Inside the Five Days When Army Headquarters Became Nepal’s Political Centre

Past 11 p.m. on September 11, President Ram Chandra Paudel sat with both hands pressed against his cheeks in Kanchanjunga Hall, a building behind the President’s Office. Around him were senior political figures, his advisers, the chief of the army and officials from his office.

The meeting came as Nepal’s state structure was buckling. Scores of unarmed young protesters had been killed, while Parliament, Singha Durbar, Sheetal Niwas and the Supreme Court had been set ablaze on September 8 and 9. The elected government had fallen, leaving the president as the constitutional guardian of a country whose Constitution also limited his ability to act.

Then Army Chief Ashokraj Sigdel raised a question that had largely disappeared from Nepal’s political debate for 15 years: should former King Gyanendra Shah join the discussions? A senior Army source told Kantipur that nobody in the room objected. “No one asked why he [Gyanendra] should be made a stakeholder,” the source said. “What the [Army] Chief proposed did not mean restoring the monarchy. He was simply proposing that the former king also could be brought into the discussion as different options for finding a way out of the crisis were being considered.”

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No one asked why he [Gyanendra] should be made a stakeholder.

An official from the President’s Office went to Gyanendra’s residence, Nirmal Niwas, about a kilometre away. The former king replied that he would attend only if the major political parties formally invited him in writing.

That exchange captured a larger upheaval. For five days, Nepal’s political centre of gravity shifted from Singha Durbar to Jangi Adda, the Army Headquarters. The Army, shaped by the country’s long transition to democracy, found itself at the centre of negotiations over what would happen after the protests overturned Nepal’s political order. Kantipur said it interviewed participants and officials over four weeks to reconstruct how that transition unfolded.

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What the [Army] Chief proposed did not mean restoring the monarchy. He was simply proposing that the former king also could be brought into the discussion as different options for finding a way out of the crisis were being considered.