Why Nepal's Prince Organised A Royal Massacre | Asia's Monarchies | Real Royalty

asia's monarchies defy history in a modern era of democracy worlds of tradition mystery and ritual command fascination and respect like never before asian monarchs are symbols of continuity living connections to the past that are often loved and loathed in equal measure [Music] in nepal the monarchy was ousted from power after 250 years of rule replaced by an uneasy republic deposed and humiliated the former king can still inspire devotion among many of the people [Music] the story of the shahs is one of murder intrigue genius and madness overshadowed by an ancient family curse and the final act in this blood-soaked drama was the assassination of the king and queen by their son the heir to the throne the history of the shahs is the history of nepal and one that still divides the nation to this day [Music] [Music] oh [Music] to visitors nepal is a ravishingly beautiful mountain land of temples and religious devotion where hinduism and buddhism have coexisted peacefully for hundreds of years [Music] this is the most ethnically diverse country in asia where dozens of cultures have lived in harmony for centuries [Music] but this harmony has never been reflected in the history of its royal family nepal's royal drama centers around the capital of nepal kathmandu the cradle of power and the focus of the country's politics the recent overthrow of the monarchy the question of its possible return is one that dominates public debate [Music] monarchists and anti-monarchists vie with each other under an unstable government we have to slow talking i have already told you we have to slot working but on the streets of kathmandu the people still turn out in thousands to celebrate the birthday of the last king of nepal janendra [Music] from my heart i support my team and he lives long life [Music] the story of nepal and the shahs is one of a struggle for unity and harmony from the founder prithvi narayan shah right through to today the shah rule has been characterized by ever repeating cycles of violence prithvi narayan shah was a great warrior chieftain who unified nepal and founded the royal dynasty of the shahs rajendra shah was mentally ill and his reign saw the descent of the shah's into factionalism and the first mass murder in nepal's royal drama tripovansha brought the monarchy back to prominence after almost a century of obscurity as mere puppet kings mahendra shah dabbled in politics and tried to regain absolute power returning his family to factionalism and infighting birendra shah tried to modernize the monarchy and usher in democracy and paid with his life as fractured as its history may be there's always been one unifying force in nepal its religion hinduism [Music] kathmandu the sprawling capital sits in the mountain basin high in the foothills of the himalayas its many temples and statues to the gods are as relevant today as they've always been on hindu festival days the whole city stops to pray and to purify and to party on the streets [Music] this festival in nepali is known as the janai purnima this particular locale is associated with hindu god shiva it's a temple called kumbeshwar not only is it sacred to hindus but local shamans who belong to the taman community for them also this is a very important festival so you see a lot of shamans you know beating the drums and dancing around they first take a bath in the pond here cleans themselves and go to a temple which is a shiva temple nearby to basically pay homage to lord shiva so what this does is it blends local varieties of religion together with hinduism the focus of public devotion on these festivals used to be twofold first was always the kumari a young girl revered as a living goddess the second was the royal family themselves as keepers of the hindu flame and the shahs were always careful to merge the religious and royal devotions of their people enforcing the image of themselves as semi-divine beings but what is particularly interesting is their choice of a personal family deity khali a vengeful goddess who demands blood sacrifices from her followers [Music] and the shahs were to pay the ultimate sacrifice i remember getting calls from my relatives that have you heard have you heard have you heard we're hearing you know the gun fires in the palace in one terrible night in 2001 nepal made world headlines with the murder of almost the entire royal family by their heir to the throne crown prince dipendra at a friday night family party a heavily armed dipendra shot his father king barendra his mother brother sister and five other members of his close family before finally turning his gun on himself it was a shock it was a shock you know because one could not expect that such a horrendous act can be enacted worship to semi-gods throughout their history the all-too-human nature of the shah's had been revealed he is not a god i tell you he is not a god if he was a god this will not happen if the shahs weren't gods themselves then perhaps they were subject to the will of a real god to many in nepal a land where myth and legend are part of the fabric of everyday life the royal massacre is simply the fulfillment of an ancient curse laid upon the founder of the shah dynasty prithvi narayan shah legend has it that shah was walking through the forest one day when he encountered an old wise man in fact the venerated saint gaurant in disguise dutifully shah offered the man a bowl of curd to show his respect the old man drank it all and then regurgitated it back into the bowl he asked shah to drink it to show his devotion repulsed shah dashed the bowl to the ground where the foul liquid covered his