Read the Nepal quake right

The hundred-odd years of Rana rule, after the Kot massacre of 1846, only saw a refinement of these measures. People were controlled by the overarching Muluki Ain law of the nation. Night curfew was the order of life. No large gathering, no organised social and cultural meetings. Education was actively discouraged. The world changed but the kingdom remained sealed in un-splendid Himalayan isolation. It saw no struggle against colonial rule since the British recognised Nepal8217;s existence as an independent kingdom in fact, the soldiers of the Jang Bahadur Rana helped crush the 1857 resistance in India, and the Rana himself was invited to Queen Victoria8217;s court for his pains. It saw no social reform worth the name. Even religious reform movements were harshly suppressed. The Ranas forced Arya Samajist Madhav Raj Joshi to go into exile in India, and his son 8212; Vedanta 8212; was hanged in 1941 for sedition. Newari Buddhist reformers were equally unlucky.

The end of Rana rule with India8217;s help in 1951, and the handing over of full control of the kingdom to King Tribhuvan 8212; a direct descendant of Prithvi Narayan Shah 8212; meant only the replacement of one elite by another. It brought no respite from rapacious palace rule. If Nepal is one of the poorest nations in the world today, it is because of the cumulative impact of this highly hierarchical, controlled and moribund system of governance. Those who ruled from their chandeliered palaces in Kathmandu didn8217;t care to look beyond their shoulders. The unrepresentative nature of the regime was captured by poet Krishnabhushan Bal: 8220;Kathmandu can no longer mean/ The whole of Nepal8230;8221;

While the natural wealth and labour of the hill and mountain regions were extracted to benefit a few in the Kathmandu valley, very little was put back in terms of education and healthcare. And nothing tells this story better than the fact that in 1951 Nepal had a literacy rate of 2 per cent. The blindness to reality that King Gyanendra exhibited recently is by no means unique. His father, King Mahendra, wore the same blinkers in 1960, when he pulled down the existing government and announced that Nepal was not ready for multi-party rule and that he would 8220;introduce a democracy more suited to the conditions of Nepal8221;. King Mahendra8217;s 1962 constitution ushering in 8220;panchayat rule8221; only helped him tighten his grip on the people. It began with the words: 8220;The sovereignty of Nepal is vested in His Majesty and all powers 8212; executive, legislative, and judicial 8212; emanate from him8230;8221;

The rise of Maoism in Nepal goes back to the sixties and its incredible spread testifies to the deep, structural inequalities in Nepali society created and perpetuated by Shah-Rana rule. According to figures thrown up by Nepal8217;s 2002 agriculture census, 47 per cent of land-owning households owned nearly 15 per cent of the land, with an average size of less than 0.5 ha. The richest 5 per cent owned nearly 37 per cent of the land, and almost 29 per cent of rural households do not own any farmland. It is not surprising that the Maoists first established themselves in the countryside by demanding land reform and highlighting rural indebtedness in a country where 70 per cent of the population existed below the poverty line.

The challenge before the democratic forces in Nepal today is to address these deep cleavages in the political economy of the country, bring Maoists to the mainstream, and eliminate the need for violent insurgencies. Whether the seven-party formation has the capacity to do this is difficult to say at this juncture. What can be stated with absolute certainty is that the king, with all the arms at his command, could not have defeated the Maoists in a hundred years, because he and the regime he represents are the primary reasons why Maoism has thrived.

Nepal today needs democracy. Not palace butchery or violent peasant uprisings. The modest progress that has come its way so far required the 1990 movement, which had brought in its wake constitutional guarantees of basic rights. The elected governments of the 8217;90s were undoubtedly corrupt and incompetent, yet the decade of the nineties saw more change and progress than 200 years of Shah-Rana rule. A literacy rate that was 2 per cent in 8217;51 rose to 54 per cent by 2002. The state set for itself the goal of achieving universal education by 2015. Democracy brought with it the expansion of communications and marginally better healthcare. There were even feeble attempts at devolving power. The Local Self-government Act, 1999, provided a frameword to bring local communities into governance.

Nepal today cannot afford to return to the slippery slope of palace control. The 1990 constitution had a fatal flaw. While it conceived the king8217;s role as that of a constitutional monarch, it granted him the extraordinary power to declare a state of emergency in the event of a grave threat to the sovereignty, unity and security of any part of Nepal. It was, additionally, fuzzy about whether the king can proclaim a state of emergency without consulting his government. It also recognised the king as the 8220;supreme commander-in-chief of the Royal Nepal Army8221;. A clever despot like Gyanendra knew the constitution well. The rest is history 8212; a very tragic history.

Nepal will now have to ensure that this history is not repeated, and it can do this only by getting the palace completely out of its politics. This is the bitter lesson learnt over 200 years.

pamela.philiposeexpressindia.com