Autumn in Nepal

The time is fastly approaching for my yearly trip to the Valley. The days are getting shorter here in Denmark, the rain stingier, the trees golden, good reasons to do like birds... fly South!
Alas the booking of flights for me and my friend Steen is difficult, and MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE than in the years past! It seems that one of the good things (the ONLY GOOD THING!) of the Maobadi Troubles is creation of vast Nepali Diaspora. And Nepalis, industrious and hard working and polite and reliable and trustworthy have MADE IT, both in the US, Australia and of course here in Europe!!! So of course they have bread to fly home for Dasain... Look at the composition of travellers to KTM in the airline departure lounges: nowadays 60-80% are Nepalis & Tibetans! so it came as no0 surprise that my - and Nepalis' too! - favorite airline THAI is fully booked out from Bangkok...

Justice and Embarrasment: Common Nepali reposes "Prachanda's" SUV

I love it: thief gets what he deserves!
I have, since my late, sage-like, grandmother opened my eyes at the stupid age of 14, been of the unshakable belief that socialism, in all it´s flavours:

• bolševik,
• nazi,
• soft social-democracy,

all of them is THEFT.
Basta!
So it warms my stone-cold heart and slakes my thirsty stuborn sense of justice to see the Head Thief gets his comeuppance:

from Telegraph Nepal: The Telegraph Weekly: VOL 24, NO:8, April:11-17, 2007: "

MISFORTUNE CHASES PRACHANDA

Misfortune is chasing the Communist Party Nepal-Maoist chief Prachanda perhaps. In a surprising event today Prachanda’s vehicle which he had been using for himself for quite a long time, has been forcibly captured by the one who claims himself to be the real owner of the vehicle. The owner of the vehicle claims that his vehicle was looted by the Maoists some months back along with some diamond jewelries and money as well. The owner of the said vehicle consoled himself when responsible organs of the state and those of the UN assured him that his vehicle will be handed over to him after the Maoist join the government. However, that was not forthcoming.
Fortunately, the same vehicle was spotted by the supposed owner today in Bagbazar area in Kathmandu. The owner of the vehicle recognized his property but found the government registration number changed. A minor scuffle occurred between the real and the fake claimants of the vehicle. The real owner somehow or the other took hold of his property as reported by Kantipur Television this evening.

Maoists in Singha Durbar.

Must take break from monitoring the Iran stand-off to shortly comment on the developments in Nepal.
Mark this day, whichever way the things turn, it's truly historic:

Chaitra 18th 2063B.S. / 2007-04-01C.E.

Preliminary portfolios (only 21 out 26 portfolios are known!) look like this:

Nepali Congress (5)

Girija Prasad Koirala Prime Minister and Defense Minister
Ram Chandra Poudel Minister for Peace and Reconstruction
Dr Ram Sharan Mahat Minister for Finance
Krishna Prasad Sitauala Minister for Home Affairs
Mahantha Thakur Minister for Science and Technology

CPN-UML (6)

Sahana Pradhan Minister for Foreign Affairs
Pradip Nepal Minister for Education and Sports
Chhabilal BK Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives
Ram Chandra Yadav Minister for General Administration
Prithvi Subba Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation, Ram Chandra Yadav
Mohan Singh Rathaur State Minister for Education and Sports

CPN-M (5)

Krishna Bahadur Mahara Minister for Information and Communication
Dev Gurung Minister for Local Development
Hisila Yami Minister for Physical Planning and Works
Matrika Yadav Minister for Soil Conservation
Khadka Badhadur BK Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare

NC-D (3)

Narendra Bikram Nemwang Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs
Ramesh Lekhak State Minister for Labour and Transport Management
Gyanendra Bahadur Karki State Minister for Water Resources

NSP-A (1)

Rajendra Mahato Minister for Commerce, Industry and Supply

ULF (1)

