Nepal 1979: Political System in Crisis

Abstract

IT APPEARS NOW that Nepal was well set for staging a drama in 1979. Events overtook the 19-year-old partyless Panchayat System, which had been defended as a necessary structural basis for Nepal's development. The Panchayat System is either going to disintegrate or be modified drastically as a result of the referendum in 1980 that was ordered by King Birendra on May 24, 1979 on whether the Nepali public prefers to continue the existing system with gradual reforms or to opt for a multi-party system. The proclamation came in the wake of a movement started by students of Tribhuvan University in April. Since then the entire political atmosphere has been transformed, throwing respective political groupings into competition. Domestic political developments were also linked to the country's foreign policy as the King-in order to reassure Nepal's neighbors, China and Indiapromised to continue the traditional nonaligned foreign policy even after the proposed referendum. Similarly, the economy and educational institutions were not unaffected, since the New Education System introduced in 1972 revealed cracks of its own along with those in the political system. It could, therefore, be said that the year 1979 was one of ferment in the real sense of the term.