But the war was fought for a new constitution, and without it those who waged it will feel their sacrifice was in vain.

No, it wasn't. It was fought to establish a communist dictatorship led by the Maoists, similar to North Korea or Pol Pot. So what if they feel that their sacrifice was in vain? Are you expecting Nepalis to feel sorry that murderers, looters and extortionists might feel that their sacrifice was in vain.

For most other Nepalis a piece of paper was never the priority, they just wanted a government that worked.

So, why then did the NT push for a new constitution?

Perhaps we attach too much importance to whether or not a constitution is written, and not enough on whether we have the governance capacity to deliver services.

Your "we" does not include most Nepalis, as you yourself have stated in the previous sentence.

Why should delivery await a new constitution, anyway? What is stopping the transition coalition from going ahead with a national campaign to create jobs, improve health care, education and irrigation.

How else can you demonstrate that a new constitution is necessary???

We don't need a new constitution to tell us that the state must provide equal opportunity for all. An accountable elected government must allow all boats to rise together, not just the boats that are better placed.

Most Nepalis knew that and know it now too. Unfortunately it has taken the Nepali intellectual elite (which includes Kunda) a lot of years to realise that. And we all are paying for it.

Not equalising opportunity will be a perpetual cause of social unrest.

Perhaps. But accepting Maoist violence as an acceptable, legitimate and desirable method to achieve ones political objectives will be a cause of social unrest for at least a generation. And you had a big role in this.

I find it a very well written editorial. Could this be translated into Nepali and put on some vernacular newspapers?

That said, not that I ever supported the Partyless Party Panachayat regime with royalties messing up in the affairs of the country, since the advent of so called democracy in early 1990s, the situation for my group has gone from bad to worse. Marginalisation has been continued and the dreams that the Maoists once sold in an open market to garner support have been shattered. Since every group or an individual advocates for his/her own wellbeing or the wellbeing of the group attached to, I find there is NONE to advocate for my group. Let me cite two examples:

a. There was a list of Secretaries in the government. NONE from my group. It is really disheartening to see it happening even after the so call democracies of the 90s. With such a trend continuing, there will NOT be one in the foreseeable future.

b. British had set up the Budhanilkantha School in early 80s so that students from Mechi to Mahakali and from various groups can get a quality education under one roof. For several years while the school was run with the British supervision, it was more inclusive in terms of the students ethnic groups, geography as well as in the teachers and school administration. I looked up on the school website yesterday and it now looks more Non-inclusive and more like St. Xaviers of 80s both in terms of students population and teaching/admin staff.

I do not subscribe to the Maoists type revolution but I am afraid even the new constitution is not going to bring the changes needed to make it inclusive in practice. There has been hardly any serious effort to integrate my group into the mainstream in the last several years.

Therefore, I fully agree with you "Not equalising opportunity will be a perpetual cause of social unrest".

I leave you all the intelectuals and elites as well as those who are in the power with this question:

"Are Tamangs not Nepalis?" given the non-inclusive practices going on in the successive governments.

Perhaps the Tamangs themselves will come with an answer to this question some day but why do we have to wait for that?

Yes, it's true with 1990 constitution we could have moved progressively had it been done three years before. And now  in front of dire need of development activities of the entire country, the constitution writing is just a small cog in a wheel, but remains a cog to drive the wheel. After all our 3.5% growth of economy has to be maintained I suppose, somehow and in someways and thanks to individual efforts carried out by people.

With respect to our netas, the so called senior leaders of Nepal. I'm sorry to repeat again but they are the lost case. Perhaps their tale is intended to deceive; a tall tale. They told us some cock and bull story about getting lost. It's not so bad their idea -new Nepal- but their expressions, their ways of doing things and treating people, well in brief their personality as leaders resemble to the folk tale involving these two animals, where Jack point and Wilfred the jailer make up a story about a a hero's fictitious death: "Tell a tale of cock and bull, of convincing detail full." 

