Kathmandu: By Thursday uptil when the two man Royal Commission to investigate the Friday June 1 st Palace tragedy gives its report, lines will have been drawn. Events at the Royal Palace have, by and large, already come out. However, there is a skeptical public whose grief has been apparently cashed in upon by political interests inimical to monarchy. King Birendra’s popularity is being turned into a political movement apparently designed to threaten monarchy and the nation on the precipice of disaster.

King Gyanendra is being placed in a dilemma of sorts from quarters that must now suddenly turn pro-Birendra in order to mobilize the tremendous goodwill the late King Birendra had garnered in to political cash. Each step taken officially to defuse the situation is being countered by the skepticism generated by the enormity of the calamity itself. That a son can wipe his own family out in a massacre is one thing. That the tragedy should take place in the security prone Royal Palace is another. That the Crown Prince should be the killer (?) is yet another. Moreover, that the monarchy should now shift to King Gyanendra and his lone son Paras have been brought to play in fuelling the skepticism whose purposes are now being increasingly clearer still.

The Palace options were limited at the very outset. Apart from Queen Mother Ratna, the eldest surviving Royalty, the new King Gyanendra was in Pokhara. The Crown Prince Dipendra automatically acceded the throne until he died. The Royal Council had no other option. King Gyanendra as regent made this very clear in his first public address as regent. Constitutional and legal hindrances were cited. It was after King Dipendra’s death that the Royal Council nominated Gyanendra as King of Nepal. The constitution, traditional legalism had been served. It was naturally up to the new King to seek the formal details of the happenings. The Royal Commission was formed headed by Chief Justice K.P.Upadhyaya.

Each of these steps has been countered in the Kathmandu rumors. Deliberate dis-informations has taken place with design. Given the formality of the affair, Palace restrictions have been well anticipated.

Firstly in the absence of a formal report of the actual happenings at the Palace tragedy the dissemination of news has had to come through informal means. Even this has been challenged. Had no news come at all, the situation would have been even more unreal. It is another thing that none less than DPM and Home Minister Ram Chandra Poudel who first surprisingly and unbelievably bluntly told the foreign media that Crown Prince Dipendra was the killer. But even this is challenged by a sizeable chunk of the Nepali population. With official statements only to be forthcoming on the details of the incident after the Committee report who else is to feed the public on the incident?/

Then there is the constitution of the committee itself. Why does the leader of the Opposition first agree to stay in the committee and then back out? Who else is to constitute a committee on the Royal Palace? Why is there no accord on the manner of expediency with which the committee was formed in the political circle? Clearly it is the political responsibility of the political parties operating under the constitution to inform a seemingly unknowing public of the constitutional provisions applied in the country.

And then there is the contradictory reaction on the eye witnesses account of those present in the tragedy. Firstly, there was firstly the questions regarding why those present at the tragedy did not speak out. There is now the question why those who did speak out did so when the Committee was already in place? To demand information first, question the silence and then refuse to acknowledge the information is apparently a strategy surely at rendering the incredible further incredible.

In so many ways thus the political sector(s) appear to be inciting the unbelieving public instead of calming it. What has happened has unfortunately happened and the nation must get back to the business. There are sectors it seems that want to prevent it. The late King Birendra’s loss to the nation must be turned into political capital by some. The effort contributes more to the tragedy than the tragedy itself.