So, well within the first decade of Mahendra’s royal coup and his Panchayatantra, the Shahs and their close coterie avenged the historical and political deprivations they had suffered for some 115 years. Therefore, by 1970 – the grand 10th anniversary celebrations of the Panchayat System – the Society of Shahs had their own bank, lending agency, social organizations and other offices for their total occupation and control. Since the previous democratically elected governments had already regulated Nepal’s currency and rates of exchange, and its bureaucracy through the Public Service Commission and other essential state machineries for the university and public corporations, the royal regime consolidated its holds on the uniformed services and pampered them, while setting its greedy sights for exploitations on other fertile sectors such as the Red Cross, women’s organizations, children’s welfare schemes, and the like.
Consequently, Panchayat became, willy-nilly, a private limited company of the Shahs and their sycophants, and their Ponzi scheme was perfected in no time. Their prospects were limitless, and their liabilities were heaped on the people; and donors’ funds earmarked for poor Nepali people’s welfare were siphoned off to the royal coffers.
But it took exactly 30 years for BBC’s Mark Tully to reveal in his news broadcast that all social works contracts, development project documents, aid packages, and donors’ proposals had to go through minute scrutiny inside a particular office in the Narayanhiti Royal Palace for its share of the pies, for grafts, dividends, and commissions through extrajudicial omissions. Sadly, Tully’s broadcast came just weeks before the Jana Andolan I of 1990 by which time the plunders of the royals had reached indigestible excesses.
When the top echelon itself was rotten to the core, corruption was a royal command performance to be practiced at every level of the government, in corporate as well as private life. From 1960 to 1990, therefore, the Shahs and their sathis and sarathis had built five-star hotels and resorts, started the biggest tours and travel agencies, had tea garden spreads, introduced public gaming, usurped lands for housing complexes for rent economy, started vegetable ghee factory, invested in biscuit confectionery, formed commission agencies, held export-import predominance, introduced over-invoicing, extended their monopolies, and so on and so forth. They also held sway over the public sector, and paid “voluntary” taxes even though the Constitution did not require of them to do so in their Brahma Loot version of Nepal’s Ponzi scheme. They borrowed money, nay, requisitioned loans, and hesitated to repay; their spiraling water, power, telephone, gas and other consumer bills were supposed to be borne by the people.
When the writing was clearly on the wall against the Panchayat Polity, King Birendra mustered his will for the last time by declaring in the final Rashtriya Panchayat session that “All Nepalis are Panchas, and all Panchas are Nepalis.” The Panchas stood up in ovation, and their deafening applause by banging the podiums and desks splintered much of the furniture in the hall. But it was too late by then: Ganesh Man Singh’s fiery speech from the Saraswati Sadan was hurled at the nearby Royal Palace, but whose occupants had departed for Pokhara which, in many ways, heralded Panchayat’s requiem.
Well, what of the Panchayat Bibliography Project at CNAS? It was completed, and we went our own ways. We got no Gorkha Dakchhin Bahu medals, no special favors, nor any gratuities or favorable mentions for our jobs well done, much less creamy appointments. Saket Behari Thakur and I are still around, he as an active social scientist and I as a jobbing editor, columnist and writer.
All the three senior researchers have passed away. Mr Shresthacharya, I believe, found a new love, and that was it. Mr Thakur Lal Manandhar, a devotee of the Shivapuri Baba, was seen meandering in the streets of Kathmandu in his last years.
I have fond memories of Mr. Daman Raj Tuladhar who had taken up drinking in broad daylight because of his chagrins at Panchayat and frustrations with King Birendra’s chronic shiftlessness. He had no option but to hit the bottle which he kept in his briefcase. I confess: I partook of his Newari soma in the winter of our windy open-air research forays in dusty Kathmandu. His house at Ekanta Kuna was called Noah’s Ark, and he had a son named (King) Canute. I do remember this idealistic man who, sadly, was not reciprocated by the society and system of the day. If there ever was a casualty caused by Panchayat, Mr. Daman Raj Tuladhar was definitely one. He was an innocuous victim of the Ponzi called Panchayat.
The Panchayat Bibliography Project was carried out to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the native polity, King Mahendra’s untimely departure, and King Birendra’s nascent arrival. I don’t know if the archive still exists at CNAS, perhaps today gathering dust and harboring silverfish. But while the going was good, some Canadian scholars were drawn to our accumulated records for their PhD theses from some universities beginning with “Mc-” and “Mac-” prefixes. Some royal palace mandarins were also uncannily Canada-bound for long spells in the waning years of Panchayat.
Suffice to say, the Panchayat Park was built for a chosen few. To that point, our Panchayat Bibliography Project and its missives stand witness to Nepal’s 30-year anarchic experiments, mostly in failed trials and blundering errors, seen chiefly among the diametrically opposed and infighting camps within the royal household, their diachronic loyal elites and their various castes and clans. Now, dogs of democracy bark in Nepal’s desolate demesnes laid waste by its Panchayati past.
But, as long as the party lasted, it was a lark for a few selected ones. The world saw what were happening, yes, but did not look in; it looked in but elected to see nothing unusual except businesses as usual.
(Concluded)
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