How else can you demonstrate that a new constitution is necessary???"

Yes, the interim constitution is still based on the 1990 Constitution with a few essential changes. It still leaves the old Nepal in charge of the bureauracy, judiciary and military and able both to directly block changes that would undermine the special opportunities of the elite and threaten a return to military rule if pushed. It still maintains a weak Parliamentary system where Ministers are too busy accumulating bribes themselves or trying to prevent being pulled down by others bribing their supporters to actually do much.

As you say, this interim transition from the 1990 Constitution is the best demonstration that a new Constitution is necessary.

"But the war was fought for a new constitution, and without it those who waged it will feel their sacrifice was in vain.

No, it wasn't. It was fought to establish a communist dictatorship led by the Maoists, similar to North Korea or Pol Pot. So what if they feel that their sacrifice was in vain? Are you expecting Nepalis to feel sorry that murderers, looters and extortionists might feel that their sacrifice was in vain."

I will also add it was an insurgency created by the now Maoists, due to their failures to compete in a multi-party democratic state and wanted to take their vengence on the state.

Lets see what prior elections results were like prior to the start of the 1996 insurgency.

Electoral participation was 61.7%. Source: Election Commission of Nepal

My Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis for first Eight Comments:

Comment: 1. who cares

Any present Constitution is basically alternation and deletion than its preceeding one. The syantactic structures, morphological and phonological similarities, diction and conciseness of Law vocabulary makes the statement true. Symbolically, in its basic precept, such statement, however, is wrong.

Income distribution is not meant to score everyone's sum flat. It isn't more flat either. (It means some animals are more equal than the others is also unqual as much as all animals are equal.) However, the fundamentals to facilities, rights, government regulations etc. matter. Norway has highest income tax, probably. But it funds basic services of citizens that makes GINI of Norway the highest in the world. Such things can be meant in our country, too.

Earning isn't the matter of ability only. It is part priority, part opportunity and skill, part devilish means, part government policies and principles.

I wish we redefined the'basic needs'. Basic need are not heaven sent charts and tallies. They are in constant stae of redefination, differing accordingly society and people.

Comment: 2. Thakur

Power is something every individual resorts and craves. So progress in government and constitution, whatever one may say the priority be, are equally related. You know, in ptlomaic system, epicycles are as equal to comprehend as equant and deferent.

Comment: 3 Laxman karki

This is indeed a wonderfully written  honest editorial about state of  Nepalese Politics

Should I buy your rhetoric, huh? You say 'indeed', 'wonderfully', 'honest' to effect your inclination. But in Chomskyan generative grammer, a language is also competence involving various psycholoical and mental processes. That said doesn't mean you and Kunda honest here.

You say "Committee of experts' in second sentence. Whoa, the super-committee of experts. Mahav nepal is Farid(not Fareed actually) Zakaria of Nepal, yeah! ?

I see no any hi-fi editor priritizing Authority for Investigation of Abuse of Authority; Instead I see many columns dedicated to restaurents in Thamel.

A postmodern conception of revisionism is that it's the only constant process. A constitution, laws, codes etc. are always lapsed. The history of rotted parliamentary democracy manifests so many lacunae that amendation has been enmeshed for wrong causes, not right.

United States wasn't made just because of pithy constitutional statements. It was the vision and the standard precepts and change infused in every rung os society and governance. The noted columnist Joe Klein once remarked when Obama got elected that America is still the young nation yet to evolve. So America's basic strenght is adaptability, a sense of history and prudence, not 4000 worded constitution. Similar is true for Japan and China.

The coming constitution may be more democratic, but it mayn't be sustainable. I wish you used 'or' instead of 'and' in between democratic and sustainable.

