There was dancing and singing in the streets as Nepal's 239-year-old monarchy came to an end on Wednesday, abolished by a new parliament dominated by Maoists. If reports from Kathmandu are to be believed, few Nepalese were feeling melancholy about the passing of the ancient royal institution. As the lion-emblem banner of the royal family was removed from the royal palace and replaced by the Nepalese flag, they waved hammer-and-sickle flags, set off firecrackers and marched through the streets in triumph.
The monarchy had been thoroughly discredited in recent years, first by the massacre of 10 royals by a drunken prince, then by the decision of the feckless king, Gyanendra, 12th in the line of Shah monarchs, to restore royal absolutism in 2005 and rule like a tyrant. When the constituent assembly elected in April gathered to determine the fate of the monarchy, all but four of the 564 members voted for a proposal to declare a republic.
That's as it should be. A monarch who thinks he can rule, even temporarily, by divine right is a glaring anachronism in the 21st century. So, on the other hand, is a 21st-century leader who professes Maoism.
The new power in republican Nepal is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a schoolteacher turned revolutionary who led a 10-year rebellion that left 13,000 Nepalese dead. His nom de guerre is Prachanda, "the fierce one."
Since ending the rebellion and joining the political process in 2006, he has been at pains to sound moderate and responsible. He is clever enough to know that radical communism has little appeal in today's world, even in a poor country such as Nepal. He says he is against feudalism, not capitalism. He says he wants Nepal to be a multiparty democracy, not a one-party state. He accepts that globalization is a fact of life. He welcomes foreign investment. He wants Nepal to become the "Switzerland of Asia," with arms open to foreign tourists.
Does he mean it? A look at his record is not encouraging.
Prachanda was born into a poor, high-caste farm family in Nepal's Chitwan district. He studied agriculture, then taught science in school.
The desperate poverty of Nepal's backward countryside moved him to get involved in politics and he gravitated to the Communists, eventually rising to lead the Maoist-line Communist Party of Nepal.
In 1996, after years underground, he launched a full-scale "people's war" against the government that plunged Nepal into a decade of chaos and bloodshed. The aim: to replace the monarchy with a people's republic.
There was little justification for such a reign of terror. Though Nepal is a struggling country with much injustice and social inequality, things were gradually getting better under then-King Birendra, who had agreed to become a constitutional monarch with limited powers after a democratic uprising in 1990. The economy was growing, democracy maturing.
Claiming the government had ignored their demands, Prachanda's rebels rose up anyway. In the process, they extorted food and money from peasants, executed those who slighted their top leaders, harassed homosexuals as "social pollutants" and recruited thousands of children as soldiers, a practice that continued even after they signed a peace accord in 2006. Their guerrillas routinely attacked government schools, abducted teachers and kidnapped schoolchildren for political indoctrination.
Prachanda and his men claim to have turned over a new leaf since putting down their guns and entering the political arena. They are promoting women and ethnic minorities within party ranks, wooing businessmen with promises of a laissez-faire attitude and pleasing the poor with a "land-to-the-tiller" farm reform policy. These pledges, combined with an undeniable desire for change, gave the Maoists a surprising victory in April, making them the biggest party in the assembly.
But whether Prachanda has really gone from militant to democrat is still an open question. More than 20,000 of his men remain encamped around the country, their weapons locked up but easily accessible. During the April election, party thugs intimidated voters while their leaders churned out conspiracy theories and propaganda.
Prachanda himself says that while he may permit capitalism in the new Nepal, it is only a stepping stone to true socialism. The leader of his very own personality cult, he held forth during the election campaign beside posters urging Nepalese to embrace "Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, Prachandaism." If Nepalese are trading a monarch for a Maoist, the cheering of the past few days may soon fade away.