Jagat Bahadur Bogati Minister for Land Reforms and Management

Maoists got less than they bargained for, thanks Shiva!
The analogy I used earlier with Czechoslovakia in February 1948 is not valid here, I wonder if Girija read my posts and my warnings not to give, what the Russians call "siloviki" ministries ("power ministries) to the Maobadis: it was the control of Defence and Home ministries in my old country which gave Klement Gottwald the "tools" to harass, intimidate and ultimately JAIL the politicians of majority democratic parties! And then we "waited" for next free elections 43 years!!!
On the other hand Sitaula [Home] is wing-shot and "owes" Maoists a lot, and his effectiveness in these troubled, turbulent times is questionable.
People desperately want PEACE DIVIDEND, and one which is diametraly at odds with Prachanda's vision: they want LAW and ORDER, freedom fom maobadi extorters & enforcers and assorted thugs which push Nepal toward abyss. It's not YET failed state like Somalia or, closer to home, Pakistan, but the year-long inter-regnum brougth my beloved Nepal closer to that terrible chaos!

Forward to the Past, Comrades!

Proposal of curriculum of Maoist Education for 9-10 year old nepali children:

As if we need more evidence of the inhuman, more: STUPID intentions of MaoBadBoyz! With competences like "How to make and use guns, General introduction to explosives, grenades and booby-traps..." and the like, the children will be "REALLY" well-equiped to live and prosper in the global economy!

Or maybe the Jungali Fréres know a thing or two we mere mortals don´t have a clue about: maybe these competences will be in high demand in the uncertain future! And danish boys & girls will be poorly prepared with the nanny-state emphasis on "conflict resolution" from the age of 3!

Course	Year 4 (9 yrs old)	Year 5 (10 yrs old)
Philosophy (60 credit hours)	• Introduction to philosophy • The two classes: the exploited and the exploiters • Concept of two classes (a) consciousness and dialectical materialism (b) physical and mental labour (c) the known and the unknown	• Introduction to philosophy: identifying the classes of capitalists and workers, and feudal landlords and peasants • Concept of two classes. Physical and mental labour. Material/consciousness. Known/unknown. • Materialistic and idealistic philosophies • Introduction to materialistic philosophy: historical and dialectical materialism
Politics (40 hrs)	• Biography of Prachanda • Beginning of the People’s War • General introduction to human social development: the primitive stage, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society. • The constitution of village level People's Government, its rights and duties	• The life of Mao Tse-Tung • Biography of 4 ‘people’s war’ warriors • The Spartacus Revolt • the organization, rules and regulation, rights and duties of district people's councils
History (30 hrs)	• The history of the Communist movement in Nepal (foundation of Nepal Communist Party, its founders and beginning of the People’s War.) • Biography of Dil Bahadur Ramtel • The Dang attack	• History of Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) (From General Assembly of Unity to beginning of People’s War) • Biography of Mitramani Acharya • The Achham action
Economics (30 hrs)	• Definition of labour and wages • Introduction to types and importance of cooperatives • What is production and consumption? • Exchange and barter of goods	• Introduction to value, distribution, capital • What are the means of labour? • What are the weapons of labour? • Private and social ownership • Introduction to cooperatives • Types of cooperatives and production
Culture (20 hrs)	• The song ‘I will keep my country in my “eyes”’ • Poetry about Maoist martyrs • Children’s stories • General introduction to traditional festivals and people's festivals	• The song ‘Dear Jaljala’ • Biography and poetry by national and local poets • Short stories, science stories and children's stories • Types of culture: feudalism, imperialism, capitalism, Communism and socialism
Military science (20 hrs)	• Exercise and marching • What is roll call? • Information, counting soldiers, reporting about their conditions • Introduction to being a sentry • Introduction to homemade guns • Communication in the battlefield • Introduction to explosives and exchange of information • Introduction to war	• Important tips for sentries • Rules for route finding • Exercises and marching • How to make and use guns • General introduction to explosives, grenades and booby-traps • Student's role in military information and communication • How to guide soldiers. Roll call. • Types of war — justified and unjustified

Nepali Orphanages in 'children for sale' racket

F*%&king NGOs !

The greatest scourge of the country after the MaoBadBoyz and the Murdering Bus Drivers, and probably more destructive in the long run, are the estimated 15,000 NGOs scams!

Orphanages in 'children for sale' racket

By Thomas Bell in Kathmandu

Last Updated: 1:55am GMT 10/03/2007

Dishonest agents and orphanages in Nepal are running a multi-million-pound international adoption racket, frequently sending children abroad without their birth parents' consent.

