Might is not right - Nepali Times

1. Arthur
"But if the term of the assembly is not extended through consensus between the NC, the Maoists party and the Madhesi parties, especially the first two, we will face a 'might is right' scenario. No prizes for guessing who will get the backing of the majority of the people at home as well as neighbours and powerful members of the international community.
'Might is right' or consensus? We have a choice to make and much before 28 May arrives."

No need for a prize for guessing. But it isn't at all obvious who Damakant Jayshi has in mind.

It seems to be advice to fellow Kangresis and readers of Nepali Times that they should support a compromise with the Maoists instead of a head on confrontation because they don't have much "might" and somebody else who does is more likely to win in a confrontation.

But is he referring to the military under the guise of "Presidential" rule, with the support of India as a "powerful member of the international community"? That was the theme from Nepali Times editorials not ago with endless warnings that the left must compromise to avoid a military coup.

Or is he referring to the Maoists who the publisher seems to fear most (and who the publisher sees as having tacit support from "powerful members of the international community" such as key donors etc)?

Obviously it isn't the UML that he fears would benefit!

But its hard to tell who he does mean. This is as mysterious as last week's article from the same author making the opposite point of opposing an extension of the CA.

But anyway, the advice to carry out the peace agreement and join in a national consensus government is sensible enough.

What both articles have in common is not saying anything about elections.

I cannot help adding that there is something truly pathetic about these "liberal democrats" quivering at the thought of facing another election and describing their inevitable rejection by the large majority of poor people in Nepal as "might is right".

The only reason for compromising with such pathetic creatures is that they have reduced Nepal to such an appalling level of backwardness that a mass exodus of the current "educated elite" would be more disruptive than easing them gently out of power while others are learning how to rule and there would be a greater danger of corruption of their replacements in a situation of chaotic disruption than in a more gradual transition.

It is not surprising that some Maoists in Nepal find such people too disgusting to stomache any longer.

But there are more important things than disgust and it is clear that if the Kangresis are not too stupid follow the author's advice the peaceful option they have been resisting ever since they agreed to it has still been left open for them by the Maoist leadership.

Posted on: 22 APRIL 2011 | 8:16 PM NST

2. K. K. Sharma

The fact that the SPA went along with the Maoist's agenda in 2005 and the fact that Damakant sees the possibility of the NC following the Maoist's Agenda once again, is a proof that might is right. Might made the Maoists what they are today. If one does not seek consensus with the Maoists, they are sure to feel the might of the Maoists.

Posted on: 22 APRIL 2011 | 10:18 PM NST

3. Never Mind
"There are people who want peace and constitution by 28 May, but others oppose another extension of the assembly. After all, the parties have wasted 11 months of the extended period on power games. What guarantee is there that they won't waste another extended period in a similar fashion? Valid concerns, which the parties need to address."

More than comrade Arthur's silly rant, I am interested in this particular para.

If someone wants constitution by 28 May (presumably this year) does that not mean they are opposed to an extension.

Have the parties wasted 11 months, or 60?

There is no need for a question on guarantee that they would not waste another year, and then another in the same old power games, it is a simple truth that this is exactly what they are going to do.

Posted on: 22 APRIL 2011 | 12:22 AM NST

4. kamal kishor
Yes. No option for both NC and the Maoists. No doubt but the Maoists have to disband their gangs of thugs operating not only in the disguise of YCL but many more in the rural areas where they are creating havocs.

Posted on: 22 APRIL 2011 | 1:57 AM NST

5. Anil

#1 Arthur

What both articles have in common is not saying anything about elections.

I cannot help adding that there is something truly pathetic about these "liberal democrats" quivering at the thought of facing another election and describing their inevitable rejection by the large majority of poor people in Nepal as "might is right".

It is not surprising that some Maoists in Nepal find such people too disgusting to stomach any longer.

The only reason for compromising with such pathetic creatures ï¿½etc etc

Does your party really want a free and democratic election, or is this just hypocritical ranting before your leaders compromise with those, whom you call pathetic creatures, for the purpose of avoiding an election?

If the Maoist leaders are serious about compromising, first they should explain to their cadres honestly that a revolutionary armed struggle cannot be won, and that they need to change with the times instead of still sticking to revolutionary rhetoric.

