By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Former King H.M. Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah made a powerful plea for peace and prosperity in the erstwhile Himalayan Kingdom on the occasion of the 303rd Prithvi Jayanti and National Unity Day.
Sixteen years back, as a result of scheming and treachery most vile, the so-called leaders – actually Dons – of the main political parties and with collusion with a neighbouring country, unilaterally abolished the Hindu Monarchy in the Himalayan state.
The dons promised to usher in ‘People’s Democracy’ or Loktantra, but very soon this travesty of democracy – like a cancer – metamorphosed into a ‘kakistocracy’: a government run by the worst, least qualified, and most unscrupulous citizens!
H.M. King Gyanendra in a 12-minute video message released on social media on the eve of the National Unity Day, urged all Nepalese to follow the Divya Upadesh of the Great King Prithvi Narayan Shah, the founder of modern Nepal.
In the video message, H.M. King Gyanendra discussed the historical background of the creation of Nepal as a nation.
While many small countries were losing their existence and identity, it was a remarkable challenge to establish a new country right under the noses of the colonial powers of that time.
At a time, when the world was divided into many empires, it was no small feat to build a new country when at the same time many countries were losing their existence and identities.
Prithvi Narayan Shah was not born great, nor was greatness thrust upon him – but he achieved greatness by virtue of his grand vision and personal, high moral character.
Domestic Context
H.M. King Gyanendra, in the tradition of his illustrious forbear, stressed that Nepal today is not a battlefield [as the Dons consider it], but what all Nepalese consider home; and all Nepalis have only one caste.
Prithvi Narayan considered himself the father of the nation, and beautifully and metaphorically described the new nation as one garden where many lovely and different flowers grow.
Thus out of the many principalities and ethnic groups, the great Prithvi Narayan forged one nation.
At the time of the unification campaign, Prince Otto von Bismarck of Prussia had not yet consolidated the German Second Empire (1871-90); and the United States was still being born (Declaration of Independence, July 4 1760).
External Environment
Like his brilliant predecessor, H.M. King Gyanendra yearns for Nepal as a “Land of Peace” – free of all foreign entanglements.
Prithvi Narayan Shah used the famous metaphor of the ‘Yam between two Rocks’ to describe Nepal’s precarious external environment.
In his previous foreign policy, H.M. King Gyanendra steadfastly strove to adhere to the ‘Policy of Equidistance’ from the two great civilizations of Asia.
Today, the Dons of the Himalayan Republic are floundering on both the domestic and external fronts.
As H.M. King Gyanendra so aptly pointed out, instead of depending on our own resources, we are going around ‘begging with a golden bowl’!
The country’s best kept secret is that an overwhelming majority of the Nepalese people are yearning for a return of the Hindu State and the Hindu Constitutional Monarchy.
Currently, no one has effectively emerged to lead them to the aspired goal. As the great Lenin pointedly said: ‘What is to be done?’
Comments:
Leave a Reply