PRASHANT JHA

In Nepali there is a saying about elephants having tusks outside for show and the real chewing teeth hidden inside the mouth ('Dekhaune dant ra chapaune dant'). Dahal in Delhi showed off his tusks, his pragmatic side. He waxed eloquent about democracy, the free market and his vision for rapid investment-led economic growth in Nepal.

Not everyone was convinced. Least of all the CEOs of Unilever and Dabur whose manufacturing bases in Nepal are the targets of chronic stoppages by militant unions affiliated to the Maoists. In private meetings with leaders, our prime minister was quizzed on his commitment to consensus-building with other parties. Dahal was in his best behaviour, being Mr Pragmatism himself. But the message he got was: we like what you say but we will be watching what you do.

And so will we here in Nepal. On Sunday, before flying off to Delhi the prime minister gave us a glimpse of his molars. He went into a long-winded explanation in front of the Constituent Assembly of socialism and his party's ultimate goal of communism and how he had no faith in "traditional parliamentary democracy". In fact, looking back at the records, Dahal has never really used the words "parliament" or "democracy" in the same sentence in the past two years. Instead, he has always alluded to "multi-party competition".

And speaking to Indian leftist groups in Delhi on Tuesday, Dahal said his party's real goal was "janatantra" and not "ganatantra". There you have it: the goal has been a "people's republic" all along.

It is no coincidence that on the very day that Dahal was replying to comments from assembly members on his government's policies and programs, his hardline party boss Mohan Baidya had also spilled out his totalitarian value system. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, the comrade went as far as to declare that parliamentary democracy had been "a failure almost everywhere in the world".

It is now clear whose line the prime minister is parroting: his mentor Baidya whose reading of history we have always known is lopsided. Parliamentary democracy is flourishing in most countries, it is in fact Baidya's own Maoist ideology that has been a disastrous failure in every country where it has been attempted. Even the country of Mao's birth abandoned it in 1975.

If Dahal was saying what he did in the Assembly to appease hardliners within his party we have nothing to add. But we sure hope for this country's sake, and for the sake of his own party, that he rely less on his molars and more on his tusks.