The ground hasn't moved, but the Maoist-led government is shaky. Even seemingly innocent visits to India by Gyanendra and Girija make the Maoists nervous. Why should this revolutionary party that once launched a 'tunnel-war' with India be scared of India now?

It was the Maoists who planted the seeds of ethnic identity politics. In the six decades of communist uprising in Nepal, no other communist party used ethnicity as a tool to incite the people. A class-based revolution is turning into an ethnic one. If this isn't nipped in the bud, Nepal might turn into another Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. Both the people, and the representative parties in the constitutional assembly, should be alert. The Maoists must keep one thing in mind: they may have the weapons, but that doesn't make them infallible.