After a long history of isolated stagnation, Nepali society is entering 'times of trouble'. The stress of change is everywhere—the economy, the environment, religious practices, relations among ethnic and linguistic groups, managing political affairs, educating the new generation, caring for the sick and needy, and building and operating modern infrastructure. The list is long, and traditional institutions of feudalism—such as organised Hinduism at the state level trusted to interpret national values, or kinship guthis at the local level responsible for organising Kathmandu's urban space—which should have been managing this stress, are sadly helpless to influence change. They may seethe in fundamentalist or obscurantist rage but the seductive charm of modernisation is relentlessly undercutting tradition.
For such a body social, where is its head, if it has one, and what is it thinking? Has it got some fixity of purpose, if not clarity of vision, or is it disturbed, schizophrenic, perhaps autistic?
In the past, to pose these questions would have been merely to indulge in intellectual titillation. Rana rule required only scholastic priests who were keepers of an old and moribund tradition, not seekers of new truths requiring, besides analytical acumen, a boldness that could warn of impending dangers to the social fabric and speak truth to power.
The brief flicker of democracy in the 1950s saw a small measure of intellectual awakening, but one which was concentrated in literature and not so much in other spheres of national life. Society's hopes, kindled by flights of poetic imagery such as those of Laxmi Prasad Devkota's, could not be met in the absence of Nepali bankers, lawyers, industrial managers or modern administrators armed with the intellectual tools to remake the management of social affairs.