Karena Perronet-Miller

Blood Wedding  4 of 33 / View all

In January 2003, Nepal was in the midst of a long-running civil war that was making a poor nation poorer and seemed to have no end in sight. That didn’t stop the king of Nepal throwing a huge party for the wedding of his daughter Prerana to a wealthy businessman, Kumar Raj Bahadur Singh. Festivities were marked by traditional Nepalese pomp in the grounds of the Narayanhity Royal Palacein . Princess Prerana was the only daughter of Gyanendra, the last king of Nepal.Gyanendra had inherited his throne two years ealrier, after the murder of his older brother Birendra and much of the former king’s family at the hands of the crown prince Dipendra. Here was a chance to forget the sadness and horror and celebrate.

Aristocrats and millionaires from across South Asia had converged on the gardens of the Narayanhiti Palace in Kathmandu. Generals and ambassadors came to pay their respects. Winking medals boastfully shimmered in the winter's sunshine. Their wives wore sumptuous silk saris and exchanged buttery smiles and jewelled appetisers. Most Hindu weddings have a brass band, but Gyanendra had three, collectively straining to grab periodic moments of musical harmonies. Politicians of every party were invited, obsequiously bowing to the king even as they plotted to subvert his power.

Meanwhile, out in the grindingly poor middle hills and plains of western Nepal, the army continued to punish the weakest in society for the continuing insurgency being waged by Maoist guerillas, raping and murdering an innocent girl as they hunted for weapons and sympathisers. Far from tackling the problems that had created the insurrection, the authorities brutally reinforced centuries of division. Victims were caught in the crossfire of either fitting the police profile of a revolutionary or fitting the Maoist profile of being a traitor to the “people’s war”. Either way the result was the same.The human cost of the conflict was catastrophic.

In 2005, Gyanendra swept aside any pretence of elected government and took absolute power. His period of rule was brief. He lost international support and in the face of huge public protests he and his dynasty were swept away, with Nepal’s monarchy formally abolished in 2008.

Commissioned by The Observer,London. .