Diary

Letters

Vol. 30 No. 13 · 3 July 2008

From Manjushree Thapa

I wrote in the LRB of 8 May about the election of Nepal’s new Constituent Assembly and its plans to abolish the country’s 240-year-old monarchy. On 28 May, the Constituent Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of this, transforming this ragged old kingdom into the world’s youngest republic. Before the vote could take place, there had been a lot of bickering about whether the next head of state should be a president or a prime minister, and who should be vested with executive power. It is not the Nepali way to settle such things ahead of time; the country has always had a slapdash, last-minute, make-it-up-as-you-go-along ethos. But when the parties at last reached an agreement and got around to passing the vote, the streets erupted. Crowds of overexcited republicans pressed towards the royal palace, demanding that the king, Gyanendra Shah, leave at once. But he had been given 15 days: the police fired tear gas, the crowds dispersed.

Nepal was not colonised in the 19th century, so did not go through decolonisation, or any such struggle for self-definition, in the 20th. To the republican majority of this demographically very young and politically very left-wing country, scrapping the monarchy felt like the defining event in the nation’s history. To the monarchist minority, it felt like a terrible loss.

Nepal’s monarchists come in two varieties. There is the daft kind, who purport to believe that the king is – or was – an avatar of Vishnu, and not just the divine ruler of Nepal, but the emperor of all Hindus. They expressed their fury by setting off bombs ahead of the vote. The other variety of monarchist, the constitutional kind, is more reasonable. As the vote approached, they argued that since the Shah dynasty founded Nepal, Nepal should preserve the monarchy as a harmless relic. It didn’t help their cause that Gyanendra Shah had done little but cause harm. Still, they floated hopeful proposals. If not a constitutional monarchy, perhaps a ‘ceremonial’ monarchy? No? Then how about a ‘cultural’ monarchy? Why not a female line of succession? Or maybe we could bypass the king and his successor and install a ‘baby king’?

The desire to be ruled, even if only symbolically, is a surrender to nostalgia. Fortunately for republicans, Gyanendra Shah didn’t inspire sentimentality. Before he became king he had a reputation for misusing royal privileges and having links with the criminal underworld. When he became king in 2001 after the massacre of his older brother, he proceeded to dismantle the democratic constitution of 1990, and resumed absolute rule after the military coup 0f 2005. Gyanendra’s son, the crown prince, Paras Shah, is no more attractive: he has a history involving manslaughter, drug use and reckless endangerment involving fast cars, loaded guns or both.

While its neighbours India and China lurched towards superpower status, Nepal it seemed was stuck forever battling its own kings. The rise of republicanism was a sign of increasing confidence, and a recognition that the country must not remain a tin-pot monarchy. We will not be able to rejoice for long, however, because the party-political bickering that preceded the vote will only get worse. The main task ahead is the drafting of a new constitution, which will determine whether Nepal ends up a communist republic or a liberal republic. The Maoists, as the largest party, claim the right to lead the Constituent Assembly; but the other parties worry about the continuing existence of their military arm, the People’s Liberation Army. The army, too, might prove mutinous. ‘Parties Fail to Reach Consensus,’ was the headline just days after the republic was declared. More of this – much more – lies ahead.

Manjushree Thapa
Kathmandu