Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Those were the days of the Royalists when they used to demean others. This was time when King Gyanendra was in power.

Now that the King is no more in the country's political scene, his "followers" and "supporters" have vanished in the ethereal medium and that too at a time he needed their support most.

It has been rightly said that political animals more so sycophants use to move around power. If the power is gone they will disappear.

I can imagine the inner mental agonies of King Gyanendra whom he trusted and believed during his rule not so in the distant past when he sees for himself that his followers have so cruelly deserted him for good.

The King who is forced to see and listen each day a new insulting act aimed against him and his persona pushed by the "sovereign" parliament must have been feeling at the moment that the choices and the selections he made to bring in a new era in the country, as was his promise at time of the royal takeover, were all fake and treacherous ones.

Definitely, when the King took over the fact must be admitted that the lay men felt a sigh of relief. But as days and months passed by and the manner the men were selected for running the country by the monarch, the people's confidence on the King began declining. The faces and the personalities were either corrupt or have had no popular base. The King committed a blunder here.

It was this decline of the image of the King seen in the faces of the millions of Nepali people that was very tactfully cashed in on by the SPA to which our "traditional" Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde added fuel to the fire.

The King's second blunder had been that he excessively trusted or expected Indian magnanimity at time of the real crisis.

He should have known that Indian establishment has set targets and goals. She only supports those whom she thinks could yield to her dictates while in power. The King failed to handover key rivers to India and faced the consequences.

Thirdly, the King during his own rule should have used his own channels in order to bring the Maoists for talks. Prachanda is on record to have "expected" such gestures from the King when the latter took over the charge of the country.

But the King brushed aside this "diplomatic" idea which facilitated the men in the SPA and their manager to pounce on the King and this is what exactly had happened.

Instead of reposing total trust on the people and the political parties then in agitation, the King unfortunately listened to the aggressive suggestions put forth by his "followers" and "supporters" whose whereabouts at the moment remains a mystery.

His final blunder was that he rejected Koirala's request for an "audience" which the gerentocratic leader of the congress is presumed to have sought for not less than thirteen times.

He should have met Koirala for a variety of political reasons. But he did not.

But then yet look how Koirala, the one who was rejected and neglected by the King then repeatedly , has been the lone crusader in favor of a ceremonial monarch.

I presume, if the King has any supporter in the form of any political paraphernalia then it should be the NC and Koirala only.

This speaks of Koirala's love and respect for the monarchy. It would be Koirala and his party alone which will maintain the institution come what may, this is what I believe and presume.

I have penned these sad events not to tease the monarch further. He continues to be my King, my Head of the State. I possess still high regards for the monarch as he represents an institution. It is altogether a different matter that I have had to gulp in the recent past the Himalayan insult that I was meted out by some Palace officials when they sent a dazzling envelope( through the Post Box) which contained inside yet another envelope. And Lo! This envelop had no content inside. So I received two envelopes with no content inside. During my 36 years of uninterrupted engagement in this profession, this was the first, and let me presume it be the last, insult that disturbed my mind for not less than a month or so.

This should have been the Happy New year greeting card from the Palace sent in the name of the chief editor of this paper which was all empty and sufficient enough to make me ponder over as to what type of officials have surrounded the monarch.

I apologize Your Majesty for having expressed a few of my observations that I presume were the combined feelings of the general mass. I'm sorry if I have exceeded my journalistic ethics.