feet garage then cursed him saying that his dynasty will only last the number of generations that he had toes ten the eleventh king would be the last throughout its history the curse has overshadowed the house of shah but would it really come true [Music] nepal's monarchy may be no more but they're still national heroes to its people here in kathmandu statues in their honor dominate the streets and buildings but the story of the shahs begins more than a hundred miles away from kathmandu here in golka this was the birthplace of prithvi narayan shah the young man who would be king it was a humble beginning for the man who was to create nepal and found its ruling dynasty during privilege younger years he would have lived in in comparatively humble uh circumstances with not a lot of money or resources to to to play with um and an area as that was not not rich in agriculture gorkha alone could never satisfy the ambitions of this young man he wanted to rule over a far greater kingdom so what he's said to have done is to have walked one day to the rim of the kathmandu valley looked down over it and said you know one day all this will be mine kathmandu was the key to nepal it was not only one of the most fertile areas in the region it lay at the heart of an important trade route between india and tibet giving it access to great wealth the prize was enormous but for a young chieftain in a small army so were the risks the main strategy presidential developed to conquer the caterpillar valley was to conquer the surrounding areas of kathmandu valley and after that he needed a place from where a direct attack would be made on kathmandu within two or three hours and that place he selected was beautiful for 12 years prithvi narayan shah and his army lay siege to kirtipo it took four attempts before it finally fell but it came at a high price for the young prince he lost his best general kalu pandey and his own brother the exploits of shah's army are still the vivid part of local folklore and kurtipur it's not hard to find locals who will tell the tale of the grisly end of kalu pandey you get [Music] both armies paid a high price finally shah tried to seek a solution and approached the ruler of kirtipo to peacefully enter the city he did have a kind of an agreement with the leaders of cutipur that they would smooth the way in for him and they must have changed their minds at the last moment kertipo closed its doors to shah and the bloody siege continued when kirtipo finally fell shah exacted revenge on its people he cut off the lips and noses of every single man in the city why the cut noses well you know the the traditional punishment of the gokali in those days for a faithless wife was to cut off the nose this was the punishment for adultery and perhaps for pritivinaran that was symbolic of the fact that they had broken an agreement this brutal act also had the effect of giving shah a fearsome reputation in kathmandu its ruler jaya prakashmala simply fled when he heard shah and his army were marching towards his city shah entered kathmandu and made it his capital in 1769 so laying the foundations for the kingdom of nepal privilege is built into this great national figure of the the the creator of the nation or as they say in nepal the unifier of the nation because the nationalist vision has it that nepal already existed it was just lying around in bits and all he needed was the visionary to come along and assemble it in 1775 just a few years after the capture of his prize the warrior king the man who created the unified nepal died immediately his court fell into disarray shah had created a kingdom and established the house of shah as rulers but he hadn't set out the laws of succession [Music] in asia in nepal kings had more than one legal wife and when you look at it like that and you look at the animosities that are likely to arrive you can see that there must have been great tussles for succession between the sons of different legal wives and even the sons of concubines this creates all these tensions and struggles but the infighting didn't stop there the bickering and the fighting was was more among the the surrounding families but it wasn't helped by the fact that the monarchy itself after privilege was occupied by people of much lower caliber either they were minors they were young too young to rule so regents ruled in their stead or they had mental health problems in a couple of cases [Music] it was in this febrile atmosphere that rajendra came to the throne and during his reign this factionalism was to come to a head and draw to a murderous conclusion rajendra came to the throne in 1816 at the age of just three he was completely controlled by his all-powerful prime minister vinsen tapa the latest in the line of tapas who had ruled over the weak child kings that followed pratri narayan shah rajendra was kept in isolation unable even to leave the palace in 1837 however he finally flexed his muscles forced tapa from power and took over direct rule unfortunately he was a less than ideal candidate to be king rajendra just looking at it from the eyes of the 21st century i would say that he had a bipolar disorder sometimes he was probably very very reasonable and sometimes he was very despondent and sometimes he was high his excesses were mainly in his cruelty he took people's caste away by smearing them with feces with human feces he would bring out laws and edicts and he changed them the next day and this lack of judgment and control was felt in his relationships with his two queens and their sons in particular rajendra's strange behavior affected his eldest son crown prince surendra surendra should have been the automatic heir to the throne