NEPAL, April 8, 2008: Nepal, the world’s last remaining Hindu monarchy, votes this week in an election that may bring an end to almost 240 years of rule by the family of King Gyanendra. The three top parties contesting the April 10 ballot are campaigning to scrap the monarchy or allow it only a ceremonial role. Forty-nine percent of Nepalese support the monarchy, according to an opinion poll in January, even through Gyanendra is unpopular after the autocratic rule he imposed in 2005. “The reason is that it is woven into Nepali tradition and culture,” said Sudhindra Sharma, director of Interdisciplinary Analysts, the Kathmandu-based independent research organization that carried out the poll. “Support for the monarchy is a proxy for tradition. It is a part of national identity.”
Fifty-nine percent of Nepalese preferred the country to remain a Hindu state, according to the January poll of 3,010 respondents chosen randomly in 30 of the nation’s 75 districts. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Many Nepalese believe Gyanendra’s family are reincarnated Hindu gods, who created the landlocked Himalayan kingdom between India and China. About 80 percent of Nepal’s 29 million citizens are Hindu. The people dislike thecurrenty king as a result of the circumstances under which he took the throne, analyst Sudhindra Sharma said. “He eroded the sanctity” of the monarchy, he said. “There was suspicion all around.”
“It is hard to believe the king will not rule anymore,” said Jagdish Karki, an agricultural laborer on the outskirts of Kathmandu. “If other parties can rule better, and that is the reality, then it is the king’s fate.”