Bharat Rakshak

KATHMANDU: More than a month before Nepal's new lawmakers formally abolished the country's 239-year-old monarchy, a priceless crown went under the hammer at an auction in London's Bond Street.

Now, with deposed king Gyanendra told to vacate the royal palace by June 12 and a government team beginning to take an inventory of the heirlooms in the palace, doubts are being raised, especially with the fabled crown reportedly missing.

"Where is the Shri Pench?" Nepali tabloid Naya Patrika asked on Saturday.

The 'Shri Pench' is the once revered crown worn by Nepal's Shah dynasty of kings, who were called 'Shri Panch', a reference to their sway over five kingdoms. The crown is easily identifiable because of the long, bird of paradise plume descending from the jewel-studded ornament at the apex of the turban-like crown.

"We haven't yet come across any details of the crown," Govind Prasad Kusum, a member of the inventory-taking team, told the daily.

"We checked all places but could not find any information about the crown."

It was last worn by Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah, the last king of the dynasty, on June 4, 2001 when he succeeded his slain brother Birendra.

Another daily, the Kathmandu Post, said that along with the crown, the royal sceptre is missing as well.

On April 10, Bonhams, one of the world's oldest auctioneers, sold several items from the collection of a private collector, that also included the personal dagger of India's Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who commissioned the fabled Taj Mahal that is one of the seven wonders of the world.

The auctioned items belonged to the late Jacques Desenfans, a French millionaire who for 50 years passionately amassed rare objects d'art related to Islamic, Indian and Southeast Asian cultures, funding his acquisition drive with the money made by his family from its textile mills in Lyon.

Along with Shah Jahan's dagger, Persian carpets and French clocks, the auctioneers also sold a 19th century gem-studded crown made for Nepal's royal family.

Sold for a staggering 90,000 pounds, the crown, decorated with pearls, precious stone pendants and gems, also has a bird of paradise plume issuing from the apex.

Could this be the missing crown?

Or, if the crown is kept under lock and key in Mahendra Manzil, the apartment in the palace where the former queen mother Ratna stays, as the Naya Patrika daily suggested, then whose crown went under the hammer in New Bond street?

How and when did the French collector acquire it? Who was the buyer?

It remains to be seen if these questions will ever be answered.

Though Nepal is now one of the poorest countries in Asia, in the past, its ruling families boasted of a fabulous treasury of jewels.

Much of it went underground after the omnipotent Rana prime ministers lost their hereditary post in 1950 following a pro-democracy uprising.

Rye wrote:Why is it inconceivable that the Nepali Royalty sold that crown instead of handing it over to the Maoists?

Wearing a traditional white, black and red Nepalese cap and black jacket, the former monarch said he had given the new legislators the Shah dynasty's symbols of power: the diamond-studded crown and a peacock-feather and yak-hair ceremonial scepter.

Or, if the crown is kept under lock and key in Mahendra Manzil, the apartment in the palace where the former queen mother Ratna stays, as the Naya Patrika daily suggested, then whose crown went under the hammer in New Bond street?

Women and Social Welfare Minister Pampha Bhusal says the five ministers from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) handed their resignations to the party's chief to be delivered to the prime minister on Thursday.

When it comes to foreign relations, ideology will "not be a barrier", said Prachanda. "We are eager to have diplomatic relations with countries which do not share our ideology."

Prachanda said the new government will take "strong measures" against anti-China activities in his country.

Over the past few weeks, Tibetan secessionists have protested almost daily in front of the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu. They are usually detained by police and soon released, only to repeat the story the next day.

"When we lead the government, we will change the situation," said Prachanda.

He said Nepal's new government will discuss with India the open border, which enables Tibetan demonstrators to come to Kathmandu from Dharmashala, the Dalai Lama's base in India.

"We will not tolerate anti-China activities on our soil and we will take strong administrative measures to control these activities," he said.

According to Nepalnews, the meeting also formed a pressure group including the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of Nationalist Congress DP Tripathy and Communist Party of India National Secretary D Raja

The pressure group will urge the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh not to support Koirala.

By Sudeshna Sarkar
Kathmandu, June 14 (IANS) The northern tip of Nepal adjoining Tibet is facing a famine after China closed its border in a bid to crush protests by pro-Tibet activists. Nepal’s Mustang district, which was once part of an ancient Tibetan kingdom, has been reeling under food scarcity after China virtually closed its border with Nepal to stifle protests ahead of the August Olympics.

Beijing is enraged that anti-China protests are continuing .....

However, Nepal, warned by the US not to violate the fundamental rights of the peaceful demonstrators, has not dared heed the demand.

All the detained protesters will be freed later on Saturday, police said.

Anabhaya wrote:Famine in Nepal after China closes Tibet border

KATHMANDU: Beijing has accused exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama of fomenting the Tibetan protests that have been rocking Nepal's capital city Kathmandu through a leader holding "secret meetings with the ringleaders of some organisations".

He said the Committee had "strongly objected to any interference by any country, including India, in the internal affairs of Nepal". Without elaborating, Yechury said "a deliberate and mischievous campaign is being conducted regarding the developments in Nepal, attributing them to me".

His statement came after the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) threatened to quit the ruling coalition by Wednesday if Premier G P Koirala did not step down immediately. Last week, their ministers had resigned en masse over differences on power sharing.

The UN mission has supervised the storage of weapons from both sides and screened Maoists for their eligibility for the army. Out of more than 31,000 candidates, some 19,600 passed muster. This is a large number relative to the army as a whole, which has expanded to 93,000 troops from about 50,000 in 1996.