but rajendra favored his youngest queen lakshmi devi in 1843 rajendra issued a decree stating that his subjects should only obey his younger queen lakshmi devi over the crown prince sarendra was feeling increasingly insecure i think his son was more dangerous than him crown prince surendra and i think that's partially probably because of his father's condition but partially because of very insecure upbringing that he had his younger mother and her culture were trying to get rid of him in favor of his younger brother her eldest son that can make you very very insecure if you feel people are trying to murder you the battle between the young queen lakshmi devi and crown prince syrendra was to lead to the first of nepal's royal massacres the junior queen of king rajendra wanted to place her own son on the throne of nepal as against the claim of the youngest son of the king so in this connection the queen took the help of one powerful courtyard whose name was gotten singh but unfortunately governor king was suddenly killed and when governor singh was killed then the queen felt herself a kind of orphan you know now she had no friend to assist her to place her son on the throne the queen was isolated she sought the help of one of the most powerful men in the kingdom zhang bahadur as military commander he controlled a large army she asked him to force all the leading courtiers to gather so she could find the murderer of her favourite courtier gagan singh instead of detecting the murderer there were classes among the courtiers and almost all the high-level courteous were killed and only zhang bahadur and his brother survived and hence began the rana rule in the history of nepal in the mayhem that followed the khat massacre zhang bahadur saw his chance to seize control he instigated a military coup and deposed the king he sent rajendra and lakshmi devi into exile and installed surendra on the throne like the tapa family before him bahadur kept the young king under permanent house arrest and under his control he made himself permanent prime minister learning from the mistakes of the shahs he established a line of succession for his own family to inherit his office taking the hereditary title of rana [Music] and so began a century of rana rule with a succession of puppet kings so how would the house of shah rise again to rule nepal [Music] nepal's royal family is no stranger to bloodshed and intrigue the cot massacre in 1846 and the subsequent power struggle in the court was to rock the shah royal family and banish it from power for over a hundred years after decades of court politics and unstable rulers the runners a ruthless dynasty of hereditary prime ministers emerged from the shadows of nepal's elite the shahs remained under virtual house arrest figureheads cloistered in their palaces [Music] a symbolic monarchy led spurious authority to the rana usurpers but were in practical terms powerless well people say that the the shah monarchy reigned but it didn't rule it was the rana's that ran the country with with the kings functioning as as a figurehead for for their government the rana's maintained their grip and power by ensuring they didn't fall into the same trap as the shahs they set in place definite rules and succession the rana adopted the line of succession not under the principles of primordial nature if the rana prime minister dies he was succeeded by the youngest member in the family and in that system there was no question of the minor prime minister the prime ministers who succeeded the rana's they were all matured they were all more than 40 or 50 years of age that's why there was no minor prime minister the ranas had learned from the monarchy's mistakes but they also learned from the vision of nepal's founder i think in the isolation the rana's were carrying out pritivinal in shah's vision of the pure state that is you close your borders you make sure that nothing bad can come in your enemies can't infiltrate they maintain the notion of nepal as an independent state with its own unique identity and it was this desire to preserve the sanctity of their borders that led them to seek out an ally in the region if there was one thing that the runners recognized it was the strength and importance of the british empire across the world and particularly on their own doorstep [Music] their huge neighbor to the south india was under britain's rule and the ranas had courted the british assiduously throughout their regime britain in turn saw the importance of a stable and friendly state on the northern border and gave the rana regime their full support [Music] it was an alliance that defined the century of rana rule in nepal and the loss of which was to signal the end of their power [Music] in 1947 a political earthquake shook the rana regime to its foundations lord mountbatten bits farewell to the first british troops an indian god of honor is drawn up in salute to the men whose departure symbolizes the end of british rule almost overnight the british vanished from india and with them the rana's support iran prime ministers lost the guardianship of the british government that is the most important thing then the new indian government was not in favor of continuing the dictatorial rule of the rama's rather they wanted some sort of democratic government in nepal the ranas were too closely associated with the british for the liking of the newly independent india and its charismatic prime minister nehru they wanted their close neighbor to be ruled by someone untainted by an alliance with the british nehru wanted a democratic government in nepal right but he did not want a full democratic government in nepal the rana regime should be