Silent monarchy, ambivalent citizens

Since 28 May 2008, when the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal was born, a kingdom has begun to disappear in earnest. The departure of the ex-king and queen from the Narayanhiti Palace two weeks later marked the beginning of the end of what will be a long process of erasure and (if we dare use the word) disappearances, which are sure to be fraught with unexpected complications and surprising results. Thus far, these erasures have taken various forms. A picture of a mountain is printed over the royal visage on Nepal's 1000-rupee note, where a watermark shadow of the same face still lies hidden under a rhododendron bush. The sripech crown has been scraped away from the gate of the palace's cavalry quarters, leaving behind its shadow, along with pairs of feet and flags. A newly coined national anthem makes no reference to an element long seen as key to sustaining national sovereignty. Even Nepal's flag-carrier airline has ceased being Royal.

These are all rather trivial examples of the erasures that one would expect. Others, however, are more complex. An ostensibly royal Daimler Benz, gifted by Adolf Hitler, is said to have been the victim of an attempted ex-royal theft, only to have been revealed as having never been royal at all, but rather a set of Rana wheels, presently in India. This is a complex double disappearance; what the new nation imagines to be a part of its historical legacy – albeit a problematic one, in this instance – turns out not to have been the object of illegitimate ex-royal avarice, but in fact the rightful inheritance of Janak Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah, daughter of Juddha Shamsher Rana, and left behind in India with her brother because it had never been registered in Nepal. So, with a false accusation and subsequent inquiry comes the revelation that there is one less item for the newly announced Narayanhiti Palace Museum, which is apparently wanting for a collection worthy of unveiling to the public. In this instance, ex-royals are accused of trying to steal something that was not even there to be stolen.

This may be part of a larger pattern of republican citizens being robbed of what they never had. For instance, that the royal family might not be living a life of luxury in a fabulously appointed palace first became widely apparent with the detailed revelations about their quarters that arose from reports on the royal palace massacre of 1 June 2001. The stark modesty of the former royal family's new accommodations in the Nagarjun forest, on the outskirts of the Kathmandu Valley, has further lent credence to the possibility that, as far as palatial sumptuousness is concerned, there might well have never been any there there. This writer, like many others, had always been under the impression that, within the mysterious walls of Narayanhiti, fabulous fortunes were to be found.

Citizens of the new republic may now have to confront the possibility that their king had not actually been the obscenely affluent kind of autocrat in whom subjects (and even ex-subjects) might take a certain kind of perverse pride. After all, if people have been subject to royal exploitation for a couple of centuries or so, there ought to be at least the compensation of having some good loot to show for it, if only to illustrate the venality of their former rulers. But that which was never theirs as royal subjects may have never been there at all – and thus offer nothing for republican citizens to claim as either evidence of royal greed or as national treasure.

Silence and affection
Silence is another casualty of the birth of the republic. In fact, it is the deafening silence of the palace at critical moments in its history that is partially responsible for its demise. One might argue that it is ridiculous to dwell on the disappearance of an absence, but this absence was palpable and heavily scrutinised, and surely gave rise to many of the rumours for which this land is famous. The weight of this silence diminished after Jana Andolan I, the People's Movement of 1990, but resurfaced with a vengeance with the massacre of 2001. One wonders, in retrospect, whether the various conspicuous silences of the royals over the past several decades have been deliberate strategies to preserve the advantage of inscrutability, or whether, in another sense, there wansn't any there there either.

Ambivalence toward the throne has also been widely eradicated, and for this, ex-King Gyanendra, with help from his son, Paras, can take nearly all of the credit. Under the monarchy-backed partyless Panchayat system, this writer recalls sahus regarding the ubiquitous pictures of the king and queen they were obliged to display in their shops with a mixture of pride and resentment. Even at the height of the agitation against Panchayat rule, following the referendum of the 1980s, it seemed impossible for many to take a clear stance against the throne; this remained true even until the later days of Jana Andolan I.

The effort that many Nepalis have apparently devoted to finding ways of embracing their monarchy might appear somewhat perplexing. King Birendra seemed to have undergone a miraculous transformation in the public's eyes after that first Jana Andolan, from being publicly vilified to becoming the beloved monarch who 'gave democracy to Nepal'. His son, Dipendra, underwent a similar transformation during the years prior to the palace massacre; even now, he apparently remains beloved to many, despite being accused of responsibility for the massacre itself.

This ambivalent, or even outright, affection for the crowned head of state can be understood in terms of cultural tradition that was sustained, paradoxically, by political volatility and radical socio-political transformation. Indeed, it is a logical outcome of the transformation of the king's role from authoritarian autocrat to a constitutional monarch within a multiparty democracy, with powerful neighbours to either side of the 'yam', the term used by he who started the dynasty and nation state some 240 years ago, Prithvi Narayan Shah.

Whether Gyanendra could ever have capitalised on this predilection of his subjects/citizens is difficult to say. It appears that he did not think he could; and, if he attempted to do so, he obviously failed. At the unprecedented Narayanhiti press conference upon his departure, he pronounced himself "brother" to his fellow citizens, and displayed a casual and even cheerful demeanour that many journalists deemed worthy of note and comment. He seemed to want to appear thankful to be relieved of his throne, and spoke of the extraordinary constraints imposed by his former position and his fate, by way of explaining his actions and his silences. Few seemed ambivalent about his departure, if not about the demise of the throne itself. If there is silence at Nagarjun, it is neither deafening nor palpable. At this point, few are probably wondering what the ex-king is thinking tonight.

Having been first crowned as a four-year-old (only to have the crown taken away), Gyanendra saw the end of both the Rana and Shah dynasties, though he apparently regards his role in both of these crucial historical junctures as thrust upon him by fate. But whether he saw the end of this particular dynasty by virtue of fate or miscalculation, its demise may reveal that the palace was empty, and its silence a symptom of paralysis. Let us now hope that republican citizens of Nepal do not become ambivalent about those who will guide them to democracy, in exasperation at the difficult process that lies ahead. Those who are charged with bringing this process to fruition can afford neither miscalculation, nor the abdication of their future to fate. Nor can they afford to cultivate the kind of silence around their proceedings that reduces public political discourse to rumour.

~ Bruce McCoy Owens is an anthropologist with a long-standing interest in the politics of ritual and Southasian kingship.