Birendra of Nepal
Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev was King of Nepal from 1972 until his assassination in 2001.
Birendra was the second son of King Mahendra and became crown prince on account of Mahendra's first son being born out of wedlock. He inherited the panchayat system from his father when he acceded the throne in 1972, ruling as Nepal's absolute monarch. Following the 1990 revolution, he disbanded the system, lifted the concurrent ban on political parties and promulgated a new constitution in which he served as head of state of a democratic constitutional monarchy. The Nepalese Civil War began in the latter part of his reign when the Communist Party of Nepal launched an insurgency in 1996.
Early life and education
Birendra was born at the Narayanhiti Royal Palace in Kathmandu as the second son of the then Crown Prince Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev and his first wife, Crown Princess Indra Rajya Lakshmi Devi. Despite Birendra not being the eldest son of Mahendra, he was made crown prince and heir apparent due to Mahendra's first son, Rabindra Shah, being born when he was unmarried, and was born to a Gurung woman which made him an "illegitimate child."Birendra spent eight years studying at St Joseph's School, a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, with his brother Gyanendra. On 13 March 1955, their grandfather King Tribhuvan died and their father succeeded the Nepalese throne. With his father's ascension, Birendra became the crown prince of Nepal.
In 1959, Birendra was enrolled at Eton College in the United Kingdom. After studying at Eton until 1964, he returned to Nepal where he began to explore the country by traveling on foot to the remote parts of the country where he lived humbly with what was available in the villages. He later completed his education by spending some time at the University of Tokyo, before studying political theory at Harvard University from 1967 to 1968. Birendra enjoyed travelling in his youth, and went on trips to Canada, Latin America, Africa, many parts of India, and a number of other Asian countries. He was also an art collector and supporter of Nepalese craftspeople and artists and learned to fly helicopters.
Birendra was married to Aishwarya Rajya Lakshmi Devi from the Rana family, his second cousin, on 27 February 1970. The wedding, which was billed as one of the most lavish Hindu nuptial ceremonies in history, cost $9.5 million to stage.
Reign
Early years
Birendra ascended to the Nepalese throne on 31 January 1972, at the age of 26, after the death of his father, King Mahendra. However, his coronation was delayed until 24 February 1975, when he was 29, since the first year was considered to be a mourning period for death of king's father and the second year was deemed to be inauspicious by religious astrologers. As a Hindu monarch, he had to follow Nepalese tradition.Panchayat era
On his ascension to the throne, Birendra was effectively an absolute monarch, as he inherited a country where political parties were banned and he ruled through a system of local and regional councils known as panchayats.In an attempt to maintain the panchayat system of government, prominent leaders of the Nepali Congress Party were arrested frequently. During the 1980s the restraints that had been imposed on political organizations were eased, and liberal student-led groups started to demand constitutional change in Nepal. Because of the growing pro-democracy movement Birendra announced that a referendum to decide between a party-less or a multi-party system would be held. During, referendum options were given for a multi-party system or a Panchayati system. The referendum was held in May 1980 with the party-less system winning by a margin of 55% to 45%. The result of the election led the king to make mass restructuring of country both economically and politically. After the national referendum, he divided the nation into 5 development regions in order to create balanced development and visited each division once a year; the visits were discontinued after his status as a constitutional monarchy in 1990.
