By Sanjay Upadhya
September 16, 2007
The Nepali Congress’ headlong plunge into republicanism has spawned some unruly ripples. Krishna Prasad Bhattarai emerged from seclusion to disapprove of the decision. He underscored his displeasure by visiting Crown Prince Paras in the hospital. This dismantling of the ruling alliance’s sustained boycott of the monarchy may have been symbolic, but it was no less significant.
Bhattarai’s stand was immediately ridiculed as a monumental irrelevance. One-time loyalists suddenly saw the sole surviving founding member of the Nepali Congress as a symbol of senility. They resurrected the dead, too. B.P. Koirala’s plea for reconciliation between democrats and the palace had lost its validity, the refrain went. Were B.P. alive, prominent Nepali Congress thinker Pradip Giri asserted, Nepal would have become a republic four years ago. What was more fascinating here was that so many quarters across the political spectrum spent so many sentences on exemplifying an irrelevance.
Whether Bhattarai’s view represented those of the more reticent Nepali Congress members in both factions is unclear. What it does show is that there are still those who see the party’s survival closely tethered to the monarchy’s.
Across the board, the euphoria did not last long among republicans. In retrospect, what the Nepali Congress leadership did was refer the republican agenda to its general convention. The impression is that the body would eventually rubber stamp the decision. Yet other parties do not seem so sanguine. Maoist chairman Prachanda, among others, has pondered in some detail over whether the Nepali Congress would go into the constituent assembly elections with a republican agenda and then vote for the retention of the monarchy.
So far, Prime Minister Koirala has adroitly played off the Maoists and monarchy against each other in an effort to maintain a tenuous peace. That strategy may be running its course. The Maoists have been able to push their 22 preconditions for the constituent assembly elections primarily on the strength of the second amendment to the interim statute.
The eight parties in power had empowered the interim legislature to abolish the monarchy if the palace were found to be obstructing the polls. The argument that the Maoists are somehow shifting the goalposts is, therefore, specious. The only way the other constituents in power can now rebut the ex-rebels is by certifying that the palace has done no such thing – something the maligned Bhattarai seemed to have grasped.
Koirala is keeping his principal card – if he has one, that is – close to his chest. Rooting for the monarchy may be the best route for daughter Sujata to win the succession struggle in the party and perpetuate the Koirala dynasty. The premier may have helped her by asserting that the country’s independence was at stake.
Having discharged the duties – spiritual as well as secular – of head of state over the months, Koirala may now covet the real job. But, surely, he knows that becoming the first president of Nepal would require much more than Prachanda’s consent. The ruling parties would need to persuade internal and external constituencies of their ability to sustain a republic. And reconciling India’s aspirations for a democratic Nepal with China’s desire for a stable one is the easy part.
The postponement of the constituent assembly elections was a thinly guised affirmation of Nepal’s failure to attain political equilibrium. If the elections are delayed once more, it will be because of this factor. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the government’s agreements with the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum and Chure-Bhawar Ekta Samaj have been unable to lift the national mood.
No one – within the country or outside – wants to be blamed for derailing the tenuous peace process. Yet everyone is aware of another fragility: Koirala’s age and ailments. Deep inside, the premier probably considers himself no less vulnerable to the S slur than Bhattarai.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
The Koiralas’ Crown Compulsions
By Sanjay Upadhya
May 21, 2007
Contrary to all outward appearances of ambivalence, the Nepali Congress appears to have cemented the centrality of the monarchy to its identity. Each new reiteration by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala of the inevitability of a republic has encouraged some of his closest associates in the party to articulate the crown’s continued relevance with greater clarity.
This affinity, to be sure, does not stem from an underlying affection. Shared class characteristics, as the Maoists like to point out, may be responsible to some degree. If anything, political pragmatism is the prime compulsion for the Nepali Congress.
The precise details of the April 24, 2006 compromise between the Seven-Party Alliance and King Gyanendra – if there was one in the first place – remain under wraps. For Prime Minister Koirala, seizing that middle ground between the monarchy and the Maoists became the first order of business. By playing off the palace and the Maoists against each other, Koirala succeeded in bringing the former rebels into government.
