At a time when the Bush administration has made ?chasing liberty? around the world an American national security objective, South Asia is firmly headed in the other direction. It has begun to snuff out democracy. The consolidation of this new trend has been marked by last week?s royal coup d? etat by King Gyanendra of Nepal. It raises the prospect of further gains for the Maoists, whose seizure of power in Kathmandu is no longer a fanciful scenario. The tragedy in Nepal is South Asia?s own. As lights have gone out in Nepal a new darkness envelops South Asian regionalism. India?s decision to pull out of the summit of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation has drawn a lot of political flak. But the diplomatic row over SAARC will be minor in comparison with what is likely to follow, as India struggles to deal with a range of new challenges to its regional policy. Irrespective of the controversies it might generate, New Delhi will have no option but to pick up the pieces in Nepal. It won?t be a pretty picture. Just a day after the Iraqi people impressed the world by turning out in droves for the polls, King Gyanendra drove the last nail into the coffin of democracy in Nepal. Democracy might have begun to knock at the doors of the Middle East. But it is being shown the door in South Asia. This is no mere coincidence. The hopes for democratic transformation that emerged in the region at the turn of the 1990s are now being buried. The movement for democracy that won the 1988 elections in Burma never took hold. The generals in Rangoon successfully crushed the attempt by Aung San Suu Kyi to peacefully change the nation?s political order. At the end of 1990s, it was Pakistan that turned away from democracy. The hopes for a return to democracy in Pakistan continue to be under a cloud as Pakistani political classes contest the future role of Gen Pervez Musharraf who remains the army chief and the head of state. In Bangladesh, the democratic transition has been shaken to the core by the unending and bitter rivalry between the two main political parties. It has now reached an ugly phase where the assassination of opposition leaders is undertaken with impunity. The near successful assassination attempt against Awami League?s Sheikh Hasina a few months ago has been followed at the end of last month by the brutal murder of another opposition leader ? the widely-respected former finance minister, Shah AMS Kibria. Unable to provide security to the leaders of opposition and generate confidence in its investigation of the attacks, and unwilling to end its dalliance with the extremist elements in the nation, the government of Khalida Zia has blamed the opposition for creating an excuse for India to avoid participating in the SAARC summit. The deepening divide in Dhaka signals a further deterioration of Indo-Bangla relations. Returning to Nepal, Gyanendra?s hunger for power has not been matched by a sense of judgement. The King?s attempt to emulate Gen Musharraf has been pathetic to say the least. On the internal front, Gyanendra does not have an institution like the Pakistan Army to rely on. While the Royal Nepal Army has grown in size in recent years, it neither has the political credibility nor the capability to enforce unconstitutional royalism for very long. Externally, Gyanendra might have calculated that given a choice between himself and the Maoists, India and the international community would have no option but to back him. Given the deep Indian and American interest in the war against terrorism, Gyanendra might have bet that support from New Delhi and Washington ? grudging though it may be ? would be forthcoming. If India and the US could live with the army rule in Pakistan, why couldn?t they come to terms with the monarchy in Nepal? But the initial reaction from the two capitals has been the opposite. While all governments are tempted to live with new facts on the ground, India, US, and the European Union have assessed that Gyanendra?s power grab has weakened the war against the Maoists. Ever since he assumed executive power in 2002, Gyanendra had a free hand to toy with weak prime ministers. The fractious political parties were always easy to manipulate and posed no real threat to his authority. While most political parties support the constitutional monarchy, the main demand of the Maoists has been the creation of a republic. Instead of finding effective ways to defeat the Maoists the king has chosen to remove the fig leaf of democracy and crack down on the political parties. He has not used his power in the last two and a half years to promote much-needed reforms in Nepal. Unlike Musharraf who at least has signalled a different orientation for Pakistan, Gyanendra?s record has little basis for great power confidence in his ability to even attempt a transformation of Nepal. Gyanendra has also sought to play the China card. After all no one can ignore the reality that Nepal is the geopolitical fulcrum of the Himalayas. Being the bridge between China?s Tibet and India?s Gangetic plains, Nepal has often sought to play India and China against each other. It used to work in the past. This time, too, he has won a statement from China that the coup is an internal affair of Nepal. But it is unlikely that Gyanendra would be able to get China to replace India, US and Britain as its principal supplier of arms. More importantly Sino-Indian relations have never been as good as they are today. Neither Beijing nor New Delhi would want to make Nepal a theatre for geopolitical power play. Given these factors, few can bet on Gyanendra?s ability to pull Nepal together. But his ambition coupled with incompetence could produce either the first failed state in South Asia or the subcontinent?s first left wing revolutionary government. A watershed in South Asia?s recent political evolution is at hand.