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Weak opposition

Nepalis have told me in the past that they have been cursed with two things - terrible poverty and even worse politicians.

It is the latter that have so far saved King Gyanendra from being toppled from his throne.


Every successful revolution, from Castro in Cuba to Mandela in South Africa, has had a face symbolising the struggle - someone willing to give their life for the revolution, someone the people on the streets will die for.

But members of the opposition leadership in Nepal are so old they can barely walk let alone lead a revolution.


Heir to the throne Paras is even less liked than Gyanendra

Ever since 1990, when the people of Nepal first won their democratic rights, the same politicians time and time again have, in the eyes of many Nepalis, let them down.

There was a moment on the last Saturday afternoon of the protests that encapsulated the problem when the crowd surged into the centre of the capital, well inside the "shoot on sight" curfew area and within a mile of the royal palace.

Tens of thousands of them jammed into a junction which had both ways blocked by the police, who were vastly outnumbered.

One road led to the palace. The right man or woman at that time, leading that crowd, could probably have taken those people to the king's doorstep.

Instead the crowd was leaderless. The police opened the other road, the crowd cheered their small victory and they all streamed by, the momentum was lost.

The king was saved, for the time being.

Gross act


In the end history may show that it was a very unremarkable man that led Nepal towards a republic.

Basu Ghimere was, according to his wife, a "simple" carpenter who loved his four-year-old son.

He was beaten and shot dead on the streets of Kathmandu in the volatile Kalanki neighbourhood when police opened fire on what had started out as a peaceful demonstration.

Mr Ghimere was not the only one to die and it was not his actual death that marked a potential tipping point.

The king's climb-down in restoring parliament might have saved him and his family from ignominious exile or even death


It was the desecration of his funeral rights in what is the only country in the world where Hinduism is the official religion that enraged the crowds in Kalanki to commit the worst acts of rioting of the whole protest movement and ultimately force the monarch to retreat.

The king of Nepal is supposed to be an incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu. It is for that reason the kings have been so revered down the ages by their subjects.

But this king instructed or allowed his security forces to carry out one of the grossest insults to the Hindu faith one can imagine.

His police in full riot gear snatched the lifeless body of Mr Ghimere and cremated it without the consent or knowledge of his wife and family.

I was in Kalanki when this news came through and I saw the effect it had on what had until that point been a peaceful crowd. It was then that King Gyanendra lost his godliness in the eyes of those present.

It was at that moment, perhaps, that King Gyanendra's rule undermined the monarchy perhaps beyond the point of redemption.
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