In formalizing the postponement of the constituent assembly elections after roping in the Maoists, Koirala exhibited, more than anything else, his vaunted party-building skills. Maoist chief Prachanda saw where things were headed. Sensing a trap, key associates began to feel they might be better off staying out power. In retrospect, the feverish bargaining over rank and portfolios right up to Koirala’s departure for the SAARC summit in New Delhi provided a convenient cover for all the protagonists.
Prachanda has been making obligatory allegations of betrayal to fortify his flank within. The Maoist chief understands how perilous the peace front of his “people’s war” can be. Despite all the other good things his Young Communist League is doing, the bad ones are hogging the headlines. For the country, it no longer matters how deep the internal split in the Maoists really runs. The nationalism and revolutionary planks in their platform have decayed the fastest.
In the legacy-building stage of his political career, Prime Minister Koirala may have grasped Nepal’s broader options. Vignettes from his previous stints in power must be swirling around him. Facing massive street protests against the Tanakpur accord in 1992-94, Koirala certainly did not relish those pleas by some normally sympathetic Indians for New Delhi to distance itself from the man. The escalation of the Maoist insurgency, the political instability preceding the Narayanhity Massacre and the wider convulsions it created must have encouraged deeper introspection.
After King Gyanendra took over full executive powers in October 2002, Koirala and the Nepali Congress, like much of the mainstream, were at the nadir of their popularity. While other leaders geared up for the looming collision with the palace, Koirala considered his own vulnerabilities. When the palace-appointed government purportedly agreed with Maoist negotiators to limit the army to a five kilometer radius of the barracks, Koirala became the first leader to criticize this infringement of state sovereignty.
That statement became part of a wider dynamic that ultimately shut the door on a palace-Maoist deal that would have bypassed the parties. The bonus Koirala sought – and may have succeeded in getting – lay in plugging that vulnerable hole Tanakpur exposed.
Last year, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh welcomed him to New Delhi as a South Asian statesman, Koirala must have found it hard to suppress that chuckle inside. For someone who had a hard time scheduling meetings with then-premier Atal Behari Vajpayee during the early years of the anti-palace movement, this was quite a leap – and illusory.
Koirala was too close to his illustrious brother not to have experienced the exasperation B.P. Koirala felt in the late 1960s before abandoning efforts to renew relations with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. During the eight years B.P. was imprisoned at Sundarijal, time had not stood still.
B.P.’s subsequent years in exile must have occasioned ample review of his brief tenure as Nepal’s first elected premier. When Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declared in parliament in November 1959 that any external aggression on Nepal and Bhutan would be treated as an aggression on India, B.P. felt compelled to respond.
Speaking in the Nepali legislature, Koirala said he took Nehru’s statement as an expression of friendship, but added that Nepal, being a fully sovereign and independent nation, decided its external and home policies without ever referring to any external authority.
Over a week later, Nehru affirmed he agreed entirely with Koirala’s interpretation, but not without disclosing the secret letters that had been exchanged with the 1950 Treaty. Of course, B.P. did not have the benefit of hindsight to see how his battle with the palace would only set the stage for a larger phenomenon that would marginalize the Nepali Congress for three decades. If B.P. considered exile in Sarnath a lot like Sundarijal, who could have understood this better than his youngest brother.
In his current tenure, Prime Minister Koirala has become a changed man. He is an ardent champion of China’s entry into the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation as a full member. The prime minister appeared unconstrained in seeking the new Chinese ambassador’s help on ensuring smooth petroleum supplies as the Indian Oil Corporation began tinkering with the taps.
In the cryptic maneuverings that pass for Nepali politics, these moves may be devoid of real substance. Yet coming from Koirala, the symbolism becomes starker. It was not too long ago, after all, that he flew straight into New Delhi from talks in China, left alone to battle the diplomatic fallout. Unlike B.P. Koirala, age has made this prime minister less susceptible to external “penalties” for flaunting his independence. This allows him greater leeway to build his legacy.
