The king of Nepal apparently does not like his takeover of exactly 11 months ago being termed a military coup, but there can be no other term to describe the use of the army by its 'supreme commander-in-chief' to grab state power. Simultaneously, he designated himself chairman of the Council of Ministers, a post that does not exist in the 1990 Constitution. In every way that was possible in this past year of Rule by Black Ordinance, Chairman Gyanendra has torn that document to shreds. He has also amply displayed his willingness to preside over a shriveling state where administration is a farce, the government's development programmes are at standstill, and diplomacy is in tatters. All of this hurts a citizenry long in search for peace and democracy. As head of both the state and government, the chairman seems to want to have it both ways – remain the aloof monarch even though the new self-applied job description requires him to be functioning as a prime minister. Meanwhile, the arrogance that emanates from the Narayanhiti royal palace provides a textbook case of how monarchies end – one man's faulty understanding of the dictates of the times and the aspirations of the population.
Today, the chairman is isolated nationally and internationally but remains sullenly defiant. He refuses to listen to advice of statesmen near and far – including a sitting US president, the UN Secretary General, or his own nervous royal advisors. He disregards the views of the wise framers of the 1990 Constitution, and feigns indifference to the massive crowds gathered by the political parties around the country in a continuous show of strength these last two months. By not reciprocating the four-month old unilateral ceasefire of the Maoist (allowed to lapse by the rebels as Himal goes to press), and dismissing their publicly announced willingness to join multi-party politics, he seems itching to take the country back to war.
Meanwhile, under the active monarchy of the incumbent, this is a time of loot in Nepal, when terrible men have emerged out of the Kathmandu quagmire to take advantage of the current unaccountability of state. The money being amassed by those close to Narayanhiti royal palace will destabilise democracy for a long time even after it is rescued. The deconstruction of state mechanisms will take years if not a decade to repair. The royal regime seeks to defend itself by trying to generate an ultra-nationalistic, xenophobic fervour, but it is not catching. There is also the attempt to try an extremely shaky 'China card' and a deliberate strategy to wreck the relationship with India.
The royal appointments to high office are of the kind that have to be picked up and discarded one by one when democracy returns. The willingness to run the economy to ground for personal gain is something that investigative journalists will be digging into long into the future. But the unkindest cut of all has been the chairman's and supreme commander-in-chief's willingness to convert the Royal Nepal Army from a professional force serving the people and international community (as valued UN peacekeepers) to a politically ambitious entity that functions to the feudal dictate of the royal palace. Unfortunately, many generals have now had the taste of untrammeled power and a handful have experienced the lure of really big money. The politicisation and de-professionalisation of the army is a hopeless exercise fraught with danger for society at large, and the self-worth of the military rank and file. Any chieftain with even a remote understanding of statecraft would understand the need for an immediate course reversal.