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 Editorial about Nepal in The New York Times
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Posted on 04-03-08 9:42 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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  The New York Times


April 3, 2008
In Nepal, Long-Lived Monarchy Fades From View

GORKHA, Nepal — This is the cradle of the kingdom, from where, more than 250 years ago, a shrewd and ambitious king named Prithvi Narayan Shah set off to conquer faraway lands and create the nation now known as Nepal. Here today stands a gleaming white marble memorial in his honor, except that on the pedestal where his likeness once stood, His Majesty’s name inscribed below, there is now something decidedly less majestic: a pot of pink geraniums.

The king’s statue was toppled by Maoist insurgents last year. They dragged the head through the narrow cobblestone lanes of Gorkha, smashing it until it broke into pieces and singing, “Long Live the Maoists.”

As it happens, the royal past is being dismembered day by day across this onetime Hindu kingdom. Partly it is the handiwork of the decade-long leftist insurgency to overthrow the monarchy. Partly it is the result of public disaffection stemming from the intervention of the current king, Gyanendra, into government.

Whether Nepal will keep some sort of monarchy or scrap it altogether will be formally decided when the country votes next Thursday for a special assembly to rewrite the Constitution. But as far as the monarchy is concerned, the vote seems largely a formality. It is already being rubbed out of daily life.

A new national anthem makes no reference of allegiance to the king. He no longer heads the army. Pictures of Gyanendra, which once hung in every government office, now gather cobwebs in dank warehouses. The word “Royal” has been dropped from the name of the national airline. Several palaces have been taken over by the government.

Last December, Parliament voted to declare the country a federal democratic republic. The king must now pay taxes, though at Hindu funerals mourners must still offer prayers to his ancestors.

Indeed, in a society where the king was once regarded as an avatar of a Hindu god, erasing the royal past is not always easy.

Consider Nepal’s new currency. Shortly after the king gave up power in 2006, the government ordered the printing of money, starting with the 500-rupee note, free of the king’s portrait. In the new design, developed by the central bank, King Gyanendra’s image was replaced by that of the noncontroversial Mount Everest. But the paper on which the new bills are printed, having been ordered long ago, still bears a watermark of the king’s face.

Unable to afford new currency paper, bank officials took creative license. They slapped a dark-pink rhododendron on top of the watermark. The king and his bird-of-paradise plumed crown can be seen only if the bill is held up to the light.

The ambivalence toward the king is fed by the circumstances under which he inherited the throne. In 2001, his brother, King Birendra, and most of the royal family, were slain in a gruesome palace massacre. In what many here and abroad considered a suspicious turn of fate, only Gyanendra and his family survived.

In 2005, declaring emergency rule, Gyanendra fired the elected government, suspended basic freedoms and vowed to crush the Maoist insurgents. He did not succeed.

Growing frustration with his rule led to street protests in April 2006, prompting the palace to cede power to the last elected government. Eventually, the Maoists locked up their guns and entered politics. The abolition of the monarchy has been the Maoists’ chief demand ever since.

A public opinion poll conducted three months ago by a private firm called Interdisciplinary Analysts found Gyanendra’s personal ratings to be lower than those of the country’s main political leaders: 2, on a 1-to-10 scale.

Even so, 49 percent of Nepalese said they favored retaining the institution of the monarchy, according to the same poll, which surveyed some 3,000 Nepalese and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points. Critics questioned the poll results, describing the polling firm as pro-palace.

Exactly how Nepalese regard the monarchy is hard to divine. In a spirited defense of the monarchy, a priest at a hilltop temple here said he prayed for the survival of a Hindu kingdom and urged Gyanendra to come and seek the blessings of the sage, Baba Goraknath, after whom this temple is named, to save his throne. “I don’t know if Baba likes Gyanendra or not,” said the priest, Ishwar Nath Yogi.

Earlier this year, Baburam Bhattarai, the Maoists’ second in command, climbed the steep stone steps to this temple and, bizarrely, offered prayers with his parents. The brothers Yogi gave their blessings, albeit reluctantly.

In the shadow of the temple, a porter named Krishna Prasad Neupane, 48, carried backpacks for foreign tourists. “The king is very rich, and the poor are the ones who carry these loads,” he said. “We don’t need monarchy any more.”

Dhanamaya Shrestha, 53, walking home uphill with a sack of vegetables, said she revered the slain king, Birendra, but not his brother. Even her 4-year-old grandson, she recounted, climbed a stool and tore down a picture of Gyanendra that had once hung at home.

A glimpse into the king’s own wishes came from Tika Dhamala, a retired army general and the king’s former aide-de-camp. Politicians had misunderstood and maligned the king, he said.

Nepalese, whom he called “innocent” and wedded to tradition, were not prepared for the instability of a Nepal without a king. “I’m feeling very uneasy,” he said. “Our society is not in a position to accept a complete type of republic.”

The wild card is the extent to which the king has loyalists in the Nepalese Army, and if they will act to save the monarchy.

Madhav Bhattarai, the chief priest at Narayanhiti Palace, the king’s headquarters in Katmandu, the capital, was not ready to write off the monarchy either. After all, he said, the election date was auspicious according to the Hindu calendar, and the king of Nepal was endowed with divine powers.

“I don’t know what he will do to save his throne,” said Mr. Bhattarai, 56. “I know Nepal needs the king’s role in some form, ceremonial, symbolic; we need the king one way or the other.”