The logical question here is whether Koirala can impose his views on a party that largely considers itself the principal victim of the palace. Koirala is the Nepali Congress. Those who broke away under Sher Bahadur Deuba in mid-2002 had an opportunity to prove otherwise. The country recognizes how far anti-Koirala-ism has worked. For most of the younger Koiralas competing for the family mantle, the monarchy remains a pivot. Party members who disagree are most welcome to find another tent.
This brings us to another area where the Koiralas have proved particularly adroit. By allowing the communist factions monopolize the so-called “progressive/left” banner, the Nepali Congress can blur the distinction between the Unified Marxist Leninists and the Maoists, especially in those crucial western eyes.
When the Maoists relentlessly blame international power centers for conspiring to retain the monarchy, the Nepali Congress can afford to nod in affirmation and sit back. Prachanda and Co., by their own logic, have a long way to go toward establishing the scope and structures of republicanism as a viable alternative. Prime Minister Koirala, meanwhile, can continue uttering those obligatory republican sentiments.
May 21, 2007
Contrary to all outward appearances of ambivalence, the Nepali Congress appears to have cemented the centrality of the monarchy to its identity. Each new reiteration by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala of the inevitability of a republic has encouraged some of his closest associates in the party to articulate the crown’s continued relevance with greater clarity.
This affinity, to be sure, does not stem from an underlying affection. Shared class characteristics, as the Maoists like to point out, may be responsible to some degree. If anything, political pragmatism is the prime compulsion for the Nepali Congress.
The precise details of the April 24, 2006 compromise between the Seven-Party Alliance and King Gyanendra – if there was one in the first place – remain under wraps. For Prime Minister Koirala, seizing that middle ground between the monarchy and the Maoists became the first order of business. By playing off the palace and the Maoists against each other, Koirala succeeded in bringing the former rebels into government.
In formalizing the postponement of the constituent assembly elections after roping in the Maoists, Koirala exhibited, more than anything else, his vaunted party-building skills. Maoist chief Prachanda saw where things were headed. Sensing a trap, key associates began to feel they might be better off staying out power. In retrospect, the feverish bargaining over rank and portfolios right up to Koirala’s departure for the SAARC summit in New Delhi provided a convenient cover for all the protagonists.
Prachanda has been making obligatory allegations of betrayal to fortify his flank within. The Maoist chief understands how perilous the peace front of his “people’s war” can be. Despite all the other good things his Young Communist League is doing, the bad ones are hogging the headlines. For the country, it no longer matters how deep the internal split in the Maoists really runs. The nationalism and revolutionary planks in their platform have decayed the fastest.
In the legacy-building stage of his political career, Prime Minister Koirala may have grasped Nepal’s broader options. Vignettes from his previous stints in power must be swirling around him. Facing massive street protests against the Tanakpur accord in 1992-94, Koirala certainly did not relish those pleas by some normally sympathetic Indians for New Delhi to distance itself from the man. The escalation of the Maoist insurgency, the political instability preceding the Narayanhity Massacre and the wider convulsions it created must have encouraged deeper introspection.
After King Gyanendra took over full executive powers in October 2002, Koirala and the Nepali Congress, like much of the mainstream, were at the nadir of their popularity. While other leaders geared up for the looming collision with the palace, Koirala considered his own vulnerabilities. When the palace-appointed government purportedly agreed with Maoist negotiators to limit the army to a five kilometer radius of the barracks, Koirala became the first leader to criticize this infringement of state sovereignty.
That statement became part of a wider dynamic that ultimately shut the door on a palace-Maoist deal that would have bypassed the parties. The bonus Koirala sought – and may have succeeded in getting – lay in plugging that vulnerable hole Tanakpur exposed.
Last year, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh welcomed him to New Delhi as a South Asian statesman, Koirala must have found it hard to suppress that chuckle inside. For someone who had a hard time scheduling meetings with then-premier Atal Behari Vajpayee during the early years of the anti-palace movement, this was quite a leap – and illusory.
