Consider the content and color of the discourse. Gyanendra Shah can’t be characterized as ex-king in the absence of an incumbent, we hear. Once a king, always one, just to be sure. Others – and more and more of them – insist that Nepal needs some form of monarchy because of its singular domestic and geopolitical circumstances.
How is the institution to be reinstated? By bringing back the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990, which most of the parties once hailed as the world’s best. And how’s that to be done? A Supreme Court order on what would be considered until fairly recently a frivolous lawsuit. A military coup in which the generals beseech their supreme commander to begin wearing the uniform again?
Or a United Nations Security Council Resolution steered by permanent member China and incoming temporary member India to revive a new multilateralism as the old drivers are preoccupied within?
Then, there’s the next biggie. What kind of monarchy? If the crown is to be brought back to address our special national circumstances, can we really qualify it in traditional terms? Ceremonial, constructive, constitutional, call it what you may – but we surely aren’t looking at the milk-and-rice-fed variant. The nation’s guardian must be allowed to guard it, one would think.
As for the ‘who’, the debate is misdirected. The people can bring back the monarchy, but can they expect to choose the person? He hasn’t spoken about it, but King Gyanendra pretty much knows the difference between an elected republic and a hereditary monarchy. If there’s anyone who can decide who sits on the throne, it’s King Gyanendra.
Yet advocates are splitting hairs over raja (monarch), rajtantra (monarchism) and rajsantha (monarchy). Sure the king’s person, the institution and the crown/throne can be considered separate entities. To what end?
When you have one individual embodying the institution in its full regalia, how would you expect things to work by debating the finer points on republican premises? Granted, no one wants to be perceived as supporting the monarchy we’ve had. But, then, that means you’re accepting the premise of the monarchy’s critics all the way.
You can argue over the good and bad parts of our royal history. Specifically, King Gyanendra could have done things better, such as retaining head of government’s position. (Do we really know the full story even to say that?) But why should the parties that produced the putridity and pushed the palace to invoke Article 127 get a pass from the monarch’s failure?
King Gyanendra appears more prone to such pondering. The crown was thrust upon the toddler the first time amid great uncertainty for Nepal. The Ranas enthroned him to save their oligarchy. They may have failed, but the king did save the country. Yet in our official royal history, his brief reign is not even a footnote. (No wonder everyone got the math around Baba Gorakhnath’s legendary boon so wrong.)
King Gyanendra’s second ascension came amid great institutional and personal calamity, not to speak of the danger the nation faced. Yet he had to confront sustained calumny along with those serious challenges. He didn’t plan a coronation, but was still blamed for all that went wrong during the Ranas’ century-long and Bhimsen Thapa’s three-decade autocracy.
A third reign would have to clean the second mess the political parties have created in a generation. How can he be sure his campaign doesn’t confront the same political chicanery?
Having dissociated himself from the ongoing protests, King Gyanendra is probably enjoying the spectacle. And not altogether as a belated vindication. This was a debate Nepal needed circa 2005-2006. It’s not too late to sharpen the deliberations for the sake of the crown and the country.
