The Narayanhiti Palace, former home of the royal family. Following the abolition of the monarchy, the building and its grounds have been turned into a museum.
The Nepalese royal massacre (also called Durbar Hatyakanda) occurred on 1 June 2001 at the Narayanhiti Palace, the then-residence of the Nepali monarchy. Nine members of the royal family, including King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya, were killed in a mass shooting during a gathering of the royal family at the palace.[7] A government-appointed inquiry team named Crown Prince Dipendra as perpetrator of the massacre.[8] Dipendra slipped into a coma after shooting himself in the head.[9]
Dipendra was declared king of Nepal while comatose after murdering his father and brothers. He died in hospital three days after the massacre without regaining consciousness. Birendra's brother Gyanendra then became king.[10]
Events
According to the official investigation into the massacre and several eyewitness accounts, Dipendra arrived at the Tribhuvan Sadan within the palace complex, where a private family dinner was to be held, followed by other guests. At the billiard room, Dipendra went under the influence of drugs and alcohol and was removed and escorted to his apartment after getting into a fight with another guest. After conversing on the phone three times with his girlfriend, Devyani Rana, he returned to the billiard room wearing army fatigues and carrying three guns, including an M16 assault rifle. There, he opened fire, killing the King and six others. He then went to the garden and fatally shot the Queen and his brother Prince Nirajan, who was shielding her. He then shot and wounded one of his uncles, Prince Dhirendra, after he tried to persuade him to hand over his gun, and then shot himself.[11][12][13] One of the eyewitness accounts said that the shooting took "no more than 15 minutes".[14]
The casualties were immediately taken to a military hospital in Chhauni, where King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and Prince Nirajan were pronounced dead on arrival; Dipendra's sister Princess Shruti died 35 minutes after arriving, and Prince Dhirendra succumbed to his injuries three days later, according to the investigation's synopsis.[13][15]
Motives
Dipendra's motive for the murders is unknown, and there are various theories. Dipendra wanted to marry Devyani Rana, whom he had met in the United Kingdom. Some allege that, due to her mother's family being from lower-class royals of India and her father's political alliances, the royal family objected. Devyani's Gwalior family were one of the wealthiest former royal families of India, and allegedly far wealthier than the Nepalese monarchs. The prospective bride's mother warned her daughter that marrying the Nepalese crown prince might mean a drop in her standard of living. Dipendra's prospective bride, chosen by the royal family, was from the main branch of the Nepalese Rana dynasty, the Chandra Shumsher line.[16]
Another theory states that there was a higher possibility of Indian influence if Dipendra were to be married to Devyani, to which the palace objected. Other theories allege that Dipendra was unhappy with the country's shift from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy, and that too much power had been given away following the 1990 People's Movement.[9]
Much controversy surrounds the circumstances of the massacre. Even after the abolition of the monarchy following the 2006 revolution, many questions remain unanswered, including the apparent lack of security at the event due to the private capacity of the dinner; the absence of Gyanendra, Dipendra's uncle who succeeded him; Dipendra's self-inflicted head-wound located at his left temple, although he was right-handed; and the duration of the subsequent investigation, which lasted for only two weeks and did not involve any major forensic analysis, despite an offer by Scotland Yard to carry one out.[17][11]
The following day, the Raj Parishad (royal privy council) confirmed Birendra's death and announced the proclamation of Dipendra, who was comatose and still being treated in hospital, as king and the appointment of Gyanendra, the closest surviving relative in the line of succession, as his regent.[24][25] The deceased members of the royal family were then given a state funeral and were cremated in front of Pashupatinath Temple.[26] Dipendra died on 4 June and Gyanendra was subsequently crowned king.[13]
On 12 June 2001, a Hindu katto ceremony was held to exorcise or banish the spirit of the dead king from Nepal. A Hindu priest, Durga Prasad Sapkota, dressed as Birendra to symbolise the late king, rode an elephant out of Kathmandu and into symbolic exile, taking many of the monarch's belongings with him.[27]
The massacre added to the political turmoil caused by the Maoist insurgency. Following the ascension of Gyanendra, the monarchy lost much of the approval of the Nepalese populace. Some say this massacre was the pivotal point that ended the monarchy in Nepal.