Koirala was too close to his illustrious brother not to have experienced the exasperation B.P. Koirala felt in the late 1960s before abandoning efforts to renew relations with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. During the eight years B.P. was imprisoned at Sundarijal, time had not stood still.
B.P.’s subsequent years in exile must have occasioned ample review of his brief tenure as Nepal’s first elected premier. When Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declared in parliament in November 1959 that any external aggression on Nepal and Bhutan would be treated as an aggression on India, B.P. felt compelled to respond.
Speaking in the Nepali legislature, Koirala said he took Nehru’s statement as an expression of friendship, but added that Nepal, being a fully sovereign and independent nation, decided its external and home policies without ever referring to any external authority.
Over a week later, Nehru affirmed he agreed entirely with Koirala’s interpretation, but not without disclosing the secret letters that had been exchanged with the 1950 Treaty. Of course, B.P. did not have the benefit of hindsight to see how his battle with the palace would only set the stage for a larger phenomenon that would marginalize the Nepali Congress for three decades. If B.P. considered exile in Sarnath a lot like Sundarijal, who could have understood this better than his youngest brother.
In his current tenure, Prime Minister Koirala has become a changed man. He is an ardent champion of China’s entry into the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation as a full member. The prime minister appeared unconstrained in seeking the new Chinese ambassador’s help on ensuring smooth petroleum supplies as the Indian Oil Corporation began tinkering with the taps.
In the cryptic maneuverings that pass for Nepali politics, these moves may be devoid of real substance. Yet coming from Koirala, the symbolism becomes starker. It was not too long ago, after all, that he flew straight into New Delhi from talks in China, left alone to battle the diplomatic fallout. Unlike B.P. Koirala, age has made this prime minister less susceptible to external “penalties” for flaunting his independence. This allows him greater leeway to build his legacy.
The logical question here is whether Koirala can impose his views on a party that largely considers itself the principal victim of the palace. Koirala is the Nepali Congress. Those who broke away under Sher Bahadur Deuba in mid-2002 had an opportunity to prove otherwise. The country recognizes how far anti-Koirala-ism has worked. For most of the younger Koiralas competing for the family mantle, the monarchy remains a pivot. Party members who disagree are most welcome to find another tent.
This brings us to another area where the Koiralas have proved particularly adroit. By allowing the communist factions monopolize the so-called “progressive/left” banner, the Nepali Congress can blur the distinction between the Unified Marxist Leninists and the Maoists, especially in those crucial western eyes.
When the Maoists relentlessly blame international power centers for conspiring to retain the monarchy, the Nepali Congress can afford to nod in affirmation and sit back. Prachanda and Co., by their own logic, have a long way to go toward establishing the scope and structures of republicanism as a viable alternative. Prime Minister Koirala, meanwhile, can continue uttering those obligatory republican sentiments.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Behind The Bombast And Bluster
By Sanjay Upadhya
May 2, 2007
For an organization that has flourished on ambiguity, obfuscation and even prevarication, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist’s latest internal commotions could be yet another subterfuge. Still, it is becoming difficult to view media reports on the ex-rebels’ growing disenchantment with India in isolation from their increasing assaults on Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, their determination consolidate the fiefdoms ministries they control have become, and their newfound eagerness to forge a broader republican front on the left.
Forest Minister Matrika Prasad Yadav’s altercation with Prime Minister Koirala on the military and the projectiles hurled at Peace and Reconstruction Minister Ram Chandra Poudel at the main mass meeting marking the first anniversary of the collapse of King Gyanendra’s regime, among other things, may not be entirely unrelated events. Some mid-ranking Maoist leaders have started reminding the country that Koirala holds the record of having had the greatest numbers of effigies burned. The peace process may not be in danger. But it will not become more tranquil or methodical.
Today’s Maoists barely resemble the group that declared war on the state 11 years ago with a manifesto top heavy with grievances against India. Indeed, Prachanda and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai were already articulating the urgency of toning down their anti-Indian rhetoric at the Lucknow talks with UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal in 2003. Whatever the truth behind the Prachanda-Dr. Bhattarai split that came to the fore in mid-2005, the events leading up to the 12-point agreement with Seven Party Alliance in New Delhi underscored the centrality of India in the Maoists’ internal deliberations.
