Dr. Koenraad Elst:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Esteemed worthies, dear friends,
From several sources I have received the following article, to which I have added my comment at the end:
<i>Preserve Nepal as a Hindu country
J.G. Arora
jgarora@vsnl.net
Central Chronicle, Bhopal:Â May 25 and 26, 2006
It is a tragedy beyond words that on May 18, 2006, Nepal Adhirajya, the only Hindu country in the world and occupying a special place in the billion strong Hindu community's heart across the globe, has been divested of its Hindu identity, and has been declared as a secular country under pressure from Maoists and missionaries.
It is deplorable that Nepal, the land of glorious history of thousands of years; the land of warriors, sages, temples and Vedic heritage; the land of Gopalas, Mahishpals, Kirats, Lichhavis, Mallas and Shahs; the land of Yalambar, Lumbini and Gautam Budha, Manadeva, Amsuverma, Jayasthiti Malla, and Prithvi Narayan Shah; and the only Hindu country in the world is being grabbed by Maoists and missionaries in the name of democracy.
On May 18, 2006 after a decade long Maoist violence which began in 1996, the interim government led by G. P. Koirala divested Nepal of it being a Hindu country, and proclaimed it to be a secular state. Besides, simultaneously, 'His Majesty's Government' was replaced with 'Nepal Government' and Royal Nepal Army (which was fighting the Maoists) was named Nepalese Army. To complete Nepal's break with its distinguished past, monarch was divested of all the executive powers including that of being the supreme commander of the army. In the process, the basic identity and history of Nepal have been sought to be destroyed.
And there was no word of protest against the Maoists for the death and destruction brought by them.
Anti Hindu conspirators, Maoists, missionaries and ISI operators could not have asked for more. In the background of Pope's 1999 address at New Delhi asking for evangelizing Asia, missionaries see in demolition of Hindu kingdom of Nepal better opportunities for Christianizing the Hindu nation of Nepal.
Though there are scores of Christian and Muslim countries in the world, and though there is a billion strong Hindu community across the globe, Nepal with a population of 24 millions was the only Hindu country in the world.
Maoist-takeover of Nepal
For Nepal as also for India, Maoists are the problem, and not the solution.
It is all the more deplorable that Nepal which could never be subjugated in the past is being grabbed by the Maoists under the subterfuge of democracy. As per Mao Tse Tung (1893-1976), "power flows through the barrel of a gun"; and as his faithful followers, Maoists use violence to achieve political power. And Maoists never admire democracy.
Nepal travelled from absolute to constitutional monarchy in 1990. However, in February 1996, 'Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist' launched its violent movement to substitute constitutional monarchy with communist regime. Starting in 1996, Maoist violence has claimed thousands of lives in Nepal.
Throughout their regime till 2005, multi-party democracy and political parties could not tackle Maoist threat. Accordingly, to quell insurgency and to save Nepal from disaster, in February 2005, king Gyanendra took over the government for three years.
History teaches that democratic niceties cannot tackle insurgencies. A similar Maoist rebellion known as 'Shining Path' (Sendero Luminoso in Spanish) tormented Peru for decades before it was crushed in 1990s by Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori who suspended legislature and judiciary, and used army and dictatorial powers to crush terrorism.
After pro-democracy demonstrations, King Gyanendra restored Parliament and invited the Seven-Party Alliance to form the government. Nepali Congress leader G.P. Koirala was installed as the Prime Minister of Nepal.
Forgetting that many of their party members were killed by the same Maoists prior to royal takeover in 2005; and mortally scared of Maoists, Seven Party Alliance is implementing Maoist agenda which will facilitate Maoist takeover of Nepal, and make all non-Maoists irrelevant very soon. For political parties, the only way to defeat the Maoists would have been to support the king.
A unique native institution
Nepal is the only surviving native Hindu government on earth. Therefore, as a venerable symbol of aspirations of global Hindu community, Nepal's Hindu identity must be protected and preserved by the Hindu world.
Anti-Hindu forces want to destroy Nepal, the world's sole surviving Hindu kingdom, the way all other native religions and governments in other parts of the world have been already destroyed. Those celebrating the fall of Nepal as a Hindu nation should reflect on loss of millions of lives in Russia, China, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia and many other countries where communists came into power.