Democratic era
In 1990, a series of strikes and pro-democracy riots broke out in Nepal. Due to the riots, Birendra lifted the ban on political parties and agreed to become a constitutional monarch in April 1990. He appointed an independent Constitution Recommendation Commission to represent the main opposition factions and to prepare a new constitution to accommodate their demands for political reform. The commission presented him with the draft of the proposed constitution on 10 September 1990. The new constitution would make Birendra head of state of a constitutional monarchy with a system of multiparty democracy. The draft constitution was approved by the Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and his cabinet and so, on 9 November 1990, Birendra promulgated the new constitution transformed Nepal into a constitutional monarchy. As a constitutional monarch, Birendra became more popular than he had been as an autocratic ruler attributing to his democratic views and behaviors as well as the inability of the political parties. Birendra, however, could not prevent the Nepalese Civil War, a conflict between Maoist rebels and government forces, which lasted from 1996 until 2006.Murder
On 1 June 2001, Birendra and his immediate family were massacred by his son, Crown Prince Dipendra, during a dinner event at the Narayanhiti Palace, the residence of the Nepali monarchy. After shooting himself, the comatose Dipendra was proclaimed King. He failed to regain consciousness and was declared dead a few days later. Birendra's younger brother Gyanendra was then made king.Notable works and improvements
Diplomatic campaign
He managed to maintain Nepal's independence despite encroaching influences by India, China, and the Soviet Union. His first trips abroad as king were to India in October 1973 and China two months later. He prevented the breaking up of Mustang from Nepal and Tibet from China during the Mustang revolution. The disarmament of Khampas rebellions working against China brought Nepal-China relations to a new height. His compatriots remember him for his extensive campaign and contribution for the establishment of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and South Asian food reserve. During his reign, he was also able to set up the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu. He was able to establish diplomatic relations with additional 46 countries taking the total number of countries for diplomatic relations from 49 to 96. He further strengthened Nepal's policy of neutrality by promoting Nepal as zone of Peace in the UN. He believed that Nepal, sandwiched between the two Asian powers, should have good relationship with both.Promotion of peace
He proposed Nepal to be declared a zone of Peace in the United Nations meeting, taking into consideration Nepal's historic peace status, birth of Gautam Buddha and its historical policy of Non-alignment to any foreign powers. This proposal was supported by 116 countries in the UNO. He later established a "Peace Keeping Training Camp" in 1986. This was later restructured into a training institute in 2001 for training peace keeping forces. It was later renamed as Birendra Peace Operations Training Centre. This institute, was later restructured as the training organization through which Nepal started sending trained, peace-keeping forces in cooperation with the UN and became an active member of it. In 1974, King Birendra was successful in peacefully disarming the Khampas rebellions, settled in the northern Himalayan region, by giving land, money and citizenship to those who surrendered their arms, and by confiscating weapons as well. Thus who did not surrender would be prohibited from moving toward the Tibetan region. Birendra is also credited with blocking the use of the army for suppressing the Maoist revolution in the country, which would've further aggravated the situation and disturbed the peace in the nation.Environmental protection
King Birendra was regarded as a lover of nature and a great supporter of nature conservation. The trend of nature conservation from the government started during his reign. The dramatic decline of the rhinoceros population due to massive Terai migration and the extent of poaching prompted the government to institute the Rhino Patrol force of 130 armed men and a network of guard posts all over Chitwan. To prevent the extinction of rhinos through a legal system, National park law was introduced which gazetted the Chitwan National Park in December 1970, with borders delineated the following year and established in 1973.For the purpose of conservation of Tigers in the nation, an area of 368 km2 was gazetted as Royal Karnali Wildlife Reserve in 1976 which was later proclaimed as Royal Bardiya Wildlife Reserve in 1982. The Babai River Valley was further added to this reserved area in 1984. A flourishing ecosystem in the reserve later led to the proclamation of the area as national park in 1988. The country's fourth protected area was established in 1976 from the Himalayan area of Langtang and named as Langtang National Park. For this purpose, an area of 1,710 km2 was reserved in the district of Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Sindhulpalchok. He also gazetted another wildlife reserve in 1976 as Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve. In the same year, he also established Royal Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in the Terai region of far-western province which was later enlarged and converted to national park in the late 1980s. Also, another protected area, Rara National Park was established in the same year in order to protect the unique flora and fauna of Humla, Mugu and Jumla regions and to fulfil his father, King Mahendra's dream of creating a pristine nature reserve with a reserved area of 106 km2 in the Mugu and Jumla districts which also includes the famous Rara Lake. The last National Park to be established as part of the Sacred Himalayan Landscape in the same year was Sagarmatha National Park in with reservation of area of 1,148 km2 in the Solukhumbu District.
In 1984, a 225 km2 area of Bajhang, Bajura, Achham and Doti was set aside as a protected area in the Far-Western Region, Nepal and was named Khaptad National Park. In the same year, he also established Parsa Wildlife Reserve which was later extended to a National Park. Similarly, the nation's only trans-Himalayan national park, Shey Phoksundo National Park, was established in 1984 with an area of 3,555 square Kilometers in the districts of Dolpa and Mugu in the Karnali Province which also included the famous Phoksundo Lake.
In order to preserve the royal tradition of hunting as a hobby, but also to prevent the depleting wild life resource he established Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve in 1987 AD. King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation as a memorial to his father, with the then prince Gyanendra as the chairman, was also established in 1990. With the establishment of Mahendra trust, he declared Annapurna Conservation Area.
Moreover, with his efforts, Nepal was able to enlist Sagarmatha National Park in 1979 and Chitwan National Park in 1984 into the UNESCO World heritage sites. Similarly, monument zones such as the Durbar squares of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur and religious sites such as Swayambhunath, Boudhanath, Pashupatinath Temple and Changu Narayan was also enlisted in 1979.