Special powers could not save a statue of Gyanendra’s father, Mahendra, whose decapitated likeness, eerily draped with a gray cloth, stands in the lobby of the Nepal Academy, where Mr. Bhattarai has his office.

The statue’s head was lopped off during anti-palace protests two years ago. It was later found in a dirty river.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/asia/03nepal.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=world#


 
Posted on 04-03-08 11:05 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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A reputed editorial like the New York times makes grammatical errors like

"Exactly how Nepalese regard the monarchy is hard to divine."





 
Posted on 04-03-08 11:11 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Geico bro, gracias!

Even so, 49 percent of Nepalese said they favored retaining the institution of the monarchy, according to the same poll, which surveyed some 3,000 Nepalese and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points. Critics questioned the poll results, describing the polling firm as pro-palace.

Critics: Maoists and hardcore, staunch Republic supporters.  Fugck these haterz who still going on waggin the dog instead!!  I'd still say that a ceremonial monarch is what our nation needs as once under the commie yoke (and who is to say they would not win this election with all the YCL that have been assigned to the polling booths for "security"...Should be "intimidation" instead), we're in a dictatorial phase where Nepal would slowly be doomed to oblivion.  Do the commies thnk I'm that stupid?  They've fought a people's war for only the "people who run the party" and now expect me to believe that they'd do me or my nation any good?  HAHAHAHA   I wouldn't be surprised to find a nun who prostitutes herself before I even hear about a "rational" commie.  That in itself is an oxymoron! 


 
Posted on 04-03-08 11:15 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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@Rato Bhaley: I don't see anything wrong with that sentence
Last edited: 03-Apr-08 11:16 AM

 
Posted on 04-03-08 11:18 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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blahblah dude, divine should've been define...An "f"!

Nice catch bhaley bro...Like I told you earlier, Reuters needs peeps like you as their S Asian correspondent...C'mon bro, where are those articles?  I need to read them (aka the Nepali "onion" news).  LOLs


 
Posted on 04-03-08 12:17 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Is it an article or editorial?
 
Posted on 04-03-08 12:24 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Exactly how Nepalese regard the monarchy is hard to divine
guys in the sentence "divine" means "guess","predict"
so the meaning will be "it is hard to predict how nepalese regard monarchy"

i guess the sentence is grammatically correct


 
Posted on 04-03-08 12:30 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Seems like a khichadi to me.
 
Posted on 04-03-08 12:35 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Nepwanted it's a spelling mistake or a typo and not a grammatical mistake. My bad.

Instead of "deFine" they wrote "deVine".

You might want to point me to a dictionary which says "divine" means "guess","predict"



 
Posted on 04-03-08 12:40 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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ratobhaley
it is neither spelling nor typo error
u can go to dictionary.com and find it out

 


 
Posted on 04-03-08 12:41 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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di·vine —Synonyms 13, 17. foretell, predict, foresee, forecast.

www.dictionary.com 

mailey ni aajai thaaha paaeko.


 
Posted on 04-03-08 12:56 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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mailey ni ajai thaha bhako but it's a whacky use nonetheless. Nepwanted I stand corrected
 
Posted on 04-03-08 1:01 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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All right, leaving aside the grammar, I did not understand this sentence.

"Last December, Parliament voted to declare the country a federal democratic republic. The king must now pay taxes, though at Hindu funerals mourners must still offer prayers to his ancestors."

What does this underlined portion refer to? Is there any connection between King and offering prayers at funerals? I am not sure. Can anyone explain me this?

Plus, What you guys think about the future of monarchy? So far as I know it's too bleak, but I wish to see "extremely ceremonial" King if Gynendra and Paras gracefully abdicates throne. Otherwise, Republican system seems to be inevitable.

 
Posted on 04-03-08 1:06 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Exactly! That's my point. The whole article is like a khichadi.
 
Posted on 04-03-08 1:15 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Lawyer, i was thinking about the same..

 
Posted on 04-03-08 1:22 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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guys according to hindu tradition while doing shraddha(श्राद्द) there are some ritiuals which deals with late kings

u have to do some part of  श्राद्द for the late kings

i guess thats what she meant


 
Posted on 04-03-08 1:28 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Why do the news on Tibetan Students Entering UN compound in Nepal, start off with New Delhi, while the monarchy article starts off with Gorkha, Nepal?

In Nepal, Long-Lived Monarchy Fades From View

The royal past is being slowly rubbed away across the onetime Hindu kingdom of Nepal as the country prepares for a vote for a special assembly to rewrite the Constitution.

April 3, 2008
Tibetan Students Enter U.N. Compound

Tibetan high school children scaled a brick wall surrounding the United Nations compound in Katmandu. They were served dumplings on the other side.

March 29, 2008
Tibetan Students Climb Wall to Ask Help of U.N. Officials in Nepal

A group of high school students who scaled a brick wall to ask the U.N. to help the Tibetan cause were instead served a lunch of steamed dumplings.

March 29, 2008


 
Posted on 04-03-08 1:58 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Ratobhaley,

one possible scenario is - maybe she went to Nepal to cover the current crisis of the Tibetans and while she was there went to Gorkha.. just maybe..

I don't know how the journalists work. I guess many run their imagination run wild and embellish the stories. But, this story itself sounds like a pretty balanced one, except for that prayers for dead kings part. A republic Nepal is definitely a big nice change with no official "white elephants".

 


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