King Gyanendra's Coup and Its Implications for Nepal's Future
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King Gyanendra's Coup and its Implications for Nepal's Future MICHAEL HUTT Professor of Nepali and Himalayan Studies London School of Oriental and African Studies "Nepal's independence, national unity, and sovereignty are best safeguarded by the intimate relationship between the king and people. An institution of monarchy ever devoted to the country and a people with an innate love for their land is the glorious history of the kingdom of Nepal, its present and also its future."" - Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, King of Nepal, 1 February 2005 'A brief recapitulation of the incessant struggle between the monarchy and democracy since the 1950s in the country should leave no one in any doubt that without the complete abolition of the archaic institution of feudal monarchy and its puppet RNA [Royal Nepalese Army] no form of democracy can be secure and institutional in Nepal. "^ - Baburam Bhattarai, Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), 15 March 2005 Two VIEWS OF NEPAL'S PAST, present, and future now confront one another. For the king, the very existence of Nepal depends upon the relationship between the monarchy and the people. The king knows what is best for his people, who are simple, humble, loyal subjects. He ensures that all things in his realm are conducive to the maintenance oidharma (religion, righteousness) and a proper social order.'The people acknowledge and honor the role of the king and do not question or oppose it. On the other hand, for the Maoist ideologue—and, since the royal coup of 1 February 2005, an increasing number of Nepali politicians and thinkers—the monar- chy stands as the main barrier between the people and their achievement of freedom, justice, peace, and prosperity. MICHAEL HUTT is a professor of Nepali and Himalayan Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Copyright © 2005 by the Brown Joumal of World Affairs SUMMER / FALL 2005 • VOLUME MI, ISSUE 1 MICHAEL HUTT THE "PEOPLE'S WAR" AND THE ROYAL COUP The "People's War," waged under the leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) since February 1996, poses a direct and increasingly potent challenge to the continued existence of monarchy in Nepal. To date, the conflict has claimed approxi- mately 11,000 lives."* As it continues, the middle ground occupied by parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy has been progressively squeezed. The major- ity of Nepalis find themselves standing on shrinking political ground.' In May 2002, Many such people regard the ^^e House ofRepresentatives was dissolved, and in August, elections to local government bodies monarchy as the natural savior, were cancelled, in a semi-coup that October, while others favor the iVIaOiStS. ^^^ ^"S dismissed the prime minister for his inability to conduct general elections. During the next 28 months, he appointed three different governments while most of the major parties took to the streets in protest of this "regression." Finally, on 1 February 2005, King Gyanendra took all executive power for himself, declared a national emergency, placed Nepal's leading politicians under house arrest; shut down the country's phone system, internet servers, and FM radio stations; diverted international flights, and im- posed strong press censorship. He assumed the chair of a handpicked ten-member Council of Ministers and announced that he would produce a plan for restoring basic freedoms within 100 days but would exercise direct rule for three years.^ The Royal Nepalese Army carried out the coup and now faces the task of main- taining a royal hold on power. That the coup had been planned for months was evident in the way the army cut Nepal off from the world even as the king delivered his speech on Nepal television. PARTY POUTICS Many members of Nepal's upper social strata believe that a politically active monarchy is the only reliable guarantor of Nepal's sovereignty and political stability. They view commoner politicians as upstarts who must be admitted some rights to prevent their disrupting the royally ordained order of things, but whose activities must remain con- trolled and circumscribed. For others, the blatantly self-serving conduct of Nepali poli- ticians in office has confirmed a belief in politicians' inherent corruption. Many such people regard the monarchy as the natural savior, while others favor the Maoists. Mean- while, a third sector of Nepali society sees democracy, human rights, and individual THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS King Gyanendra's Coup and its Implications for Nepal's Future civic freedoms as the only means by which Nepal can further the interests of all its citizens. This third view has been inculcated by growing levels of education and politi- cal awareness as well as increasing exposure to the world beyond Nepal. While it, too, is often sharply critical of commoner politicians for their perceived duplicity, egotism, and