We asked senior journalist and former minister Shrish S, Rana for his analysis on the current affairs in an interview. The results:

Q.  Day by day the political chaos is looming large. It seems the extended CA cannot deliver a new constitution in the remaining ten months as the major political parties are fighting for the PM’s position. How do you observe the situation?
A. I have been saying that Janaandolan 2 shifted the initiative for political change abroad in defiance of the fundamental mores of democracy and constitutionalism. I have also been saying that these external sponsors will seek to consolidate whatever political advantage they sought in sponsoring the movement. They will determine the mode of this consolidation. Whether through the new constitution or not will be at their convenience. This is unless better sense prevails among those who claim domestic political monopoly in the name of the people of Nepal.
As for the ‘fighting for the PM’s position’, the mainstream media which partnered the ‘people’s movement 2’ errs in portraying it so superficially. The trend in Nepali organizational politics has continually been one to secure government whichever way for organizational advantage. If the constitution is promulgated, the country must face polls. The target has always been to secure representation in a government that conducts the elections. Recall that a constitutional monarch which chose to consult the parliamentary parties for a national government in the absence of a sitting parliament was thrice spurned by parliamentary parties who put their stake in government first. Recall also that the monarchy was forced to reconvene a duly dissolved parliament and banished after they refused to oblige his search for a national government under his chairmanship. Recall that our political monopolists, including the Maoists, wrested government first, arbitrarily postponed dates set for elections to the constituent assembly, and then only conducted the elections insuring their lopsided representation in the assembly today. Amendments of the prevailing ‘interim constitution’ will remain the general rule to insure the monopoly remains. The ‘consensus’ government for a ‘consensus’ constitution will emerge when there is a ‘consensus’ on the results of the elections that will follow. Otherwise the competition on which political survival hinges will prevent the consensus.
Q.  There are rumours that India is planning for the introduction of Presidential rule by declaring a state of emergency. Are you aware about this?
A. Whose purpose does speculation of this sort serve? Is it that we are to accept the institutionalization of external policy in Nepal domestically? Or, is it designed to tame our current monopolists for performance? What are the provisions for the declaration of an emergency in the interim constitution and what are the sources? Or is it merely a figment of that spurious anti-Indianism that overt external intervention of the past years makes convenient?
Whatever, such rumors mask the widespread demand for political performance and change from which the bulk of Nepalis find themselves beyond reach. The partisan media lamely demands that the country should not be held ‘hostage to indecision’. They refrain from saying that the country as a whole has been held hostage in the pretense of change and in the name of an illusive peace and constitution. Having for years politicized the monarchy and dumped it on the same charge, a process is on to politicize the presidency and the army. The Indians, willing or not, are handy scapegoats.
Q. Do you feel that the UNMIN’s tenure should be extended?
A. Does it matter what the Nepalis feel? What matters is that UNMIN was unilaterally invited into Nepal to broker peace by signatories who now flagrantly disagree among themselves on that role staking the very credibility of Nepal’s hopes in the United Nations movement and jeopardizing the country’s previously widely respected independent role in that august organization.
My surprise is in our fourth estate not stating the obvious that the Janaandolan 2 helped legitimize and import terror in the name of peace. This moreover was with the sponsorship and active collusion of international champions of democracy, human rights, anti-terrorism and constitutionalism. This is despite the media carrying claims by the Maoists of how they were asked to ‘eliminate’ election candidates and provide ‘security’ for the ‘aandolan’. Seemingly ignorant of their previous partisan stance, they are currently also highlighting claims that the state cannot have two armies, that the Maoists must be a civic party by disbanding the YCL and their PLA. One is aware of the advantage already granted the Maoists organizationally because of such gross oversight in agreements such as that with the UNMIN but the country will continue to have to grapple with the widespread insecurity and public scare that has been allowed to entrench nationwide. Why should not the Maoists, as signatories of the agreement that legitimized Janaandolan 2, claim their rights in accordance to that agreement of having the UNMIN supervise their armed cadre at state’s expense? Is it that the agreement has failed? Then what of the Janaandolan 2 and the peace process?  
