While Kathmandu is abuzz with terms such as 'peace process', 'arms management', 'summit meetings' and 'international supervision', the rhetoric over in Colombo has suddenly darkened significantly – 'ceasefire violations', 'bomb blast' and 'war'.
It was less than a year back when, to an outside observer, Sri Lanka seemed well on its way to mending its tattered polity. Also at that time, on average seven Nepalis were dying every day due to political violence, the highest rate of political deaths anywhere in the world. In the island, it was hoped that the 'peace dividend', in terms of an absence of violence and a rising economy, would create enough incentives for the belligerents to stay the course of peace.
But the momentum of 20 years of war was apparently too much to undo the joint action of a state establishment that could not reconcile itself to the idea of a federal state, and a Tiger leadership that in retrospect must have been itching to revert back to the call of the gun that it knew so well. In such calculations, there was little consideration for the lives of the citizens, such as those lost in the landmine blast of 15 June that woke up the rest of us to the fact that Sri Lanka had reverted to war.
For their part, the Nepali Maobaadis realised sometime last year the strategic necessity of considering the Indian government's nervousness, and the impossibility of winning state power militarily. The fact that, unlike the LTTE, the Nepali rebels did not have a geographical base made them more amenable to an understanding. Additionally, a class-based war is relatively easier to accommodate than an identity-based conflict.