Gyanendra
Gyanendra became king of Nepal because almost everyone ahead of him was shot at a family dinner, and lost the monarchy within seven years. On 1 June 2001 the crown prince Dipendra opened fire in the palace, killing his father King Birendra, his mother, his brother and sister and several others, and then shot himself. The official account gives a refused marriage as the motive. Dipendra was technically king for three days while comatose, and Gyanendra - his uncle, absent that night - succeeded him. Much of the country never accepted the explanation, and the suspicion attached itself to him permanently. He inherited a Maoist insurgency that had been running for five years and controlled much of the countryside. In 2005 he dismissed the government, assumed direct power, cut the phone lines and arrested politicians and journalists, on the argument that the parties had failed to end the war. It united everyone against him. The parliamentary parties made common cause with the Maoists they had been fighting, and weeks of general strike and street protest in April 2006 forced him to restore parliament, which immediately stripped the crown of its powers. The constituent assembly abolished the monarchy in May 2008, ending a line that had ruled since the eighteenth century, and he left the palace for a house in Kathmandu. He has lived in Nepal as a private citizen since, and royalist demonstrations calling for his restoration have recurred without ever becoming a majority position, drawing on frustration with the unstable coalition governments that have followed one another since the republic was declared rather than on any affection for him.
- Lived: 1947 CE – ?
- Nationality: Nepali
- Roles: head_of_state
