The End of Era Part IV

Shah re-emergence and end

After the end of World War II, the independence movements in the British colonies reached a fever pitch. Inspired by Gandhi, India finally overthrew its colonial yoke and became an independent nation. Young Nepalis, who studied and lived in India, participated in this movement and in the process became fired up for the liberation of their own country from the clutches of the Ranas. In the meantime, there were already internal efforts underway, especially those led by the Praja Parishad, to overthrow the Ranas. B. P Koirala, Subarna Shumsher and other energetic youths started an armed insurgency.

King Tribhuvan, who had suffered humiliation at the hands of the Ranas for years, quietly slipped to the nearby Indian embassy and then made it to Delhi. Some historians suggest that Tribhuvan even urged Jahawar Lal Nehru, then Indian prime minister, to annex Nepal to India, a suggestion rejected by Nehru.

Rana oligarchy was put to an end through a tripartite agreement reached in Delhi in 1951. Tribhuvan, along with the Nepali congress leaders came back to Nepal. This was supposed to usher in a democratic era but Tribhuvan defaulted on his promise and betrayed the people.

The major political agenda, after the overthrow of the Rana regime, was to write a new constitution through a Constituent Assembly elected by newly sovereign people. But King Tribhuvan, who was reinstated in power by the people, deferred the election on one or another pretext till his death in 1955. His ambitious son , King Mahendra, never agreed to the idea of a constituent assembly election and forced the parties to settle for parliamentary elections instead. King Mahendra, in 1960, sacked the first popularly elected prime minister of Nepal, B P Koirala, and imposed a partyless Panchayat System that ushered in the absolute rule for the kings for the next 30 years. King Mahendra under his Panchayat project, tried to construct a Nepali nationalism based on the single edifice of one nation, one language, one religion, one culture and even one national dress. History text books only talks about the glory of the Shah dynasty hiding the dark side. Somehow that didn’t go down well with the people. “The jingoism of the Panchayat era rang false,” writes Manjushree Thapa, a novelist.

Students rose up against the Panchayat system in 1979, forcing King Birendra to announce a referendum. But it was in 1990 that the people finally forced a major concession from the monarchy through a popular Janaandolan or People’s Movement. King Birendra promptly accepted multi party system.

June 1, 2001 was probably the turning point in the monarchy’s demise. King Birendra, an affable man, and his entire family were killed in a royal massacre. People were in a state of shock after they heard news of the massacre but when they came to terms with the reality they had lost faith in monarchy, whose reins now fell into the hands of a new king, Gyanendra.

It’s hard to pin down Gyanendra’s personality, But above all, he proved to be an arrogant, self-righteous and ambitious monarch. In his lust for power-reminiscent of his father- he was blind as a bat to his won best interests. Before seizing power on February 1, 2005, he miscalculated three things; first, he thought the Maoists and mainstream parties would never join hands and form a collective front against him. Second, given a choice between the Maoists (read terrorists) and the monarchy, the international community would eventually choose monarchy. Third, and most importantly, he underestimated the consciousness of the Nepali people, which had grown by leaps and bounds in the post- 1990 open society and during the decade-long Maoist insurgency.

Finally, in April 2006, the people turned the tables on the monarchy. Janaandolan II vanquished the monarchy and culminated in the declaration of a republic. Maybe a republican order would have come sooner or later, but Gyanendra is solely responsible for bringing it to this country on MAY 28, 2008, ending the 450-year old reign of the Shah Dynasty.

Source: Republica