	The child offered by the agent. The infant, with his mother, was not eligible for adoption as both parents are alive and not destitute

An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has uncovered the extent of the malpractice as Kathmandu prepares to host an international adoption conference this weekend, aimed at attracting foreign adoptive parents and lobbying for deregulation.

Posing as a British couple seeking to adopt, reporters found one agent who demanded cash advances in an attempt to, in effect, sell us a Nepali baby.

One victim of the trade is Padam Bahadur Shahi, 31, a forest guard from the remote Himalayan region of Humla. He had two children to support on a salary of £23 a month when his eldest son, Kobi Raj Shahi, then aged three, fell ill two years ago.

A friend told him that a children's home in Kathmandu would help him care for the child. "They promised education and well-being," he said. "There was no agreement about adoption."

Maoists continue to kidnap children!

Can leopard change his spots? Do Tibetans walk with thermoses? Is Pope catholic?

The hypocrit murderers bid their time to TOTALLY enslave nepalis. The terror continues, and the agreements signed with SPA (Seven-Party-Aliance) are just fig leaf for the tired, dying PM Koirala...

And this is the country Denmark paid billions (kroner, not rupees!) in the past 30-35 years. It went to such benign, human uses as financing education of these maoists - brahmin - leaders. Another crime to our NYBORG Tribunal for traitors from Anker J. to Svein A. to charge with. Not to forget the head idiot, Poul N. I hope I can live to that day and that I witness the crime in court.

What was built and achieved for this money? Besides the good lives of so called DANIDA experts? The only thing Nepal got from these billions are...

the MaoBadBoyz!

Father of missing Maoist recruit demands whereabouts of his ward

Kantipur Report

KATHMANDU, March 1 - Parents of a missing 13-year-old whom the Maoists had drafted in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have urged the concerned authorities and media to make an effort to publicize her whereabouts.

Father of the missing, Yubaraj Rai of Phedi VDC, Diktel has claimed that the Maoists had disappeared his daughter, Aashakala Rai, a student of Saraswati Higher Secondary School in Diktel to have her recruited in the PLA and urged the media and the concerned authorities to take initiatives for her safe return.

Rai, who is a 7th grader, has been missing since February 26.

After it emerged that their daughter had been taken by the Maoists to be recruited in the PLA, the father had gone to the Maoist party office in the district headquarters in hope of meeting his daughter there, only to be denied from meeting her.

Maoist party secretary Uttar Rai, meanwhile, maintained that the girl had joined the PLA by her own volition.

The Maoists, however, have not revealed details of her whereabouts to anyone.

The Royal Moustache

The Royal Moustache and Baluwataar Tea Pary

25 01 2007

Gyanendra, the ‘ousted’, rejected and ejected (any other words out there?) king, has sported the mustache, huh? Don’t dare to dismiss this as yet another Gyanendra bashing cheap joke but that was the talk of the town today after newspapers in Kathmandu came up with front page image of the monarch in question. Gyanendra with moustache? No serious answer was received though. Honestly, people in my circle hate to even pronounce the name Gyanendra, such is the intensity of hatred towards the monarchy that is on the verge of disappearing from Nepal. Or, so we like to think about! Anyway, moustache for Birendra, Gyanendra’s brother and the king till the palace massacre in 2001, seemed unmovable part of the facial structure. Birendra’s son Dipendra also used sport junga (and occasionally beard or daari). I don’t claim this is the first time I have seen Gyanendra with moustache but I think I don’t remember seeing him with mustache before. Paras occasionally sports junga but haven’t seen him with daari so far. Anyway, I don’t remember if seeing a dariwal Paras. Am I already giving 197 words to junga of Gyanendra, who according to news reports, have been removed from the bank notes?

On the serious note, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala today hosted a tea party for leaders of Seven Party Alliance and Maoist party in his residence in Baluwataar. Was that just a chiya party? No way, Koirala actually wanted to thrash Prachanda, the chairman of the Maoist party, for the latter’s irresponsible and deplorable behavior in Lahan, Siraha recently. Yes, telephone conversations between Koirala and Prachanda are taking place almost regularly but the chiya meeting was needed because something serious is happening in Siraha and other parts of Terai and that needs to be addressed collectively by the SPA and Maoist leadership. This is the chance to make something difference. There is no way you can ignore it and move ahead as if you are unaffected. That is exactly why these words came from Koirala, otherwise a hardliner, in today’s meeting:

“All of us have our right to speak and express our views as this is a nation which has unity in diversity. Therefore all our problems should be resolved through dialogue. So, I request the people of Madhes to resolve their problems through talks. If we tried to walk away from dialogue, the reactionary forces could rise and the nation could be in danger. The ‘regressive forces’ could take advantage of any protests for the time being.”