With enough sophistication, Prachanda’s very public turnaround in New Delhi could have helped the peace process. For a brief moment, it looked like the Maoists were actually capable of creating that vital mixture of nationalism and democracy Nepali politics has been oscillating between. The moment Prachanda felt compelled to criticize Pakistan in order to woo India, he forced many Nepalis into that awful disposition between laughter and lament.
Clearly, India’s immediate goal in securing the 12-point accord was to tame the palace, as evidenced by New Delhi’s enthusiastic albeit premature welcoming of King Gyanendra’s first address to the nation. Prachanda and Dr. Bhattarai could not have been oblivious to New Delhi’s larger objective: the mainstreaming of the Maoists as a national security imperative. By subduing the inspirational fount of the Naxalites, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be more comfortable in confronting what he has called greatest internal security threat since independence.
India’s duality on the Maoists has survived the royal regime. The security establishment, which was more amenable to engagement with King Gyanendra’s government, continues to uncover the Nepali ex-rebels’ purported wider links to terrorism. The political establishment, excluding the Hindu nationalist flank, is busy assuring Indians and the rest of the world that Nepal’s Maoists have little more than ideological ties with the Naxalites.
When the Maoists rail against India’s “trap”, they obviously have the former group in mind. But blaming Indian Hindu extremists and royalists for instigating madhesis, janjatis and other groups that still feel disenfranchised cannot help much. The amplification over the past year of traditional grievances the Maoists claimed to have articulated has questioned the premise of the “people’s war.” Prachanda’s frivolities have only reinforced the siege.
Prachanda’s purported retort at a recent central committee meeting that C.P. Gajurel and Mohan Baidya would still be languishing in Indian prisons without his overtures to India sounded pragmatic. The problem is, Baidya was among those criticizing the party supremo’s policy. If today’s Maoists are the same group of ideologically disciplined people credited with mounting the world’s most successful post-communist revolutionary movement, could they be expected to correct this drift? If so, in which ways? How would the Maoists’ sustained effort to build ties with China in light of Beijing’s policy of pragmatism fit into this drive? More importantly, how would New Delhi respond?
For the moment, the disgruntled Maoists have made renewed calls for unity between nationalist and democratic forces against Indian designs. In the past, that slogan allowed the Maoists to veer closer to the palace. What does “nationalist” imply in the republican context beyond the broader leftist front?
The Nepali Congress seems have grasped the implications of that question. The party continues to remind the Maoists of their undertaking to allow the first sitting of the constituent assembly to decide the fate of the monarch less out of scrupulous adherence to existing agreements than political pragmatism. It is hard to miss the murmurs within the Nepali Congress suggesting that the palace may actually constitute a lesser threat to democracy than the Maoists.
For now, though, the bombast and bluster over the wisdom of declaring a republic from the interim parliament, government and streets provides a convenient cover for all.
May 2, 2007
For an organization that has flourished on ambiguity, obfuscation and even prevarication, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist’s latest internal commotions could be yet another subterfuge. Still, it is becoming difficult to view media reports on the ex-rebels’ growing disenchantment with India in isolation from their increasing assaults on Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, their determination consolidate the fiefdoms ministries they control have become, and their newfound eagerness to forge a broader republican front on the left.
Forest Minister Matrika Prasad Yadav’s altercation with Prime Minister Koirala on the military and the projectiles hurled at Peace and Reconstruction Minister Ram Chandra Poudel at the main mass meeting marking the first anniversary of the collapse of King Gyanendra’s regime, among other things, may not be entirely unrelated events. Some mid-ranking Maoist leaders have started reminding the country that Koirala holds the record of having had the greatest numbers of effigies burned. The peace process may not be in danger. But it will not become more tranquil or methodical.