Otherwise, the cadres may have a hard time understanding why a decade long war with all their sacrifices was fought; and some may even foolishly think that the leaders may be just trying to preserve their current bourgeois privileges by junking the revolutionary/armed struggle.

So far the Maoist leaders have been able to convince PLA and their supporters that they will create a peoples' revolution if they cannot get their way through peaceful means ie through the constituent assembly. At the same time they have been trying to convince the rest that they really want a true multi-party democracy.

This strategy has helped enrich both your party and the leaders, while keeping the country in turmoil and in a state of lawlessness and poverty where only corrupt politician and criminals are benefitting. So much for the talk about peoples revolution.

However the looming end of the CA has put such a strategy in peril.

The Maoist leaders cannot have it both ways now. They will need to admit that either they have misled their cadres with the false promise of peoples revolution, or they have been misleading everyone else with talk of giving up their arms.

The current CA cannot deliver, not because it did not have time but because it is deeply fractured not only along ideological but also along ethnic lines, and it is too big. And extending the CA term will not change that. The only way out is another election to let the peoples voice be heard. Without such a mandate and a referendum on the most contentious issues, it is hard to see how a new constitution acceptable to the vast majority of people can be drafted. Even if by a miracle the current CA does come up with a compromised version by extending its term, it is doubtful such a constitution will be accepted by all the people because it will not be able to satisfy every group's demands. The legitimacy of the self-extended CA will be challenged by multiple dissatisfied groups as is already evident now.

Rather than going back to the people for a mandate and giving them a voice, it is likely that the political leaders of all hues and colors including the Maoists will make every effort to keep their cozy chairs and keep on trying to prolong the current CA in perpetuity citing one excuse or the other. And the country will keep on sliding into more anarchy and lawlessness towards a failed state.

The Maoists (like other leaders) certainly do not want to give up their hard-earned positions and cozy bourgeois life-styles as being part of the ruling class/oligarchy. The examples of communist parties around the world are a sad testimony to this fact.

In the days ahead it will be difficult for Maoist cadres to adjust to this reality of their leaders abandoning the cause. Short of challenging their leaders for making false promises, all they can do is put up a brave face and continue pretending that it is all a part of their leaders grand strategy to fool the liberal democrats (those whom Arthur calls pathetic creatures), and that the peoples revolution is just around the corner.

Or in the end, people like Arthur may give up on Nepal as another lost cause, and just elect to go searching for another revolution elsewhere in the world. That should not be too hard to find with all the turmoil going on in the world.

All the reports indicate that conditions in Libya seem to be favorable for a peoples revolution. What they lack seems to a revolutionary ideologue to guide the revolution forward. Anyone listening?

Posted on: 23 APRIL 2011 | 8:31 AM NST

6. naresh
Ludicrous is your statement when you give two options: might is right or consensus. Yet you say, might is not right. Either, there is no option of the former, or you are too stupid to consider a title as such.

But I would suggest you not to read Marx or Lincoln in the notions of might and right. Here is a Freud's excerpt to Einstein regarding the cause and prevention of war:

...You begin with the relations between Might and Right, and this is assuredly the proper starting point of our inquiry. But, for the term "might", I would substitute a tougher and more telling word: "violence". In right and violence we have today an obvious antinomy. It is easy to prove that one has evolved from the other, and, when we go back to origins and examine primitive conditions, the solution of the problem follows easily enough.

.......

Conflicts between man and man are resolved, in principle, by the recourse of violence...Thus, under primitive conditions, it is superior force--brute violence, or violence backed by arms--that lords it everywhere. We know that in the course of evolution things was modified, a path was traced that led away from violence to law. But what was this path? Surely it issued from a single verity; that the superiority of one strong man can be overcome by an alliance of many weaklings, that l'union fait la force. Thus we may define "right"(i.e., law) as the might of the community. Yet it, too, is nothing else than violence, quick to attack whatever individual stands in its path, and it employs the selfsame methods, follows the ends, with but one difference: it is communal, not individual, violence that has its way.........

