editThe Vedas were to be listened to and recited. Although this recitation from word of mouth was later put to words, its lack of interpretation in the process was perhaps designed to ensure its pristine purity although one cannot deny that these yet to be accurately dated texts too have not deviated through normal human failures of forgetfulness or even accents and emphasis. Even this would seem to have been minimal given the emphasis on right pronunciation in its incantation form. Sticklers to memorization as our forefathers were as a habit of learning and the dearth of original interpretation in our ‘pre-civilization’ learning pattern could very well have preserved the originality of our undated texts no doubt. But its application to modern education has defied the need for critical thinking and original interpretation in a research minded approach to modern learning. This is perhaps why the ‘educated’ that dominates modern day Nepali leadership have so bound themselves in Western educated texts committing themselves by rote without the actual need for adequate homework to adapt to our national context. Increasingly the inadequacies in application are imposing painfully comical results. One recalls a U.S. ambassador who dismissed the failures of the first sets of government after the restoration of the multiparty system in the country to their paucity of American exposure. Let us face it, though, it was these original governments that dismissed nationalism as outdated and privatized preciously built economic institutions in the name of globalization and privatization. Although the more preferred modern vocabulary is patriotism, the sudden wave of patriotic assertions currently is now finding the term nationalism certainly credit worthy and somehow our neo-modern politics has begun using this word. The fact of the matter is somehow our modernists do not see the West, too, as an evolving society and they have been unable to limit their perception of our ‘underdevelopment’ to the spheres of modern democratic institutions and the economy. As Western social scientists struggle to cope with the Trump and Brexit phenomena and pour consternation at the persistence and re-growth of  ‘nationalism’ our neo-Brahmins that parroted the Nineties remain oblivious to the fact that democracy is functional and what must change in Nepal is the behavior of politics while the structures for a democracy were already in place. Instead what has happened in the name of democracy is a sea change in structures, verily at the promptings of foreign patrons, while the functioning of our political parties and their leaders remain the same. The threat to the nation, Nepal, thus, has never been more severe. What is perhaps more critical in our context are the conflicting priorities of our foreign sponsors of change currently reflecting in our national politics. We concede readily that China and India are emerging global powers. Are we ready to recognize that the West sees this as a threat to their concept of a global world order? Is both India and China willing to recognize that a strategy may emerge to pit these two among themselves as a deterrent to their growth? What are they doing to prevent themselves from being dragged into this Western design? And, how do we in Nepal spin ourselves out of this design in order not to be allowed to succumb into this vortex of glob al competition? This is what we should attend to in order to survive. But our neo-Brahminists learners prevent us from questioning what has been fed us so willingly in the name of modernism.