Baburam Bhattarai was right to point out the superficial ways of our political leaders. Just as he stated in his letter, we see a dearth of real thinkers in politics. In fact, even BP's followers have forgotten his philosophy on social transformation. They need to understand the difficulties that BP faced and what he chose to do.

Bhattarai's letter has raised hopes. Like he said, in the past, queens were all-powerful. Then came Jang Bahadur Rana. In 1950, the Ranas were overthrown. In 1990 Ganeshman Singh emerged a political giant. Today, when someone is fighting for the people, why should he be stopped? Can we expect the country to achieve peace through the respect Bhattarai has shown for BP's philosophy?

Basu Jamarkattel

In his letter, Baburam Bhattarai has mentioned Gautam Buddha. It does not sound right coming from Bhattarai. Buddha never resorted to guns to impose the thought of relative materialism.

Bhattarai regards Buddha's philosophies as scientific while he resurrects the characters of Nadir Shah and Genghis Khan.

Using various excuses, Bhattarai went into the jungle and took up arms. In Buddha's country, where you can have a peaceful movement, what meaning does violence have? Buddha was a revolutionary figure. He was an atheist who dismissed the caste system. But as soon as Bhattarai had a chance, he took his parents on a pilgrimage to Manakamana. Bhattarai must know that because of Buddha's stance against the caste system and the existence of god, Buddhism emerged as a strong movement for social change. That was the reason Vedic priests boycotted Buddha in many villages and barred them from giving him alms. Buddha's favourite disciple, Maudgalyayan, was hacked to death with his head crushed. Yet Buddha did not call for revenge and instead preached peace, equality and non-violence.

Ramcharan Yadav