On March 9, thousands of people gathered at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport to greet Nepal’s former king, Gyanendra Shah. “Come back king, save the country. Long live our beloved king. We want monarchy,” the crowds chanted.
There were rallies in other Nepali towns too where calls for the restoration of monarchy in Nepal and Gyanendra’s return as king were raised.
Gyanendra became king in 2002 following the massacre of his brother King Birendra and his family the previous year. He was an unpopular king and his rule was controversial, especially after he seized absolute power in 2005. This triggered powerful street protests, and he stepped down in 2006. Two years after Gyanendra’s ouster, the Nepali Parliament voted to abolish the monarchy and in 2015, Nepal’s new Constitution declared the country a secular republic.
In the ten years since, calls for the restoration of monarchy have been raised from time to time. Amid growing public disenchantment with Nepali political parties, their perpetual squabbles for power, and consequent political instability in the Himalayan country, such calls have grown louder.
The recent pro-monarchy rallies in Nepal must be seen in this context.
Among the issues that are being discussed in the Nepali and Indian media regarding the pro-monarchy rallies in Nepal is India’s possible role in it. Most major political events in Nepal raise suspicions of an “Indian hand” underlying them. Besides, India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been a proponent of Nepal’s monarchy and prominent BJP leaders have married into the Nepali royal family. Additionally, given its own Hindutva ideology, the BJP would be in favor of Nepal’s former status as a Hindu state being restored, an issue sometimes linked to the restoration of the monarchy.
Recent suspicions of an Indian role in the royalist resurgence in Nepal were prompted by a poster of Yogi Adityanath that was displayed prominently at the recent pro-monarchy rally and went viral on social media.
Adityanath, a Hindutva hardliner and BJP leader, is the chief minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which borders Nepal.
Adityanath’s Gorakhnath Mutt, a Hindu religious institution located in Gorakhpur in India, has long had close ties with Nepal’s royal family. It is said that the Shah family was blessed by Guru Gorakhnath. King Birendra was reportedly close to Adityanath’s Guru Mahant Avaidyanath.
Given these close links, it is not surprising that Adityanath is a strong proponent of the Nepali monarchy, and as a supporter of Hindutva, he has openly spoken in favor of a Hindu state in Nepal. Indeed, he once described the day Nepal was declared a secular state as a “black day.” The resolution that led to this momentous declaration was “unfortunate and unexpected,” he said, and passed by what he called Nepal’s “kangaroo parliament.” Adityanath is of the view that the decision to make Nepal secular was “unconstitutional.”
Nepal’s anti-royalist political parties, including the ruling Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), were quick to pounce on the display of the Adityanath poster at the pro-monarchy rally. Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s Chief Political Advisor Bishnu Rimal posted photographs of Gyanendra and Adityanath posters on display at the rally on his Facebook page.
A war of words erupted between CPN-UML politicians and royalists. Gyanendra Shahi, a member of parliament from the pro-monarchy Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), blamed Rimal for the controversy over the Adityanath poster. On Oli’s “advice” and Rimal’s “instruction,” the Adityanath poster surfaced at the rally, he said. This was aimed at maligning the rally, he claimed. Shahi also countered Oli’s statement that his party doesn’t “use photographs of foreign leaders” at its rallies by pointing out that this was “big talk” from someone who “runs his party based on foreign agendas and principles.”
“Where do Marx, Lenin, and Mao come from?” he asked.
A Hindu majority country – 81.2 percent of its population is Hindu – Nepal is seeing an uptick in soft Hindu politics in recent years, and parties across the ideological spectrum are pandering to Hindu sentiments to woo voters. Maoist chief and former Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a self-proclaimed atheist and communist, went on pilgrimages to Nepal’s Pashupatinath temple, the Mahakaleshwor temple in Uttar Pradesh, and Kailash Parbat in China. Oli, who swears by communism, courted Hindu voters by participating in rituals at the Pashupatinath temple in the run-up to the 2022 general elections. As for the Nepali Congress (NC), the largest party in Parliament, last year, a section of its leaders openly voiced support for the restoration of Nepal’s status as a Hindu state. Three years ago, while visiting India, NC leaders stopped at Uttar Pradesh to meet Adityanath.
The royalist RPP does not have the seats to oust the incumbent government. Neither does it have the support to change the constitution. However, support for the once unpopular Gyanendra is growing, largely because of the failure of leaders of Republican Nepal. Additionally, many Nepali youth have not experienced life under the monarchy or have faint memories of that period. A growing number of such youth are keen to see the monarchy restored.
