Before my carrying on, Mallazi, let's contribute to the discussion w/o being disrespectful towards others. Believe me, its much better that way. Poonte, We have big disagreements here. You have raised very valid and LEGITIMATE counter points, and to be honest I cannot think of any counter-points except to reiterate - and probably corroborate on- my previous points. So my apologies beforehand, if I sound like a broken record. I am not a skeptic of democracy. I believe democracy should be the ultimate goal for Nepal. A true democracy supplemented by the rule of law, in which everyone obeys the constitution. Not like the fake democracy we had for the last 16 years, which only made our already miserable lives more miserable. There can be many interpretations for this mal-functioning of democracy absed on which/what school of though you subscribe to. I personally believe in a phase-wise democracy because that seems to yield more positive results than an all out transition made overnight. aaba talk about Nepal. I more or less agree with you when you say, the whole country was messed up from before. A few weeks ago in another thread, I had written the same thing: Nepal did not go through a rigorous nation building phase that many nation (nation-states) and states went through to come to their present stage of developmnet. Our sheer misfortune, when we were supposed to be educating the people, carry out developmnet works, bridge the gap between the various ethnic minorities (given that in Nepal there's no ethnic majority), we had a 104 years of Rana autocracy. Then for a brief period of time, we had a national governmnet, semi-quasi or whatever democracy. However, things went worse from bad, and Mahendra had no alternatives than to impose the Panchayat System. The Panchayat system was I think our only effort at nation building phase. It tried to promote nationalism. At least give the syetm some credit it deserves. It also connected Purba-Paschim Nepal. Also it was udner the Panchayat rule, Nepal emerged from an insecure small kingdom situated between India and China to a country that could implement its own independent foreign policy, allign itself with the US and do everything it could possibley do to give us - the people of Nepal- a sense of national independence. It through coersion or whatever other means, did install the feeling of Nepali-ness in the people of Nepal. The system might have other one billion flaws, but you have to look at the good side too, if you want a fair analysis. And for this, I give the syetm the credit it deserves. I don't know where/how/what gives you the impresseion that Panchayat vigorously promoted the King as Bishnu's incarnation. Of course, religiously people had been believing the King to be God even before the Panchayat. For example, in Gorkha people believed that Prithvi Narayan Shah was blessed by Gorakhkali and Gorakhnathl; in Salyan, Rukum people believed that he was blessed by Slayan, Rukum Bhagwatis; in other parts people believed him to to the incarnation of Halchowke Bhairav.. see, these kind of mystifying the rulers was and still IS, if you look at the Smayak Puja tradition of the Newar Buddhists of the valley, a Nepali tradition. Since our culture is based on Hinduism, and we being fatalist people, we whoever sits in that throne of Gaddi-Baithak is extra-ordinary- maybe an incarnation of Bishnu himself. To blame Panchayat for this thinking is not right. Of course Panchayat didn't do anything to change it, it didn't actually promote it. Beucase it was a nationalist system (not a democratic), the system had enermous potentitals to carry out the reforms necessary to create, develop and strengthen the institutions needed to sustain a liberal democarcy, but it didn't it. This is where the system went terribely wrong. Instead of relaxing the controls, it started to control more, and given what was happening in the world and Nepal from 1989-1991, the system was bound to go. Had the system reformed after 2036 saal, and had it given some basic rights to the people, the system would have survived the 1989-1991 global upheavels. Since the previous system hadn't reformed, it had to go. The new system which was to correct the mistakes of the previous system, started committing mistakes of its own. A handfull of leaders were the new Sarve-Sarva of Nepal. They led the nation to economic downturn, ethnic divisions, and by comibining the ecomonic downfall and ethnic divisions, they gave us a a powerful force- the Maoists. Ok Panchayat was bad, but how was the new system better? What did it do to consolidate the system? As fara s I can see, it didn't do anything. Only the name was different from the previous system. They were the same people running the show, with more freedom.. Since they were democractic theyw ere not accountable to anyone, not even the people. So my question is: If panchayat was that bad, awful, terrible, how was the new system different? Didn't teh new system, by foucing more on divisions created more problems than the old one? Ghoda-chadne manche ladhca.. and naladi kana ghoda chadna sakinna.. but when you are learning horseback riding at the age of 7, you have to find a pony, not a aglo Arbi ghoda.. you won't be even able to ride that, and even if you manage to ride that with the help of others, you will fall. And when you fall, if you realize your weakness and go ride a pony for few years, then the chances are, you will be able to ride the arbi ghoda and might even win the Derby. Our leaders lacked this common sense. They kept on insisting to us taht we 7 year olds wree ready for the Derby...even when we were in our tri-cycle phase.