venality, it sees no alternative to democratic politics. Baburam Bhattarai^ is right when he says that the master narrative of Nepal's political history since 1950 has been the struggle between democrats (very broadly defmed) and monarchists. However, most of the democratic forces, including even the more moderate communist parties, have historically accepted the need for a constitutional monarchy and, in fact, have often turned to the palace for support and patronage as they compete with one another. The bulk of King Gyanendra's 1 February 2005 proclamation consisted of strong criticisms of the performance and behavior of Nepal's commoner politicians: "Democracy and progress always complement each other. But Nepal's bitter experiences over the past few years tend to show that democracy and progress contradict one another. Multiparty democracy was discredited by focusing solely on power politics. Parliament witnessed many aberrations in the name of retaining and ousting governments. Not a single House of Representatives was allowed to complete its tenure. Continuous confusion and disorder resulted in the obstruction of the democratic process. While the people's aspirations continued to be shattered and their trust trampled on, they 113 became increasingly disenchanted with democracy itself..." These comments clearly refer to political developments since democracy was reinstated in Nepal in 1990, though surely not to the two and a half years during which the king himself has been in charge. Thus, they can be taken as the expression of a royal view that dates from at least as early as 2002. Read in this light, the proclamation can be interpreted as an expression of intent to suspend multi-party democracy in Nepal, or at least impose constraints upon it, and to strengthen the role of the palace—not just until the Maoist insurgency has been quelled militarily or resolved politically, but for the foreseeable ftiture. King Gyanendra's criticisms of party leaders are not unfounded, and the main parties can certainly be blamed for allowing, even actively participating in, the discred- iting and dismantling of democracy in Nepal during the 1990s. However, party politi- cal activity has been legal in Nepal for only 25 of the 54 years since the end of the Rana family autocracy and for only 21 years in the case of the Communist Party of Nepal. For 29 of those 54 years, the palace has been the overwhelmingly dominant political force in the land. If Nepal is descending into chaos and state failure, the palace bears a share of responsibility for that state of affairs. SUMMER / FALL 2005 • VOLUME XII, ISSUE 1 MICHAEL HUTT If attitudes continue to harden into the view that democracy and monarchy are mutually exclusive, it may be true, as Bhattarai suggests, that there is little prospect of the emergence of a political system that can accommodate both democracy and mon- archy in Nepal. What, then, is the future of democracy in Nepal? A HISTORICAL TRAJECTORY: THE MONARCHY King Drabya Shah seized the throne of the tiny hill kingdom of Gorkha in the mid- sixteenth century, and his successors, are generally credited with having created the modern nation-state now known as Nepal. In a campaign of military conquest during the second half of the eighteenth century, Prithvi Narayan Shah overran most of the other petty states of the central and eastern Himalaya and incorporated them into his own territory. The Gorkhali expansion This accommodation also strength- ended after a series ofbattles with the armed ened the traditional order in Nepal ^'''^'' °f *^ ^""^^ ^^^ ^"""^'^ ^"'"P^"^' and 30 years later the Shah kings' power against the forces of change un- ^^, ecUpsed by a courtly family that leashed hy British rule in India, adopted title of/2a«^.TheRanas pursued a program of Hinduization that system- atized the incorporation of Nepal's many disparate ethno-linguistic groups into a na- tional hierarchy of castes and ethnic groups headed by the Khas (later called Chetri) and Bahuns (Brahmins) of the Gorkhali elite. Between 1846 and 1951, when it was displaced, the Rana regime achieved an accommodation with the British that suited both sides. But this accommodation also strengthened the traditional order in Nepal against the forces of change unleashed by British rule in India. The extractive nature of the Nepali state thus remained very deeply ingrained, and the ruling elite continued to regard the mass of the population as revenue-producing subjects rather than citizens with rights. Over the course of these 105 years, the Shahs and Ranas intermarried on a regu- lar basis, and their genealogies became closely intertwined, forming what remains a distinct and often wealthy class of Nepali society. A disdainful view of commoner politicians and a belief in the natural authority of the Shah-Rana elite is still endemic to this class, which also predominates in the upper echelons of the Royal Nepalese Army. However, the monarchy emerged from the trauma of the 1 June 2001 palace massacre with its legitimacy severely damaged.