Temporary calm has settled upon the highland kingdom of Nepal, a country nestled in the Himalaya Mountains between the world’s two most populous states: China and India. This past week, King Gyanendra opened the Nepalese parliament, which had been closed for the last four years. Following three weeks of demonstrations, mostly in Katmandu, and scores of deaths, octogenarian politician Girijia Prasad Korala, was sworn in on April 30 as prime minister. Koirala will have to find comity amid the seven main political parties represented in the parliament.
King Gyanendra took power in February 2005 and held it absolutely until this week’s denouement. Facing mounting pressure from protests in Katmandu, and a long festering rebellion by homegrown Maoist insurgents, the king caved in to wide-spread demands in the capital. The leader of the rebels, who styles himself as “Prachanda”, declared a three-month cease fire in order to provide the new government with a breathing spell to begin drafting a constitution and an assembly he can agree with. There have been calls for significant changes to the country’s constitution and governance. For example, the monarchy in one scheme would become largely ceremonial and laws enacted during Gyanendra’s tenure would be annulled. The rebels have declared ceasefires in the past, but so far with little effect. This time, the rebels ended their roadblocks on highways leading to Katmandu, which had been suffering from food and fuel shortages as a result.
King Gyanendra came to power in June 2001 after his nephew, King Birendra, and his family was murdered by the latter’s own son in a palace coup. Birendra’s son died of self-inflicted wounds just after Gyanendra, his uncle, was crowned king. In February 2005, Gyanendra declared a state of emergency and seized power after a coalition government and imprisoning political leaders. In May 2005, he released the political leaders and rescinded the state of emergency. Since then the Maoist challenge to the Gyanendra government has mounted. Maoists have called for the dissolution of the monarchy and for Gyanendra to step down.
Michael Lestz – associate professor of history at Trinity College, Connecticut, and Director of the O’Neill Asia Cum Laude Endowment, sounded a cautionary note about Nepal while offering a succinct description of the culture and polity of a country many Westerners have thought of a sort of Shangri-La.
Describing Nepal as a society of subsistence farmers with a complex mix of ethnicities separated by language and a rough alpine topography, Lestz opined that democracy has proven to be a mixed blessing for a country that some see as going backwards rather forwards in time.
“Democracy in Nepal, as has recently been the case elsewhere in the world, has aggravated ethnic divides. Democratic politicians represent, in this order, their own interests and those of the clans to which they belong; the hopes of their ethnicities, and (last on the totem pole) the interests of t
Martin Barillas is a former US diplomat, who also worked as a democracy advocate and election observer in Latin America.
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