Nepal's quiet revolution unfolds

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7428085.stm

Version 0 of 1.

By Charles Haviland BBC News, Kathmandu Popular opinion turned against the monarchy before its abolitionLined up outside the massive assembly hall, the military band waited. Clad in white with pillbox hats and breeches, they clutched clarinets and trumpets.

"Sorry, I don't really know when we're going to play," the bandleader whispered to me with endearing Nepali frankness.

An hour later, against a yellow-pink sunset sky, the ageing prime minister arrived, waved briefly and walked in so quickly, the band did not even get a chance to play Nepal's new, non-royalist national anthem.

By this time the new assembly members, nearly 600 of them, had been waiting inside all day.

'Discredited dynasty'

Many are new to politics, one-third are women, and many wore the traditional clothes of their ethnic groups, in a country which until recently stressed uniformity.

To this group of men and women fell the task of declaring Nepal a republic.

Towards midnight, they finally did so, voting out the monarchy by an overwhelming 560 votes to four. The crowd in the street roared their approval.

"Vive La Republique!" shouted one banner headline the next morning. The monarchy, the papers said, had been a discredited dynasty that had looted the country and made it one of the world's poorest.

So ends a monarchy which had its roots in a hilltop fortress called Gorkha, the word now used for Nepalese recruits to the British army.

British connection

The once-popular Nepalese royals have a long history of friendship with their British counterparts.

Former Crown Prince Dipendra studied at Eton where friends remember him wallowing happily in mud on the playing fields.

Gyanendra became increasingly unpopular after becoming king

People liked the fact that his father, the former king, Birendra, would tramp the countryside incognito, asking about people's concerns.

But all that affection was shattered in the 2001 palace massacre. According to all the evidence, Dipendra, furious at his mother's veto on his choice of bride, gunned down his family and five relatives before allegedly killing himself.

Distraught Nepalis thronged the streets in grief. As the royal cremation pyres smoked, the reverence for the monarchy crumbled.

Suspicions

Worse for the new king, Birendra's brother Gyanendra, most Nepalis suspected that he and his son, Paras, had planned the killings.

After all, Paras and his mother survived the shooting spree, while Gyanendra was out of town.

Paras was already loathed. The playboy prince is widely believed to have run down and killed at least two people in drink-driving incidents.

Already unpopular, Gyanendra made matters worse by taking on political powers, culminating in a disastrous spell of absolute power in 2005 in which he failed to crush the Maoist rebels and locked up dissenters.

Just as the monarchy was perhaps irrelevant to most Nepalis, getting rid of it will not automatically cure the country's ills. On Thursday morning, though, the palace staff - their future in doubt of course - quietly lowered the royal standard that used to flutter outside.

A small but loud republican crowd nearby wanted to see the Nepalese national flag hoisted in its place.

New creed

There were violent clashes between crowds throwing bricks and police charging with batons.

One dissenting man came up to me in a rage. "Why are we punishing the institution for the fault of one man?" he shouted, saying the abolition was a big mistake.

But voices like his are drowned out in the new Nepal, where Republicanism is the only politically correct creed.

Just as the monarchy was perhaps irrelevant to most Nepalis, getting rid of it will not automatically cure the country's ills.

Rice and peace

What most want above all is peace - which is still not properly in place after the Maoist insurgency. And their next bowl of rice.

They would like justice after years of dismal human rights violations. They would like an end to caste discrimination and corruption.

Those are the counts on which they will judge their new rulers - likely to be the Maoists, who have now entered politics.

Back at the unlovely, 1970s royal palace, stray dogs were resting against the gates.

Through the railings could be seen soldiers, checking their text messages in the gardens which may soon be turned into a public park.

Palace staff in colourful uniforms stood guard.

There was little on the surface to suggest a quiet revolution was happening.

But late that evening, the staff who had lowered the royal standard in the morning, raised the national flag in its place.

The palace building is no longer the domain of a king, and Nepal is no longer a kingdom.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 31 May, 2008 at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3187926.stm">programme schedules </a> for World Service transmission times.