Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah - June 4, 2001 - 28 May 2008
Gyanendra was crowned King on June 4, 2001 in the midst of rioting that followed the shooting deaths of King Birendra and eight other family members on June 1. He was widely unpopular at the time of his enthronement -- many suspected him of having a hand in the June 1 massacre. The traumatic circumstances under which Gyanendra acceded to the throne -- following the assassination of his brother by the Crown Prince, who then killed nine other members of the royal family, including himself -- altered most Nepalis' traditional reverence for the monarchy as sacrosanct and inviolable. The strange manner in which King Gyanendra came to power cast a pall over the monarchy. The Maoists insinuated that Gyanendra had planned the shootings, labeling him the “regicidal and fratricidal King.”
Mary Kay Magistad reported "Gyanendra was singularly unpopular. He dissolved parliament, jailed journalists, and tried to return Nepal to an absolute monarchy. That gave fuel to the Maoist insurgency, and eventually helped the Maoists — once they led an elected government – bring him down and end the monarchy."
Gyanendra became less unpopular over his first year on the throne, burnishing his image by appearing in a ceremonial role at religious events and making measured statements to the press in support of the constitution. The King's status appreciated in part because he compared favorably with Nepal's fractious and ineffectual elected leaders. As an incarnation of Vishnu, Gyanendra played up that role in a string of public appearances at religious sites and ceremonies. He has even appeared at religious occasions that his father, Mahendra, presided over, but that were neglected by his late brother Birendra over the past quarter century. Establishing his role as a religious figure has helped him gain acceptance among Nepal's mostly Hindu population -- less than one-third of whom are literate.
The prospect of Gyanendra's infamous son Paras as the next king did little to refurbish the monarchy's bloodied image. Paras' involvement in two vehicular homicides while intoxicated (in 1997 and 2000) -- for which he is shielded from prosecution by the Constitution -- continues to provoke popular resentment. In August, 2000, he allegedly ran over and killed a popular musician after an argument in a bar. Previous reports accuse him of running down one or two others and pistol-whipping a police officer. Although he has not killed anyone lately, his behavior is reportedly just as worrisome as ever, despite the King's best efforts to rehabilitate his son's image. Paras remained widely despised, but in ways both public and private King Gyanendra demonstrated that he intended to stand behind his son.
In public statements and press interviews Gyanendra tried to allay anxieties in some political circles that he nurtured aspirations of sweeping aside the democratic system, as his father did. The King voiced strong support for Nepal's constitutional system and called for higher standards of governance and an end to violence. But King Gyandendra’s dismissal of both the Prime Minister and locally-elected officials in 2002 further indicated to elites and many ordinary Nepalese that, however he had come to power, the King intended to restore power to the monarchy and revoke parliamentary government, in the manner of King Mahendra in 1960.
Many Kathmandu insiders claim that Gyanendra had shown anti-democratic tendencies long before he became king and had been critical of his older brother, the late King Birendra, for yielding to the 1990 pro-democracy movement. It is difficult to determine to what degree these comments are colored by hindsight and to what degree they reflect actual reality, but Gyanendra's actions and statements since ascending the throne suggest some truth to these allegations. After replacing the democratically elected government of then-Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba with his own royally appointed Cabinet, the King has consistently failed to make sincere overtures to the parties to resolve the impasse.
Instead, he used his public appearances and statements to castigate the parties' past bad governance and portray himself as the true defender of democratic values. These harsh, often personalized attacks narrow the ground available on which the Palace can build future compromises with the parties and raise serious questions about the King's oft-repeated commitment to seeking a resolution to the impasse. King Gyanendra fired Nepal's government in 2002 for what he said was incompetence. But some analysts said the king has created the stalemate between the palace and the political parties.
Between October 2002 and February 2005 King Gyanendra appointed and dismissed four prime ministers. On February 1, 2005 he staged a “royal coup” which effectively placed the country back under a royal dictatorship. The King dismissed the prime minister and government, adjourned the parliament, placed a number of leading politicians under house arrest, and declared a state of emergency. At that time, the King enjoyed support of the Army and initially most Nepalis weren’t sorry to see the politicians sidelined.
The Palace highlighted the King's 17-day visit to district capitals in 2004 to tout an image of a concerned and benevolent monarch--in tacit but pointed contrast to the democratic leaders' past neglect of these remote areas. But the large turnout at these these provincial "felicitation ceremonies," extensively covered by the state-owned press, is a better measure of the level of desperation in these remote areas than a valid indicator of the King's popularity.
Curiosity and a lack of other forms of diversion or occupation--the local population cannot venture into the Maoist-affected no-man's land outside the district headquarters and is more or less a captive audience--likely account for most of the turnout. GON efforts to portray the crowds as demonstrations of public preference for the monarch only serve to antagonize further the political parties.
King Gyanendra’s direct rule came to an end as the result of a 19-day popular uprising in April 2006 known as Jana Andolan II (People’s Movement II), in which both the Maoists and the SPA took part. This movement, during which 23 protesters were killed, forced King Gyanendra to reinstate the 1999 House of Representatives, which he had dissolved in 2002. In May 2006, the parliament passed a resolution calling for Nepal to become a secular state, stripping the King of his historical and social positions including the head of State and also ending his control over the Armed Forces.
The members of the Constituent Assembly [CA] were sworn in on May 27, 2008, and the first session of the CA was convened on May 28, 2008. In this session, the CA voted to declare Nepal a federal democratic republic by abolishing the monarchy. Gyanendra abdicated on 28 May 2008, abolishing the 238-year-old monarchy.
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