[BRIEF NOTE] Notes on two Himalayan monarchies

[rfmcdonald]

Earlier in Nepal, the constituent assembly of that country decided to abolish the monarchy as described succintly by Damakant Jayshi of Inter Press Service.

On Sunday, after a seven-hour discussion ended months of bickering over the monarchy issue between the two major constituents of the seven-party alliance -- the centrist Nepali Congress party and the CPN (M) -- the death knell for the beleaguered monarchy, led by the hugely unpopular king Gyanendra Shah, was sounded.

The CPN(M), which led a decade-long armed struggle against the monarchy, before laying down arms under a November 2006 peace accord and joining an interim government, had threatened to disrupt elections to constituent assembly if the country was not declared a republic first.

For the Maoists, who as part of the peace accord had agreed to confine some 30,000 of their fighters in United Nations supervised camps, the main concern was that pro-monarchy forces could still undermine the elections and move to reverse the hard fought gains of the armed struggle.

But the Maoists relented after other parties -- chief among them the Nepali Congress -- refused to declare the country a republic before an elected assembly convened. As per the 23-point deal agreed to by the parties, Nepal will become a federal democratic republic after the first meeting of the constituent assembly, elections to which are to be held in mid-April. The parties have agreed to announce a date soon.

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Nepal's monarchy has not recovered from a tragic massacre in the royal palace in June 2001. A majority of people do not believe the verdict of a government-appointed probe that the then heir to the throne, Gyanendra's nephew, killed nine members of his family before shooting himself.

Gyanendra, who succeeded to the throne after the massacre, dismissed the elected government in February 2005 after charging it with failure to end the Maoist insurgency and ruled as an autocratic monarch for 14 months.

But faced with mass demonstrations, Gyanendra was compelled to restore parliament in April 2006. Once his title as head of the army was removed his authority was severely crippled.

With even the top officers of the Nepal army now saying, both in private as well as public, that they would accept the verdict of the elected constituent assembly, it is truly the end of the road for the ‘world’s last Hindu kingdom’.

Bhutan might seem at first glance to be handling political transitions better, as the Reuters article of Biswajyoti Das seems to hint.

Bhutanese began voting on Monday to elect members to a new upper house of parliament for the first time, a step towards democracy after a century of absolute monarchy.

The tiny Himalayan kingdom has been preparing for democracy since former monarch, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, decided to hand power to an elected government, even as many of his citizens said they were quite happy with the way things were.

Monday's vote is only the first step. More important polls are expected to take place in February and March with elections to the lower house, when newly formed political parties will be able to take part.

Queues of voters formed in the town of Deothang as the polls opened at 8 a.m. (0200 GMT), all dressed, as is compulsory, in traditional Bhutanese costume -- gowns for the men, long dresses for the women, some of whom were carrying babies.

"I pressed the button on the computer and I'm very happy to cast my vote," said Sonam Wangda, a 35-year-old farmer, one of the country's 312,817 registered voters. He was referring to the electronic voting machines being used.

The country has temporarily closed its borders as authorities fear Nepal's former Maoist rebels could cause trouble in support of ethnic Nepalis living in Bhutan, who complain of discrimination.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Nepalis fled Bhutan or were expelled in 1991 for protesting against discrimination and demanding democracy.

That last sentence, as Nava Thakuria observes at Merinews, rather substantially understates the plight of Bhutan's ethnic Nepalis.

The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is being praised across the world because its king is abdicating the throne in favour of democracy. But on the flip side, the issue concerning the fate of the 100,000 Bhutanese refugees in neighbouring Nepal, thrown out of Bhutan in 1991, remains unresolved. The refugees are Nepali-speaking Bhutanese. They were driven out of Bhutan because they protested the passage of a law in the 1980s that arbitrarily cancelled their citizenship. Accounting for as much as a sixth of the Bhutanese population, most of them, living in the south of the country, fled from Bhutan to Nepal in 1990. They have been living in refugee camps in Nepal since then, desiring to get back home.

Bhutan, also known as Druk Yul or the Dragon Kingdom, is surrounded by India and Tibet. The country is witnessing a transition from absolute monarchy to multi-party democracy on account of the Dragon King, Jigme Singye Wangchuk abdicating the throne and not because of any popular uprising. Earlier, his main accomplishment (that was visible to the outside world) was his Gross National Happiness standard-of-living index but in December last, after setting in motion the transition to democracy, he abdicated the throne in favour of his eldest son, the Oxford-educated Crown Prince, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk.

The benefit of happiness, however, does not seem to have percolated through the Hindu Bhutanese. "Some 108,000 Bhutanese refugees have been registered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees," says Suhas Chakma, the director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), a New Delhi based rights body. Following a visit to the refugee camps in Nepal last month, Chakma reiterated his demand that Bhutan be held accountable for settlement of the exiles.

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The Nepal government has raised the issue with the Bhutanese authorities in 15 rounds of talks; but it has failed to persuade Thimphu to allow the refugees to return to Bhutan. Not a single refugee has returned to Bhutan.