Page 1
of 2 Nepal's 'republic on
paper' By Dhruba Adhikary
KATHMANDU - There was a time when an
approaching Friday would scare Nepal's Prime
Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, as he publicly
admitted once. His first term as prime minister
began after the political changes of 1990. Steps
taken by the reigning king on Fridays in
intervening years usually heralded some kind of
political upheaval. In recent times, however,
Fridays have begun to
be
fateful to the monarch - and the monarchy.
The first Friday of June 2001 is
remembered as the day when the king, queen, crown
prince and seven other members of the royal family
lost their lives in a palace shootout which
remains a mystery even today.
Last Friday,
December 28, Nepal's interim legislature passed a
constitutional amendment which is a matter of
grave concern to Gyanendra, crowned king seven
years ago. The amended interim statute has
categorical words to transform the country into a
"federal democratic republic".
The voting
on the agenda went overwhelmingly in favor of this
landmark change: 270 to three with 48 abstentions
(321 of 330 members were present on that day). In
an article published on Sunday, Baburam Bhattarai,
a senior leader of the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist), described the amendment as "an
achievement of historical significance" and
claimed a lion's share of the credit for having
spearheaded the resolution, even if it was a joint
move of the seven-party alliance government.
In fact, the monarchy has been sidelined
since the April uprising of 2006 when King
Gyanendra was forced to face a mass agitation
which was built up against a royal coup he staged
in February 2005. His proclamation, on April 24,
2006, revived the Parliament he had dissolved
earlier. The restored Parliament then issued its
declaration stripping Gyanendra of all state
powers and privileges he enjoyed until then.
And in January last year, when the interim
constitution was promulgated through a
newly-convened interim legislature, it contained a
provision saying that the first meeting of the
democratically-elected Constituent Assembly (CA)
would decide whether or not the institution of
monarchy should be retained. Now the third
amendment goes a step further and declares Nepal a
republic, requiring the CA to "implement" this
decision.
One of the amended provisions
also stipulates that the country could be
instantly made a republic if the interim
Parliament found Gyanendra creating "serious
obstructions" to the CA polls. By way of
explanation to the media, the interior minister
said that Gyanendra would continue to receive
authorized allowances and facilities until the
declaration of republic came into force. This
conditional phrase prompted some editorial writers
to conclude that Nepal has become a "republic on
paper".
To the men and women in the
street, this is an irony as well as an anomaly:
the king remains in the palace but the country has
been declared a republic. That is why there were
no spontaneous public expression of joy or
reactions to the announcement. Maoist leader
Bhattarai appeared disappointed about the lack of
public enthusiasm for this historic achievement.
After all, the feudal institution of monarchy is
gone, so goes the official line of argument, but
one individual king remains until the time the
resolution is implemented. Even the Maoist
mouthpiece, Janadisha Daily, likened the status of
the monarchy to a leaf which is neither on the
tree nor has landed on the ground. And it blamed
Koirala's Nepali Congress for deliberately keeping
the process incomplete.
Pro-monarchists,
too, did not come out in the streets in large
numbers to express their anger and resentment as
expected. It is believed that an ensuing climate
of confusion left them in a state of uncertainty.
Otherwise, they would have demanded retention of
the monarchy at least in a ceremonial form.
Traditionalists believe that since the
monarchy is an age-old institution serving as a
symbol of Nepal's unity, the interim government
should have organized a referendum to decide its
fate. They cite some of the media polls which have
shown the monarchy as a stabilizing factor. Their
persistent claim is that one stubborn king must
not be mistaken for the institution of monarchy.
But for the fear of being booed and jeered, these
people stayed away from the Maoist-dominated
political atmosphere. Nobody wanted to be seen as
someone supporting regressive elements. Members of
the Young Communist League (YCL), the Maoist
outfit for the youth, continue to be active.
Nearly half of Nepal's 25-million
population is illiterate, and a sizeable majority
must live on less than US$1 a day.
One
important contention put forward by the opposition
during the debate on the third amendment pertained
to the judicial acceptability of the entire
process. What is the source of authority for this
entity of 330 "nominated" deputies to issue a
mandatory directive - to implement a republic - to
an assembly which will consist of "elected"
members ? How can the CA be reduced to the status
of an implementing body? How far can the popular
mandate derived from the April uprising take the
seven-party alliance in deciding issues with
far-reaching consequences? Constitutional experts
have raised serious objection to this proposition.
Politically, the idea has attracted
considerable criticism. Surya Bahadur Thapa, a
former prime minister and an incumbent leader of a
smaller party which is not in the seven-party
alliance, took up the issue at the House in a
striking manner. How can the alliance decide to
snatch the people's right to elect a sovereign
body which alone has the power to take a decision
on a matter of national importance? Some of the
deputies also raised questions dealing on the
"federal" aspect of the resolution, fearing that
it might invite secessionist tendencies similar to
the ones seen in the Soviet Union in the early
1990s. As if to prove this point, a leader of the
Koirala-led Congress quit that national party and
formed a new regional party on the very day the
legislature decided to proclaim a republic. " We
have a right to declare independence," Mahantha
Thakur, the man who heads newly-formed party based
on the region adjoining India, told a newspaper
interviewer this week.
Until he quit,
Thakur also held the post of a senior minister.
Foreign interference About a
week before he was re-appointed minister on
Sunday, Maoist spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara
admitted before an audience in the western
regional town of Daang that all seven parties in
the coalition were heavily influenced by foreign
powers. As long as they have to remain in the grip
of those powers, he said, CA polls can't be held;
nor can there be any guarantee of fundamental
rights to the citizens.
Despite such a
perception, media reports that New Delhi has a
hand in ongoing turmoil and instability in Nepal
might be dismissed as sheer speculation. But what
is beyond mere conjecture is the fact that actions
- including the formation of a new party in the
southern flatland, known as Terai, the declaration
of a federal republic, and the plan to find a new
date for CA polls before the current Nepali year
2064 (mid-April 2008) - are out and the
re-induction of Maoists in the government as
ministers was taken immediately after what was
intended to be a secret visit to Kathmandu by
Ashok Chaturvedi, chief of India's external
intelligence agency's Research and Analysis Wing
(RAW).
That he met leaders of all leading
political parties, including those from the
Maoists as well as Nepal's top officials
associated with the security apparatus, has not
been denied either by the Indian Embassy or by the
Koirala-led interim government.
It is not
clear what magic formula Chaturvedi, head of the
agency which acts like a super government not
directly accountable to Indian parliament, brought
to Nepal to resolve the challenges it is facing in
the forms of growing violence, ethnic disputes and
deteriorating law and order. Is New Delhi still
following, albeit discreetly, its twin-pillar
policy on Nepal based on constitutional monarchy
and multiparty democracy?
One minister in
the interim coalition, Girirajmani Pokharel,
alleged on Monday that India and the United States
were working in tandem to salvage the monarchy in
some form. Like official Indian
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