Today’s Maoists barely resemble the group that declared war on the state 11 years ago with a manifesto top heavy with grievances against India. Indeed, Prachanda and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai were already articulating the urgency of toning down their anti-Indian rhetoric at the Lucknow talks with UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal in 2003. Whatever the truth behind the Prachanda-Dr. Bhattarai split that came to the fore in mid-2005, the events leading up to the 12-point agreement with Seven Party Alliance in New Delhi underscored the centrality of India in the Maoists’ internal deliberations.
With enough sophistication, Prachanda’s very public turnaround in New Delhi could have helped the peace process. For a brief moment, it looked like the Maoists were actually capable of creating that vital mixture of nationalism and democracy Nepali politics has been oscillating between. The moment Prachanda felt compelled to criticize Pakistan in order to woo India, he forced many Nepalis into that awful disposition between laughter and lament.
Clearly, India’s immediate goal in securing the 12-point accord was to tame the palace, as evidenced by New Delhi’s enthusiastic albeit premature welcoming of King Gyanendra’s first address to the nation. Prachanda and Dr. Bhattarai could not have been oblivious to New Delhi’s larger objective: the mainstreaming of the Maoists as a national security imperative. By subduing the inspirational fount of the Naxalites, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be more comfortable in confronting what he has called greatest internal security threat since independence.
India’s duality on the Maoists has survived the royal regime. The security establishment, which was more amenable to engagement with King Gyanendra’s government, continues to uncover the Nepali ex-rebels’ purported wider links to terrorism. The political establishment, excluding the Hindu nationalist flank, is busy assuring Indians and the rest of the world that Nepal’s Maoists have little more than ideological ties with the Naxalites.
When the Maoists rail against India’s “trap”, they obviously have the former group in mind. But blaming Indian Hindu extremists and royalists for instigating madhesis, janjatis and other groups that still feel disenfranchised cannot help much. The amplification over the past year of traditional grievances the Maoists claimed to have articulated has questioned the premise of the “people’s war.” Prachanda’s frivolities have only reinforced the siege.
Prachanda’s purported retort at a recent central committee meeting that C.P. Gajurel and Mohan Baidya would still be languishing in Indian prisons without his overtures to India sounded pragmatic. The problem is, Baidya was among those criticizing the party supremo’s policy. If today’s Maoists are the same group of ideologically disciplined people credited with mounting the world’s most successful post-communist revolutionary movement, could they be expected to correct this drift? If so, in which ways? How would the Maoists’ sustained effort to build ties with China in light of Beijing’s policy of pragmatism fit into this drive? More importantly, how would New Delhi respond?
For the moment, the disgruntled Maoists have made renewed calls for unity between nationalist and democratic forces against Indian designs. In the past, that slogan allowed the Maoists to veer closer to the palace. What does “nationalist” imply in the republican context beyond the broader leftist front?
The Nepali Congress seems have grasped the implications of that question. The party continues to remind the Maoists of their undertaking to allow the first sitting of the constituent assembly to decide the fate of the monarch less out of scrupulous adherence to existing agreements than political pragmatism. It is hard to miss the murmurs within the Nepali Congress suggesting that the palace may actually constitute a lesser threat to democracy than the Maoists.
For now, though, the bombast and bluster over the wisdom of declaring a republic from the interim parliament, government and streets provides a convenient cover for all.
Monday, April 16, 2007
A Year On, King Still At The Center
By Sanjay Upadhya
April 16, 2007
A palpable paradox remains the defining feature of the year since the culmination of People’s Movement II. A king supposedly sidelined by his people is very much at the center of the nation.
Amid the inexorable cycle of hope and despair of the last 12 months of peacemaking, the uncertainty gripping the constituent assembly (CA) elections has cast a new pall of gloom for many. But it would be deceitful to cite the postponement of the polls as a setback to the peace process. And not just because large segments of Nepalis feel disenfranchised heading into the exercise. Writing the election schedule into an interim constitution that failed to materialize on time was just one manifestation of the legerdemain that sustains the polity.
As someone accustomed to far worse indictments, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala can shrug off the latest censure from his partners in power. His public pronouncements on the palace had turned sufficiently hostile to deflect charges of coddling the crown. Deep inside, though, Koirala rests confident in the recognition that no party wanted the elections in June.