Q. Since the April 2006 uprising was started, you were saying that that was an effort to shift the political headquarters of Nepal to New Delhi. It seems you were true. Is there any possibility for returning the shifted capital to Kathmandu again?
A. Your question prompts me to venture into a sensitive subject currently taboo for obvious reasons. Independent, democratic Nepal has for long been struggling to define its relations with its two immediate neighbors among which the Indian preference, due to the high degree of interaction, has seemingly demonstrated its ability to effect change in Nepali policy time and again to the state now that it is soon to reach a point of either outright acceptance on part of Nepal threatening its sovereignty, national integrity and independence or outright rejection bordering on impractical anti-Indianism which would again invite more Indian intervention of which we seem to be increasingly incapable of withstanding on our own.
Without doubt, having bad relations with an immediate neighbor is something Nepal cannot afford. But what is good relation if it is to mean that the will of the bigger neighbor must prevail here. Does it mean that Nepal has no national interest of its own? What does this mean in terms of Nepal’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence? Where do we set the limits? Again, it is us, the Nepalis and not the Indians for very obvious reasons that must set the limits. Having welcomed a competitive political system where political organizations and their programs can be increasingly dependent on foreign funds without the state’s capability to monitor such, are we in a position to define the limits? Either we must go about enhancing our capabilities or we will be undermined. This is for real.
Q.  People say that there is visible direct intervention of India on all fronts. What is your opinion on this?
A. You seem to want more discussion on this. Let it suffice to say that it is outright lopsided to blame this on the Indians rather than on ourselves. For the Indians, it must be mentioned here that this is increasingly at the cost of genuine goodwill to healthy Nepal-India relations. Indeed, this can be at the cost of stability and security in the region as a whole. Of, a sudden, for example, the U.S. sees a terror threat to the region through Nepal. What does this mean when it is they too who helped tools of terror wreak the change in Nepal?
How close is close relationship? There is, not surprisingly, much talk, again, of Bhutanization or Sikkimisation. I know I will be annoying our Indian friends if I mention here the cost of ‘Kashmirization’ to an India that continues to spend ten percent of her total national budget on one percent of the population that resides in that Indian state. Forget the numbers of the Hindus displaced, the Buddhists marginalized and the seemingly endless deaths despite which the call for ‘azaadi’ (freedom) does not dissipate. Remember also the chunk of Kashmiri territory lost to a third party and the fact that the erstwhile prince who acceded his state to India cannot now claim an election constituency in his own former state. It should be impossible for sane thinking Nepalis to forget the fact that Pakistan and India are no longer able to keep the Kashmir issue aside for reasons of their own domestic political mechanism draining their precious budgets perpetually on a security that seems increasingly competitive and illusive. For us who watch these developments with concern, one can only fret about how Jashwant Singh or Lal Krishna Advani must be so publicly incarcerated when they, in separate books, chose to reanalyze the much castigated (in India that is) Muhammed Ali Jinnah’s actual role in the Indian nationalist movement. Perhaps, I shall be accused of taking things too far by citing Kashmir here.
 Let us take China then. How, then, must we define our relations with that other neighbor? A third of our country is shared by China’s Tibetan plateau. Where are we to stand in the no longer hidden Sino-Indian competition? Granted that the longer border they share directly prompts a need for direct relations as well but it is a contended border and the two countries have different security perspectives. What is to be ours? These are unavoidable policy decisions for Nepal. As it is, I see Chinese strategic interest in Nepal perhaps even more intense at the moment because of the changes in Nepal than its interest in North Korea. Encroaching Indian interest in Nepal has been increasingly at the expense of China. Internationally won Chinese contracts in Nepal have been repeatedly cancelled on grounds of Indian security, Chinese investments for Nepal have been sold to Indian entrepreneurs. India harbors Dalai Lama and has a history of accommodating free Tibet activities that have also been reflected in Nepal. Can we afford this competition in our territory? How do we withstand it? By wishing it away? Moreover, can this competition be accommodated in Nepal?