Is not the law, amnesty, right and duty and co. the might of the nation? I'm not historical-hypothetical, nor do I intend the jackpot of language, but before you become so sentimental to reject violence, sometimes you are rejecting the basic instincts that exudes most in our being. I don't mean we need guerrillas, here's where I differ (so does Freud), but that we need to effort expeditiously given we can maintain the instinct to violence by instinct of Eros (union, bond..love).

....Therefore, Might is Right.

Posted on: 23 APRIL 2011 | 10:24 AM NST

7. jange

5. Anil

The Maoists have had it both ways so far and they will continue to have it both ways for quite a while yet. Having followed the Maoist agenda for the last five years it will not be so easy for the non Maoist parties to regain their credibility.

Posted on: 23 APRIL 2011 | 12:50 PM NST

8. Arthur
Anil #5, I am only looking from outside but the way I understand it all the serious analysts in Nepal understand that the Maoists would win a much bigger majority in any future election and the UMLs and Congress would lose even more heavily.

Consequently it is taken for granted that anti-Maoist politics in Nepal revolves around how to avoid completing the peace agreement and adopting a constitution, which would then be followed by elections.

In that situation it is natural for there to be disagreement among Maoists as to whether they should bring on a confrontation despite the risk that their opponents will resort to military rule and civil war or let things drag on while their opponents keep on discrediting themselves.

As a foreigner I don't have to suffer from the oppression of continuing to suffer from the way Nepal is held back by the minority still in power, or the risk of more thousands being murdered by them in another conflict. Nor do I have the detailed knowledge of the forces at work and the probabilities of different outcomes from different policies that is needed for forming opinions on such issues dividing Maoists in Nepal.

You on the other hand seem to be living in some sort of fantasy world where the Maoists are not the largest party in Nepal with their opponents discrediting themselves through corruption and incompetence more and more each day. The assumption behind your comments seems to be that most Nepalese think the way you (and a few thousand other readers of Nepal Times) do and that Maoists are in despair and confusion because you and people like you still hate them or hate them even more than you always have.

Until you understand that the large majority of people in Nepal are nothing like your own circles you will have less hope of understanding what is happening in Nepal than foreigners who are at least aware of that much.

Posted on: 23 APRIL 2011 | 7:02 PM NST

9. Rishav

I get the impression that Damakantji, is hoping for a miracle on the 28th May 2011 when suddenly the Maoist-NC spear head and create a constitution. I guess we can all dream but the reality and the way Nepali politics is at present the most likely time will be 10 years if that. Beisdes why so much emphasis on the formation of this new constitiution which is not the main concern of the vast majority of Nepali people and defnately not at all the reason for the Jana Andoldan II.

Nepali Comgress sold it's soul to the devils in signing that deal with all the other opportunistic parties in New Dehli. What probably NC, UML and other parties have forgotten, so easily, is that they were the ones at war with the Maoists during the insurgency, it was multiparty party democracy which the Maoists wanted to and still want to destroy. The NC, UML thought they could tame the Maoists and out wit these thugs, going by the current situation it is clear that their gamble with the lives of us Nepali citizens didn't pay off even for their own selfish benefits.

Posted on: 24 APRIL 2011 | 6:28 AM NST

10. Anil

#8 Arthur

all the serious analysts in Nepal understand that the Maoists would win a much bigger majority in any future election and the UMLs and Congress would lose even more heavily.

Comrade,since you do not seem to know a single average Nepali and because your source of information regarding Nepal is limited to what the Maoist party sends you, I think we can forgive you for all your mistaken beliefs.

Reflect on this comrade:

1.If Maoism is not popular with the people of your country or anywhere else in the world, why do you think it would be popular with the Nepali people?

2.And for someone who cannot understand simple issues like why Maoism is not popular with his own countrymen, is it not presumptuous of you to believe that your depth of understanding of issues affecting Nepal is greater than the Nepali people themselves?

3. Why do you make implicit threats against Nepali citizens that you can have them evicted from their own country if you choose to( that a mass exodus of the current "educated elite" would be more disruptive than easing them gently out of power); and also why do you periodically make threats of a civil war with thousands of Nepalese being killed if your conditions are not met? Your writing suggests that you feel you have the power to control events in Nepal from behind your desk in another continent.

Would all this make sense to any rational person?

You also probably feel you are smarter than the Nepali Maoist leaders and need to provide them with guidance.

