I must congratulate you for finally mentioning the big 'f' word, federal, in your editorial. ('Emergency surgery', #197). But what does this word mean in the Nepali context? Words have a habit of meaning different things to different people, more so with a word like 'federation'. I grew up in a democracy, the Panchayat democracy, single party democracy as it was called, where all Nepalis were said to be Panchas and all Panchas Nepalis. It was democracy of the Panchas, for the Panchas and called a democracy by the Panchas. The country has just been through another democracy, a multiparty democracy. A democracy of the parties, by the parties and unfortunately only for the parties. I witnessed a rally of a 'mainstream' political party that took place in Butwal last month. The crowd was pathetically small, even a snake charmer could amass more people. It seems most party leaders were ordered to attend other 'mass rallies' in Kathmandu, and the local population in Butwal, as in the capital Kathmandu, were just too far from this new fangled multiparty democracy to really participate. So what does this 'federal Nepal' mean? Instead of one distant ruler in Kathmandu, do we get a dozen distant rulers in the hitherlands? Could perhaps the political pundits (and you) explain the structure of this federal Nepal in more detail? I , for one, am not ready to buy a pig in a poke.

Kabindra Pradhan,
Butwal