If Indian short-sightedness prevents these realizations, surely Nepali policy cannot ignore them at external prompting.
Q. Do you see any possibility of return of the Institution of Monarchy?
A Firstly, realization must dawn on the Nepali people including those who claim to represent them and organize on their behalf that the removal of the monarchy was not in the national interest. Secondly, convenient political interests must be effectively made subservient to pre-determined national interests that the monarchy as every citizen should be made to serve and this applies to the rules of democracy and constitutionalism as well which means that our politicians, and not just the king, are not above the constitution. Thirdly, our foreign friends who championed the cause of the politician at the expense of the monarchy must be made to realize that the Nepali is aware that this has been at the cost of Nepal, Nepali democracy, constitutionalism, peace and human rights and regional stability and that their foreign policy objectives will not be served in the long run.
There is this wrongly promoted perspective that those who support the monarchy do so because they benefit from it. This is wrong. The bulk population who support the monarchy do so spontaneously for the country with the belief that the monarchy in Nepal serves the country selflessly and not just those in its proximity. King Gyanendra surprised the world by relinquishing his throne after his constitutionally prescribed role as guardian of the constitution and symbol of national unity was denied him by monopoly organizations that organized at the monarchy’s expense despite their publicly committed allegiance to a constitution prescribing constitutional monarchy (except the rebelling Maoists, that is). The people must be enabled to set things right given that it is the people and not the king that has the democratic right to organize. This institution, moreover, is essential also for Nepal to withstand the now widely proven pressures of international competition directly or through domestic proxies. Unless this is done, what is the purpose of the monarchy in any case? After all, its removal is very much designed also to erode an edifice of our national identity and separateness. One is already so aware of the fallacy of the charges against the monarchy that one cannot but be astounded at the extents of investments for this grand design.
Q. How do you see the future of Nepal and the people?
A. The Nepali state has until fairly recently survived as a distinct political, territorial, linguistic, cultural, religious and strategic entity. As much as we may blame the international community for attempting to undermine these ingredients of a modern sovereign state in pursuit of their interests, we must not forget that this is being done at the hands of a select political class who monopolize the political system ‘cashing’ in on the handy external support. Hindus, Buddhists, Animists, Muslims and even Christians, the latter even when proselytization was legally banned in the country, coexisted here whereas now the exigencies of partisan organization stand poised to pit each against the other on the plea of their separate rights under secularism. Unlike most developing countries that had incompatible identity problems after the departure of their colonial rulers, Nepal stood to gain tremendously from its distinct identity as a Monarchy, as a Hindu state where a common Lingua Franca prevailed not mere officially, where an official dress was unique to the country and even the borders wrought with Nepali blood was readily demarcable by historical documents and personal papers of ownership. Insipid excuses for modernism and outdated theories of exploitation and external encroachments have gradually dismantled these sterling developmental advantages at the behest of highly parochial, defeatist, organized interests. The result is amply manifest in a conflict –prone, strife- ridden, economically bleeding society gradually being robbed of its independent choices. Acceptance of this can only mean chaos in the country and the region with global implications from which not only the Nepalis but current international sponsors may find themselves difficult to extricate. Hope lies in the fact that this is enough deterrence for correction. Hope lies also in the fact that the very sectors who saw no public support in the monarchy now witness the disorganized but spontaneous public groundswell welcoming the ousted monarch and his family members which even the partisan media cannot ignore but must continue to condemn in utter disregard, again, of their professional role as independent informers. Hope lies also in the search for options to the current malaise to which our current masters have contributed repeatedly and impudently. There is always hope. One must wait for it to be tangible.