There has been a few rallies ‘in support of the Royal Proclamation’. Immediately after Feb 1, there were a few one participated by some Royalists welcoming the proclamation. And in last week, there has been a few participated by students, clubs, government employees and many others. If you have seen these rallies, and the protesting ones with only 25 – 50 people, you might have thought there has been more support for the King and that Nepali people are happily accepting King’s direct rule and death of democracy.
But I believe all of that is nothing but a Government Propoganda.
While the authority has banned people from gathering in a group in sensative areas due to State of Emergency, is has been directing others for the ‘compulsory participation’ in the rallies. Some friends had told me that District Administration Office directed all the institutions of the district ‘for compulsory participation’ in some of these rallies.
When I asked a few people in one of such rally in Kathmandu, he said no common people, be it businessmen, or teachers or whatsoever, can defy the ‘authoritive direction’ and if he did, he could face serious problems in his business. He was afraid of authority and the King played on that to show the international communities and Nepali people that he is welcome around.
Ditto to government officials, various other institution, they fear the adverse effect of defying. And, there was rally of the Buddhist monks – about 18 monastries participated with photos of King Gyanendra and Queen Komal. I was there. I asked one of the participants why she was there. She told me she didn’t know. The other girl on her side poked her and said ‘she should not speak of strangers because they can be anyone’.
Some analysts told me that since the government had closed down a few Tibet supporting offices in recent past, to make China happy, these monastries are also under threat and they had no choice when asked by authority to organise a rally. It was really sad to see that the authority is dragging the disciples of Lord Buddha, the peace advocaters, into the dirty politics.
And then the photo of the rallies makes main photos of government owned dailies which always says ‘a big rally’ although later adds ‘participated by hundreds of people’.
And why those protest rallies are too thin. The security are all ready not to let them walk 10 m in rallies, they will bring a few vans put them inside and take them to unknown places. Even there are hundreds to plain-clothed police who will engage themselves in arrest. Moreover, the goverment is doing everything it can to stop the communication channels between the leaders and people.
On the other day, authority cut off communication to Jhala Nath Khanal, who was given the responsibility of acting general secretary of Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-UML) by a party cadres since general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal is under house-arrest, where they are given no communication other than state-owned newspapers (to read government propoganda) and religious books.
Special note on this entry:Radio Free Nepal was a blog that ran during ex-King Gyanendra’s direct rule of Nepal defying the tight censorship and was instrumental in getting out information out of Nepal. The blog was at freenepal.blogspot.com which has now been closed.
The banner reads: King Gyandendra of Nepal has issued a ban on independent news broadcasts and has threatened to punish newspapers for reports that run counter to the official monarchist line. Given that any person in Nepal publishing reports critical of “the spirit of the royal proclamation” is subject to punishment and/or imprisonment, contributors to this blog will publish their reports from Nepal anonymously.
