Dirty Rascals No Longer in the Castles

In my attempt to include more regional variation on this blog, I'd like to talk about Nepal as it was such a nice front page news item on news.bbc.co.uk.

I really don't know anything about Nepal, and frequently get it confused with Tibet and the Dalai Llama. But now, I get to learn new things about old places.

As you can see from the map above, Nepal is a little country in between China and India which immediately drove me to the assumption that there are probably many different ethnic groups and some amazing food.

Nepal has been under a monarchy for most of its history. The current ruling family has been in power since the 1950's. Sometimes, monarchies are benign. Their power is limited and they play a largely ceremonial role. Not the case with Nepal, unfortunately. It is among the poorest countries of the world.

In the 1950's and 60's, a parliamentary democracy existed as sort of an experiment. King Mahendra ended that experiment, calling it a failure, and re-establishing the monarchy. But the resistance to absolute rule grew, and finally, a multiparty parliament was put in place in 1990.

In 2001, there a disturbing event took place when the crown prince Dipendra killed 11 members of the royal family, including the king and queen, and then turned the gun on himself. He briefly survived his wounds, and in that time, he became king. The current King Gyanendra, Dipendra's brother, was crowned once Dipendra died.

Failing to negotiate with Maoist rebels in the country, Gyanendra sacked the government and took complete control in 2005. Direct palace rule was ended in 2006 and just today, the government declared it will abolish the monarchy.

Woohoo!

"The newly installed Maoist-led government says that after vacating the royal palace - which along with other royal properties will be nationalised - he will be free to carry on living in Nepal as an ordinary tax paying citizen and will not be forced into exile.

That is the final humiliation for a monarch who over the last few years has been removed as head of the army and lost nearly all his staff.

In addition he has suffered the indignities of having his allowances cut by parliament and his face removed from the country's currency."

That is very nonviolent and totally awesome. It hasn't been a completely nonviolent revolution, and people are still fighting about what kind of democracy it will be, but I say its a good start.

Yay Nepal!