When King Gyanendra of Nepal conducted a military-backed coup on 1 February 2005, even those who thought it was drastic and ill advised had expected that he had 'a plan' by which he would tackle the raging Maoist insurgency. Either he was aiming to bring the Maobaadi to heel by making the Royal Nepal Army effective, or he had a secret arrangement with Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the elusive Maoist chieftain. Indeed, all would be forgiven if the king were planning for peace and were able to deliver it.
Claiming to protect democracy and to save the Nepali people from the Maoists, King Gyanendra declared a state of emergency, suspended civil right, muzzled the press, blocked telephone and cellphone networks, and jailed hundreds of politicians and activists. He went about dismantling the many achievements of a dozen years of unfettered democracy. Seeking a purely military solution to the runaway insurgency, he simultaneously weakened the state. By coming down from the high pedestal of the monarchy to play politics, he gambled with the future of his dynasty.
Five months to the day King Gyanendra took over, it is clear that he had no plan. The main purpose behind the royal coup seems to have been to expand royal powers beyond those provided by the 1990 Constitution of Nepal. And it is the people of Nepal who have lost the most in this royal move, with the successes of political pluralism achieved since 1990 negated and the possibilities of social and economic progress through a fully democratic – if at times anarchic – system denied. Kathmandu Valley's population of a million plus is coddled, but the countryside is in shambles and human security in the hills, plains and valleys at an all time low in the wake of the king's pustch.
It was after the half-takeover of 4 October 2002, when the King started appointing prime ministers at will, that the Maoists spread from their mid-western nerve centre across the terai plains and to the hills all over. In this interim, they went from having a presence in less that 15 districts to more than 70 of the country's 75 districts. After the 1 February royal coup, when King Gyanendra also took over as chairman of the Council of Ministers, the public has been without anyone whom they might call their representatives. This translates into deep distress across the land, an anguish clearly not appreciated by the palace in Kathmandu as revealed in numerous cases of neglect over the past five months.