This is shocking. How can UN (meaning Americans and British citizens manning its Nepal-related bodies) decide which Maoists are fit to join Nepal army and in what numbers? Isn't nepal an independent, soveriegn country?

Is the Indian government sleeping while the Anglo-Saxons run riot in Nepal and begin to rule it through their "armed and anti-Hindu" puppets?

Anabhaya wrote:To answer in one word: NO.

Nepal's Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala held extensive consultations with the residential Ambassadors of several powerful countries in Kathmandu, on May 5, 2008.
Surprisingly, the newly arrived Indian envoy to Nepal Mr. Rakesh Sood was not invited but was left in the cold, say reports.

Rye wrote:There was an article by Mr. H. Tharakkan on Nepal that was posted on this thread which indicated GoI involvement at multiple levels in Nepal. Not that it should make any difference to people who are too busy whining to pay attention. There is the whole madheshi issue that Nepal needs to solve too.

The Nepali Congress/Koirala have been hostile to India and he does something to prove that Koirala is still the spiteful India-hating politician he has always been. He and the maoist do NOT get along...the maoists are the ones who overthrew Koirala and got him to resign. This would be clear to anyone reading all the news items on this thread.

As for the revolution, it was long overdue given the worthless governance of these same Nepali congress with India-hating clowns like Koirala. Prachanda studied in India but he is not beyond sucking up to china to India's detriment, though his rhetoric has been "balancing relationship with China". Nepal is a landlocked country and is not about to slip through India's fingers, really.

Anyway, everyone here has correctly analyzed the various news articles that were in previous version of the thread. I stopped archiving BR threads, else I would dump it somewhere and point people to it.

Ousted Nepal prince leaves nation

Jul 2, 2008 12:40 AM

Nepal's former Crown Prince, Paras Shah, goes on a trip abroad amid speculation that he is set to emigrate.

KATHMANDU: As Maoists' efforts to form a government proved futile so far despite emerging the largest party in the April 10 Constituent Assembly polls, they are now accusing India of stoking the Madhesis-led deadlock in Nepal in an attempt to "swallow" its fertile Terai region.

The former rebels charged Premier G P Koirala-led Nepali Congress and Madhesi parties seeking autonomy for southern Terai belt bordering India of obstructing the Maoists' elevation to the power under the guidance of New Delhi.

Despite Koirala's resignation from his post 11 days ago, he has still not vacated the Prime Minister's Office at Singhdurbar for Prachanda, the Premier-in-waiting, the 'Janadisha', a Maoists-run weekly, said today.

"Koirala's men are floating the proposal to Prachanda to make him (Koirala) president under the guidance of southern neighbour," the weekly reported.

It claimed that India could be behind the move by Madhesi parties to declare Madhes as a single autonomous region in a bid "to swallow our store house of food grain," a reference to Terai.

Madhesi parties have blocked the proceedings of the 601-strong Constituent Assembly for more than two weeks over the issue of declaring the Terai belt an autonomous region and proportionate inclusion of Madhesis in the Nepal army.

They also did not allow a meeting to take place to amend the Constitution to allow a simple majority to form or dissolve the government, shouting slogans in favour of their demands which they said must be incorporated in the Constitution through the fifth amendment.

Maoist perversion

The Nepal Maoists, who have made the transition from being armed thugs fighting to subvert the state into legitimate and elected participants in the that country's Constituent Assembly without disowning their past or giving up their intimidatory tactics, have now vowed to grant 'special rights' to the Muslim community.

This is of a piece with the Maoists's efforts to cleanse Nepal of its Hindu character and obliterate its cultural and civilisational identity. Chairman Prachanda of the CPN(Maoist) last week told a gathering of the so-called Muslim Mukti Morcha that Muslims in Nepal would be given 'special rights' as compensation for being 'suppressed'.

He has promised to form a 'Muslim Commission' for the welfare of the minority community and develop historically important pilgrimage sites of the community as tourist destinations. On the face of it, these are innocuous promises but there is a sinister, dark edge to them. They suggest cleavages that are not real and a denial of rights that never happened. Though Nepal's monarchy, now reduced to the pages of that country's history, was seen as the protector of Hinduism and Nepal was the last Hindu Kingdom till it was redesignated a 'secular' state under pressure from the Maoists, in practice the palace was secular. Discrimination on the basis of religion was never practiced and Muslims have all along enjoyed equal rights, that have included access to pilgrimage sites.

The Muslims in Nepal comprise less than 10 per cent of the population, though these are approximate estimates. Traditionally, they are well assimilated with the rest of the population and have not needed special safeguards. The Muslims in Nepal have always considered themselves to be Nepali first and they have lived in harmony with Hindus and Buddhists. If such rights were to be given, it would constitute a break from the past and create needless friction. It is amazing that having pressed for a secular state, the Maoists now want to indulge in communal politics of the variety that we get to see in India. Are we then to believe that the concept of secularism has now come to mean sectarian politics and minority appeasement?

Have India's cynical politicians set a standard for others to follow? That apart, there is reason to worry about Prachanda's journey into Muslim politics. It is entirely possible that the new political elite in Kathmandu have struck a Faustian deal with the ISI, hoping to use this Pakistani agency to further its anti-India agenda. Let us not forget that had it not been for Muslims the ISI could not have used Nepal's Terai as a launching pad for jihad against India.