11 Years on, Has Nepal’s Republic Succeeded?

In Nepal, May 28 marks Republic Day, commemorating the date in 2008 when an elected Constituent Assembly brought an end to the country’s centuries-old monarchy and declared it a federal, democratic republic. This year, the president and a minister marked the holiday by inaugurating a new Republic Memorial at a park that was symbolically carved out of the old royal palace grounds, known as Narayanhiti, in central Kathmandu. But after the VIPs left, the monument did not open to the public as planned. Like many state construction projects, it has faced repeated delays since it began in 2012, and workers are now completing finishing touches and removing scaffolding.

Across the street from the memorial’s closed gate is a small teashop where office workers and local youth gather in the mornings. Hari Ballav Pant, the shop’s gregarious, grey-mustachioed owner, grew up in the neighborhood and has seen it change dramatically over the years. During the monarchy, he ran a business shampooing carpets inside Narayanhiti Palace. When asked what the new Republic Memorial means to him, Pant replies tersely.

“Look here, at first it was the Ranas who lived off the people, then it was the monarchy; later it was Congress, then the Communists,” he says, referring to Nepal’s various pre-democratic and democratic regimes. 

“Political change may mean something to the leaders, but it hasn’t made a difference for us common people.”

Pessimism about the state of Nepal’s politics is common these days, despite the fact that the country has experienced significant changes since the declaration of the republic in 2008. At that time, an alliance of civil society leaders, democratic political parties, and ex-rebel Maoists had just finished leading a popular protest movement that overthrew Nepal’s King, Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. The alliance was a somewhat uneasy one because its members envisioned different goals. The major political parties called for a return to democracy and civil liberties that had been suspended by the King in 2005. The Maoists, who were coming out of a decade-long rural insurgency, called for a federal state structure, radical transformation of Nepal’s caste-based society, and secularism. All parties agreed on the need to end the economic stagnation gripping the country since the civil war began in 1996, but they disagreed – in theory, at least – about the route to growth and the need for redistributive policies. Today, 11 years on, certain promises of the new republic have been fulfilled. But others, like the construction of the Republic Memorial itself, remain incomplete.