By Samrat Upadhyay, an English professor at Indiana University, is the author of "The Royal Ghosts" and "Arresting God in Kathmandu." (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 25/04/06):
NEPALIS weren't fooled. Although King Gyanendra announced last week that after a year of "safekeeping" democracy, he was willing to return power to the people, they continued to march: 300,000 Nepalis in the streets of Katmandu on Saturday. It was only yesterday, when Gyanendra announced that he would restore the Parliament, that the protesters were placated.
The question is whether this will be enough. After all, the resounding demand on the streets had been for a constituent assembly that would redraft the Constitution and eliminate the king's wide-ranging powers, establishing a government in which the monarch would be a figurehead whose only job would be to preside over ceremonies. While the return of Parliament opens the way for such an assembly, Nepalis have seen the promise of democratic reform evaporate before.
What they haven't seen before is a monarchy quite so tattered. When I was growing up in Katmandu, the image of the royal family was always carefully managed, especially during the three decades of the repressive one-party Panchayat regime put in place in the early 1960's by the current king's father, Mahendra.
Our national anthem spoke of an ageless king. Mahendra became a highly regarded poet, writing heartbreaking songs about his love for his nation and people. Our queens wore their hair in bouffants, attended charity functions and often adopted causes like literacy for women. Radio Nepal, after the early morning hymns, somberly repeated the monarch's aspirational sayings. King Tribhuvan, the current king's grandfather, was described as liberating Nepal from the century-long Rana oligarchy.
The founding father of Nepal's monarchy, Prithvi Narayan Shah, we were told, brought together in one beautiful garden "the four races and 36 castes" of Nepal in the 1700's. Legends declared the monarch an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, a spiritual figure who not only hovered above the mortals but also united their diverse cultures, languages and politics.
Even after the violent pro-democracy revolt 16 years ago — hundreds of people died then compared to the 14 killed in the last three weeks — Mahendra's son and successor Birendra was eventually hailed as a savior. People began to speak of him as a king who "granted" freedom to his people by giving up some of his power. He virtually turned into a martyr of Nepali democracy when his son killed him, along with several members of the royal family, in a drug-induced rage in 2001.
Gyanendra was initially viewed as an unworthy successor to his brother, Birendra. Within a few years of his rule, however, Gyanendra came to be seen as a bulwark against Nepal's Maoist rebels, instigators of an insurgency that has cost 13,000 lives in a decade. In 2002, King Gyanendra cited an ambiguous clause in the Constitution to dissolve the Parliament and oust the prime minister. Many Nepalis, tired of the party leaders' corruption and inability to tame the Maoists, applauded the king's move. Panchayat-era figures whose names were once etched in Nepalis' minds as groveling royalists returned to prominence.
Giving the fairytale impression of the king who moves with ease among his peoples, Gyanendra traveled to remote regions, accepting bouquets from poor folks and listening to their troubles. To outsiders, he presented himself as a fed-up king forced to come to the aid of his subjects against atrocities of the Maoists and the incompetence of the democratically elected leaders.
But the king's battles with the rebels, helped by arms and money from the United States, didn't stem the bloodbath. In February 2005, Gyanendra assumed absolute power and began a brutal suppression of political and journalistic dissent. Human rights groups have documented a frightful increase in the numbers of arrests, detentions, disappearances and deaths since the royal takeover. One report says that in the 10 years of insurgency, more Nepalis have been killed by the security forces than by the Maoists.
Gyanendra's draconian rule has finally destroyed the carefully cultivated illusion that a king is necessary to hold the country together. The scale of the current democratic uprising — much larger than the first movement in 1990 — has made it abundantly clear that the king is part of Nepal's problem, not its solution. Nepalis are in effect saying: democracy first, Maoists later.
In this political crisis that has now grabbed global attention, an important lesson has emerged: there's no alternative to freedom — no matter how big the threat, no matter who claims to be our friend and protector.
The constituent assembly that Gyanendra fears has long been proposed as the best solution to Nepal's political impasse. The Maoists have demanded it and have agreed to abide by its decisions, although whether the more radical among them would be satisfied without a complete destruction of the monarchy is doubtful.
For now, Gyanendra has done a clever job of saving himself. Last night, Nepalis held victory rallies. Kunda Dixit of the Nepali Times declared, "It was a victory of the people."
The victory, however, could be short-lived. The party leaders are a bickering, ideologically divided bunch. The army, intensely loyal to the king, needs to be convinced that it, too, is answerable to the people. The Maoists are unpredictable — eminently capable of trying to use this crisis to gain power and establish a dictatorship.
Whatever the case, the king's time is up, whether he knows it or not. So long as he is fighting for his job, Nepalis are unlikely to be at peace, living under the twin horrors of autocracy and insurgency for years to come.