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On constitutional monarchy
By BIPIN ADHIKARI
One of the most misused, mishandled, and misapplied passages in the Bible is the narrative of a woman caught in adultery, recorded in John 8:1-11, and known to every child in the Christian world. This narrative serves as one of the fundamental lessons that can help the process of resolution of the ongoing conflict in Nepal as a national problem.
As the narrative goes, some scribes and Pharisees bring a woman before Jesus who had been caught in adultery, and ask him what should be done with her. Allegedly, the law laid down by Moses those days commanded that such a woman be stoned to death. Jesus chose not to answer for a while. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
Jesus was not questioning the right to carry out this prescription of the Law, but he was insisting on one fundamental condition, namely, that those who want to stone the woman to death have no sin on their consciences. This challenge to the self-righteous group of these scribes and the 'Pharisees’ ('hypocrites’ as seen in the bible) more than what was necessary to save the woman from the wrath of the sinful adjudicators. Needless to say, the crowd began to thin out; Jesus and the woman were alone left there at last.
This narrative has immediate relevance in our context, where certain sections of the political leaders and the Maoist insurgents have almost decided for the nation that King Gyanendra is the convict of democracy, and so the monarchy must be abolished, knowing that they too have never been honest to the democratic experiment, and there is no reason why they should be spared. In other words, why not a referendum on whether the seven parties and the Maoists have outlived their utility; and why not to abolish these parties as well?
In fact, there is no dearth of the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees around us, who find a lot of problem in King Gyanedra, but none at all in them. They are notable in political parties and non-governmental organizations. They also exist in the press and professional organizations. Some of them are in the universities and colleges. The Maoists of course are the extreme (puritan?) examples. Some are invisible on the political radar of the country; they only act through instruments, well paid and mesmerized.
No matter which corner these critiques come from, they all have the elemental claim that the problem of democracy is out there in the Narayanhiti Palace; but they all are nice 'guys’ who remain governed under the law; far from corruption and abuse of authority. They take it for granted that they are democratic, morally superior and bathed in cow milk (low cholesterol?) and devoid of any sin on their consciences - as if they had little contribution to the mess that the contemporary Nepal is in.
Very loud claims, indeed! - at least no humble citizen worth his or her salt can make it with that effrontery, let alone the whole country. At once, the king has become an object to be despised, a feudal lord, a scar of the history; somebody who is a scrap which must be immediately dispensed with. At once the Shah dynasty has been termed as the only cause behind everything bad this country has so far indulged in.
These claims sound hollow, if not nonsense. It is not the king who forced weak performance or failure of the 'majoritarian’ democratic system in Nepal. It is not him who devised economic policies and created deep economic and social crisis that grapples this country. He is certainly not the reasons behind the institutionalization of corruption, mediocrity, incompetence and professional ignorance. He is not the one who is responsible for the declining rule of law standards in the constitutional state.
Defections in the parliamentary ranks and file and use of money and muscle in politics is something that owe to other sources. Crazyness in the parties is not something that the king infused with. In any case, it is not the king who took up arms against the full-fledged constitutional system - especially the parliamentary parties, functioning democratic institutions, and the constitutional monarchy.
In the recent history of mismanagement, and consequent democratic fallout, the king adds to the latest chapter, but he is by no means its only author. The ambition that the king tried to nurture after the coup of October 2002 has definitely been a problem; and his high-handedness in the dealing with the democratic institutions after February 2005 takeover had unambiguously been a serious setback.
The king performed miserably bad in his relationship with politicians and in the handling of the state institutions of this poor country. Most of his ministers were hopeless, and suffered from Maoist type of extremism, which he himself had been entertaining knowingly or unknowingly. He failed to understand that the Maoists in the palace and those in the wilderness both had the same mentor and same purpose. The former lot encouraged the king to tighten up his grip on power, and the latter helped the people to polarize against him on the same issue.
The people of Nepal have many grievances against the king, and most of them can be termed heartbreaking. But they were not the reasons the king of this country is being assailed like this. This issue needs to be debated in an open environment which is not only cool, but also objective and rich. Can this nation be built right away without the accumulated strength of all?
The context is very simple. If the republican wayfarers still think that everything will be alright in Nepal after the king is dethroned; the Nepal Army is amassed, all interested foreigners are given the Nepali citizenship en masse, and the state is restructured on the ethnic lines, they are just over simplistic. A nationhood that is be being forced to disintegrate and abandon sustainable institutions never withers without creating liabilities.
A word of caution is perhaps very necessary here: what is being defended by the author is not the imperfections in King Gyanendra, or for that matter, in any human being, but to defend the utility of the institution of constitutional monarchy that gives continuity to the Nepalis' historical identity, and a sense of belonging, that is so important for our aspiration to exist and grow as an independent nation. The institution must be preserved as common heritage --- making sure that democracy and the rule of law is the shared responsibility of all --- and not just of King Gyanendra only.
A not-very-known person, Malcolm Winram, commented in The Times as back as March 1996 that those politicians who had been debating the future of the British monarchy at that time resembled a poachers’ convention deliberating on the future role of the gamekeeper. Maybe a little exaggeration, but his comment depicts well what should never be done in Nepal without ensuring a throughtful and deliberative process.