If I am not mistaken the correct psychiatric term for such thinking is delusions of grandeur.

Comrade, I think you have a deeper problem on your hands than Maoism. Please get some help.

Posted on: 24 APRIL 2011 | 10:32 AM NST

11. Soni

Nepal's political parties and their media lackeys have taken this poor country for a ride in the name of ideologies that hold no meaning. All they have done is make people suffer with repeated display of their foolishness, greed and amorality; besides complete disregard for our own indigenous wisdom and culture.

The article is a continuation of these efforts and I will get to the comments later.

The hope that this columnists rests on is that if he continues to discuss a defunct arrangement that has failed on evidence with the use of the same words that have fooled Nepalese for so long, ultimately, at some future time, the people of this country would feel defeated enough to completely surrender to the power of fools.

The very basic framework of every single article in Nepal points to a countrywide conspiracy by the political, politics obsessed, self-righteous and busybody politicians and media men's obsession with gaining total control.

"two principal architects"

The phrase flies in the face of the truth that it was India which conceptualised, and executed the efforts to reach the 12 point agreement. It was their arrangement which ensured that Baidya was arrested at the appropriate time to take him out of the equation. The political parties went along with the game under the leadership of an extraordinarily treacherous and devious leader who stabbed everybody within arms reach in their back for his own greed for power, among other vices.

"strike a deal on peace and the new constitution"

At what cost? We can all have permanent peace if we merely submit to the whims of the Maoists. We can all have a new constitution if we merely accept theirs. The intellectual hypocritical leadership of Nepali intellectuals suggest that this would be unacceptable to them because it would a transgression against the holy, god revealed, phony interpreted, definition of democracy. Yet, they repeatedly accept the idea that the oligarchic rule of 12-15 men, and a few foreign donors, and benefactors is perfectly democratic. Because other than in the make believe world of these intellectuals we all know that this is the truth.

Meanwhile, from experience as well as evidence from elsewhere, we know that the communists will never leave their agenda. They will keep everything at a standstill and in a gridlock for as long as their agenda is not fully imposed.

This is the defining characteristic of all monotheist western religions and Communism is no different.

Damakant and his colleague in Nepal's Barbie club of make believe peaceniks would like us to believe that everything would be fine as long as we slavishly follow their mindless agenda, within their demonic congregations of hypocrite worship they know that they have completely lost the plot, but they are too afraid to tell us that. Instead, their hope is that they can successfully brand us as hypocrites and extremists, and prevent us from telling the truth.

"advocating this idea"

It is an insult to the term idea to brand the peace deal between the traitors for their own benefit as an idea. An idea precludes the term arrangement by its very character. The so called "peace deal" was an arrangement for power grabbers, who had been planning the events of the past two decades sitting in the dark dungeons of the palace of hypocrisy.

"wary and frustrated people who have nearly lost faith in the leaders' willingness and ability to deliver on peace constitution-writing that all is not lost."

I like the term "nearly so much", I am going to say nothing more about it.

"cooperation between the Maoists and the NC"

Over the past five years, Maoists and NC have not co-operated because the NC knows that this co-operation will be their doom. The Maoists will simply give them an embrace of death, and that will be all for NC. The fact they will have an arrangement just before or close to the end of the term of constituent assembly would be evidence of their greed for power. Neither want elections, they are simply too scared of that.

"Moreover, a rule by majority is neither an answer nor an objective."

I understand that you use this line in reference to the so called "post-conflict transition", but the conflict never ended, the form changed, as the Maoist always say, we continue to be under the daily assault of intellectual denialism and diversionism as in this article, we are exposed to the crimes committed by them every day. The news is not broadcast either because the reporters are under threat or because they are benefiting from the loot. So, I am interpreting this line as your fear of a true rule by majority as your opposition to democracy. And, as your hope that this hypocritical oligarchy continues its I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine form of governance.

"the Maoist party and the NC need to recreate an understanding, like the one in November 2005 which resulted in the famous 12-point agreement which, in turn, led to abolition of monarchy, formal end of Maoist insurgency and an elected Constituent Assembly to draft the constitution."

