A nation in a hurry

The fight that began in October 2002, when Gyanendra Shah first began to dismantle Nepal8217;s democracy, ended on May 28, 2008...

The fight that began in October 2002, when Gyanendra Shah first began to dismantle Nepal8217;s democracy, ended on May 28, 2008, with a resounding defeat for him, his successors, and his predecessors, as Nepal declared itself a republic.

The declaration came late at night, after protracted bickering between the Maoists and the Nepali Congress, bickering that set the tone for what lies ahead. The declaration came too late for the street celebrations that had been planned all day, and for the parties that had been organised in people8217;s homes. But a three-day holiday was called, and Nepalis have been using this time to test the feel of liberation.

Then it will be back to work. For there is much work to do.

Nepal is a country in a hurry. It is the oldest nation state in South Asia, founded in 1768, when King Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha defeated scores of small kingdoms in the Himalayan foothills, culminating in the victory over the three kingdoms of Nepal valley as Kathmandu was called. Eighty years on, a mad Shah king signed away all his powers to his own prime minister, Jung Bahadur Kunwar Rana, who promptly instated a homemade system of rule by hereditary prime ministers. The Shah dynasty was able to recapture power from the Ranas in 1950 only by allying with Nepal8217;s first democracy movement. This did not keep Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah from effecting a royal coup, demolishing democracy, and setting himself up as an absolute ruler.

Nepal lost crucial decades because of this coup. In the 8217;60s and 8217;70s, when India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were establishing themselves, if turbulently, as republics, Nepal was suffering the resurgence of the Shah dynasty. Entire generations grew up having to study propaganda, being indoctrinated with gobbledygook during panchayat rule. The effect of that is still with us. We are just getting round to examining ourselves honestly, to understanding ourselves at last.

The last king, Birendra Bir Bikram Shah, may have been a nice guy; but a visionary he wasn8217;t. Do not let any Nepali tell you that they worshipped him as divine, an incarnation of Vishnu: that is a tourism-industry fantasy propagated, these days, by parachute journalists and fly-by-night foreign 8220;experts8221;. A thin-edged crust of Nepal8217;s population may be god-fearing; but nobody took the king for a god. And the country8217;s young groundswell is decidedly secular. The truth is that Nepalis were chanting 8220;Bire thief, leave the country,8221; in the democracy movement of 1989, well before transferring that slogan to his disastrous successor, Gyanendra Shah.

As for Gyanendra Shah, called 8220;Maila8221; second son, or just 8220;Gyane8221; by the people at large, it need not have gone this way. Had he learned from his elder brother8217;s example, he would have known that Nepalis like their kings powerless. Following 1990, as a constitutional monarch, Birendra Bir Bikram Shah had regained all his lost popularity, and more: the public mourning that followed his family8217;s massacre was not mere hysteria, it was genuine sorrow for the death of a king who had curtailed his personal powers to allow democracy. He used to wear simple clothes, speak politely, smile a lot, walk out of the palace on foot8230; all this endeared him to the public. Had his younger brother followed the same course, he might still be king today.

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Instead, Gyanendra Shah provoked people8217;s wrath by upping his royal privileges, and as though that were not bad enough, by scrapping the constitution, beginning in October 2002 to expand his power extra-constitutionally. Despite being crowned under tragic 8212; and suspicious 8212; circumstances, he was never able to show any humility, any likeability. He remains, to this day, an unhappy enigma: a man not even capable of smiling. Nepalis have always been quite tolerant, and even egg-headedly sentimental on the issue of the monarchy. Had Gyanendra Shah not picked a fight, people would have taken a 8220;live and let live8221; attitude towards him. It was he who would not let the people live and let live. When he usurped absolute power in 2005, he received a swift, decisive response from the public: no. No more usurper kings, never again. We do not want to suffer Gyanendra Shah, or any other king.

Now we are free. Free, also, to examine our history at leisure.

Many people lament that one man8217;s individual failings brought down the entire institution of monarchy. This is quite true. Gyanendra Shah and his son, Paras Shah, have been a boon for republicans. Those who would have liked Nepal to retain the monarchy in a constitutional and strictly ceremonial capacity, were saddled with a king who clearly did not want to cooperate. The Maoists of course deserve credit for having popularised the call for republicanism; but without Gyanendra Shah8217;s help they would not have got this far.

This, it seems, is how history goes. Individual actions do shape collective events. Now Prithvi Narayan Shah8217;s statue stands damaged, in front of Singha Durbar, the seat of the parliament in Kathmandu, with a chipped-off crown and a broken sword: an accurate enough symbol for the disgraced state in which the monarchy ended.

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Now we must get on with the task of nation-building again, rebuilding from the ground up a just, equitable, inclusive state: the federal republic of Nepal. There is so much to do, so much lost time to make up for. The next two years will be decisive, as our Constituent Assembly 8212; large and unwieldy, but heartening in its diversity 8212; drafts a new constitution. It will be up to the political parties to not let people down from now on. The Maoists are yet to give up their army, or effect a full transition to nonviolent politics. The Nepal army remains unreformed. The prosecution of war crimes remains to be done.

Ending the monarchy was easy by comparison to all this. The difficult work begins now.

The writer is the Kathmandu-based author of 8216;Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy8217;expressexpressindia.com