Monarchies, they are things of the past now - even the ceremonial ones. They no longer are relevant and have no place in the modern world. They are history and must only remain in the history books. Country can no longer stand to be jagir of selected few and live under their whims. But anachronistically, we have one in our own country, which refusing to be bounded within the constitution, took reign in its own hand and is now an abosolute one.
Some of our great-great-grandfathers and mothers accepted great-great-grandfather of current monarch as their savior, which was sad and we cannot do anything about that. But that doesn't mean we must also accept this monarch as our savior. Delegation of the control over my life to some king is not the thesis with which I, and I am sure many of us, don't live these days anymore. I like to believe that I am in control over my life, which sadly is not the case in this increasing global and interconnected world. Even then, when I don't devolve my right over my own life willfully to some selected few persons or some selected few organizations, I will have some reason to fight to bring the control back to myself that is being taken away from me.
Thomas Paine, in his masterpiece "Common Sense", made a very good point about monarchy and what is wrong with it. He wrote (a king when he was accepted as the king) "though himself might deserve some descent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendents might be far too unworthy to inherit them". Likewise, our forefathers had a good reason (I hope so) to accept Prithvi Narayan Shah as their king, I do not find even a shred of good reason to accept Gyanendra and after that his only successor Paras as my king.
Today I read a constitution for future Nepal, drafted by Paramendra Bhagat. It was circulating in the Internet for quite a long time now, but nobody, it seems, is taking it seriously, at least in public. May be many of us don't believe that there are enough people to dare to back such a constitution yet, or may it be that we believe it is the job of politicians to draft a constitution, and not that of a common citizen, or may it be that whoever read the draft, felt jealously condescending toward the writer to comment on it.
Some of our great-great-grandfathers and mothers accepted great-great-grandfather of current monarch as their savior, which was sad and we cannot do anything about that. But that doesn't mean we must also accept this monarch as our savior. Delegation of the control over my life to some king is not the thesis with which I, and I am sure many of us, don't live these days anymore. I like to believe that I am in control over my life, which sadly is not the case in this increasing global and interconnected world. Even then, when I don't devolve my right over my own life willfully to some selected few persons or some selected few organizations, I will have some reason to fight to bring the control back to myself that is being taken away from me.
Thomas Paine, in his masterpiece "Common Sense", made a very good point about monarchy and what is wrong with it. He wrote (a king when he was accepted as the king) "though himself might deserve some descent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendents might be far too unworthy to inherit them". Likewise, our forefathers had a good reason (I hope so) to accept Prithvi Narayan Shah as their king, I do not find even a shred of good reason to accept Gyanendra and after that his only successor Paras as my king.
Today I read a constitution for future Nepal, drafted by Paramendra Bhagat. It was circulating in the Internet for quite a long time now, but nobody, it seems, is taking it seriously, at least in public. May be many of us don't believe that there are enough people to dare to back such a constitution yet, or may it be that we believe it is the job of politicians to draft a constitution, and not that of a common citizen, or may it be that whoever read the draft, felt jealously condescending toward the writer to comment on it.
posted by dipeshb at 6:44 PM
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