"Skeptics, radicals and extreme leftists and rightists will oppose and may even work against a NC-Maoists consensus. Well, they never owned up to the changes that have occurred since 2005. The parties need to focus on the vast majority of people who are waiting for them to deliver. And what better time than now to do so as we are about to celebrate the momentous changes we ushered in exactly five years ago, on 24 April, 2006."

I am a skeptic, you can reasonably describe me as a rightist, I am most certainly a royalist, and, of course, I oppose everything that has happened since November 2005. It is time, you start working again on telling "people like me" why we were and are wrong?

Posted on: 24 APRIL 2011 | 12:34 PM NST

12. Narusha
Dear Anil, Arthur and Jange,

We are ripping the cornerstone of valuable platform of nepalitimes.com. I think we need to discuss about Chaitanya Mishra, Baburam Bhattarai and CK Lal other then bloody monsters of false terrains. Mao was a killer, even Deng and his cronies once commented that 70% Mao was correct and 30% bad. Next, our mongrels and Leninist(UML) has only 0.03% to do with Leninism, if any. Our Maoists have almost 80% to do with ideals of Lincoln than Maoists (almost 5%, if theories have anything to correspond percentages). So these empty cans of what Nepali want is ridiculous, and frustrating. The whole Maoists party, may be 6-7% Nepali population are themselves Maoists and so do, may be, 3-4% each UML, Congress and MJP. What Nepali people want are millions wishes, may be more, since I myself have substantial thousands to sort out, and such issues can't become isolated from my relationship with the state.

Make our debates passable. Certainly, those who read our comments don't want our views, only our views!!!

Posted on: 24 APRIL 2011 | 12:43 PM NST

13. who cares
11:

"I am a skeptic, you can reasonably describe me as a rightist, I am most certainly a royalist, and, of course, I oppose everything that has happened since November 2005. It is time, you start working again on telling "people like me" why we were and are wrong?"

dont you know, from where you came from, people dont like pothi basako?

Posted on: 24 APRIL 2011 | 3:36 PM NST

14. Reshane
Dan Brown's bestselling novels Angels and Demons, The Da Vinchi Code and the Lost Symbol have a protagonist professor of symbology and iconography at Harvard, Robert Langdon. He's really a genius, one who can master the cipher and tell us what can't he intuit!! It feels again like Soni (Comment 11) is really a genius, on par to Langdon.

I request, if anyone hasn't, to read all these novels, on grounds of knowledge. I also request readers not to give favorable opinions to Damakant. Besides, I request the writer not to write some jerky epiphanies of the midnight.

Now..just after reading these novels, I evaluated what shoves us (we Nepali) in the dark forces of misery: lack of intuition. It feels like Soni judges better than Damakant. On moral grounds, Damakant had better given up writing such redundant, recycled expressions. It's so cheap...really cheap to pick up trashes from the bin. This article is so slack that were I to give marks to both Soni and the writer, I'd give 8 and 1 out of 10, respectively.

Posted on: 24 APRIL 2011 | 11:03 PM NST

15. Budabaaje

Well done, Soni (#11)! Couldn't have put it any better.

Someone in this forum used to call the 12-point agreement a bastard child of Opportunists (parties) and Terrorists (Maoists), delivered by the mid-wifery of Foreign Intrigue (India).

He is absolutely right. This is the truth that hypocrites like Damakant have never "owned up" to since November 2005, always trying to idolize and lionize the sh*tty 12-point agreement as something great - Nepal's magna carta, maybe! In fact, it is the worst, most treacherous and lowly piece of trash that our so-called leaders ever signed, and we are living the effects of that lousy, illegitimate and anti-national affair everyday now.

Those who initially sold us that agreement as the license to peace and "new Nepal" are the most deceitful and treacherous Liars in our country's history. And those who continue to believe in that Lie (like this columnist) the dumbest (useful) idiots ever!

Posted on: 25 APRIL 2011 | 8:27 PM NST

16. jange

If there is a NC-Maoist consensus does that mean that the NC has accepted that it is legitimate and acceptable to use violence to achieve political ends?

Or does it mean that the Maoists have accepted that it is not acceptable to use violence as a means to achieve political ends and ave renounced violence?

It is either one or the other. Until this is clear any consensus between the two is meaningless.

Looks like the author wants it both ways too. Closing your eyes to reality does not make the problem go away.