The Maoists are in a slightly different league. As the owners of the CA agenda, they are entitled to make the loudest noises. Yet their abolish-the-monarchy-first clamor serves more as a cover for their internal churning process. This is a do-or-die situation for the Maoists in the literal as well as figurative sense. The ex-rebels’ claim to have represented the ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious and geographical grievances that were swept under the People’s Movement I carpet has been thoroughly debunked by, among other things, the madhesi and janjati movements.
Furthermore, as the Maoists were pressing the CA demand for much of the past decade, virtually every party argued that it would open a Pandora’s Box. Now that those parties have gone along, the Maoists are unwilling to acknowledge the steady discharge. In their pointless search for scapegoats, they have merely reinforced the centrality of the monarchy.
Prime Minister Koirala stiffened his stance on the palace only after having lined up a pro-monarchy constituency in his party under daughter Sujata. Even then, the premier’s option envisages placing King Gyanendra’s four-year-old grandson on the throne. It’s pointless to even begin wondering how such an antiquated vision could chart the course to a new Nepal.
That inanity pales in front of the proposal from other quarters to enthrone a granddaughter of King Birendra. The idea of tinkering with such a central element of royal succession when the future of the institution is hanging in the balance was wrong-headed enough. Long before that, the difficulty the female biological cycle would pose to the religious and cultural roles a ceremonial monarchy would have to confine itself to should have been apparent.
Those decrying such chauvinism would do well first to either redefine the rules of our rituals or the role of the monarchy – and possibly both. The rest are perhaps realistic enough to recognize that the monarchy, by definition, offers the least scope for the people to choose their head of state. (This debate has been complicated by the campaign, if only tepid, to create a republican Hindu state.)
The Maoists can claim the high ground here by calling for the outright abolition of the monarchy. Yet their rationale remains spurious. The ex-rebels’ detection of a royalist hand in the madhesi and janjati movements raises interesting questions. If the 238-year-old Shah Dynasty was indeed responsible – as the rebels have long claimed – for the systematic impoverishment of these groups, what might have led the aggrieved seek their salvation in their long-time tormentors?
The Maoists’ refrain that national and international forces are trying to save the monarchy raises its corollary. What might have impelled these forces – obviously the loudest critics of the royal takeover in February 2005 – do so? It’s one thing for the principal domestic actors to claim that Nepal can do without the monarchy. It’s quite another to persuade major international players increasingly driven by the imperative of defensive imperialism.
As for the principal external player, King Gyanendra’s attempt to tether his regime tightly to China was a greater sin than the nature of his regime. Prime Minister Koirala’s call in New Delhi earlier this month for China’s inclusion as a full member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – from its current status as an observer – must have cast new light on Nepal’s much-maligned “China card.”
Juxtaposed with the “stability” school of thought resurgent in a section of the New Delhi establishment vis-à-vis the neighborhood, the wider dynamics of the preceding year do not necessarily conform to those being projected by the Nepali parties in power.
King Gyanendra’s critics succeeded in portraying the palace takeover as nothing more than a power grab. By directing public wrath to a handful of Panchayat-era individuals in power, Seven Party Alliance (SPA) leaders sidestepped the stark reality that many of their former colleagues were part of the royal regime. It became all the more convenient to ignore the technocrats and entrepreneurs who also underpinned King Gyanendra’s government.
A year later, as the peace process hobbles ahead, the royal regime’s role as a catalyst for the SPA-Maoist alliance has acquired greater clarity. This must have been among the successes King Gyanendra referred to in his much-criticized Democracy Day message in February.
April 16, 2007
A palpable paradox remains the defining feature of the year since the culmination of People’s Movement II. A king supposedly sidelined by his people is very much at the center of the nation.
