Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result, as they say. Thinking of bringing our royals back to power is nothing sort of insanity. Here is possibly the shortest version of the history of the Shah Royals the young first-time voters of Nepal could read before making their decision whether or not to vote for the royalists in the next elections.[break]
“After Prithvi Narayan Shah died in 1775, Nepal was ruled for the next seventy years by kings who were either underage, inept, insane, or all three,” writes Manjushree Thapa in her book, “Forget Kathmandu.”
And that was not the end of it. We all know, following those terrible seventy years, in 1845, Jung Bahadur Kunwar (self-titled as ‘Rana’ three years later) took over as the de facto ruler of Nepal. For 104 years, the Rana aristocracy tactfully kept the Shah Kings out of power. The Shah King Tribhuvan became a real monarch only in 1951 when after fleeing to, and living in India for some three months, the Indian Government put its weight behind him, and against the Ranas. He died in 1955 in Zurich, by many accounts, in mysterious circumstances.
And then there came King Mahendra on to the throne, systematically destroying the bright prospects of Nepalis to walk the democratic path so early in history, as early as Indian democracy that had just begun to take shape. Just to continue in power, Mahendra overthrew a democratically elected government, dissolved the Parliament in 1960 and brought in a despotic Panchayati System that would haunt Nepal until 1990, making it one of the poorest countries in the world.
King Birendra followed his father Mahendra’s footsteps but soon realized that he could not ignore the democratic aspirations of Nepalis. He was forced to embrace democracy in 1990, but his control over the army, the real power center in Nepal for centuries, continued. He and his entire family was massacred by the then Crown Prince Dipendra, who later committed suicide, by official accounts, in a tragic incident on June, 1, 2001 inside the royal palace. His younger brother Gyanendra took over as the new King amidst doubts among people of being the key conspirator in plotting the massacre of the late king and his family.
King Gyanendra tried every trick in the book to emulate his late father Mahendra in destroying democracy. Within months of his taking over the reins, he caused the resignation of the country’s Prime Minister by refusing to mobilize the Royal Nepalese Army against Maoists-led insurgency that was about to take a decisive upper hand over the state of Nepal. Gyanendra, after getting the Parliament dissolved, sacked yet another PM. He did not stop there. After choosing and dismissing three more Prime Ministers, he took direct control in 2005. In 2006, mass protests nationwide led him to reinstate the sacked Parliament. Tables were turned by then. The reinstated Parliament abolished monarchy in Nepal.
Exactly seven years from the date of the massacre of King Birendra and his family, King Gyanendra was pleading to the government of Nepal for an official residence. Obviously he could not imagine living in a museum that the Royal Palace was being planned to be converted into soon. It would make a perfect plot if someone wants to write a book titled, “How to Lose a Throne in Seven Years.”
The royals do not deserve to govern Nepal at all. They did do no right, and likely to do no right, either.
We Nepalis often tend to compare our royals with those of England, and want to believe that just like the English Royals, our royals too could be a symbol of national unity. Nothing could be far from the truth. Shah Kings, despite their own mixed lineage, used all tricks in the book to use populist sentiments to make divisions among the citizens of Nepal – to make winners and losers in our society.
The cases of ethnic injustice and the overwhelming emotions of people who suffered such injustices are the biggest challenge for us today in moving forward as a united nation state. All of these are rooted in the unjust acts of the Shah kings and the aristocracies around them over centuries. The royals never rose above their petty interests. They never learnt.
On the contrary, despite the long colonial rule perpetrated by them, the English Royals played a supportive role in creating a Commonwealth of Nations of their previous colonies in 1949, recognizing all member countries as free and equal. Today, Queen Elizabeth II of England is the Head of the Commonwealth. She is also the head of state of 16 other countries of the Commonwealth. We just cannot make any comparison between our royals and the English Royals.
And in England, too, the Royals became ‘the Royals’ as we know them to be today, because of the long struggle of the people to curtail the limitless royal powers. As early as 1215, more than five centuries before Prithvi Narayan Shah began to build his empire, the Magna Carta was forced onto the King of England by a group of his subjects in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect his privileges. The Magna Carta required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties of the people, and to accept that his will was not arbitrary. For example, he was forced to explicitly accept that no “freeman” could be punished except through the laws of the land – a right that exists today in all civilized societies with the difference that all men (and women) are now free. The Magna Carta went on to become the foundation of the freedom of the individual citizens against the arbitrary authority of the despot, and to make all humans equal.
On the contrary, even five centuries later, we were following Prithvi Narayan Shah’s Divya Upadesh which basically teaches treachery to the rulers, telling them basically what tricks they could apply to lengthen their stay in power. It creates inequality between citizens by stating particular castes (like Thakuris, Magars, Gurungs, Khans, etc) to be given designated jobs and occupations. It suggests curbing inter-border trade – another limiting factor for progress. The list goes on and on. The towering personality that Prithvi Narayan Shah was/is in Nepal’s history, it goes without saying, his acts and his directives reigned supreme in Nepal up until very recent times. And the results are for all of us to see.
Thanks to the Magna Carta, and its long application, they say in England, “A King can do no wrong” because he has no authority to work on his free will. In Nepal though, even with very little knowledge of history and jurisprudence, one can confidently say, “A king can do no right.”
Let us keep that in mind when we get yet another opportunity to decide our fate in the upcoming elections.
prashaantsingh.wordpress.com
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