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When a name is written partly in all caps, that means that the part in all caps is the family name. I thought that Gyanendra is the given name and Bir Bikram the family name. Which is it? -phma

I think this has been covered on another talk page but the family (and dynasty) name is Shah. Gyanendra is the given name; Bir Bikram are middle names.

Contents 1 Constitutional Monarchy 2 POV 3 Old Cleanup Archive 4 Nepal not the worlds first communist led monarchy 4.1 Political history needs to go back another 50 years or more

[edit] Constitutional Monarchy

I understood that Nepal was an absolute monarchy with the monarch retaining considerable powers as head of state; suspend parliament dismiss the government etcetera.

There's is a lot going on now since the maoist movement and the seven parties have a new proposal of restricting the absolute power of the King. See BBC's good article on the situation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4467408.stm (sorry, I now have no change to make the article better)

[edit] POV

this article is totally biased against the maoists and the people's war. it's written from a CIA viewpoint with even world factbook info posted verbatim. we should have a more balanced view of both the people's war and the injustices of the king's government which are hardly gone into.

That's pushing it - the article doesn't seek to draw conclusions, or give you information with which to draw conclusions, about which side is justified. It seeks merely to relate the most important information that someone wanting a rough overview of the political situation would want. A more 'balanced' view seeking to present the views of one of the sides would be a terrible idea, all it would do is open up the article to a war over which side is 'justified' or who has commmited 'injustices' while all it should be doing right now is explaining the major events and history.

I agree with the first poster. The article pushes the notion that Nepalis are getting into a position of being able to choose between monarchy and various shades of democracy including watered-down Marxism-Leninism, which should be enough choice for anyone so who needs these Maoist crazies anyhow?

Unfortunately democracy hardly amounts to more than an opportunity to help pick which middle aged, relatively affluent, male Pahari Brahman or Chhetri, or possibly Newar will lord it over the rest of the population that is none of the above. It's not unlike giving slaves the opportunity to elect their Massa. Gee, if they play their cards right, they might get to stop work half an hour earlier on Saturday night!

Well, Nepal is composed of fifty or more aboriginal peoples, all of them politically and economically under the thumb(s) of descendents of Aryans who colonized far western Nepal perhaps a thousand years ago or fled India's Muslim invadors during the Middle Ages. The Shah dynasty unified the country and concentrated power in the hands of a few extended families, but it was also symbiotic with the larger constituency of Pahari Hindus and to a lesser extent Newars.

Democratic reform essentially throws the game open to any prominent male member of these fairly broad elites. Unfortunately democracy as practiced in Nepal still disenfranchises about 3/4 of the population: women and/or members of other castes and ethnic groups. This 3/4 is the Maobadi constituency. Even if the Maobadis might eventually take Nepal down the Pol Pot road, it behooves us to understand this struggle from the point of view of its protagonists.

[edit] Old Cleanup Archive

Taken from the old Cleanup entry…Archived by HopeSeekr of xMule (Talk) 16:11, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

• Politics of Nepal. Contains CIA Factbook information, much of which is probably duplicated at Nepal. --Smack (talk) 04:24, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nepal not the worlds first communist led monarchy

That was Mongolia in 1921.

I guess one could say Norway was before too. DNA 1928 govt still hadd proletarian dicatourship and revolution on the partu programme, even if the party had left the Komintern.

guess there mightavebeen SEVERAL others.

Togrim 2006-01-06

[edit] Political history needs to go back another 50 years or more

Nepal's difficulties choosing between monarchy and democracy certainly go back before the era of the brothers Gyanendra/Bhupendra to their father Mahendra who ruled from the early 1950s until his death in 1972. Mahendra tolerated democracy for about his first decade, then threw a coup in 1961, jailed democratic leaders and started up the "partyless" Panchayat system.

Had Mahendra been less reclusive, more receptive to democratic evolution, done more to enfranchise minorities, and paid more attention to development outside the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal today might be a much less divided and violent place. Whether it was already too late by the time Mahendra died 1972 is another topic. Perhaps not, since the Maobadi revolt only began in 1996.