Koirala is right in his words and intentions. They are raising some valid issues but Goit, Jwala and Madhesi Peoples’ Rights Forum and a few other known/unknown groups are increasingly turning into the weapons of reactionary forces (who are sporting jungas and may be daaris) and Indian religious fundamentalists. I know what Maoists did in Lahan (fired upon a crowd) was deplorable but I think Prachanda must be taken seriously when he says “Hindu extremists are behind Terai unrest.” He said:

“A few days ago some Hindu followers had a gathering at Gorakhpur in India (bordering Nepal). Some elements, who were involved in terrorizing Madhes, also participated in the gathering, which has already been publicized in the media. These incidents (recent unrest) happened after that. Therefore some Hindu extremists, not through religious belief but acting as extremists and royalist forces, who are against the Constituent Assembly elections, are involved in the incidents.”

Unfortunately Prachanda didn’t feel responding to the question, at least publicly, why on Earth his —- cadres were roaming around armed in Lahan and killed the boy. -Wagle

For the record: Monitoring of Maoist arms management at Shaktikhor, Chitwan was halted abruptly on Tuesday (23 Jan) as a string of arguments arose between the UN team and Maoist cadres, Kantipur reports. Sources said the UN team refused to register those Maoist cadres who seemed to be of the ages of 12 to 15 – but the team was pressurized to register them as 18-year-olds – which gave rise to an argument, with the UN team ultimately deciding to stop the registration process. Maoist deputy commander Barsha Man Pun ‘Ananta’ confirmed the news and informed that from Wednesday (24 Jan) the registration process will resume.

Chitwan Bus Mishap: 15 dead

The murdering bus-drivers strike again! Been telling all these years that the bus-drivers were killing more Nepalis than the MaoBadBoyz...

Chitwan Bus Mishap: 15 dead; bodies of 6 Indians, 4 Nepalis identified

Binod Tripathi

KURINTAR, Chitwan, Feb 27 - At least 15 people were killed and 31 injured when a Birgunj bound bus from Kathmandu swerved off the road and plunged into the Trishuli river at the Prithvi Highway's Darechowk stretch in Chitwan Monday night.

The injured have been rushed to Kathmandu and Bharatpur and are undergoing treatment at the Bir Hospital in the capital and Bharatpur's Bharatpur Hospital and Medical College.

According to the injured, most of the travelers on the bus were Indian nationals.

The bus fell some 130 metres below the highway.

13 people died on the spot and two died while undergoing treatment.

Out of the injured brought to the Bir Hospital, nine have returned home after treatment. 12 are in critical condition.

The bus fell off the highway at around Monday midnight while the driver made an attempt to avoid a mentally retarded woman who was walking in the middle of the road, police said.

What´s there for us?

Our lovely dogs, Bhaire (r) and Shandi (l) checking out the bag Master brought from Bhaktpur. Lovely evening light marking the end of another glorious day in the Kathmandu Valley.
Steen took this nice shots Monday afternoon - see more on my ´picasaweb´!

Where are the guns?

Military expert raises eyebrows at Maoist weapon stats

Kantipur Report

KATHMANDU, Feb 24 - Military expert Dr Indrajit Rai on Saturday said that it was not as easy to believe the stats of the Maoist weapons that have been registered at the UN.

The United Nations Mission to Nepal (UNMIN) yesterday had made public that the UN had registered 30,852 PLA combatants and 3,428 weapons from the cantonments across the country.

Rai said that the number of weapons registered at the UN is far less than the number of Maoist combatants registered and the situation arose because "one man, one weapon" principle was not adopted while registering the PLA fighters.

Stating that the negotiators too failed at some critical points, expert Rai said that he had a slight inkling of this situation when it was decided that registration of those fighters also would be done who did not have weapons.