Though anti-Hindus, Maoists and missionaries will celebrate demolition of the world's only Hindu country, it is a grim tragedy for Hindus all over the world. Considering Nepal's history and heritage, only the constitutional monarchy and a Hindu Nepal will be able to save Nepal from Maoists and missionaries.
Issues at stake
Events in Nepal concern every Hindu in Nepal, in India and every where else. The issue in Nepal is not of monarchy versus democracy as has been wrongly projected by some sections in media. The issue is that of having a friendly Hindu nation versus a communist dictatorship in India's neighbourhood. The issue is that of native Hindu governance versus a totalitarian communist regime like China, Vietnam or North Korea.
The issue is of preservation of Hindu culture and heritage in Nepal, in India and in rest of the world.
Demolition of the only Hindu country in the world will be disastrous for Hindus, and will lead to gradual destruction of Hindu heritage all over the world. Why cannot even a single Hindu country exist when there are scores of Muslim and Christian countries in the world?
Way out
By leaving Nepal to its fate, India has facilitated Maoist takeover of Nepal. And Maoist takeover of Nepal will be detrimental to India since it will sharpen Maoists' war on India. Already, Maoists in India are targeting Indian state and challenging Indian sovereignty over large parts of India.
Nothing is wrong with Nepal's Constitution of 1990, and with constitutional monarchy. Rather, constitutional monarchy is the only device which will save Nepal from Maoists and also enable it to retain its unique feature of being the Hindu nation. Since the king has already restored parliament and multi-party democracy, political parties have to ensure that Maoists do not grab Nepal. And political parties can ensure that only if they support the institution of constitutional monarchy; and do nothing to hand over power to Maoists.
Since past cannot be recalled and relived, and mistakes of the past cannot be undone, the least that the Indian government can do now to redeem the situation in Nepal is to help the anti-Mao forces in Nepal to crush Maoist violence and prevent Maoist takeover of Nepal.
Since Nepal has nurtured and upheld Hindu heritage and traditions for so many centuries, it deserves the help of global Hindu community in its fight against anti-Hindu forces.
If Nepal is allowed to be grabbed by Maoists and missionaries, India too will be grabbed by Maoists, missionaries and Pak-Bangla combine. Since government in India is passively watching the gradual demolition of Hindu nation of Nepal, organizations and individuals who understand Hindu anguish must do their best to preserve Nepal as a Hindu country.
It is now or never for Hindus all over the world.</i>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My comments:
1) Mr. Arora strongly and wrongly identifies two different issues, viz. the continuation of the monarchy and the continuation of the Hindu state religion. If the latter really depends on ths former, Hinduism in Nepal is in a sorry state. England has a state religion, Anglicanism, with the monarch as its guarantor ("defender of the faith"); but Anglicanism has nonetheless declined continuously in the last two centuries and is now the practised religion of only a small minority. To be sure, I am not against constitutional monarchy as a proven success formula for sailing a nation through the rough waters of modernization. Compare the relatively bloodless progress of Britain since 1688 with the blood-soaked 20th century of Russia and China, where pre-revolution attempts (by Piotr Shelepin c.q. Kang Youwei) at peaceful transformation through the mutation of the regime into a constitutional monarchy had failed. But in such a formula, the smug monarch himself is usually a major problem. In the case of Nepal, the palace massacre a few years ago showed how decadent and decrepit the dynasty had become. Yes, the situation reminds us of Russia in February 1917, when a spineless bourgeois crowd took over and prepared the way for the Communists by autumn of the same year.
2) Where does he get the idea that Nepal has done anything for Hinduism? Through isolation and the sheer force of inertia, the nominally Hindu character of the state was preserved until now, but not through any merit of the monarchy or of any other party. If there is any Hindu core group fighting for Hindu interests in Nepal, I'd like to hear about it. Clearly, Mr. Arora hasn't heard of one, otherwise he would have appealed for help to it. Indeed, whenever any attack on Hinduism threatens, all Nepali Hindus have done was to give in without a fight. A few years ago, the Maoists demanded the abolition of the Sanskrit class in schools, and the course was dropped at once. And now, the king gives everything which the Maoist-pressured politicians demand, merely to save his own kingship and lifestyle, not moving a finger to defend the Hindu character of his state.