Comment : 4. Jitendra Basnet:

This editorial is basically Kunda-Dixit-type. I guess you are wrong in that pressurizing is the only salve. The better embrocation is education meant to rural people, marginalized people like those of terai, Muslim, Tharu etc. Next, the editorials must not be narratives what must be done. Suppose that Nepali Times moves beyond profit and establishes its printing houses in Mustang, Silgadi and Mahottari. Or that it ceases its Swimsuit publication Wave and prints its paper beyond profit and ad. Suppose it writes about Tax evaders from whom it creepily benefits. Suppose it dares to establish schools for have-nots, not for those of Ambassadors and foreign patrons. You know, I like the trance of imagination.

Comment: 5. Sameer:

You are exactly right about the need to focus on constitution because it's just a symbolic umbralla on whose shaadow we'll have to endear the calming breeze of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or  Libert�, �galit�, fraternit�.

Comment : 6. Arthur:

I suppose you are reiterating your point, as always, which I believe is true, but I also suppose that such events will come and go, since they happened numerous times since B.P. Koirala's time. Here, that you are true, but such repeated talks would just brittle our collective harmony and make us believe that surrendering India (beeline or detour, I little know, but sure, Prachanda has gotten to roar less to India these days.)

Comment: 7. K. K. Sharma

But it seems debate on the TYPE of Constitution would have been more meaningful than just sloganising the word " Constitution".

You hit my idea. I had been thinking about this for a long time, a time since I fell in love with my girl since two years ago.

I especially thank you!

Comment: 8. Jange

I agree you in that Maoists were once what you say. But that's not the case now. They haven't killed one people these fiscal (or brutal) years. So Maoists are basically democratic mayn't be bogus. But you get many points huffy because you puff the smoke of Kangresi fanaticism and wear the lens of liberalism but believe in socialism.

Too many people are pinning down their hopes on the constitution to solve Nepal's problem. No constitution in the world can solve all of mankind's problem. A solution to a certain group may lead to problems for others.

Also, in Nepal we hardly see the laws being implimented in practice. Just look at the example of women's property rights or citizenship based on Maternal linage. People have had to go to the courts to get this law implimented although this provision is already stated in the law of the land.

Constitution is just a smoke screen for different political parties to get their grip on power. The only reason the public want constitution is so that all of us move on from this National Drama.

Stupid is what stupid does. (Forrest Gump in Forrest Gump)

 Last night, I dreamed a round-table meeting with Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Guess what I asked them both!

Whatever, they asked me in return whether Nepali Times is an echo-chamber when you yelp and get caught in the battle (from Slipknot's Before I Forget). As above, encores and encores!!

In the surreal world of Egoistic Fanaticism and Free Market Fundamentalism, it was not much unnatural in Marx's face to see frustration with greedy capitalists. But he was also conscious of Baba Ramdev.

I asked if Ramdev was right in staging his fright of the inevitable. Marx circumspectly said that Ramdev was so far from the structural case, that Parliamentary system is more vulnerable to corruption than Presidential system with direct election of the head of the executive. But he didn't made so much of Mohan Baidhya either.

He seems to have made some vague intimations about Arthur.

I seemed to have replied KiranL (#comment 20) in ways that I was much concerned with Foucaultean inspections of post-structuralism than sordid little insurrections of brutal grammaticains. KiranL, don't bother! you seem to know some rules of parts of speech.

Hey you dim-witted methodists,  tinkering statistians and half-scaled analysts,

Mahendra Shah and Tulsi Giri were corrupts. Panchas were corrupt..the bootlickers monarchists are corrupt..some former NC ministers were corrupt..military and police heads are corrupt. These sorts of corruptions were due to semi-feudal monarchy, repression and marginalization of the large bunch of nationals, centalized governance, illiteracy, urban profligacy, irresponsive as well as irresponisble media then, and irrosulute public, etc. And etc. The corruptive totem pole of India (never mind the corruption indexes; such indexes are not meant to deep-situated cases) is thousand-fold higher than our country's. Our society is yet to decide the model of governance and federation ( as well as the model of corruption). Our benchmarks are heady, so my guess is we'll have no enshroudment of palls of corruption looming ahead.

