By Arabinda Ghose
The fourth week, of September 2005 suddenly became rather eventful in Nepal which has perhaps unwittingly focused the attention of the countries, at least in the neighbourhood, on the type of polity the country should have -a return to absolute monarchy of the 29 years of the Panchayat system or back to the 1990 Constitution which is technically still in operation providing for a constitutional monarchy with multi-party parliamentary system.
This question arises in view of two or three developments during this period. The first was the demand by Dr Tulsi Giri, one of the two vice-chairpersons of the Council of Ministers headed by King Gyanendra himself, that Nepal should return to the days of absolute monarchy which in any case has been the situation in Nepal since 1951 with only occasional departure from this norm. Second, the announcement by Shri Ramesh Nath Pandey, Minister of Foreign Affairs, at the United Nations on September 22, that general elections would be held in Nepal within the next two years; and the third is the apparently triumphant walk by the King from a locality called Thapathali in Kathmandu to another called Lagankhel in Lalitpur, a distance of about four kilometers on September 22 when he was, according to reports, lustily cheered by the people standing on both sides of the road.
The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal, 1990, which was promulgated on November 10, still happens to be in force but its soul has become non-functional. There is no Lower House of Parliament, the 205-member Pratinidhi Sabha is in, its place today, it having been dissolved on May 22, 2002. The February 1, 2005 action of the King is the second such, the first being taken on October 4, 2002.
Neither parliamentary democracy nor absolute monarchy has worked in Nepal since 1951. It is time, therefore, to think of an alternative.
Although the Maoist extremists and the seven-party alliance of ?democratic? parties came together to work for restoring democracy in recent weeks, it is certain the Maoists would not go for holding general elections for Parliament with the King remaining the Constitutional Monarch. Should then Nepal continue with the current stalemate indefinitely?
One therefore comes to the conclusion that neither parliamentary democracy nor absolute monarchy has worked in Nepal since 1951. It is time, therefore, to think of an alternative. That alternative could be the diarchy or ?dual sovereignty? or two centers of power with clear division of duties and responsibilities. Dual sovereignty is a bad working hypothesis to the modern political theorist. But it is fully attested and authenticated by the history of Nepal?not only of the period reviewed above but also of the subsequent periods?fully borne out by colophons of manuscripts noted by Bendall (Nepal Catalogue, i, Introduction), by inscriptions {e.g. Bendall'sjourney, p.15} and notices in the Vamsavalis of ?joint rule?-down to our own time. It is in the very soil of Nepal and works well, wonderfully well. Its origin lies in the dual constitution of the Lichchavis – of the Raja and the Upa Raja which they carried from Vaisali into Nepal. Even in their monarchical days, they could not shake it off.
Of course in the present age, elections have to be held for evolving such a system but if and when elections are held and a prime minister chosen, he should have, one feels, the same sort of power that the past Mahasamantas or Chautariyas of the middle ages had enjoyed.
