Rahul vai wrote: "भौतिक रुपमा भलै देश टुक्राउन सकिन्न होला, भावनात्मक रुपमा पहाडे र मधेशे भनेर टुक्राउने दुश्प्रयास सुरु भै सक्यो र अब जनजाति, थारु अनि अरु ले पनि देखासिकि गरि सके।" Which planet is Rahul vai from? Though he considers himself a loktantrik and all that, he has this "sundar shanta bishal" Panchayati image of Nepal. That image was good for RNAC posters and Mahendra Mala books. But the reality was and is different for many in Nepal. Given Nepal's ethnic diversity and given how little was done to address the grievances of many janjatis and non-Kathmandu-based minorities from the 1950s to the 1990s, Nepal was always some sort of a Yugoslavia in the making. All along, we'd been skating on thin ice. Now that we have slipped, people like Rahul Vai rush to pretend that the floor was not icy after all, and that it's the fault of some other people! But now that -- with these andolans -- the shit has hit the fan, the straightforward questions are: 1) Do we still deny reality, and preach the songs of some la-la national brotherhood and hope that the problems will somehow go away, only to engulf the whole country and tear it to pieces? OR 2) Do we take a cold hard brutal look at how we all are, and take confidence-building, trust-building, step-by-step measures to address the grievances of so many Nepalis under a democratically framed rule-of-law-regime? As a pahadiya bahun who does not fancy the prospects of Nepal going the Yugoslavia way, I choose the SECOND option (knowing fully well that it's a much harder but better option). That is why, I, for one, yearn for groups of statesmen and stateswomen to emerge in Nepal in this hour . . . from any walk of life. Here is an article, that talks about various shades of discrimination that's been going on in Nepal for ages. - http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2007/others/guestcolumn/feb/guest_columns_07.php An extract: "Discrimination of people on the basis of language, custom, caste, etc., has always been rampant in Nepal. People who have lived in Madhes for generations but are of Parbate lineage are considered Madhesis by the rest of the countrymen but Parbates by Madhesis. These people have their own burden to bear. Madhesi is not the only group, which is a victim of discrimination in Nepal; one can go on forever about Janjatis (indigenous community) for example. As a matter of fact, every Nepali who lives outside the inner Kathmandu valley has been discriminated one way or another throughout the history of Nepal. Sadly even among those who are the victims of discriminations, there are internal discriminations within themselves." oohi ashu