3) The Nepali politicians, that fickle and corrupt lot who messed up their chance at democracy so badly in the 1990s, do not behave as if they are under any pressure from Hindu lobby groups or public opinion to stand up for Hindu interests. Indira Gandhi defended these once in a while because to her, Hindu opinion still made a difference. Her successors today, by contrast, can afford to slap Hindus in the face day after day without incurring any adverse consequence whatsoever. And likewise in Nepal. Politicians take really existing power equations into account, and with their sharp eye for such matters, they have concluded that there is no need for assuming any Hindu factor in that equation, for there is no pro-Hindu force on the horizon at all.
4) Now, the responsibility for all this. Ever since I first met a Nepali Hindu (at Benares Hindu university in 1989) and he gave me an account of the situation in Nepal, I have been very pessimistic about the future of Hinduism there. Never in the intervening years has even a single news item reached my ear that indicated a counter-trend, it was slowly downhill all along. Bangladeshi infiltrators accumulated, the ISI set up shop, the Christian missionaries lambasted the country's anti-conversion law all while making converts by the thousands... But in the Organiser, which I read every week, or on the Hindu weblists, I have never seen any serious concern about it, much less any discussion of what to do about it. (To this, RSS people have replied to me that "strategic plans are not discussed on a public forum", though always without showing me the actual results of their presumed secret masterplan, hahaha.) Even the palace massacre did not trigger any soul-searching, any crisis consultation, any sense of urgency. Even with the Maoists closing in on Kathmandu, there was no Hindu contingency plan, nor even any thought of one. And now Mr. Arora says that "it's now or never", as if it just fell from the sky. When the game is already up, he calls for Hindus to do something. Where have all the Hindu forces been all this time? Where was the family of organizations that endlessly praises its own merits in print, its role as "guardian" and "vanguard" and what not of Hindu society? I have never ever seen it make an honest balance of its own achievements. Apart from the Ayodhya demolition by its rebellious ranks, which it deplores as a Black Day, what has it ever achieved for the Hindu cause? Alright, at the grass-roots level there may be some achievements, such as the non-conversion of many tribals to Christianity. In civil society, the record is not all negative, and comparable to what tiny Hindu minorities in countries like Holland and England manage to achieve. But at the political level, the Hindutva performance has been one long string of forfeits and defeats. Winning an election may have been a victory for the BJP but not for Hinduism, for its time in government saw no victories for any specific Hindu interests (which is not to belittle the important work that Narendra Modi, Arun Shourie, Jagmohan and others have done in secular respects). The enemy side has a lot to show, a lot of victories over the hated Hindus, but what have the guardians of Hindu interests got to show for all the trust Hindus have put in them? And now, they are not even able to make and publicize an honest analysis of what exactly went wrong in Nepal.
5) The events in Nepal are not just a defeat against the Marxist-Muslim-Missionary combine. An important factor, which the MMM have managed to mobilize in support of their own designs, has been the "aboriginal" and "Buddhist" communities, who also demanded a secular state. Hindu organizations are good at pontificating how the Buddha was a Hindu, how all non-Abrahamics including the tribal "animists" in South Asia are Hindus, but on the ground, it transpires that the people concerned are not convinced. They listen to the missionaries, even if not to convert, at least to turn against Hinduism. What have you done to convince them? Hindus either took them for granted, or wrote them off as already lost and beyond recall. Please judge from the recent results. A related matter: right now the Jains are making a choice whether they are Hindus or not. If Sandhya Jain is right, the Hindu option is not lost yet, and is actually favoured by the majority of common Jains (if she'll forgive me for juxtaposing the words "Jain" and "common"). But given the Hindutva record of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, I wouldn't be too optimistic.
6) You could put a brave face on the dehinduization of the Nepali state. As the Mahant of the recently-attacked Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi once told me: "If a religion relies on the state, it will become weak." Well, maybe that's just what happened in Nepal. Maybe it's better to go on without the status of state religion. You may now try to present that anti-state-religion position as the Hindu view of the recent events, but that will only be credible if you can show that you already wanted the secularization of Nepal before it fell upon you. All the same, don't kid yourselves: after a battle in which nobody showed up to defend the Hindu side, this has been a shameful defeat. Your enemies know it, and they are enjoying it.
