You can easily wake up people who are asleep. But it is more difficult to wake up someone pretending to sleep. We are still in denial: because we think the plausible is not possible. Numbed by shock, starved of facts, we just don't want to believe the awful truth. Our hunger for credible information is incredible. But there we have it: this was not a crime of ambition, it was a crime of passion. Helped along by mind-altering chemicals, a fatal fetish for firearms, an unbending and unreasonble family, an attachment so consuming that everything-even the kingdom-was secondary. (A circular etymological reality brings us back to square one: the word "assassin" is derived via Medieval Latin and French from the Arabic "hashsashin", someone who smokes hashish).
The Keshab Prasad Upadhaya probe committee report put a lot of doubts to rest about the question of responsibility. By Nepali standards, and given the limited time frame, this was a remarkably thorough job. But because it was raw, there was often contradictory information, there were bound to be holes. The rambling, unedited testimonies are rich in imprecise trivia (red sari, black substance) and poor in vital details. Why were post mortems not carried out, was Dipendra's blood tested for narcotics and alcohol? If not, why not? Besides, motive was not in the probe panel's terms of reference.
To put these questions to rest and to bolster the facts we know to be true, the government, the palace and parliament must get the ball rolling on a long-term, all-encompassing and independent commission of inquiry with wider terms of reference. These must include a test of the existing frozen plasma sample to determine the nature of the narcotics, if any, in it. It must examine the then Crown Prince's medical and psychological past, whether or not he was on anti-depressants and what type of narcotics he had taken, there must be a thorough forensic and ballistic re-examination of the evidence, a probe into possible motive(s).
One investigation is not enough. There will be a tendency to brush awkward royal secrets under the carpet, to keep princely peccadilloes under wraps. But the need to find the absolute truth about what happened at Narayanhiti on the night of 1 June is not just a royal matter anymore-this kingdom's future is tied up with it. No doubt, an investigation on this scale cannot be done in three days or a week. It may even take a year. And despite that the case will not completely close. But another, more comprehensive, investigation of this type will satisfy a lot more people. Theories of imperialist plots and masked gunmen will endure. Like those who think Elvis is still alive and those who think that Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent, conspiracists will always be among us.
As for the rest of us: let us now at least pretend to be awake.