"There could have been 10-12,000 weapons and I had thought half of those would be registered. Even that figure did not come," said Rai.

---

The missing 10,000 GOOD weapons, not the wrecks in the white containers, are hidden, most probably within walking dinstance of the Valley. The UN, as in Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Lebanon - pick your favorite failed state - facilitates genocide, rape, theft and bullying. All citizens of these enitities have to fear when UN takes over... Ask the Rwandans, Darfurians... poor Nepal!

Monarchy in Existential Crisis

Rabin Chitrakar laments the decay and chaos of post-monarchy Nepal:
Everyone is playing their own trumpets and expects others to listen to none other but them.

We all have preferences. Some of us want change NOW. Others want it the RIGHT WAY. Yet others wish neither happened.

Whatever the choices, the bloodshed in the past decade has forced our leaders to work for peace. And a peace process is in place. Unfortunately, there are some roadblocks to a sustainable peace.
I am not a die-hard supporter of any party, or the king, for that matter. But I believe in a just society, in an inclusive society. Equality, at least in theory, is such an enchanting idea, but no society is equal. We create hierarchies of all sorts intentionally or unintentionally. Equality, whether it is emanating from a king's wishes or from the Maoists' decree, cannot replace fairness and justice, which is so scarce these days in Nepal. Everyone is playing their own trumpets and expects others to listen to none other but them.

After the Maoist insurgency that killed around 15,000 people, the country was in a great chaos. The parties were unable to solve the problem. The five years term of the Parliament was over. The then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba could not conduct general election on time. He recommended the king for dissolution of the house and prolongation of the general election for the second time by six months by applying article 127 of the constitution. His government was dissolved by the king on the charge of incompetence. The King made three consecutive governments under Lokendra Bahadur Chand, Surya Bahadur Thapa and again Sher Bahadur Deuba. Some parties, including United Marxist and Leninist (UML) took the appointment of Deuba as the Prime Minister again as a correction of the king’s earlier steps and hence joined the government.

However, Nepali Congress (NC) continued to demand the restoration of the House. Deuba's government again could not hold general election at the given time. On Feb. 1st, 2005, the king dismissed the existing coalition government of Deuba again on the same charge and formed a new cabinet under his own chairmanship asking for three years of time. Political parties did not support his action. All the parties joined hands with NC's unconditional demand. The king held municipal elections as the preparation for the general election. But most of the parties did not take part in the polls. So the king also could not bring relative peace, the unconditional demand of Nepalis. He could not resist the pressure of the parties. He restored the dissolved lower House in April 2006.

The parties took the proclamation as their victory over the king who was the chief of the national army. The lower house was restored from the provision of the constitution. But surprisingly, and immediately, the whole constitution was paralyzed. It has been abolished with the interim constitution declared on January 16, 2007. The proclamation has victimized the proclaimer himself. All the powers of the king have been snatched. He is in a state of abduction. Increasingly, it looks like the constitutional assembly is going to abolish the very institution of monarchy in Nepal.

The parties were successful in forcing the king to restore the house mainly because of the support of the Maoist party.

So what do we have now? We now have a Nepal divided into anti-royalists, liberal royalists and neutrals. The only difference is the former have the freedom to do what they please and the latter have been denied any voice. The peace process is so fragile that the Maoists continue their decree, and they continue to kidnap and abduct and extort people whenever they please. In remote districts people continue to pay taxes to both the Maoists and the government.

America may have declared its war on terror. But in Nepal the Maoists, in alliance with other political parties, have declared their war on Monarchy. All of a sudden, after April 2006, anything monarchical has become anathema in our national discourse. The object of hatred used to be Maoists. Now it is monarchy and monarchical elements. We have merely shifted the gears. We have not learned much from past experiences.

Another existential crisis
In the name of democracy, the parties have recruited and appointed MPs, without elections of any short. On the other hand, royalist parties and their representatives have been boycotted. There is no freedom for pro-monarchical constituencies. In December 2006, a mob disrupted a national convention of one of the pro-palace parties in Pokhara. It did not end there. A group of Maoists attacked the party members who were on their way to the Prime Minister's residence to submit a memorandum against that disruption. The Maoists’ intention has been to abolish monarchy no matter what. Can we, then, expect a free and fair constitutional election under such circumstance?