Amid the inexorable cycle of hope and despair of the last 12 months of peacemaking, the uncertainty gripping the constituent assembly (CA) elections has cast a new pall of gloom for many. But it would be deceitful to cite the postponement of the polls as a setback to the peace process. And not just because large segments of Nepalis feel disenfranchised heading into the exercise. Writing the election schedule into an interim constitution that failed to materialize on time was just one manifestation of the legerdemain that sustains the polity.
As someone accustomed to far worse indictments, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala can shrug off the latest censure from his partners in power. His public pronouncements on the palace had turned sufficiently hostile to deflect charges of coddling the crown. Deep inside, though, Koirala rests confident in the recognition that no party wanted the elections in June.
The Maoists are in a slightly different league. As the owners of the CA agenda, they are entitled to make the loudest noises. Yet their abolish-the-monarchy-first clamor serves more as a cover for their internal churning process. This is a do-or-die situation for the Maoists in the literal as well as figurative sense. The ex-rebels’ claim to have represented the ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious and geographical grievances that were swept under the People’s Movement I carpet has been thoroughly debunked by, among other things, the madhesi and janjati movements.
Furthermore, as the Maoists were pressing the CA demand for much of the past decade, virtually every party argued that it would open a Pandora’s Box. Now that those parties have gone along, the Maoists are unwilling to acknowledge the steady discharge. In their pointless search for scapegoats, they have merely reinforced the centrality of the monarchy.
Prime Minister Koirala stiffened his stance on the palace only after having lined up a pro-monarchy constituency in his party under daughter Sujata. Even then, the premier’s option envisages placing King Gyanendra’s four-year-old grandson on the throne. It’s pointless to even begin wondering how such an antiquated vision could chart the course to a new Nepal.
That inanity pales in front of the proposal from other quarters to enthrone a granddaughter of King Birendra. The idea of tinkering with such a central element of royal succession when the future of the institution is hanging in the balance was wrong-headed enough. Long before that, the difficulty the female biological cycle would pose to the religious and cultural roles a ceremonial monarchy would have to confine itself to should have been apparent.
Those decrying such chauvinism would do well first to either redefine the rules of our rituals or the role of the monarchy – and possibly both. The rest are perhaps realistic enough to recognize that the monarchy, by definition, offers the least scope for the people to choose their head of state. (This debate has been complicated by the campaign, if only tepid, to create a republican Hindu state.)
The Maoists can claim the high ground here by calling for the outright abolition of the monarchy. Yet their rationale remains spurious. The ex-rebels’ detection of a royalist hand in the madhesi and janjati movements raises interesting questions. If the 238-year-old Shah Dynasty was indeed responsible – as the rebels have long claimed – for the systematic impoverishment of these groups, what might have led the aggrieved seek their salvation in their long-time tormentors?
The Maoists’ refrain that national and international forces are trying to save the monarchy raises its corollary. What might have impelled these forces – obviously the loudest critics of the royal takeover in February 2005 – do so? It’s one thing for the principal domestic actors to claim that Nepal can do without the monarchy. It’s quite another to persuade major international players increasingly driven by the imperative of defensive imperialism.
As for the principal external player, King Gyanendra’s attempt to tether his regime tightly to China was a greater sin than the nature of his regime. Prime Minister Koirala’s call in New Delhi earlier this month for China’s inclusion as a full member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – from its current status as an observer – must have cast new light on Nepal’s much-maligned “China card.”
Juxtaposed with the “stability” school of thought resurgent in a section of the New Delhi establishment vis-à-vis the neighborhood, the wider dynamics of the preceding year do not necessarily conform to those being projected by the Nepali parties in power.
King Gyanendra’s critics succeeded in portraying the palace takeover as nothing more than a power grab. By directing public wrath to a handful of Panchayat-era individuals in power, Seven Party Alliance (SPA) leaders sidestepped the stark reality that many of their former colleagues were part of the royal regime. It became all the more convenient to ignore the technocrats and entrepreneurs who also underpinned King Gyanendra’s government.
A year later, as the peace process hobbles ahead, the royal regime’s role as a catalyst for the SPA-Maoist alliance has acquired greater clarity. This must have been among the successes King Gyanendra referred to in his much-criticized Democracy Day message in February.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)