By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Jun 28 2002 (IPS)

-Animal sacrifices performed in India’s ancient Hindu temples this week by Nepal’s King Gyanendra may be one source of relief for the constitutional monarchy, torn by a bloody Maoist insurgency and a split in the caretaker Nepali Congress party.

Another is the pledge of military support against the Maoist rebels given to the visiting king by New Delhi which, by treaty, enjoys a special relationship with the landlocked Himalayan kingdom. India also shares with Nepal, the world’s only Hindu kingdom deep, bonds of religion, culture and history.

The sacrifices propitiating the goddess Shakthi were the highlights of King Gyanendra’s six-day trip to India, which ended Friday.

It was the king’s first tour abroad after ascending the throne a year ago following the palace massacre of his brother King Birendra and most of the Nepalese royal family in a shooting spree involving Crown Prince Dipendra, who also died.

Apart from invoking the blessings of Shakthi at her temples in Guwahati, capital of north-eastern Assam state and in the eastern port city of Kolkata, the king sought and received a pledge of military aid from India in stamping out the bloody Maoist insurgency, which has claimed at least 4,700 lives since the ‘people’s war’ broke out six years ago.

According to a political analyst for ‘The Hindu’ daily, C Raja Mohan, the king was “assertive” in his meetings with top Indian leaders, who are anxious not to be seen as being too supportive of a monarch who has shown signs of impatience with the kingdom’s 12-year-old experiment in democracy.

India’s foreign ministry was emphatic that Nepal’s polity is built on the “two pillars of constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy” as established under the late King Birendra, who is said to have enjoyed the confidence of the Maoists.

Nepal has been under emergency rule since November, and its extension last month was proposed by Prime Minister Sher Bhadur Deuba. When it was opposed by a faction of his Nepali Congress party, Deuba reacted by disbanding Parliament and the king, who is said to be close to Deuba, allowed extension of emergency rule.

Party president Girija Prasad Koirala then suspended Deuba from the Nepali Congress, leading to a split in the party. The country’s Supreme Court is now hearing a petition against Deuba’s dissolution of Parliament by 61 of its members, most of them from the Nepali Congress.

In an editorial on Thursday, the influential ‘Times of India’ newspaper commented that the “failure of democracy to deliver or mature to the expected degree cannot be an excuse to roll back the freedoms won through a popular struggle”.

The paper urged New Delhi to “make it clear that it will not be drawn into taking sides between the monarchy and multi-party democracy, that are both indispensable to Nepal where democratic parliamentary institutions have, at the best of times, functioned under the shadow of the monarchy.”

But the foreign ministry dismissed speculation that the king sought support from New Delhi for an enhanced role for himself beyond constitutional monarchy in the current climate of political uncertainty, or that he was playing India off against China, which he is due to visit next month.

New Delhi can rest assured by the fact that Nepal’s monarchy not only has deep religious ties with India, but also has close blood ties with several of India’s major princely families that once ruled much of what became the Indian Union after 1947 on independence granted to the sub-continent by colonial Britain.

And that is why the Indian government ignored laws banning animal sacrifice when the king performed the rite of ‘Panchbali’ (five-fold sacrifice) in which a buffalo, goat, sheep, duck and pigeon were slaughtered at the altar of Shakthi at the ancient Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati, capital of north-eastern Assam state on Thursday.

The government ignored protests by animal rights groups, which tried to stage a protest in the Nilachal hills overlooking Guwahati town, where the Kamakhya temple is located. They found themselves chased away by strong contingents of riot police deployed for the security of the king and his family.

The animal sacrifices may have gone unnoticed except for a powerful campaign against cruelty to animals, including those used in government laboratories, that has recently been launched by the People for Animals (PFA). The group is headed by union minister Maneka Gandhi, a member of India’s powerful Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty.

More significantly, on Wednesday, the king paid respect to his dynasty’s ‘Rajguru’ (royal preceptor) Jayendra Saraswati at the Kamakshi temple in New Delhi and performed the rite of adoring the clogs (wooden footwear) of Adi Shankara, the 8th century religious reformer credited with reviving Hinduism after the sub-continent went under a long spell of Buddhism.

The rite was symbolically performed with the king seated on a level lower than that occupied by Saraswati (the spiritual heir of Adi Shankara) who had travelled to Delhi from his seat at Kanchi in the far south of India to preside over the ceremony. He was accompanied by Queen Komal Rajya Lakshmi and Princess Prerana.

Present for the ceremony was Ashok Singhal, president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Forum, which is closely affiliated to the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Saraswati told newspersons later that he was planning to carry out special religious ceremonies to bring peace to strife-torn Nepal. “I am doing this on King Gyanendra’s specific request,” he said.

Apart from urgent security matters, the king, a successful businessman and hotelier before he ascended the throne, was keen on increasing economic ties between his landlocked country and India. He was accompanied by a large business delegation including leaders in the travel and hospitality sectors.

Nepal is keen that India lifts restrictions on free travel between the two countries, which were imposed by New Delhi after a plane loaded with Indian holidaymakers was hijacked from Kathmandu in December 1999 and taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan allegedly with support from Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

Well-heeled Indian tourists flying to Kathmandu, a favourite destination because of the validity of the Indian rupee as acceptable currency in Nepal, have since the hijack been required to carry either their passports or, failing that, a voter’s identity card.

“This is cumbersome for students and groups of families who wish to holiday in Nepal,” said Narendra Bajracharya, president of the Hotel Association of Nepal. “We have appealed for restoration of the earlier system where any proof of identity was sufficient for Indian travelers to Nepal.”

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