Talking about fairness, this whole problem started because of a general lack of it. The Maoists' began to demand more inclusiveness, paradoxically, with the start of democracy in 1990. The Maoist insurgency started, to my mind, because of huge corruption, injustice, misuse of power and power riddle in our governments. Before the start of the insurgency, the rebels had submitted a 42-point demand. Subsequent governments ignored their demands, and helped fuel the war. We lost peace.

There is no doubt that peace is terribly needed now. But, as a free-minded person, I see that the peace process does not look genuine. A few years ago, only the king and democratic alliance used to be taken as the two major political forces. Now every Nepali may have realized that it is merely because of the existential crisis of the Maoists that we now have a peace process. Had they been taken as one of the important political forces early on, possibly Nepal, the birthplace of the Buddha, would not have to suffer such a shameful and bloody war. Because of their destructively witty and bold decision, the Maoists have now compelled every one to take them as one of the important political forces.

Now the king has been removed from the list. As once Maoists were minimized, now the monarchy is minimized. Because of personalistic egos of political leaders and the king, our institutions are suffering. We may blame monarchy for backwardness, and monarchy as an institution may be a thing of the past for many countries, but there are still scores of advanced countries with monarchies. Take for example, England or Japan. I think Nepal's monarchy has been blamed unfairly. In fact, except for the Panchyat era, the country's monarchy has been abused by others. The Shah kings have been subjugated over the centuries by courtiers and bhardars. After the unification of the country by Prithvinarayan Shah, the true rulers of the kingdoms were the Thapa and the Pandey mukhtiyars. The rise of the army officer Bir Narsingh Kunwar (Junga Bahadur Rana, a maternal grandson of the famous Bhimsen Thapa) as a premier in 1846, and the 104-year Rana dictatorship left little room for the Shah kings to directly exercise their powers. The Pachayat era is an exception. Now monarchy of Nepal has again become an easy prey because it has become vulnerable.

King Gyanendra should not be turned into a scapegoat more than he deserves. Monarchy and a monarch are not always synonymous. True, an institution is different from an individual. To the fair discerning eyes it seemed that king Gyanandra tried to shift the quarrelsome democracy to a peaceful democracy. Constitutionally, he was merely acting like a president, as they do in other countries during times of crisis. In some states of India, there is presidential rule most of the time. Since the Lower House of Nepal appealed the king to apply article 127 of the constitution, the article of last resort and of conscience, and since the governments were unable to settle the Maoist crisis (instead, they were fighting one another) he tried to resolve the crisis in his own accord, though unsuccessfully. For hundreds of times (if not more) he told the national and international community that he is committed to democracy and constitutional monarchy and he asked only for three years' time. But we know what happened thereafter: The parties played revenge politics and did not listen to him. They boycotted elections (although the Terai region saw 70 percent participation in the municipal polls), and went to the streets. After the movement of April 2006, they went further and suspended monarchy itself.

Monarchy’s future
We all know we are not talking here about a monarchy that committed genocide or mass murders or anything like. The Rayamajhi Commission is not about such things, but does record atrocities against pro-democracy protestors and the killing of a score of demonstrators. Killing of even a single person is certainly unacceptable and it would have been far better had the king stepped down earlier. And, at the same time, we should not forget the much horrible atrocities committed by Maoists and government forces in the past decade. Moreover, even in last month's Terai protest, 31 people were killed by the government side. It may be tempting to find a master evil face in the king to explain the unexplainable in Nepal. But there are several such faces in Nepal and not just one.

We must not forget, particularly during these times of transition, that the institution of monarchy alone does not deserve all the blame for the Nepali ills. The political parties are also responsible to some extent for the mess as they created a background for the king's recent actions. The parties politicized every organization, including the academia. As an example, the executive heads of all the universities were forced to leave their offices following the new political developments in April 2006. All the posts still remain vacant. The government is not in a position to fill out the posts as they have a conflict in the division of the posts. Even for a promotion of staff of any office one should have political links. Cronyism is deeply entrenched in our bureaucracy. Influential party workers and governmental staff members are transferred to 'good offices' that are more lucrative, i.e. where corruption is possible. Corruption has become open.

