I have never seen anyone hit the nail on the head as effectively as you do. I don't congratulate you, but I thank you for being someone who speaks clearly. I hope to share with you what came to my mind about the second portion of your article, no common frame of reference.

I have always wondered why our problems persist.  Economic problems are not unique to this country, after all who is responsible for the failure in dealing with poverty throughout the world? Why is it that resource rich countries have poor people, rich ones have soaring unemployment, well intentioned government policies lay waste, private enterprise is mired in corruption, public enterprise in both waste and corruption.

These questions are what define our world today; the answer to all of them is simple and solution too hard, and time consuming, for these men of passion and politics to solve them. 

Here in Nepal, in a society where everyone seeks to blame someone else, where public discourse is founded on crafty imported slogans, and courage to speak the truth and actually take action is limited by attachment to ideology – nothing will work, ever.

For anyone who actually overcame challenges in their life – and there are millions such – and actually managed to do something, it is obvious that Nepal's problems will not be sorted out easily. 

This is mainly because building is tough, it requires efforts that get barely noticed, one doctor, one engineer, a road here and the right building somewhere else. All of this requires stability and patience, failure is common. 

At the onset successes get barely noticed, obstacles need to be overcome, progress has to be reviewed and paths corrected. Agility is essential; simply because you can, you don't blast a mountain for a road. Managers often turn out to be ineffective.

Reality of not just Nepal is different and very painful. Look around you, listen carefully, walk the streets with your head down and sense the atmosphere, listen to the chatter and you will find that everybody is talking about problems as if solutions would appear out of thin air, only if someone else could be found to be blamed.

It is not just about Nepalese, such people exist in every society, in all corners of the globe. What these politicians have done is that they have converted the whole country into that of whiners. 

Journalists, activists, workers and entrepreneurs are all pleased to see their work getting easy because someone else is available to take the blame, analysis is easy. Over time, every crisis was made so existential and extreme that when the real one came, it swamped the whole nation completely and nobody knew what to do with it. Even now, passionate screaming is somehow expected to deliver more goods than quite work and careful deliberation.

In my view, solutions are hard, they require careful evaluation of reality, honest identification of issues, acceptance of what is unpleasant and the willingness to work with tools which are available. In the real world of real people with real positive and negative attributes. 

No country in the world changed because of grand projects or effective propaganda, they changed when the rulers knew who their people were and framed problems to design effective solutions to deal with real people's problems, based on the values of the ruled. That is why no two successful countries are the same except in broad features, but all the failed ones are.

In my very humble view, there are many reasons for this universal failure in governance. But, at the core is what I have found through my latest obsession with politics. Those who we call politicians are not our own, they are mere phantoms imposed on us through a coup of universalism, where all problems can be solved by the same slogans, in the same books.

Our life, our values, our history and our culture is alien to their discourse, none of them know what the actual concerns of the young are, none of them know what the concerns of the old are. They do not understand the needs. This would require work and they don't have time for it. The issues that they deal with are not real; they exist on a parallel plain of easy narratives and propaganda. 

Here is what they truly want- 

Alas, only if we had a different country to rule where we did not have the same problems, would it not be so easy to implement all these solutions. Their answer is – let's give them a new problem to worry about, let's not give them a chance to settle down and wonder. Once the problems are replaced we would then be able to deal with the problem of our own choice which would fit our slogans and the template solutions.

They were going ahead in that direction, they had softened their target, but the Maoist stole a March on them.

I enjoyed Slarti's heartfetl analysis as much as I enjoyed Ashutosh Tiwari's beautifully clear writing. A thumbs up to both.

Most of us are familiar with the saying: "If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem." 

Who in the political spectrum are ready to leave because they are not part of the solution? 

I think that 'consensus' is too big of a word to bring into Nepali politics. To begin with we need to all be able to use the same words that bring about the same meaning. That will begin to solidify the Nepali identity. Right now, we all speak the same words and we all mean different things.

I recommend that Ashutosh Tiwari continue to write like above and bring more 'clarity' before we can all expect 'consensus.'  I mean that encouragingly. Please continue to write like above.

Here's my view. "Consensus" is elusive in Nepal today because the so-called "peace process" was faulty to begin with. By 2005-06, the conflict had become between the Maoists and the King/Army. The political parties, due to their own weaknesses, had already been sidelined. If there was to be peace, real peace, such a process should have included the real warring factions - the Maoists and King/Army, as well as the parties. A true "peace process" would have been tri-partite. But the parties went off and signed a furtive deal with the Maoists under Indian auspices in foreign lands and our media and intellectuals had the gall to hail it as a great breakthrough for peace! Was there ever a greater sham in world history? How can there be peace if the real warring factions are not even part of the peace agreements? Is peace an agreement between allies or between enemies? 

That's the concept. Now to the nitti-gritties. If the King/Army were also involved in the peace process, as they should have been, then the question of Army integration would have been appropriately dealt with back then itself. But political parties, who really didn't care about the Army, signed a deal that involved it. No wonder the so-called "peace process" is now stuck mainly due to this very army-integration issue. The correct stakeholders were not involved at all during the "peace agreement". That's the root of the problem.

Truth be told, Arthur is correct. The so-called "peace process" was not really for peace. It was simply for removing the monarchy. This objective has been achieved. What's bandied around as the "peace process" is a sham, a misnomer at best. It should be called the "anti-monarchical process" or the "republicanism process".

The real peace process should be re-started. And let's do it right this time. True peace should begin with referendums on all important questions, including monarchy. Then, depending on the results of the referendums, a new peace and constitution should be charted. That's what'll lead to real peace in the country. Everything else will just be little stopgap measures that'll keep coming undone every few months. Nepalis, esp those who support the current "peace process" based on the Delhi 12-point agreement, need to decide if this kind of 'ghari-ghari tuna fuski rahane' fragile peace is the peace they want or whether they want a durable peace based on truth and national interest!