ended but the new regime should be under the leadership of the king not under the leadership of the people's representative that's why panjit nehru played a very active role in the movement of 1950 and all the negotiations in delhi took place under his guidance the rana regime was coming under pressure from outside its borders at the same time pressure was building inside the country for change the indian nationalist movement the indian congress movement that had led that you know secured independence for india greatly influenced a small number of middle class nepalis of higher caste who were receiving their education in indian cities during the 30s and 40s and to some extent in emulation of the indian nationalist movement formed their own political parties which were then which was small but were then poised to sort of take on some of the momentum of the indian political struggle and apply it to their own context nepal needed a new ruler and a new government all eyes turned to the shahs tribune had been on the throne since 1911 but like his forefathers before him every part of his life had been controlled by successive runners [Music] first judah shanshar rana and then in 1945 mourinho rana he was too weak to take back power for himself but the leaders of the new democratic movements could once the british had gone the runners were wide open to that kind of opposition and the armed insurrection in fact took place for a period of time in 1949 1950 and they were also able to engage with the king and show him that they would reinstate him as a ruler if he aided them in their struggle and gave them certain guarantees about the introduction of democracy and so on after he had been reinstated as the opposition mounted the prime minister mahan shan sharana tightened his control if tribunal was to get out from under the rana rule he would have to get out of nepal the king's movements were quite closely controlled and in 1950 on the pretext of going going off to a to a hunting expedition with his entourage and most of his family king drew evan left his palace but instead of taking the route that he was expected to take suddenly turned sharply off the road into the indian embassy where he asked for some kind of political asylum was flown out of the country to new delhi the entire royal family was in exile except for the king's three-year-old grandson gyanendra in a last-ditch attempt to save the rana regime the prime minister had him crowned king hoping to rule over another puppet monarch but to no avail the people of nepal looked to the absent king as their savior tribune's flight to india that could have been seen as a mere desire to save his own life was cleverly managed to look like a move to save his people and in 1951 king tribal returned to kathmandu a national hero [Applause] [Music] tribunal is important for his symbolism there was a king who was willing to sacrifice his throne for the sake of people for the sake of democracy so the symbol of king 31 leaving his palace and taking refuge in embassy and eventually delhi symbolizes a king willing to leave his throne for the sake of the people so what that symbolism does it it unites the people's leaders and the monarch together both of them were involved in the overthrow of the ranas so that gesture by three one was fundamental in restoring monarchy in nepal having regained his throne tribune honored his agreement with the leaders of the democratic movement and opened the doors to change he was recognized as the father of democracy in nepal by all and sundry even today they have not attacked the republican forces have not attacked that that symbolism that he carries after centuries of absolute rule first by the shahs and then the rana's the transition to a fledgling democracy was bound to be difficult the democracy that was ushered in in 1950 was a very unstable one there was intense political instability and this went on and on and on to 1955 when he died and his son which is king mahindra [Music] mahendra came to the throne in 1955. at the time nepal's young democratic system was in turmoil and there was deep unrest amongst the people he saw this as an opportunity to impose his authority on the nation and lead his country forward to a new age he was a very ambitious person he grew up in a very traditional milieu he did not receive formal western education he received all of his education within the palace premises but he was a very traditional hindu monarch he saw his role as a protector of the kingdom as a benefactor mahendra moved to take back some of the king's traditional powers whilst at the same time opening the door to more modern influences basically when he took upon the responsibility of the government he tried to become a very benevolent kind of a ruler a benevolent dictator if you will it is to his credit that the modernization process began in nepal he enacted certain laws that led to land reform he put a ceiling on big land holdings he also enacted certain legislatures that prohibited the caste system so he tried to do away with what he considered some of the more backward practices and in so doing he tried to modernize the country [Music] mahendra was walking a political tightrope and trying to be both a far-sighted modernizer and a benevolent dictator and it was this contradiction that he brought to the throne of nepal that was to lead to the final fall of the house of shah in a single night of unimaginable horror nepal's many diverse cultures languages and ethnic groups present a rich tapestry to the outside world but a huge problem for its political rulers mahendra struggled with the dual role of benevolent dictator and modernizer he saw his responsibility as