12/07/06 - 19/07/06 People's King ! BY PUSHPA R PRADHAN At a time when the King restored parliament and the seven-party-alliance (SPA) government with the intention to make the King powerless did not even give the traditional holiday on the occasion of the King’s birthday, thousands of people spontaneously went to the Royal Palace to extend birthday greetings to His Majesty King Gyanendra on the occasion of HM’s 60th auspicious birthday. The government announced that it would not mark the birthday of the Head of the State and also cancelled government holiday on that day. But the people didn’t listen to the ‘popular SPA' government, which boasts of holding the people’s mandate. UNEXPECTED GATHERING As the government had announced for not observing the birthday, there was no army and police parade and no official procession of the civil servants. Thus, the Royal Palace security had expected less people to visit the Palace. Unexpectedly, people started to gather at Tundikhel open theatre by 9 O’clock in the morning. At around 11 AM the main gate of the Royal Palace was opened and the people’s procession started to enter into the Palace. One can assume the number of people in the crowd, as it took three to five hours to reach the dais in front of the King, where they could extend their greetings. It became very difficult to manage the crowd by the Royal Palace security personnel. The King, while receiving sagun, tika, naivedhs, garlands, khadas and flowers offered by different communities, had to stand there till 5 PM. These people were not brought to Kathmandu like during the protest movement,when the political parties were bringing people either by paying money or by forcing or threatening them. The crowd this year was two times more than that was present last year, a highly placed security source revealed. It is noteworthy to mention that clad in daura-surwal and coat or shirt-pant or female folk in Saree in a summer day is really a challenge, but the people didn’t care about the summer climate while marking the King’s birthday. MEDIA DOWNPLAY The local media, especially known to be guided and funded by the foreign elements, tried to hide the fact that such a large number of people had attended the King’s birthday ceremony. It seems, they were ashamed from their continuous propaganda that the King was unpopular among the people. Indeed, pro-republic local as well as foreign media were involved in defaming the King. These media, so far, became successful to project the King abroad as an anti-democratic, anti-people and a dictator, however, the gathering at the Royal Palace on 7 July proved these allegations were false. SILENT MESSAGE The gathering of the people at the Royal Palace gives a silent message to the international community as well as the domestic political forces that the people are still with the King. Any artificial barrier created by the political forces won’t stop the people to pay respect to their King. Nepal holds a unique tradition which says that the king is the patron of the people. The people have demonstrated their inner feeling and respect to the King at a time when the SPA government was trying to abduct the King’s prerogatives by violating the rule of law. The SPA government is playing foul. In the name of democracy (loktantra), they are demonstrating mobocracy by discarding the fresh people’s mandate.