There is no dispute about the current state of the political situation in the country. When the king himself says that the democratic process will return to the country within three years, this is a clear admittance of there being no democracy in the country now. But this is a situation that our constitution never envisaged or accepted.

The government has been formed under the chairmanship of the king. The government is in place, not just without the participation of political parties committed to democracy but also at a time when their leaders have been arrested and deprived of their basic rights. The 1990 constitution disregarded the principle allowing the king to take any step on his own judgment. The spirit of the 1990 People's Movement was that the people should be sovereign through their representatives, either good or bad. Sometimes, the people did end up selecting bad rulers. But to rule and decide the nation's fate is the people's work, not of bodies they did not elect.

The constitution recognises three kinds of kings: one who works in line with the recommendation of the council of ministers, one who looks after the affairs of the Narayanhiti Palace and one who works with the suggestions of the bodies outside the purview of the ministers' council but is within the constitutional domain. We need to accept that the people can rule through representatives. Such representatives are political parties. If their representatives do not perform well, they can refuse to re-elect them. What must also be understood is that the constitution does not allow the king to impose a state of emergency, it is for the council of ministers to take the decision. In the present context, the state of emergency was declared after the king sacked the Deuba government and before the new government was formed under his chairmanship. We can't move ahead without reactivating the constitution.

To do so, we need to establish the rights of the people, parties, press and other organisations. This applies to the people's freedom of movement, communication and rights to expression-not just the freedom of supportive expression but also the freedom to express opposition. These freedoms and rights stem from this very constitution and without returning to it Nepal's problems can't be solved.