the mass with you if you rely on the support of people who are too afraid to oppose you. Deserted streets do not signify the success of a "bandh", it shows that a fear psychosis is rife. We know from other revolutions that support borne out of fear never lasts. Especially when revolutions go the way of most revolutions and implode from an internalised culture of violence and elimination of opponents.

Ignoring mass support and public opinion, therefore, is the easiest way for Nepal's Maoists to lose their early populist base. And the best indication of a political force that doesn't care for public opinion is one that wants to shut down the country for five days, the one that destroys a hydropower plant that electrifies its own "base area", destroys telecommunication towers, blows up highway bridges, burns down an agricultural extension training centre, closes down schools.

This revolution has drifted a long way away from what Mao Zedong thought would work. That is probably why Chinese state media, Radio Beijing, or Xinhua never say "Maoists" to describe our comrades in news bulletins. The Chinese call them simply: "anti-government forces".