Regal self-defeat

The autocrat regime in Nepal is paving the way for its own destruction

Arun Deo Joshi Delhi

Despite its pretensions to absolute power, monarchy in Nepal now sports a distinctly shabby and shop-soiled look, largely due to the ill-advised antics of the king, Gyanendra, since he came to the throne in June 2001 in circumstances that a significant section of the Kathmandu public found disagreeable. At a time when the foundations of monarchic legitimacy  were substantially eroded by the unverified suspicions of a hostile public about the complicity of the king in the massacre that preceded his investiture, which he did little to allay, he preferred aggression to circumspection, opting for autocratic consolidation, presumably misled by the belief that Vishnu's incarnation is entitled to the affections of his subjects as a divine right. The subjects presumably have a different view of the matter, as seems increasingly and vocally to be the case, but he is not willing to let the issue be settled by a popular vote. Instead, he has, since he began his career as king, displayed an enthusiasm for atavistic politics, whose sole objective is to restore the Shah dynasty's throne to the glory it had attained under his despotic father, Mahendra.

Unfortunately for Gyanendra, his enthusiasm is not matched by commensurate skill. But, what he lacks in political finesse he compensates for with a corresponding excess of military force. That is only to be expected from a clumsy pretender without the acumen to recognise that the fundamentals of absolutism cannot be reconciled with the political and social changes that have overtaken his kingdom. To compound matters, the indisputably loyal army that he commands is also equally indisputably less than mediocre in military capacity, notwithstanding large Indian, US, British, Belgian, Chinese, and unconfirmed Israeli infusions of technology. Reportedly 80,000 strong, and armed to the teeth with imported weapons, the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) has to its credit a string of defeats at the hands of the Maoist army, which is only one-tenth its size. RNA's most spectacular successes have been against unarmed civilians, particularly young unarmed girls in villages.

His non-military associates are not significantly more intelligent. Royal pawns who had been swept away by political democracy in 1990 have been brought back from the wilderness to give Gyanendra's retrograde government a fittingly primitive face. Relics of another time, their political machinations are laughably obsolete. Cloistered in a feudal world and insulated from mass realities, like the king, they persist with the uncouth belief, prevalent among unreconstructed feudal class, that the polity can still be controlled by a handful of cultured families.

It is with this limited stock of feudal resources, both military and political, that Gyanendra aims to implement his medieval vision and impart a democratic veneer to it. There is no indication that he and his advisers, both domestic and foreign, have any comprehension of the changes that his coup of February 1, 2005 has precipitated. This seems clear enough from the response of the regime to the various developments that have taken place since then.

On the political front, the king and his courtiers have managed to unite all the significant political forces of Nepal against the palace and the army. This is their most lasting contribution to their own undoing. Between 1999 and early 2005, the palace had managed, through skilful manipulation, to keep the parliamentary parties divided and the Maoists beyond the pale of mainstream legitimacy. Not satisfied with the power they had, the royalists, in February 2005, exceeded their competence and effected a coup to take complete control of the polity. At that point they lost control of the situation and found themselves out of their depth.