As always, my exordium underlies the case that corruption is not the case of system. For example, whether ministers are implicated in scandals is undue explanation of parliamentary system. Where goes bureaucracy, the largest of chunk of bribery, graft, tax evasion, etc? Where go business community and industrialists? It isn't surprising that Tories and Republicans in the UK and the US, respectively are sympathized by business circles, a version of their corruption. European counterparts have almost no corruption because of literacy, prosperity and fourth Estate visibility. A judgemental public, a cheerleading media spectra, anti-corrution mechanisms etc. can seriously thwart  the keels and the entire flotilla of the corrupt voyagers in their blue, knee-deep enterpot of veiled nexus.

>> "Yes I can only dream of going back to a situation of Nepal in 1991, with a fledgling Multiparty Democracy where the people involved and particpated in a voting process were not threatened by militant armed political guerillas and militant youth wings. Were Journalists didn't fear having to report from remote regions of the country and teachers could teach freely without being attacker or intimidated by the same militant political groups. And ultimately 14,000 lives would not have perished in a pointless and costly insurgency.
[...]
"Yes one day I would love to adapt to actually live in a 21st century of your country or modern World, but my country Nepal has lost many many years and lives since the early beginnings of the insurgency. And it may be even 30+ years to reach your version of what the 21st century should be like.  But then again, if the Maoist get there hold of things it could actually mean an end to my country Nepal, so there would be no hope of reaching the 20th century rather than the 21st century."  --Rishav

Rightly said Rishav, and I admire your persistence in countering this pest's ridiculous counterfactual mythmaking.  It is appalling to think that someone could seriously think that the vehicle for carrying Nepal into the 21st century is communism - one of the most discredited incarnations of 20th century totalitarianism and responsible for so much of the human misery in the gore-spattered course of that era.

But, honestly, it is a waste of breath trying to deploy facts against Arthur.  He isn't interested in them, and will invariably omit them in his reply.  Arthur believes in a vision of Nepal which exists entirely in his own head: a Nepal where the Maoists are romantically heroic "Robin Hood" figures, a Nepal where no one who isn't "elite" or "corrupt" has any reason to resent the Maoists, a Nepal wherein the Constitution of 1990 institutionalized a "royal and military dictatorship," a Nepal where freedom of the press, indigenous rights, personal freedom and opportunity didn't exist at all until the miraculous Maobadis conjured them into being.

Arthur doesn't care about what is actually happening in Nepal, or where the nation is most likely to go from here.  He wants to believe that the utter rubbish he has wasted his life believing in hasn't been a total loss, and Nepal seems to offer some sort of comfort to Arthur's ilk that their movement still has some slight spark of vitality left to it.  Browse any pro-communist website, and you can see the stakes that Nepal holds for such people - along with the deeply flawed understanding of the country itself that such camps inevitably have.

>> "One strength of the Communist system ...is that it has some of the characteristics of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion."  --Rishav

Spot-on.  I've known a few Evangelical Fundamentalist types, and arguing with them is pointless for the same reason that arguing with Arthur is.  People who subscribe to such dogmatically rigid belief systems are satisfied with the internal consistency of their own arguments, carefully structured around their core assumptions.  Attempt to reason with them or introduce facts counter to their line of thinking, and they will take you around in a giant rhetorical circle.

In this case, we're being asked to circle an open sewer.  Arthur's last petulant reply says more about him than needs to be said, proposing as he does that "angry youths with a gun or stick in their hand" are a preferable vehicle for change.  Don't give this nasty, pontificating twit any more credit by justifying his garbage with a reply.  The echoes of his own dyspepsia-inducing voice are the only company he deserves.

#28 Dg

deserved to be hired by UNFPA, if not already with one of the UN agencies, with the kind of convincing statistics  s/he presented here. Nepal bigareko yastai soch le garda ho. Pung na puchchharko mantabya.