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Nepal: All Roads Still Lead To The Palace

By Maila Baje

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's cabinet amends the royal succession laws to, in effect, allow women to ascend the throne. The Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), the second ranking partner in the coalition government, wants the interim constitution to include a provision for a referendum on the monarchy. The Maoists want the interim charter to abolish the monarchy.

Weren't we told that the constituent assembly would determine the future of the monarchy? Moreover, wouldn't this haste impede those who want to go into the process of writing a new constitution on a platform of a constructive monarchy?

Admittedly, placing the first-born of the monarch in the line of succession would do much to modernize the institution. It's the traditional side of the crown that's more of a concern. The Japanese, far ahead of us in espousing modernity as well as in adhering to tradition, are still debating the wisdom of putting a female on the throne when many royal functions appear exclusively male-driven. Nepalese democrats have decided to gender-neutralize the crown by decree.

The Koirala cabinet seems to have looked past the complications because, well, they are complicated. Can a queen caught in a biologically unpropitious phase of the month enter Hanuman Dhoka to welcome the advent of spring and still maintain the sanctity of the event?

And the hoary tradition of the Dasain tika? Surely, a ceremonial monarch need not abandon the practice of blessing commoners on the most important Hindu festival of the calendar of a secular realm. Even if all the other elements of sacredness were met, what of the full implications of a queenly touch on a succession of male foreheads? What about the wider effects of this makeover? Wouldn't the Kumari feel less encumbered to claim life tenure as the Living Goddess? Where will all this end?

Clearly, it's all politics, for now. Koirala seem wedded to a campaign to retain a ceremonial monarchy. In fairness, he is fulfilling a pledge he made to the palace five years ago: agree to the Maoists' demand for a constituent assembly and I'll make sure the rebels accept the monarchy. By stripping the monarch of everything except his clothes, the government will sooner or later create enough sympathy to remake the crown.

Evidently, the UML thinks it can checkmate Koirala with its referendum call. The demand comes at a sensitive time for the party. Onetime allies of general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal are now trying to oust him as leader. Could this be the beginning of another split that might see the more hard-line UML faction merge with the Maoists?

Let's delve deeper. Is the UML's referendum call really aimed at the palace or the Maoists? After all, forerunners of today UML's are credited with ensuring the victory of the Panchayat system in the 1980 referendum. Many still believe the comrades' call for an active boycott of that plebiscite easily transformed into votes against a multiparty system that rabid anti-communist B.P. Koirala was set to dominate.

A UML-driven indirect campaign in favor of a monarchy would be far more momentous than Koirala's overt public support, without the comrades having to pay the political costs. No wonder the Maoists want the monarchy abolished right away. But isn't that also a clever Maoist way of demanding a place in an interim government without having to disarm?

Technically speaking, the Nepali Congress and the Jhapali comrades haven't accounted for the weapons they wielded in pursuit of their political objectives. Could there be more to the Maoists' stepped-up anti-monarchy offensive, like, say, a desire to precipitate a palace intervention on behalf of armed rebels joining a government of national reconciliation? All political roads still seem to lead to palace, don't they?

Maila Baje writes about Nepal at http://nepalinetbook.blogspot.com