Yours truly,
Dr. Koenraad Elst
PS: And while I have your attention, please take a look at this recent article of mine as well:<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Esteemed worthies, dear friends,
From several sources I have received the following article, to which I have added my comment at the end:
<i>Preserve Nepal as a Hindu country
J.G. Arora
jgarora@vsnl.net
Central Chronicle, Bhopal:Â May 25 and 26, 2006
It is a tragedy beyond words that on May 18, 2006, Nepal Adhirajya, the only Hindu country in the world and occupying a special place in the billion strong Hindu community's heart across the globe, has been divested of its Hindu identity, and has been declared as a secular country under pressure from Maoists and missionaries.
It is deplorable that Nepal, the land of glorious history of thousands of years; the land of warriors, sages, temples and Vedic heritage; the land of Gopalas, Mahishpals, Kirats, Lichhavis, Mallas and Shahs; the land of Yalambar, Lumbini and Gautam Budha, Manadeva, Amsuverma, Jayasthiti Malla, and Prithvi Narayan Shah; and the only Hindu country in the world is being grabbed by Maoists and missionaries in the name of democracy.
On May 18, 2006 after a decade long Maoist violence which began in 1996, the interim government led by G. P. Koirala divested Nepal of it being a Hindu country, and proclaimed it to be a secular state. Besides, simultaneously, 'His Majesty's Government' was replaced with 'Nepal Government' and Royal Nepal Army (which was fighting the Maoists) was named Nepalese Army. To complete Nepal's break with its distinguished past, monarch was divested of all the executive powers including that of being the supreme commander of the army. In the process, the basic identity and history of Nepal have been sought to be destroyed.
And there was no word of protest against the Maoists for the death and destruction brought by them.
Anti Hindu conspirators, Maoists, missionaries and ISI operators could not have asked for more. In the background of Pope's 1999 address at New Delhi asking for evangelizing Asia, missionaries see in demolition of Hindu kingdom of Nepal better opportunities for Christianizing the Hindu nation of Nepal.
Though there are scores of Christian and Muslim countries in the world, and though there is a billion strong Hindu community across the globe, Nepal with a population of 24 millions was the only Hindu country in the world.
Maoist-takeover of Nepal
For Nepal as also for India, Maoists are the problem, and not the solution.
It is all the more deplorable that Nepal which could never be subjugated in the past is being grabbed by the Maoists under the subterfuge of democracy. As per Mao Tse Tung (1893-1976), "power flows through the barrel of a gun"; and as his faithful followers, Maoists use violence to achieve political power. And Maoists never admire democracy.
Nepal travelled from absolute to constitutional monarchy in 1990. However, in February 1996, 'Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist' launched its violent movement to substitute constitutional monarchy with communist regime. Starting in 1996, Maoist violence has claimed thousands of lives in Nepal.
Throughout their regime till 2005, multi-party democracy and political parties could not tackle Maoist threat. Accordingly, to quell insurgency and to save Nepal from disaster, in February 2005, king Gyanendra took over the government for three years.
History teaches that democratic niceties cannot tackle insurgencies. A similar Maoist rebellion known as 'Shining Path' (Sendero Luminoso in Spanish) tormented Peru for decades before it was crushed in 1990s by Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori who suspended legislature and judiciary, and used army and dictatorial powers to crush terrorism.
After pro-democracy demonstrations, King Gyanendra restored Parliament and invited the Seven-Party Alliance to form the government. Nepali Congress leader G.P. Koirala was installed as the Prime Minister of Nepal.
Forgetting that many of their party members were killed by the same Maoists prior to royal takeover in 2005; and mortally scared of Maoists, Seven Party Alliance is implementing Maoist agenda which will facilitate Maoist takeover of Nepal, and make all non-Maoists irrelevant very soon. For political parties, the only way to defeat the Maoists would have been to support the king.
A unique native institution
Nepal is the only surviving native Hindu government on earth. Therefore, as a venerable symbol of aspirations of global Hindu community, Nepal's Hindu identity must be protected and preserved by the Hindu world.
Anti-Hindu forces want to destroy Nepal, the world's sole surviving Hindu kingdom, the way all other native religions and governments in other parts of the world have been already destroyed. Those celebrating the fall of Nepal as a Hindu nation should reflect on loss of millions of lives in Russia, China, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia and many other countries where communists came into power.