Posted on: 26 APRIL 2011 | 3:21 PM NST

17. John M. Kelleher

11. Soni

>> "I am a skeptic, you can reasonably describe me as a rightist, I am most certainly a royalist, and, of course, I oppose everything that has happened since November 2005. It is time, you start working again on telling "people like me" why we were and are wrong? "

This is precisely what many find so irksome about the Naya Nepal daydreamers who populate the Nepali Times: they do not feel that they owe any explanations to their doubters, nor do they feel the need to explain the manifest failure of everything they've been supporting for the past 5 years. Even the unedifying realities of Nepali politics today isn't enough to convince some people that they've been horribly, disastrously wrong from the beginning.

The language Mr. Jayshi chooses is noteworthy in its careless dismissal of anyone who would be inclined to challenge the prevailing wisdom in Kunda Dixit's self-constructed echo chamber. One does not need to be an "extreme rightist" to see that the NC made a disastrously self-mutilating mistake by abandoning the path set by B.P. Koirala and muddling its own platform to entice the Maoists into the mainstream. Nor does one need to be an inteverate "skeptic" to perceive that the Maoists' own demands simply cannot be met within the context of a liberal multiparty democracy, and that there is little long-term hope for a "peace process" which allowed an asymmetric preponderance of force to one side [the wrong one!].

Mr. Jayshi is naive to think that the "vast majority of people" still expect the parties to deliver. Three years ago, people were still willing to give this new settlement the benefit of the doubt and see where it might lead. That settlement's mandate expired a year ago, and was antidemocratically and illegally extended without public accountability. Mr. Jayshi has already correctly pointed out [in his last article] that this cannot and should not be done again without a credible roadmap for the future, endorsed by the people. I believe this author is intelligent and erudite enough to realize that the present settlement has lost its public mandate, but is hesitant to pursue that line of reasoning into territory that may be uncomfortable for him and others of the same mindset.

Incidentally, Soni, it is worth pointing out that one does not even need to be a diehard royalist to recognize the merit of a limited, constitutional monarchy as the steward of a liberal democratic system, particularly in the case of a nascent developing democracy such as Nepal. In Nepal's case, the Crown filled that role far more effectively than the largely unstructured and ill-planned republic which took its place, and which has itself been the plaything of the Far Left since Day 1.

Posted on: 27 APRIL 2011 | 2:10 PM NST

18. John M. Kelleher

15. Budabaaje

>> "Someone in this forum used to call the 12-point agreement a bastard child of Opportunists (parties) and Terrorists (Maoists), delivered by the mid-wifery of Foreign Intrigue (India)."

Whoever said that hit the nail on the head, and I myself wouldn't describe it any differently. It's interesting that the author refers to this same 12-point agreement as a "famous" watershed opporunity that the NC and Maoists need to recapture so as to "recreate an understanding."

Mr. Jayshi glowingly describes that corrosive cartel-settlement as the catalyst which ended the monarchy, ended the civil war, and gave birth to the CA... without considering the following caveats:

a.) That scrapping a monarchy [more specifically, a constitutional and democratic one] does not equate to automatic progress by default;

b.) That the Maoists' "Peoples War" has not ended, it has only changed venues as the party utlizes different levers of revolutionary strategy;

c.) That no one but the Maoists even WANTED a Constituent Assembly until 2006, and no one to this date has justified the unilateral and arbitrary scrapping of the indisputably democratic and progressive Constitution of 1990.

16. jange

>> "If there is a NC-Maoist consensus does that mean that the NC has accepted that it is legitimate and acceptable to use violence to achieve political ends?"

Unfortunately that is precisely the precedent that the party unknowingly set when the NC-led Seven Party Alliance brokered a separate agreement with the Maoist rebels over the head of Nepal's legitimate government, and then proceeded to negotiate a peace settlement which gave "carte blanche" to the CPN-M for their prior campaign of insurrection against the nation.

Nepal's oldest and previously most prestigious democratic party steered itself into ideological oblivion and political disgrace by gratuitously abandoning its own core values. It must have been some marginal comfort to Kishunji in his final days to know that he had been vindicated and proven right via the public failure of his old intraparty rivals. He left the party at just the right time, it would seem.

