Inside & outside By BISHNU SAPKOTA - All diaspora communities across the world have a complex relationship with the countries of their origin. A classic trait of such communities is that neither can they return to their home country physically nor are they going to give up their claim of nationalism and cultural identity associated with the country of origin. Since their loyalty is divided between where they live and where they come from historically, they live a half-hearted life. Certain scholars have come up with a theory of diaspora nationalism to explain the inherent contradictions with which these people live. And how they respond to certain political transitions taking place in their country of origin often offers fascinating readings into their own life pressed between lack of full ownership of a nation and loss of a cultural identity. An event took place in Washington last week that relates a section of Nepali diaspora to the question of their nationalism. As we saw on the visual, a few Nepali faces residing in the US appeared on a Nepal's state-owned TV channel. Apparently borrowed from a Nepali TV channel in the US, the footage showed a few Nepali 'nationalists' in Washington who were seemingly greater lovers of Nepal than those who happen to live inside Nepal at the moment. These enthusiastic economic migrants were shouting nationalist slogans in the Washington streets, hailing king's February First move as a political step Nepalis were long waiting for. Had Samuel P. Huntington (the American professor of "Clash of Civilizations" fame) seen that demonstration, he would have perhaps quickly jumped to conclude that Nepali diaspora does not fit into any theory of nationalism. At the moment, the whole world is reminding us that the only way forward from the present situation is to forge an alliance between the political parties and the king and initiate a peace dialogue. Even the king is making it loud and clear that the current state of emergency and ban on civil rights is a very temporary arrangement, which cannot last long. But our nationalist fellow-countrymen living outside Nepal do seem to advocate that the present situation should go ahead for long. By encouraging a widening gap between the political parties and the king, these people are advocating neither in favor of a stable monarchy nor democracy in Nepal. When they want to endanger monarchy by inspiring it to remain active and political parties by asking them to shut up for ever, what do these non-resident Nepalis want to see in the country they have left? What type of diaspora nationalism is this? There are certain political categories, which do not have substitutes. They are peace, democracy and human rights. There are certain political institutions in Nepal, which do not require substitutes. They are constitutional monarchy and political parties. Theoretically, the two institutions do fully acknowledge the role of each other while they also accept peace, democracy and human rights as the ultimate destination for the country. Nepal's mainstream political discourse cannot allow space to anything further than this. But we are confusing a few individual politicians with the political parties and certain actions of the king (such as the February First takeover) as the monarchy. The political parties are a democratic institution and they are not Govinda Raj Joshi and Khum Bahadur Khadka alone. But somewhere something has gone amiss and we suffer from a deep psychological bug of fearing each other, distrusting each other and thereby risk further perils.