Reactions
Domestic
The news of the massacre was met with mourning and protests in Nepal, with many demanding explanation for the motive of the murders.[28] The funeral procession of the royal couple was attended by tens of thousands, and the government declared thirteen days of mourning, in accordance with Hindu custom, which also required men to shave their heads as a mark of respect.[29][30] Flags in Nepal were also lowered to half-mast and access to radio and television media was restricted.[31][32] Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel described the massacre as a "national disaster", after publicly announcing that Dipendra was to blame for perpetrating it.[33]
Protests continued during Gyanendra's coronation ceremony on 4 June, resulting in six deaths from police gunfire and arrests of hundreds suspected to be Maoists. A curfew was subsequently imposed in Kathmandu.[32] The violence prompted travel warnings for British and American citizens intending to travel to Nepal.[34]
International
Leaders and representatives of several countries expressed condolences in response to the deaths of King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya.[35]
Australia: Prime Minister John Howard expressed "hope that peace and order will be maintained in Nepal", describing Birendra as "a pillar of stability".[35]
Holy See: Pope John Paul II addressed Gyanendra in a telegram, expressing prayers for "divine blessings of comfort and peace upon all who are in mourning".[35]
India: The Union Cabinet adopted a resolution of condolence and announced a three-day period of national mourning.[36][37]
Thailand: Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra described the massacre as a "heart-rending tragedy" and expressed condolences to the Nepalese people.[35]
United Kingdom: Queen Elizabeth II conveyed a message to Gyanendra expressing "shock and sadness at the news and of the long-standing and valued relationship between the two countries and families", according to a readout issued by Buckingham Palace. The Queen ordered flags to be flown at half-mast on royal palaces, government buildings, and the Second Battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles installation in Kent.[39]Charles, Prince of Wales, said that he was "deeply shocked and saddened".[40][39] Prime Minister Tony Blair described the massacre as a "dreadful tragedy", highlighting the close diplomatic and military relations between the United Kingdom and Nepal.[39]
United Nations: In a statement, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "profoundly shocked" and called for "calm and stability in this difficult period".[24]
Some media outlets described the massacre as the highest-profile murder of a royal family since the Russian Romanov family was executed in 1918.[29][33]
Investigation
Gyanendra initially maintained that the deaths were the result of an "accidental discharge of an automatic weapon" within the royal palace. Later, he said that he made this claim due to "legal and constitutional hurdles" since under the constitution and by tradition, Dipendra could not have been charged with murder had he survived.[42]
A two-man committee comprising Chief Justice Keshav Prasad Upadhyaya and Speaker of the House Taranath Ranabhat carried out a week-long investigation concerning the massacre.[43] The investigation concluded, after interviewing more than a hundred people including eyewitnesses and palace officials, guards, and staff, that Dipendra was the perpetrator of the shooting.[44][45]
Conspiracy theories
King Birendra and his son Dipendra were very popular and well-respected by the Nepalese population.[46] On the day of the massacre, Gyanendra was in Pokhara whilst other royals were attending the dinner function. His wife Komal, their son Paras, and their daughter Prerana were in the room at the royal palace during the massacre. While the entire families of Birendra and Dipendra were killed, nobody in Gyanendra's family died—his son escaped with slight injuries,[47] and his wife sustained a life-threatening bullet wound but survived. This gave rise to conspiracy theories.[48]
During a public gathering, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the chairman of the Nepalese Maoist Party, claimed that the massacre was planned by the Indian Research and Analysis Wing or the American Central Intelligence Agency. Since the massacre, some eyewitness statements have been released such as, "multiple people with the mask of the Crown Prince Dipendra were present in the room at one point." The bodies of some of the royal family members were found elsewhere in the palace and not the dining hall, whereas Dipendra was cited as one of the first ones to have been shot. There is a book titled "Raktakunda" based on interviews of two palace maids which details these theories.[49] Promoters of these ideas alleged Gyanendra had a hand in the massacre so that he could assume the throne himself. His ascent to the throne would have been possible only if both of his nephews, Dipendra and Nirajan, were removed from the line of succession. Moreover, Gyanendra and his son Prince Paras were very unpopular. An eyewitness of the royal massacre, Lal Bahadur Magar, claimed that Paras perpetrated the massacre. Magar was one of the bodyguards of Crown Prince Dipendra at that time.[50]
Claims circulated in Nepalese media hypothesized that the perpetrator was not Dipendra but an individual who wore a mask to disguise himself as Dipendra; that Paras broke and threw away Dipendra's ventilator in hospital; that 900 were killed in the palace that night and the purpose of the curfews was to allow the disposal of their bodies; or that the public water supply and milk had been poisoned in Kathmandu. Conspiracy theories also blamed Ketaki Chester, Upendra Devkota, or the Nepalese army for the massacre. However, no reliable evidence have been found for these claims.[51]
In popular culture
Murder Most Royal or Nepal: Murder Most Royal is a 2002 documentary by Donna Sharpe produced for the BBC and aired on BBC2. It details the reasons for Dipendra perpetrating the massacre, including his forbidden marriage with Devyani Rana.[52][53][54]
The massacre is featured in the third season of the documentary series Zero Hour, based on a reconstruction of the event taken from surviving eyewitnesses.[56]
The back story of Pagan Min, the main antagonist of the game Far Cry 4 (Ubisoft, 2014), which takes place in the fictional (but based on Nepal) kingdom of Kyrat seems to refer to this event in a modified version.[57]
Garzilli, Enrica, "A Sanskrit Letter Written by Sylvain Lévi in 1923 to Hemarāja Śarmā Along With Some Hitherto Unknown Biographical Notes (Cultural Nationalism and Internationalism in the First Half of the 21st Cent.: Famous Indologists Write to the Raj Guru of Nepal – no. 1)", in Commemorative Volume for 30 Years of the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project. Journal of the Nepal Research Centre, XII (2001), Kathmandu, ed. by A. Wezler in collaboration with H. Haffner, A. Michaels, B. Kölver, M. R. Pant and D. Jackson, pp.115–149.
Garzilli, Enrica, "Strage a palazzo, movimento dei Maoisti e crisi di governabilità in Nepal", in Asia Major 2002, pp.143–160.
Garzilli, Enrica, "A Sanskrit Letter Written by Sylvain Lévy in 1925 to Hemarāja Śarmā along with Some Hitherto Unknown Biographical Notes (Cultural Nationalism and Internationalism in the First Half of the 20th Century – Famous Indologists write to the Raj Guru of Nepal – No. 2)", in History of Indological Studies. Papers of the 12th World Sanskrit Conference Vol. 11.2, ed. by K. Karttunen, P. Koskikallio and A. Parpola, Motilal Banarsidass and University of Helsinki, Delhi 2015, pp.17–53.
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