Though anti-Hindus, Maoists and missionaries will celebrate demolition of the world's only Hindu country, it is a grim tragedy for Hindus all over the world. Considering Nepal's history and heritage, only the constitutional monarchy and a Hindu Nepal will be able to save Nepal from Maoists and missionaries.
Issues at stake
Events in Nepal concern every Hindu in Nepal, in India and every where else. The issue in Nepal is not of monarchy versus democracy as has been wrongly projected by some sections in media. The issue is that of having a friendly Hindu nation versus a communist dictatorship in India's neighbourhood. The issue is that of native Hindu governance versus a totalitarian communist regime like China, Vietnam or North Korea.
The issue is of preservation of Hindu culture and heritage in Nepal, in India and in rest of the world.
Demolition of the only Hindu country in the world will be disastrous for Hindus, and will lead to gradual destruction of Hindu heritage all over the world. Why cannot even a single Hindu country exist when there are scores of Muslim and Christian countries in the world?
Way out
By leaving Nepal to its fate, India has facilitated Maoist takeover of Nepal. And Maoist takeover of Nepal will be detrimental to India since it will sharpen Maoists' war on India. Already, Maoists in India are targeting Indian state and challenging Indian sovereignty over large parts of India.
Nothing is wrong with Nepal's Constitution of 1990, and with constitutional monarchy. Rather, constitutional monarchy is the only device which will save Nepal from Maoists and also enable it to retain its unique feature of being the Hindu nation. Since the king has already restored parliament and multi-party democracy, political parties have to ensure that Maoists do not grab Nepal. And political parties can ensure that only if they support the institution of constitutional monarchy; and do nothing to hand over power to Maoists.
Since past cannot be recalled and relived, and mistakes of the past cannot be undone, the least that the Indian government can do now to redeem the situation in Nepal is to help the anti-Mao forces in Nepal to crush Maoist violence and prevent Maoist takeover of Nepal.
Since Nepal has nurtured and upheld Hindu heritage and traditions for so many centuries, it deserves the help of global Hindu community in its fight against anti-Hindu forces.
If Nepal is allowed to be grabbed by Maoists and missionaries, India too will be grabbed by Maoists, missionaries and Pak-Bangla combine. Since government in India is passively watching the gradual demolition of Hindu nation of Nepal, organizations and individuals who understand Hindu anguish must do their best to preserve Nepal as a Hindu country.
It is now or never for Hindus all over the world.</i>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My comments:
1) Mr. Arora strongly and wrongly identifies two different issues, viz. the continuation of the monarchy and the continuation of the Hindu state religion. If the latter really depends on ths former, Hinduism in Nepal is in a sorry state. England has a state religion, Anglicanism, with the monarch as its guarantor ("defender of the faith"); but Anglicanism has nonetheless declined continuously in the last two centuries and is now the practised religion of only a small minority. To be sure, I am not against constitutional monarchy as a proven success formula for sailing a nation through the rough waters of modernization. Compare the relatively bloodless progress of Britain since 1688 with the blood-soaked 20th century of Russia and China, where pre-revolution attempts (by Piotr Shelepin c.q. Kang Youwei) at peaceful transformation through the mutation of the regime into a constitutional monarchy had failed. But in such a formula, the smug monarch himself is usually a major problem. In the case of Nepal, the palace massacre a few years ago showed how decadent and decrepit the dynasty had become. Yes, the situation reminds us of Russia in February 1917, when a spineless bourgeois crowd took over and prepared the way for the Communists by autumn of the same year.
2) Where does he get the idea that Nepal has done anything for Hinduism? Through isolation and the sheer force of inertia, the nominally Hindu character of the state was preserved until now, but not through any merit of the monarchy or of any other party. If there is any Hindu core group fighting for Hindu interests in Nepal, I'd like to hear about it. Clearly, Mr. Arora hasn't heard of one, otherwise he would have appealed for help to it. Indeed, whenever any attack on Hinduism threatens, all Nepali Hindus have done was to give in without a fight. A few years ago, the Maoists demanded the abolition of the Sanskrit class in schools, and the course was dropped at once. And now, the king gives everything which the Maoist-pressured politicians demand, merely to save his own kingship and lifestyle, not moving a finger to defend the Hindu character of his state.
