Around five in the afternoon of June 11, 2008, the last King of the Shah dynasty established on September 13, 1769 by the adventurist warrior Prithvi Narayan Shah after almost walking over a city full of drunken mobs on the occasion of Indra Jatra, his eleventh successor gracefully exited from the seat of royal power, the Narayanhiti Palace after Nepal became a republic on May 28, 2008 with his wife. Expressing no regrets whatsoever at the turn of events.
He abided by the order of the Government to vacate the palace within fifteen days as directed and went to live in a jungle place eight kilometres north of Kathmandu named Nagarjuna Palace, a humble structure meant for "shikaris' who used to come there for hunting in the forests nearby.
However, he is unlikely to have peace in that humble lodge too. There have been protests at the Government allowing him to live in that palace, since it is already a Government property. He may have more troubles in the days to come.
Why did King Gyanendra have to face so much humiliation when his forefather Prithvi Narayan Shah, called the Shri Paanch (Shri,Shri,Shri,Shri,Shri) 'Bada" Maharaj, a respectful title given by the people for "unifying" Nepal under one central authority? He and his successors and commanders-in-chief of the Gorkha king not only changed the map of Nepal from confined to just the Kathmandu Valley but to expanded areas in the east, west and the south, at the time the Mughal empire was tottering and the British had yet to establish their authority all over India.
In this writer's view the seeds of the disintegration of the monarchy lay in the failure of Gyanendra's father King Mahendra to realize that the modern age had dawned and he had to accept parliamentary democracy as his country's polity. After having reluctantly agreed to a general elections in Nepal in 1959, the King had found to his shock and surprise that the Nepali Congress Party led by (the Late) Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala had won two-thirds majority in the elections for the Pratinidh Sabha, lower house of Parliament.
"The King was shocked and could not compose himself for about a month before he asked me to head a government", Koirala has told this reporter in Delhi in an interview on August 18, 1974. However the King had not forgotten his humility and dismissed the Koirala government, put all his ministers in jail, dissolved Parliament on December 15,1960 on the plea that parliamentary democracy was a foreign implant and the country would now be ruled under the panchayat system.
This was only a ruse for enjoying absolute monarchy which he did till his death on January 31, 1972. Unfortunately his Son and successor Birendra did not respond to the needs of the modern age and continued with the Panchayat system. He had yielded on April 8,1990 when two days earlier his army had to shoot down 100 agitators threatening to ransack the Palace. He re-established Parliamentary democracy but the new Constitution of 1990 had left him with disproportionately high privileges.
The political parties too had played their part in making Parliamentary democracy unworkable, with their internal feuds, un-democratic attitudes in certain cases and their love for pleasure and prosperity during the periods they were in power. These gave the Maoists a wonderful opportunity to launch an armed insurrection against the established governments. The death of King Birendra in a massacre in the palace June 1, 2001 made Gyanendra the king. Whatever he said at his press conference before leaving Narayanhiti on in defence of his action of February 1, 2005 in taking over all powers of governance in his hands, it was this extremely indefensible action which brought about his downfall in April 2006 and now.
India lost all sympathy for him and actively co-operated with the political parties of Nepal including the Maoists to convert Nepal into a republic. These events are well known. As for Nepal being no longer a Hindu kingdom, the Maoists, staunch anti-Brahminism gladly participated in "sindure yatras", Hindu celebrations on winning election for the Constituent Assembly. No Hindu Nepali has ceased to be a Hindu and observes all festivals and ceremonies in the same way they used to do earlier.
Arabinda Ghose, -NPA
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