The Army wants more men, the Police wants automatic weapons. Maoists have what they want: child recruits and deadly pipe bombs. None of them seem to have any concern for what the rest of us want: peace.

This is certainly a \'People\'s War\'. It is the people who die, it is the people who are maimed, driven out of their homes, not the Maoist leaders, not the police chiefs, not the generals and ministers. That is why no one talks about talks anymore. Except for Sher Bahadur Deuba, shouting all by himself in the corner: "I want to talk, I want to talk."

But no one lets him. Even within his own party, there is now rivalry among leaders to bag the big prize of resolving the Maoist insurgency. There are those who want to do it militarily, others want to go for negotiations. But only so long as they themselves get the credit. And the Maoists? They don\'t care either way, their revolution is moving along just fine at its own inexorable pace.

Sher Bahadur heads the task force formed by the Nepali Congress to hold talks with the Maoists. It was Krishna Prasad Bhattarai who formed that commission, but Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has been keeping it on a tight leash, threatening to disband it every so often. So Deuba (and the prospect of talks) are stuck. The government says \'OK, let\'s talk, but it is reluctant to specify what it wants to discuss.

Neither are the Maoists too eager to commit themselves to anything. In the killing fields of Rukum and Rolpa, Gorkha and Sindhuli, neither side has scored military victories dramatic enough to be cashed in at the negotiating table. So, they reason, why talk?

This is all the more sad. The government loses nothing if Sher Bahadur succeeds in engaging the Maoists. Koirala should realise that if the talks are indeed successful, as prime minister, he can reap more out of the peace dividend than can Sher Bahadur. But he obviously does not want to take the chance of Sher Bahadur bringing the fighting to an end and growing in political stature far above any Nepali leader of his generation. What a small price to pay to safeguard democracy, ensure the nation\'s survival, end this pointless bloodshed and (incidentally) foster a better political future for a senile party on the verge of disintegration. But politics being the cynical game it is, the protagonists clearly don\'t think so. For the Maoists, too, talking to the government does not mean an end of the struggle. After all, it was Chou en-Lai, the trusted lieutenant of the great helmsman, who made the little-known quote of Clausewitz\'s world famous: "All diplomacy is continuation of war by other means." However misguided their turn to violence may be, the Maoists leadership does have as its core value an end to oppression and neglect.

A quick military victory is impossible for either side, so even the most optimistic Maoist will readily agree that it may be pragmatic to have a fallback option in case talks allow them to continue the political struggle. It has happened in other countries. Senior government functionaries argue that talks will sap the morale of an already demoralised police force who are in the line of fire. Lame excuse, and false bravado. Talking does not mean capitulation. Keeping the law and making peace are not necessarily contradictory. The approach has to be not "either/or" but "either/or else". Our appeal to Girija Koirala and Prachanda is very simple: give peace a chance. You have nothing to lose. The people have had enough of this profane war.