Deepa Rai's Nepali Pan column 'Violence and vengeance' (#285) echoes the feelings of many expatriate Nepalis who feel the same way once in a while in their daily life. Just before reading her article, I was reading the interview of Baburam Bhattrai and I was amazed by the contrast in the sentiments expressed in her article and those of Baburam and like politicians who run our country by coercion. While ordinary people deplore violence and desire peace, the politicians are just happy to use violence as a means to their ends (the ends basically seem to have their way). For the Maoists it is basically to get rid of monarchy and for the government, it is basically to save the monarchy. The perpetrators of violence seem to have lost the civilised way of sorting out differences through dialogue, discussion and debate. As Deepa Rai says, the violence associated with the Maoists seems to eclipse the real agenda they started with, their 42-point demand.

Suni Shree,
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