Home >> South Asia >> Nepal & Bhutan

     Email   Print 

Royal regime has long been dying on its feet

Bhuwan Thapaliya - 1/26/2006

“Municipal election” is a phrase the Nepalese government uses often these days, but in many parts of the country the two words sit uneasily together. Nowhere is this more so than in Kathmandu, arguably the seismic zone of the Nepalese politics. Democrats in Kathmandu have spent months failing to get their final act together. This week they thought they had done it. Seven party alliances were all set to stage the streets of Kathmandu with their massive road protest against the reigning royal regime.

In the meantime, however, the government took one look at this inflammatory idea and, bang, down came the despotic curtain. Not just they imposed the curfew but more than 100 political leaders and activists – were arrested.

Moreover, they have been warned that they could face trial for spreading “hostile propaganda”. None of which is exactly new in royal dictatorship. But the timing is bad, for a regime that is trying to show a nice face to the world and woo in foreign supports in the name of curbing the Maoists barbarism.

Nonetheless, the prospect of massive people’s participation in Friday’s demonstration seems to have created a panic in the government circles. Fearing the democratic tremors of the seven party alliance’s peaceful rally planned in the Kathmandu today, the government showed its defeated mentality by clamping a curfew.

This nefarious move, however, has raised various accusations against the government. “How long will the government be able to suppress the voice of the democratic forces by abstaining their basic rights?” many observers are saying. Yet the toughest job of all will be to change the royalist’s backward political culture.

The challenge, and the worry, for the royal regime is that its credibility is in danger of losing its way. In Nepal, there is a sense of drift. That feeling is sharpened by the fact that with political parties discredited and democracy distrusted, Nepal has already neglected the royalist’s ideology.

In the end, they say, however, the royal regime has long been dying on its feet. The physical scars are obvious but the mental scars are more insidious. No wonder, then, that the Nepalese, so ebullient before the royal take over, seem subdued.

The big worry, however, is that the political game will continue, if only because to stay out means to lose out.

However, there is every sign that the government will shelve the political parties proposal, just like the previous ones. It will no doubt put forward all the usual excuses: that Nepal needs peace before democracy; that royal cabinet plays a crucial role in keeping Nepal in the vanguard of the social revolution. In a way, this is a paradox. Isn’t it?

In other words. Political parties must take charge but until a new government is in place, with king’s role made clear and the Maoists problem solved, Nepal will be in danger of drifting.