king of nepal to provide strong leadership and stability for his country he was a nationalist to the corps and he believed that the political parties were not in a position to lead the country towards stability or towards modernization or towards progress and although he believed this he allowed the parties to continue for another five years five years years where in 1960 he declared that it was not possible to run the country with parties anymore and declared a partyless system mahendra introduced the panchayat system of governance in which he was the sole overseer of a network of local administration centers led by local leaders perhaps he truly believed he was the only one who could lead nepal safely into the modern age but the democracy movement was not to be silenced demonstrators took to the streets of kathmandu riots and strikes grew increasingly common in 1972 in the midst of this turmoil mahendra died leaving his son birendra to cope with this crisis the new king berendra had truly been handed a poison chalice as he came to the throne his ascension was overshadowed by crisis both ancient and modern his family had according to legend been blighted by a curse which stated that the house of shah would only rule for ten generations before being ousted from their throne birendra was the tenth generation shah king he also inherited a country in turmoil with demonstrators taking to the streets to demand change together with an escalating threat from maoist revolutionaries in 1979 when faced by student riots in the streets of kathmandu he declared that there would be a national referendum on the country's political system the country would be asked whether it wanted to continue with what was then called the panchayat system whether the country wanted to move from that to a more inclusive multi-party style of democracy and the country was asked this question so people said well virendra you know he's given us the choice there i think he earned some credit for having been willing at least to open it up for national discussion the referendum duly took place and the people narrowly voted to keep the panchayat system despite this the mood for change continued until in early 1990 it once more exploded onto the streets this time with deadly consequences seeing his citizens being gunned down forced berendra's hand and he finally agreed to step down as absolute ruler and became a constitutional monarch this dramatic move may have brought peace to the country but it caused an enormous split within the royal family itself generally it is said that king birendra was alone in the royal family for his democratic ideas and it is generally said that his stepmother queen ratna the wife of king mahendra she was very much eager to continue the system established by her husband king mahendra similarly the queen aishwarya the wife of birendra she was also quite eager to exercise the power as the queen his brother galindra was also not in a favor to surrender power to the people once again a shah king found himself surrounded by competing factions it doesn't seem to have been a very healthy family does it when one looks at you know events over the last 10 years or so so it's difficult to speculate on relationships within the family but one sense is that this isn't a very cohesive little unit there was always the sense that within the palace there was this this faction that was always going to try and undermine any kind of democratization movement despite his family's opposition berendra gave over power to an elected government but nepal's problems did not stop there his new government was wrecked by infighting and ineffectiveness opening the door to a new movement for change the communists after 1990 the failure of the elected government to keep the or to say to govern the country in a more satisfactory manner led to the rise of maoists within the communist party but later on it adopted violent matters in most of the parts of the country in 1996 the maoist announced the people's war and launched a campaign of attacks it would cost the lives of fourteen thousand people back at the palace the royal family was divided about how to respond to the insurgency some pushed for a hardline military option but berendra increasingly isolated preferred a softer approach one of the features to to note i think which is insignificant is the fact that the royal nepalese army wasn't deployed against the maoist insurgency until the maoist insurgency had taken a very large hold over a very large section of the country and that is said to have been because biarendra was unwilling to use the army in that way because he didn't wish his army his nepalese army to be shooting nepalese citizens but a sort of darker reading of that is that the monarchy actually wanted the maoist insurgency to grow and become out of control because they saw that as a way of getting rid of the the political parties and undermining the democracy that they were never very keen of in the first place the house of shah has never been far from rumour and intrigue their history is littered with conspiracy theories tales of backstage deals and power brokering but now the splits within the royal family were literally to tear them apart i was in moscow airport when i heard about the massacre and i when i first heard about it i said it's it cannot be believed i remember getting calls from my relatives that have you heard have you heard have you heard we're hearing you know the gunfires and the palace it was a shock it was a shock you know because one could not expect that such a horrendous act can be inactive the phone rang and it was a nepali friend who said oh my god it's terrible i can't believe it