I appreciate the cynicism with which Saubhagya Shah writes in his Guest Column ('Hyper Empire and Hindu Kingdom', #238) about the hegemony of powerful states and global institutions and the strategic rather than purely principled games they play with 'developing' states (such a polite euphemism). However, I'm still rather baffled by the implication of his claim that it doesn't matter which political agent comes to Nepal's rescue, so long as they can liberate the Nepali people from violence and fear. This is clearly intended to suggest that the king's assumption of power can do just this. I wonder if such a hopeful analysis can be sustained. One has to ask how dismantling the institution of democracy and its associated freedoms will assist in the conflict with an anti-democratic, totalitarian Maoist insurgency. There is a grave risk of giving advantage to the Maoists, both ideologically since all their claims about the nature of the 'regressive state' seem to have been realised, and practically, since so much of the RNA's human resources have been diverted away from its duties engaging with the Maoists? Unless the king knows something significant he's not telling us I'm at a loss to see a reasoned strategy behind what he claims to be doing.

P Lockwood,
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