Kathmandu: The pessimism is permeable. Expected reports of the Maoists winding up their lone office in the capital merely underscores the pessimism regarding the talks with the Maoists regardless of the government claims otherwise. The mock parliamentary session of the agitating parties is the other reflection of the zero chances of the Thapa cabinet garnering their support. Even rumors of a solely RPP expansion of the cabinet has yet to materialize.

This suggests that Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa has failed in both fronts. What keeps him in government is the plea that he has had little time. The plea for time is voiced by Minister Kamal Thapa’s public utterance of the need of at least six months to perform. However, tensions that have surfaced within two months of his government suggest that more time may be costly. Thapa has had his way in the formation of the government. His choice has prevented continuity of the visible gains of the previous Chand ministry. Even this smacks of retrogression. The agitation has heightened. The talks with the Maoists appear doomed. There is no motion forward. If there is any motion, it is backward.

And so one can’t but call for a visible action by noneless than the monarchy to ensure that at least a semblance of change keeping with the demands of the people is instigated, or else events will repeatedly invite an appearance of the Palace merely reacting to situations. The initiative, it will seem, will be solely that of either the Maoists or the agitators or, now, of noneless than S. B. Thapa.

It is too transparent that Thapa owes his office to none other than the King. The agitators target the King. The Maoists single him out. And, now, the King must face the possibility of Thapa’s ire in case he is dumped which he must.

At another level, the “grand design” is shaping up. Those who fear the reemergence of a Bhutan like situation in Nepal should go one step further and see a Sikkim being built up in Nepal. In case the monarchy is pressured into the political decisions to recall the now dissolved parliament which is being deliberately provoked by the agitators with known instigators, the Congress-UML combine will have been teased enough to curtail whatever remnant residual powers for the monarchy with the strength of its numbers in a constitutional amendment. If he chooses not to do so on the strength of the constitution, the Maoists on the one hand and the agitating powers on the other can be instigated against the monarchy directly. This polarization is a well conceived design for the next phase of the so-called Nepali democracy.

It is this polarization that will have to be properly understood in its national, regional and international perspectives prior to the monarchy making a determined and cohesive stand in favor of the constitution. This decision will have to be political.