Subscriber’s copy #179 16-22 January 2004 24 pages Rs 25 KUNDA DIXIT Weekly Internet Poll # 119 ne month after the student Q. If a referendum were to be held, what type unions affiliated to the of system would you vote for? political parties launched their agitation, the protests have taken a dramatic and radical Orepublican tone. The students appear to have the Total votes:1,658 green light from their mentors in the Weekly Internet Poll # 120. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Who is going to solve this puzzle? parties to step up the rhetoric in a Q. Do you trust the current political leadership to lead the nation? last-ditch attempt to pressure King Gyanendra to agree to retract his October Fourth move, and restore power to the peoples representatives. Student leaders who STUMPED began their campaign by demanding that the king restore democracy are now openly calling for him to step down from the throne. King Gyanendra himself tried to defuse the situation by initiating a series of meetings with party leaders and presenting them with his 7- point agenda for political consensus. The leaders were not too impressed. The palace for its part doesnt seem too worried about the street agitation or the insurgency escalating out of control. Does it know something we dont? It could be pleased about recent military gains in the see-saw war as well as old rifts opening up between the NC and the UML. The two parties are divided BILASH RAI about whether reinstatement of ENJOY parliament or an all-party Every Friday government is the way forward. Both present, so the palace offering the parties green The Sumptuous Barbecue Dinner want to have an upper hand when, and the parties have to meet grass but if they fall for it again it at our illuminated Courtyard and Garden and if, the king backtracks. They halfway. Only then can they look will be suicidal and a major blunder, For Vegetarians have also adopted a two-pronged for a solution to the Maoist Ideologue Baburam Bhattarai in a Bhattarai wrote. Special Sish Kebabs and many more. strategy: telling the students to take insurgency. If the king decides to go writeup in the party paper, Janadesh, The Maoists Editorial p2 a hardline anti-monarchy stance it alone, it is sure to the push the this week poked fun at the kings have declared a For Reservation: 552 1810 Tail wags dog while they themselves soft-peddle it. parties and the Maoists closer and audiences with party leaders. He Magar Autonomous Region in the Most independent analysts agree rush us towards a republic. urged the parties not to listen to the midwest and are planning a big that neither a republic nor a return The Maoists are taking full king and keep up the republican gathering at a secret location to mark to absolute monarchy are feasible at advantage of this polarisation. momentum. King Gyanendra is the event next week. l 16 - 22 JANUARY 2004 2 EDITORIAL #179 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Desk Editor: Trishna Gurung, Design: Kiran Maharjan Webmaster: Bhushan Shilpakar Advertising: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Subscription: Anil Karki, [email protected] Sanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, Nepal Tel: 01-5543333-6, Fax: 01-5521013 [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 01-5547018 Kleptoholics anonymous TAIL WAGS DOG Real regression is putting arsonists and extortionists in power. hat a difference two weeks makes. Last month, we bit our tongues parliament itself failed to initiate has proposed any serious while talking about the anti-monarchy slogans being raised on GUEST COLUMN necessary reforms, it would blueprint. the streets. Today it has become so commonplace, we don’t bat Dipak Gyawali an eyelid. inevitably be done from If one has to go for elections, Till a few weeks ago, people spoke in hushed tones of the shoe outsideeither as a consensual why suffer the impossible feat of Wgarlands on royal effigies. Last week, they cremated a corpse of ‘regression’ oth Rishikesh Shaha and reform process initiated by King electing an impractical wearing a crown, and it was regarded as just another street demo. Shambhu Prasad Gyawali Birendra or through the Maoist constituent assembly? Why not Now that the streets are resounding with republican slogans, one has to (my father) have now passed path of a constituent assembly. elect a fresh parliament that wonder why Nepalis have to kill each other for that cause anymore. Nine thousand lives and eight years of mayhem later, it now looks like the main into the pages of history, but they After having his fingers burnt in already has the right to change demand of the Maoists could just as easily have been met by street Bwere giants that bestrode the 1979 and 1990, the monarch the constitution with a two- protests and setting a few government vehicles alight. The party bosses Nepali public sphere for half a seemed reluctant to pursue the third majority? There is nothing unleashed the students, but will the kids listen to Grandad Girija anymore? century. Both were architects of first. Was the second option of in the present constitution The tail is wagging the dog. the 1962 Constitution that lasted wiping the slate clean and stopping it from adding It is difficult to gauge just how much support the students on the streets starting afresh even feasible? provisions of ethnic or linguistic get from onlookers on the sidewalks. But the fact that so far they are just 30 years despite being mangled, looking on, and not joining in the arson, may indicate the slogans are just first by Panchayati hardliners in The scenario could unfold as balance or even a referendum. that: slogans. The Nepali people still appear to be drawing a distinction 1975 and subsequently by the follows. At the very instance that Why dont the parties go to the between the institution of monarchy and the intention of the monarch. myopia in 1980 after the National a constituent assembly was people with that clear blueprint Most bystanders don’t trust the political parties all that much either. Referendum. A few months before declared, the 1990 Constitution and get the requisite mandate? They take a dim view of the bonfire of government pickups bought with my father passed away, I remember would be null and void. Five years ago, when the public money. Ripples of the anti-regression demos on Ratna Park do not reach remote Nepal. The message is magnified by television news, but the the two debating the 1990 Immediately the executive, elders debated this question, people analyse it as being less about republicanism and more about Constitution, which had begun to legislative and judiciary powers of there was still hope that the parties trying to upgrade their bargaining position vis-à-vis the king. exhibit fatal flaws. the kingdom would revert to the parties could see the light and It doesn’t help the parties’ cause that the people recognize some They did not doubt that it head of state. The constituent lead to reforms. Today, we have familiar faces leading the marches, faces that are on the CIAA’s watch-list. had certain democratic features, assembly would then be the seen much more veniality, and The public is also dismayed that these past weeks prove the modus process of bringing back those the governance debate is far less operandi of the parties hasn’t changed. If they get back on the but it also contained contradictions saddle, they will be back to their old tricks, including fighting each other which led to the present mess in powers to public organisations edifying. Congenital kleptocrats tooth-and-nail. governance. It was biased against and legitimating them. The have no business calling Meanwhile, sitting in Nagarjun and gazing down at his capital Valley, small and emerging parties, and it difficulties inherent in that themselves democrats. Arsonists the monarch is recalcitrant. The royal audiences have failed to do the effectively failed to include course of action, they felt, were or extortionists are no trick. The king’s use of the seven-point plan seems to have underestimated heterogeneous minority groups. not being seriously considered. progressive vanguard. Restoring the frustration of the parliamentary leadership as well as the potential of the street agitation to spiral out of control of both the government and the Provisions such as the judicial First, one had to decide what them to power without them parties. council removed the onus of legitimate constituencies were. having to face voters is the real Now that we are forced to think the unthinkable, we have to say that proper administration of justice The 205 electoral districts would regression. Nepal will probably survive as a republic. But why get rid of an institution from the shoulders of the chief have already been annulled. How The way out of this that is not just a symbol of our historical evolution into a nation state, but justice. Under a winner-takes-all was one to fix new ones? On quagmire is to begin the process also an institution that can be the constitutional force of last resort? what basis? Population? of local elections that will throw If the parties showed more measured and responsible behaviour and scheme, real representation was the palace proved through its actions that it is committed to restoring the wanting. And by blurring the Language? Ethnicity? Religion? up a newer set of young leaders. peoples’ sovereign rights, there may still be a way out of this morass.