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Journalism of Courage
Six months from the day he took power, promising peace, meaningful democracy and economic development, ground realities are pushing King Gyanendra into an ever tighter spot. His track record in terms of delivery as bad, if not worse than the 12 years of multi-party rule that he labelled a “failure on all fronts”.
Nepal today stands isolated, with the world community and the UN system pressing the King to return Nepal to democracy and encourage negotiations with the Maoists who have waged war against the state since February 1996—a conflict that has cost nearly 13,000 lives.
World leaders, from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, have asked the King to reach out to political parties at the earliest, but the monarch appears reticent to do so. King Gyanendra is expected to have a tough time explaining the execution of his ‘road map to democracy and peace’,at the United Nations General Assembly as head of the Nepali delegation.
‘‘Ever since the June 1, 2001 royal massacre, the monarchy has been steadily losing the traditional reverence it enjoyed,’’ says Nilambar Acharya, a respected political thinker and former minister. King Gyanendra’s takeover and the junking of multi-party democracy have further projected the monarchy in a poor light.
The support of the 78,000-strong Royal Nepal Army (RNA) is believed to be the cause of the King’s belligerent stand. Perhaps even, King Gyanendra interpreted the growing unpopularity of political parties as his own rising popularity.
The signs of the extent to which he counts on the RNA are clear. Soon after he took power, the army was given a sizeable role in governance, including execution of the press censorship he had imposed. The budget announced through an ordinance two weeks back saw the defense budget being raised to a whopping Rs 19 billion by Nepal’s standards.
The royal palace budget has risen drastically too. The palace acquired fleet of cars from Rolls Royce, BMW and Jaguar, avoidable in a country where the per capita income is a little over $200.
Even so, the political parties have been warming to an alliance with the Maoists. ‘‘If they do that, both should be declared anti-national,’’ said Sachhet Shumsher Rana, a retired chief of army staff and one of the King’s trusted advisors.