What I see in the present efforts of the parties for abolishing the monarchy is that they are trying to hide their faults by blaming the king for all their misdeeds. The peace process has totally disregarded monarchy. What is the wisdom, for example, behind the criticisms against Girija Prasad Koirala for his saying that in a democracy everyone, including the King, must be given a space? We say we are for a non-violent change and for an inclusive democracy but we don’t even tolerate an institution that is the very foundation of our nationhood. We have become a society of bigots.

Many people in this country still believe in monarchy, at least a monarchy without state powers. But who is listening to their voices? This institution, for many, is symbolic of national unity. The Hindus of pre-dominantly Hindu country as well as millions of Hindus in neighboring India identify with Nepal’s monarchy.

Now the interim constitution has been declared, and it is a positive step for democracy. But democracy is based on popular aspirations, not on parliamentary declarations by unelected representatives. Do the majority Hindus of Nepal truly want a secular Nepal? Isn’t Hinduism itself a secular religion? Is that declaration based on popular consensus? The root cause of discord and backwardness are not monarchy or Hinduism. Nepal's immediate foes are corruption, injustice, inequality and lawlessness. If these are in order, there will be peace and development, no matter what type of system it is.

A change of system does not ensure a new Nepal. We need a new culture of individual responsibility where justice and fairness are the norms of daily life. And where rule of law reigns supreme. If a farmer goes to market to sell potatoes, for instance, he should be confident that he can sell them and return home safely. Unfortunately, this is not the case even after ten months of peace deal. Today even the police don’t bother to investigate cases of murder and torture. I have myself witnessed such cases in the hands of the police.

What puzzles me is that there is total public shunning of all things monarchical, despite the fact that there are millions of supporters of monarchy as well as other marginalized groups in the country. How long will this “spiral of silence” continue? At what cost? These people don’t get any floor to express their views. Every institution, even the news media, are overtly partisan and highly politicized. They have nothing positive to talk about monarchy. They are not fair and balanced. There is very little reporting on the significance of monarchy in our history.

We can expect little from political parties, whose history is a history of internal feuds. Their fruitless feuds helped the Maoist cause and their nationalistic slogans became louder and louder, as evidenced in the protest of Mahakali hydroelectricity and irrigation treaty with India.

A truly nationalist party, however, works for national unity and integrity, culture and democracy and against corruption, injustice, inequality and lawlessness for a rapid development of the nation, which would provide people the things of immediate need like electricity, water, communication and food for a reasonable price and make people feel secured. That would help bring peace. Peace is possible through inclusive democracy, not from separation or difference. And this is the will of the international community as well. But instead of securing peace and making it sustainable in this way the parties are again creating existential crisis.

There is no talk of national unity and integrity anymore. Peace cannot be secured even if monarchy is wiped out. The crisis in the Terai is an example. Becoming a republic does not ensure peace and development. Look at India, for instance. It is often wreaked by terrorist attacks. But I think there is relative peace under monarchy in many countries, not out of the terror of the kings but because the institution provides a sense of unity to the country. We should learn something from history. After king Norodom Sihanouk left the throne in 1972, the communist dictator Pol Pot killed between 1 to 3 million people within eight years of his rule. True, we are not another Sikkim. But our leaders, including the Maoist head Prachanda, dance to the tune of New Delhi.

A radical democracy may reject monarchy all together. But I believe most Nepalis are moderates. And they want a total renewal of their political system, but not at the cost of traditional assets. True, democracy must be able to retain the good aspects of the traditions. And Nepal’s monarchy certainly has some positive features. It epitomizes several millennia of our past stretching to the times of Balmiki and Vedbyas. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala may be right to say that some room should be given also to the monarchy. The existential problem of Maoists is being settled. What about monarchy’s existence? King Gyanendra restored the house only to be wiped out?

Previously kings exercised unlimited powers, and considered such powers as divinely given. In the constitutional monarchy, political parties began to act as if they were almighty. In a true democracy, no body is almighty. No matter what, justice should play vital role in this matter.

Therefore, it may be good to rethink on the agenda of doing away with monarchy altogether. And most important, if the king has to show his popularity at all, it should be done through free and fair referendum, not through the first meeting of the pre-planned constituent assembly.