Posted on: 27 APRIL 2011 | 2:31 PM NST

19. Budabaaje

John,

If memory doesn't fail me, it was a commenter called Satyajeet Nepali who I attribute that statement to. Unfortunately, it seems he's gotten sick and tired of speaking sense and truth and has disappeared nowadays.

...can't blame him really! The publishers of this paper as well as its columnists seem hell-bent on force-feeding the Lie regarding the 12-point agreement + the subsequent "peace process" to the wider Nepali public. And as you rightly point out, they feel no need to explain their stance. They sermonize about "responsibility" and "accountability" to others, but have none themselves. They behave as if their stances on the 12-point agreement, the need for a CA and establishment of a republic are self-evidently right.

...and all this despite the very sharp and articulate comments from commenters like Soni, yourself (John), Slarti, Satya Nepali, Jange etc. I think these so-called rightists/royalists are the best things about this newspaper. These are the ones that have been and continue to speak "truth to power" (not Kanak Dixit (!) as Kul Gautam argues in another column in this paper. I guess Gautam is the latest recruit into the Patan Dhoka club of self-glorifying, self-proclaimed "intellectuals". Beware the Patan Dhoka "echo-chamber", Gautam!).

...anyway, I hope the said commenters keep challenging the falseness and lies that this paper and its columnists brazenly try to fool the Nepali people with. Keep up the good work!

Posted on: 27 APRIL 2011 | 1:43 AM NST

20. B2B

Ahem, sometimes might is also right! But that might is called the willpower and determination of people, which can be even more dangerous than an atom bomb.

Some of those who are coming out of their hiding must understand by now that we are pissed offf of their driving us always back to the square instead of heading forward.

Renew your rhetoric, we will listen to you. Otherwise, buzz off!?!

Posted on: 28 APRIL 2011 | 2:37 PM NST

21. jange
20. B2B

Some of those who are coming out of their hiding must understand by now that we are pissed offf of their driving us always back to the square instead of heading forward.

Yes, we must move forward... even if we are standing on the edge of a cliff!!

Posted on: 28 APRIL 2011 | 3:49 PM NST

22. BB

To B2B,

Yes, indeed, we have forward-marched in the last 5 years into lawlessness, disorder, insecurity, corruption, dismal business environment, no economic growth (despite 10% growth in our neighbors), no electricity, water and basic services, and mass outflux of the youth of the country, at all levels, many doing humiliating and dangerous work abroad! At no time in our history did we "forward-march" into a position of such glory and 'progressiveness'. Wah-wah, the forward-march of 'New Nepal' (read 'No Nepal')!

No one has been in hiding. Some of the commenters are new but others (Satya Nepali, Slarti, Jange) have been making these points since NT opened up to public comments. Instead, those who have been deluded and in denial abt Nepal's 'forward-march' during the past 5 years are the ones who need to wake up and come out into the sunshine of reality and truth!

The 1990 Constitution was far more progressive and appropriate for Nepal than what we have (or don't have rather!) now.

Posted on: 28 APRIL 2011 | 4:32 PM NST

23. Soni
Not that its important but I used the Slarti psedonymn.

Posted on: 28 APRIL 2011 | 8:18 PM NST

24. B2B

We can show a path to a traveller, but we cannot walk it for him!?!

Lao -Tzu

Posted on: 29 APRIL 2011 | 2:42 PM NST

25. Arthur
Soni #23, it was not important before because it was obvious from the style of comments that the two names were the same person (and you were not using both names at once but simply dropping the earlier one). It was necessary for you to mention it in view of #19 listing the two names as though they were two separate people.

As we don't agree on anything much I just thought I should acknowledge that you acted correctly in #23. In fact I almost corrected #19 myself but decided to wait and see if you would do so. If you had not corrected it I would have thought it was an example of dishonesty, so I am happy to say instead that #23 was an example of honesty.

Posted on: 29 APRIL 2011 | 4:44 PM NST

26. Soni

Arthur # 24, I made it clear several weeks ago and a sample is the use of 12. Soni (Slarti) in the article by Hans Hoefer. I did not see much point to your comment, but appreciate it nevertheless.

Posted on: 30 APRIL 2011 | 9:11 PM NST