Some of the lingering questions about the prelude and the exact sequence of events of the royal massacre exactly ten years ago this week will perhaps never be known. Many of the protagonists were killed, most who survived don't want to talk. But one thing is for sure: the killings left an indelible mark on Nepali politics, eventually closing the curtains on the monarchy.

King Gyanendra, soon after his enthronement told his people he was not like his brother, and made it plain he was not satisfied with just a ceremonial role. He had a visceral hatred for political parties and their leaders, who would actually have been natural allies of the monarchy against militant republicans. But the king chose to sideline them through a series of 'creeping coups' after 2002 and the final 'coup de grace' on 1 February, 2005. Politicians, civil society activists and students were arrested. The army was deployed in newsrooms to directly censor content. Nepal was an absolute monarchy again.

The Maoists, for their part, felt the massacre was a god-send. They were emboldened to telescope their revolution and within five months attacked army bases. The war intensified dramatically: more people were killed in the one year after November 2001 than were killed in the first six years of the war.

By November 2005, alarmed by the possibility of a Maoist military victory in Nepal, New Delhi brokered an alliance between the Maoists and the seven parties. Even then, most political leaders, civil society and academics were against an autocratic king not because they were republicans, but because they wanted to preserve the monarchy. They believed an absolute kingship would eventually push the country towards republicanism. Gyanendra played his cards all wrong, and it took only 14 months for a people power movement to force him to restore parliament.

The war ended, but peace was elusive. For two years the king remained in the palace and the country was a "royal republic". Nepal went from a Hindu kingdom to secular republic, armed guerrillas faced elections, won it and formed a government. The new parliament formally abolished the monarchy in July 2008.

Seven years after the royal massacre, Gyanendra held his last press conference as king at Naryanhiti. An institution that was responsible for the formation of the Nepali nation was delinked from the army that helped achieve that unification. Unlike the demise of other monarchies around the world, however, there was no climactic bloodshed. The king wasn't decapitated, he wasn't hounded into exile, his palace wasn't sacked.

Most Nepalis, despite the erosion of respect for the monarchy following the massacre, still made a distinction between the persona of the king and the institution of monarchy. But Nepal's monarchy was ultimately sacrificed to save the peace process. The Maoists needed a revolutionary cause, a trophy, to justify ten years of a wasteful war. In later negotiations, they repeatedly threatened to go back to conflict if the monarchy were not abolished. They needed to prop up an enemy to bring down to prove that it was a victorious revolution.

The moderate political parties realised that the monarchy needed to be sacrificed to keep the peace process on track and appease the Maoists. Party leaders had no love lost for a king who had treated them like an enemy since the massacre thrust him onto the throne. In hindsight, the man who did more than anyone else to make his country a republic turned out to be the king himself. He had no one to blame but himself not just for his own downfall, but for the end of his dynasty.

King Gyanendra must have known that he had a public relations problem, and that most Nepalis still blamed him for the murder of his popular brother. He tried to remedy this over the years and in his last press conference, but by then it was too late. The public mood was that it was just too much trouble to keep the monarchy.

The Maoists had portrayed the monarchy as the root of all evil, and promised things would get better with a republic. Three years later, most Nepalis feel the abolition of the monarchy hasn't made much of a difference. It may be tempting to take this to mean that the people are so fed up they want the monarchy restored. That isn't likely because of the personal unpopularity of the ex-king and his son. Even if the crown was somehow reinstated, the last king is likely to continue to be more of a divisive figure than a unifying one.

Ten years later, the most surprising thing is how quickly most Nepalis have forgotten that this country was ruled by a monarch. The massacre seems like it happened in the distant past, a fairy tale with a sad ending. It is as if we all want to forget this tragic part of our history and want to move on.

But move on to what?