Sunanda K. Datta-Ray |-----------

Calls to restore Nepal as a Hindu kingdom are growing louder, with ex-King Gyanendra back in the spotlight. But India must weigh religion, politics, and regional strategy.

Given the Bharatiya Janata Party’s sturdy religious affiliation, it would not be at all surprising if it supports the demand for Nepal to be declared a Hindu State. Whether the BJP also favours the restoration of Nepal’s monarchy is another matter, involving sovereignty, geopolitical strategy and personal vanity. Would India’s monarchical politicians welcome a hereditary king on a parallel stage? Nepal was never an Indian princely state. It was always independent. But the violence that erupted in late March, killing two Nepalese and injuring many, and which was followed by large-scale arson and looting, warned that India may have to seek diplomatic means of dealing with an increasingly serious threat to law and order in a sensitive border region.
For, as Prithvi Narayan Shah, who united 52 fiefdoms to form the Nepalese kingdom, put it 250 years ago, Nepal is like a “yam between two boulders”, meaning India and China. India’s sharp reaction to comments by Muhammad Yunus, the chief adviser to Bangladesh’s interim government, about his country providing China with its only access to India’s landlocked Northeast, highlighted the importance of geopolitics.
The 22-km-wide strategic corridor in West Bengal, known as the “Chicken’s Neck”, connecting northeastern India to the rest of the country, is of vital concern to New Delhi. With Mr Yunus taking over as the chairman of Bimstec (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), which brings together seven South and Southeast Asian countries and whose relevance has grown as that of Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) has declined, the decision- makers in Kathmandu and Dhaka have become more consequential. No wonder Mr Yunus is avidly courting China and Pakistan.
Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s conciliatory gesture of meeting Mr Yunus in Bangkok, on the sidelines of the recently-concluded Bimstec summit, India cannot ignore the long-term implications for the future. The restoration of Nepal’s monarchy would elevate former King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev to the throne for a third time. As a three-year-old child, he was proclaimed King on November 7, 1950, after his grandfather, King Tribhuvan, fled to India with the rest of the royal family to escape the Rana stranglehold.
King Tribhuvan’s return to Kathmandu with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s blessings ended that last grab for power by the Rana prime minister, Mohan Shamsher, who had not only had Gyanendra crowned in Tribhuvan’s absence but also issued coins in his name and sanctioned a Rs 300,000 budget for the infant monarch. Gyanendra’s second stint as King came on June 1, 2001, when his elder brother, King Birendra, and his entire family were mysteriously gunned down in a palace massacre that recalled the butchery of some 50 royals and courtiers in the Kot killings of September 14, 1846. The murderous frenzy was reportedly the handiwork of King Birendra’s son, Crown Prince Dipendra, who reportedly shot himself after murdering every family member present. Dipendra succumbed to his injuries three days later. Not being in Kathmandu at the time, Gyanendra survived the bloodbath and mounted the throne but was driven out in 2007 after several spells of being at loggerheads with Nepal’s increasingly turbulent radical politicians in the midst of a civil war (1996-2006) between the royalist forces and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) guerrillas. Now, Nepal is witnessing a series of protests, especially in Kathmandu, to bring back Gyanendra as a Hindu monarch. The royalist movement has been led since 2015 by the Rastriya Prajatantra Party of Nepal, formed in 1990 by two former monarchical-era prime ministers, Surya Bahadur Thapa and Lokendra Bahadur Chand. The party had led two coalition governments in 1997 under Thapa and Chand, who made much of the fact that living costs had gone up hugely, as had the migration abroad of young Nepalese men and women who can’t find jobs at home. Corruption marks almost every aspect of public life. Some Nepalese politicians also appear to be convinced -- like the country’s last three monarchs, Mahendra, Birendra and Gyanendra -- that close ties with India curtail their sovereignty, and that the country has much more to gain from China. The present crisis began on February 1, 2005, when Gyanendra was accused of exceeding his constitutional role by dismissing the elected Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and dissolving Parliament. All the political parties made common cause with the Maoists, leaders of the armed insurgency, and decided to abolish the monarchy as well as Nepal’s unique status as the world’s only Hindu kingdom. An elected Constituent Assembly brought the monarchy to a peaceful end, and the secular federal democratic republic declared on May 28, 2008, allowed the former King the use of one of his palaces (others were taken over) and provided him security. The present republican constitution was promulgated in 2015. Royalist sentiment didn’t die altogether, however, and there were many to pay attention on February 18, 2025, the eve of Democracy Day, when in his first formal speech, the ex-King appealed for support “to save the nation and maintain national unity”. Gyanendra claimed that democracy had not been able to win public trust. There was a large crowd at Kathmandu airport when he flew back on March 9 this year and again at the pro-royalist rally on March 28. Nepal’s mainstream parties -- the Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), the Maoists Centre, the Communist Party of Nepal (Socialists) -- have all condemned the violence for which they blame the ex-King. While there is no direct evidence of India’s Hindu fundamentalists supporting either a return of the monarchy or the restoration of Hinduism as the state religion, some suspect links between Kathmandu royalists and the Shri Gorakhnath Mandir, an influential Hindu temple of the Nath monastic order on the India-Nepal border. Its head, Adityanath, who appears to have adopted “Yogi” as his first name, is also the politically important BJP chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state and seen by some as a potential successor to Narendra Modi. Since nearly 100 per cent of 30 million Nepalese are Hindus, declaring Nepal a Hindu state seems a logical development to many. With his shaven head, sacred tilak and flowing saffron robes, UP chief minister Adityanath is the face of traditional Hindu orthodoxy. That image flaunted by the fervent supporters of former King Gyanendra of Nepal at a public rally could well be a pointer to Nepal’s future.

@ ( Source : Deccan Chronicle )