3) The Nepali politicians, that fickle and corrupt lot who messed up their chance at democracy so badly in the 1990s, do not behave as if they are under any pressure from Hindu lobby groups or public opinion to stand up for Hindu interests. Indira Gandhi defended these once in a while because to her, Hindu opinion still made a difference. Her successors today, by contrast, can afford to slap Hindus in the face day after day without incurring any adverse consequence whatsoever. And likewise in Nepal. Politicians take really existing power equations into account, and with their sharp eye for such matters, they have concluded that there is no need for assuming any Hindu factor in that equation, for there is no pro-Hindu force on the horizon at all.
4) Now, the responsibility for all this. Ever since I first met a Nepali Hindu (at Benares Hindu university in 1989) and he gave me an account of the situation in Nepal, I have been very pessimistic about the future of Hinduism there. Never in the intervening years has even a single news item reached my ear that indicated a counter-trend, it was slowly downhill all along. Bangladeshi infiltrators accumulated, the ISI set up shop, the Christian missionaries lambasted the country's anti-conversion law all while making converts by the thousands... But in the Organiser, which I read every week, or on the Hindu weblists, I have never seen any serious concern about it, much less any discussion of what to do about it. (To this, RSS people have replied to me that "strategic plans are not discussed on a public forum", though always without showing me the actual results of their presumed secret masterplan, hahaha.) Even the palace massacre did not trigger any soul-searching, any crisis consultation, any sense of urgency. Even with the Maoists closing in on Kathmandu, there was no Hindu contingency plan, nor even any thought of one. And now Mr. Arora says that "it's now or never", as if it just fell from the sky. When the game is already up, he calls for Hindus to do something. Where have all the Hindu forces been all this time? Where was the family of organizations that endlessly praises its own merits in print, its role as "guardian" and "vanguard" and what not of Hindu society? I have never ever seen it make an honest balance of its own achievements. Apart from the Ayodhya demolition by its rebellious ranks, which it deplores as a Black Day, what has it ever achieved for the Hindu cause? Alright, at the grass-roots level there may be some achievements, such as the non-conversion of many tribals to Christianity. In civil society, the record is not all negative, and comparable to what tiny Hindu minorities in countries like Holland and England manage to achieve. But at the political level, the Hindutva performance has been one long string of forfeits and defeats. Winning an election may have been a victory for the BJP but not for Hinduism, for its time in government saw no victories for any specific Hindu interests (which is not to belittle the important work that Narendra Modi, Arun Shourie, Jagmohan and others have done in secular respects). The enemy side has a lot to show, a lot of victories over the hated Hindus, but what have the guardians of Hindu interests got to show for all the trust Hindus have put in them? And now, they are not even able to make and publicize an honest analysis of what exactly went wrong in Nepal.
5) The events in Nepal are not just a defeat against the Marxist-Muslim-Missionary combine. An important factor, which the MMM have managed to mobilize in support of their own designs, has been the "aboriginal" and "Buddhist" communities, who also demanded a secular state. Hindu organizations are good at pontificating how the Buddha was a Hindu, how all non-Abrahamics including the tribal "animists" in South Asia are Hindus, but on the ground, it transpires that the people concerned are not convinced. They listen to the missionaries, even if not to convert, at least to turn against Hinduism. What have you done to convince them? Hindus either took them for granted, or wrote them off as already lost and beyond recall. Please judge from the recent results. A related matter: right now the Jains are making a choice whether they are Hindus or not. If Sandhya Jain is right, the Hindu option is not lost yet, and is actually favoured by the majority of common Jains (if she'll forgive me for juxtaposing the words "Jain" and "common"). But given the Hindutva record of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, I wouldn't be too optimistic.
6) You could put a brave face on the dehinduization of the Nepali state. As the Mahant of the recently-attacked Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi once told me: "If a religion relies on the state, it will become weak." Well, maybe that's just what happened in Nepal. Maybe it's better to go on without the status of state religion. You may now try to present that anti-state-religion position as the Hindu view of the recent events, but that will only be credible if you can show that you already wanted the secularization of Nepal before it fell upon you. All the same, don't kid yourselves: after a battle in which nobody showed up to defend the Hindu side, this has been a shameful defeat. Your enemies know it, and they are enjoying it.
Yours truly,
Dr. Koenraad Elst
PS: And while I have your attention, please take a look at this recent article of mine as well:<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->