By Our Political Analyst Republican Nepal was ushered in diplomatically when the Chinese ambassador was the first to submit his official credentials about a decade ago to prime minister Girija Koirala who assumed the office of acting head of state amidst the charged interim environs of a ‘suspended’ monarchy. Indian Prime Minister endorsed the finally elected and extended constituent assembly by addressing its special session and asking that the constitution to be drafted be all-inclusive. These significant gestures on part of both of Nepal two immediate neighbors should have put paid to any doubts that the two are against the so called changes in Nepal. But Nepali politics must make profits from perpetuating suspicions that each, either or both these countries have their reservations and are attempting to sabotage the change when the constitution finally surfaced. The fact of the matter is, again, that the fault lies not in Beijing or New Delhi but whole and sole in Kathmandu. The constitution that emerged is not being well received within the country because of Nepali politics and politicians and both our neighbors, if they have reservations, cannot but account it to this and the possible impact it is bound to have in the neighborhood to which they cannot absolve themselves of its effects. It is this concern that is inevitable and legitimate. It is domestic politics and politicians that are at fault when they allowed in foreign agenda in the very interim period to fix the parameters of a constitution much before the elections to a constituent assembly which at the very outset was exclusionary. It is domestic politics and politicians which engineered nurtured and junked fundamental principles of constitutionalism on the plea of a popularly elected constituent assembly that was to draft the constitution. It is this impudence that has triggered the prevailing sense of redundancy in Nepali politics where a constitution that finally emerged has failed the people so badly. This was to happen and it has failed so badly as to make obvious that the resulting instability threatens the region as a whole. The concern that has been aroused in the region cannot but be satiated without a high level of cooperation in the region since the oft mentioned ‘Pandora’s box’ continues to undermine both domestic and regional peace and cooperation. We dismiss the claim that the meeting at an Indian airpot of the Chinese President and the Indian Prime Minister with the Nepali prime minister ‘Prachanda’ while returning from Goa as mere happenstance as nothing but hogwash. Diplomacy does not allow that at such high levels. We do welcome the meeting though. In the least, the meet does demonstrate that there are chances that the Indian and Chinese statesmen agree that Nepal is of mutual concern. Which is as should be.