Nepal's royal massacre enters ninth year; regressive minds sustain

Mohan Nepali June 02, 2009

Today (according to the Nepali calendar) is the ninth year of the Narayanhiti royal massacre, an incident deeply lodged in the permanent neurological memory system among the Nepalis. King Birendra and his entire family were wiped away in the massacre on 01 June 2001. King Birendra’s younger brother Gyanendra immediately became a new king, who harshly and autocratically ruled Nepal for four years.

No independent investigation on the massacre has yet been carried out. No slaughterers have ever been arrested and punished regarding the massacre. This impunity has put people at unease. They do not feel safe because they think that even the most heavily guarded royal family members were not safe within their family circle.

When Gyanendra, with the help of India and America, promised that Nepal would fight to finish all Maoists, millions of Nepalis in April 2006 stormed into the streets across the country seeking the immediate abolition of monarchy. The king imposed harsh autocracy on people, banning all political parties, detaining their leaders, cutting off all communication systems and massacring people in the name of ‘terrorists’.

The massive protests defying 19-day military curfews throughout Nepal really proved that the Nepalis were in a do-or-die battle with the feudal systems.

Maoists were instrumental in declaring Nepal a republic. They were involved in armed insurgency against the monarchist parliamentary system that did not bother about the working class people. Their decade-long war spread political consciousness, though still inadequate, among the grassroots people. The Nepalis in 10 years learnt what they had not learnt for more than 40 years. But this has become more of a theoretical learning rather than practical. For practices, they have to draft a new constitution and define themselves in a new way, to become different from the existing corrupt and defunct bureaucratic mechanisms.

People fear that political parties might not let them practice democracy as most of them have aligned with the Army Chief who directly defied the elected civilian government. Ceremonial President and Nepali Congress worker Dr. Ram Baran Yadav challenged the executive power of the elected prime minister by re-appointing the Army Chief sacked by the government. But the president has not quoted any constitutional Article or Clause for doing this. And the obvious truth is that the ceremonial president does not have any right to re-appoint a sacked government official by autocratically sending a personal letter.

However, for this or that reason, most of the political parties (most of them with one seat in the legislative) have aligned with the Army Chief, long-brainwashed by the 240-year monarchy, abolished constitutionally by people just on 28 May 2008.

This raises a serious question. Does it mean that monarchy has quit the palace but not the minds of those political parties? Let people seek answers from their coming behavior.

But there is not doubt that the majority of grassroots people know that they need to go for progressive changes, not for regressive repetitions and repentances. The ninth year of the royal massacre must really make people and leaders alike think seriously what consequences the country may have to face in the future should impunity rule the society like this. It is more important to think today when dozens of armed groups have mushroomed up as killing industries in the country.