21 - 27 June 2001
Issue No.539
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 June 2001 Issue No.539 |
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Bad time for regicide
The blood is scarcely dry, the people are suspicious and the new king is mistrusted. Sudhanshu Ranjan reports from New Delhi on the unhappy events in Nepal
Nepal is in convulsion. Emotionally bludgeoned by the massacre of their royal family, its citizens are impatient to know who the killers of their beloved King are. They refuse to believe that Crown Prince Dipendra, enraged by the refusal of his mother, Queen Aishwarya, to let him marry the girl he loved, mowed down his family with a machine gun and then shot himself.
From 1 June, Nepal suddenly entered a tragic drama that moved with surreal, kaleidoscope haste. King Birendra is shot dead, allegedly by his son, Crown Prince Dipendra. The Raj Parishad Sthayi Samiti or Privy Council declares the 29-year-old, brain-dead, allegedly patricidal crown prince, king. It also declares the dead Birendra's brother, Prince Gyanendra, regent. The privy council is a statutory, widely representative body, created in 1990 after the advent of democracy in Nepal, and comprising the prime minister, the leader of the opposition and all parties. Then, on 3 June, the comatose King Dipendra dies. Gyanendra takes over as monarch. Nepal's citizens protest violently. Three kings in four days: never in modern history has any nation seen such swift changes of guard as in Nepal, the world's only Hindu kingdom.
The swiftness of succession, sheer disbelief at events, and the murkiness of Nepalese power politics have aroused mistrust and unanswered questions are fuelling suspicions. The bodies of the dead were cremated without autopsy: why? Why was Gyanendra absent during such an important family meeting? How did Gyanendra's son, Paras, survive unhurt when Dipendra is alleged to have sprayed bullets mercilessly? Where were the 5,000 palace security personnel and the aides attached to king, queen and crown prince when the shooting began? And, most inexplicably, how could the affable, genial Dipendra turn into a trigger-happy monster? The people of Nepal do not see Dipendra as a killer. Some Nepalese newspapers have published poems Dipendra wrote which eulogise his mother. So how could the same Crown Prince kill her, people ask? They suspect an international conspiracy hatched with Gyanendra's assent. Gyanendra is still unable to stem popular misgivings and disaffection with his regime. Even now slogans rend the air: "murderer Gyanendra, leave the country."
Sensing the precarious public mood, Gyanendra has not declared his son Paras crown prince. Paras is feared, and an alleged criminal. His reckless driving has cost lives, including that of Gurung Shah, a famed Nepalese folk musician. He is accused in many cases, but the administration lacks the means to prosecute him.
The enquiry commission into the royal deaths, headed by Chief Justice Keshav Prasad Upadhyay, began its probe into the slaughter on 8 June. The commission is empowered to interrogate even royal witnesses, including the present Queen Komal Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah. But the people doubt whether the commission will unravel the truth. This suspicion stems from the contradictory statements coming from royal sources. On 3 June, in the first official admission that King Birendra and seven other members of the Nepalese royal family had died by gunfire, Prime Minister G P. Koirala and Gyanendra, who was acting as regent for King Dipendra, said in separate statements that tragedy occurred when an automatic rifle went off accidentally. But they did not say who fired the gun or provide details of the circumstances leading to the incident.
Immediately after his coronation, King Gyanendra said that "legal and constitutional hurdles" initially prevented him from going public about the circumstances surrounding the palace shooting. "In this sad hour, I would like to assure the people that the facts (about) the Friday night incident will be made public," he said.
The credibility of the commission of enquiry set up by the new king was undermined at the outset, as one of the members nominated to the commission, Madhav Nepal, opposition leader and general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), declined to join. He declared the commission unconstitutional, saying it was formed without consulting the cabinet.
Then, even before the commission started investigating the bloodshed, one important member of the royal family, Captain Rajiv Shahi, son- in-law of Birendra's youngest brother, Prince Dhirendra, told a press conference in Katmandu that Dipendra shot the entire family. At the press conference, Shahi did not answer a single query from reporters. Next day, on 7 June, Nepalese Foreign Minister Chakra Prasad Bastola held a press conference to express the displeasure of Koirala's administration at Shahi's unauthorised eyewitness account of the palace killings.
The massacre has put a big question mark over the future of the land-locked country. People dread that royalists or Maoists will now seize power. Democracy is in no state to fend for itself. Mainstream politicians are tarnished with rumours of corruption. Governments are unstable. Since the restoration of democracy in 1990, elected governments have fallen eight times. Democracy's prior record is no better. Nepal's first experiment with democracy, that began in 1959, failed in one year when King Mahendra dismissed the government and imprisoned then Prime Minister B P. Koirala and other ministers on the charge of threatening national unity and independence.
Nepal is one of the world's poorest nations and the pace of its development is abysmally slow. The country's annual income per head has been around $200 for years. Aggravating its woes, corruption, lawlessness and inefficiency have become the hallmarks of government. A sizeable chunk of the population is seeking alternatives: one is the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) which has waged an underground war since 1996. The Maoists have succeeded in setting up parallel administrations in about 20 districts.
In these dismal circumstances, the death of Birendra is a real blow. He alone retained political credibility. Even though the new constitution made the people, not the king, sovereign, he never interfered in the work of the elected government. His assassination has robbed Nepal of its most trusted public figure.
India is watching developments in Nepal carefully. Many Indians, like the Nepalese, feel that the royal family was eliminated through a conspiracy orchestrated by Pakistan and China. Gyanendra is also considered hostile to India; he is said to believe that India bolstered the movement for democracy in Nepal, which stole power from the monarchy.
Without doubt, Nepal's other neighbours will be watching it closely, too. Nepal's prosperity has long depended on just two industries: tourism and soldiery (the British army uses Nepalese soldiers in its famous Gurkha regiment). Tourism has faltered since Indian Airlines stopped its service to Katmandu, after a hijacking in 1999, and Nepal's future has plunged into doubt. Stability is threatened, national wealth is precarious and public figures are feared and distrusted. What a time to lose a king: and to lose him so dreadfully.
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