and i said what and he said the whole royal family's been killed on the 1st of june 2001 the royal family gathered as they usually did on fridays for a family evening the crown prince dipendra left the sitting room where his family sat chatting and went to his apartment there he armed himself with an m16 rifle and an mp5k machine pistol he returned to the sitting room and started firing he killed half of his family in that one room his mother and brother escaped into the palace grounds dependra pursued them and shot them dead finally he turned his gun on himself [Music] sometime one even now i sometimes wake up and say was that you know was that real particularly i felt the then crown prince he was a highly intelligent man all right how would the intelligent man commit such a horrendous act that's that's sometimes still hits me no one really knows for sure why dipendra killed his family and as ever with nepal's royal history conspiracy theories are rife some say dipendra wanted to depose his father and install himself as king bringing the monarchy back to absolute rule others say he was maneuvered into murder by his uncle the king's younger brother who himself wanted to be king yet others say he was merely angry that his parents wouldn't let him marry the woman he loved ridhiani rana a member of the infamous rana dynasty old enemies of the shahs [Music] never in the history in our mythology in the hindu mythology you know it's common for kings to kill other kings but the father has been killed by the sun the the fat recite and the regicide that took places and the matricide which is unusual and unprecedented in anybody's history not even any greek mythology nor hindu mythology beats this so it was an absolute shock the shah dynasty has been steeped in mythology from its very beginning with the tale of the curse laid upon its founder prithvi narayan shah and it looked as if the curse had come true [Music] pirendra the tenth generation of shah kings was dead and it was supposed that the 11th king was to be the arbiter of the final fall of the house of shah on the 4th of june 2001 miranda's brother yanindra was crowned king it was to be his second coronation he'd been crowned at the age of three during king tripovan's exile in india and almost 50 years later he ascended to the throne again his second rule was to be as inauspicious as his first he always had political ambitions so when this came up on one hand he saw this as an opportunity but we should also understand as an individual and as a family member he had lost everything around him and that did have a devastating effect definitely on him unloved unwanted and facing a maoist revolution it was the worst of possible circumstances for the aging businessman to start a new career [Music] however he had plans to make his mark king ghanindra have the conservative ideas he was of the opinion that the king should exercise his real power but when he became the king his activities showed that yes he wanted to exercise the power of the king in the fullest sense of the torment [Music] any hopes that ganendra might pursue the liberal and low-key policies of his brother were soon dashed he tried to suppress both the maoists and the political parties at the same time in 2005 just like his father mahindra had in 1960 gyanendra sacked the parliament and took control as absolute monarch press freedom was curtailed and political activists were locked up ganendra thought he was restoring peace and stability but it looked like a dictatorship and it was to be the final nail in the coffin of the shah monarchy he's attempting these two political forces and impose his one personal role in the country i think finally led to the downfall of monarchy in the country the people were outraged at yanindra's actions and once again violence hit the streets in nepal yanendra realized he'd gone too far and on 24th april 2006 he restored the parliament but this would not save him and three weeks later the parliament stripped him of his powers in 2007 the monarchy was finally scrapped canada per se had the great opportunity perhaps to be the most you know sort of successful ruler in nepali history if he had pursued an agenda of reform but rather than that he got so engaged in the political game that you know sort of led to you know sort of the downfall of the monarchy despite the ousting of the monarchy there are many in nepal who still love the shahs and call for their return but if the curse on prithvi narayan shah is to be believed this is the final act of this particular royal drama ganendra was indeed the 11th king of nepal the one who would preside over a catastrophic fall from power as bloody and dramatic as the legendary curse promised it may be just legend but throughout its history there does seem to have been a shadow cast over the house of shah [Music] born in war the shahs lived out their destiny against an ever-shifting landscape of bloody feuds and political intrigue before dying out in confusion and horror perhaps it is simply a case of being cursed to live in a cycle of history repeating itself [Music] the shah story should end here but perhaps the cycle has one more revolution to turn the shars have already made one triumphant return from obscurity when tripevan faced down the rana prime minister in 1950. can the shahs possibly rise once more to claim their place as kings of nepal

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 1,881,113

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, nepal, crown prince, nepalese royal massacre, king of nepal, crown prince of nepal, nepal 2001

Id: UB92ixJW4oo

Length: 49min 31sec (2971 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021