King Mahendra had the courage to marry the girl of his choice. Unencumbered by the self-doubt that formal education invariably generates, he didn\'t hesitate in translating his impulses into action. His methods were in a way "fundamentalist", but his goals were quite modern. He aspired to do in decades what other countries had taken centuries to accomplish. Rather than follow the Divine Counsel of Prithvi Narayan Shah, King Mahendra chose to follow the isolationist path of another illustrious ancestor-Jung Bahadur Kunwar-Rana.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that King Mahendra began his direct rule after the 1960 coup by revising the civil code that Jung Bahadur had framed, which was itself modelled after the Napoleonic Code that Jung saw in France. Apart from a promise to ban untouchability, there isn't much in King Mahendra's Muluki Ain that can be called progressive.

King Mahendra's faithful courtiers extolled the virtues of the divine king as outlined by Kautilya in his Arthashastra, and missed seeing the futility of discovering a new utopia in nostalgia for an imagined past. Fortunately for King Mahendra, there was a school of thought in the United States at that time which believed that controlled dictatorship was preferable to the pitfalls of communism in emerging Third World democracies.

Those were the days when political scientists at the Center for International Studies at MIT were fashioning the template of the Land and Climate Theory of governance to check the contagion of communism from spreading in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It wasn't surprising that Americans picked up even the salaries of government employees in the wake of the overthrow of parliamentary democracy. King Mahendra's direct rule was bankrolled by greenbacks.

The region's geopolitical environment had changed by the time King Birendra ascended to the throne in 1972. After the setbacks in Vietnam, the Americans were on the verge of withdrawing from world hot spots. The Non Aligned Movement was running out of steam as countries like Egypt and India drifted into the Soviet camp. To continue cautiously with the status quo was perhaps the only choice that King Birendra had, and conservatism became the defining feature of his rule. Let's face it: King Birendra was a likeable person and a good king. But it is no disrespect to his memory to say that he was not cut out to be a great ruler.

Monarchs are compared to their successors and predecessors. King Mahendra was often measured unfavourably against his democratic father. The administrative reign of King Birendra was often unkindly juxtaposed with the paternalistic rule of the pioneer of the Panchayat. The intention of those who extol the democratic virtues of the late king may be to create an ideal for the present ruler to live up to. But history can't be a casualty to these worthy exercises. King Birendra respected the status quo, and when changes had to be made, he ensured that they were orderly and gradual. Call him constitutionalist if you will, but he was no progressive.

It was due to King Birendra's extreme cautiousness that the referendum he declared turned out to be an instrument intended to buy time for the Panchayat regime. Had he been more accommodating, BP Koirala wouldn't have died a broken man, with his life's mission of restoring democracy not even partially fulfilled. It took a People's Movement ten years later to force King Birendra to bestow sovereignty upon his people. As it turned out, his own son, the crown prince, lacked the patience to wait for a favourable decision from his parents. King Birendra shines like a beacon today partly because of the post-1990 political leadership that squandered the freedom he ushered in.

Just when King Gyanendra is about to come out of the traditional period of mourning, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has brought about a virtual political paralysis by dissolving parliament. King Gyanendra is now forced to weigh his options and act. A return to Mahendra-style fundamentalism is not possible because democracy has by now struck roots deep in the Nepali soil. The people may have rejected politicians for the moment, but politics continues to rule their hearts. With the insurgency raging in the countryside, conservatism of the doing-things-the-done-way can't be the escape route either. King Gyanendra has the task of finding a way forward, taking into account these hard realities.

I didn't take notes when I was granted an audience with King Gyanendra some months ago. But I remember coming out of Nirmal Niwas with the distinct impression that the king had already made up his mind about what he intended to do. His purpose in meeting people like us was not to hear what we had to say, but to share his vision of the future. We were his sounding boards.

Given the mess we are in at present, the king will be hailed if he were to take bold and progressive steps to strengthen the fruits of the People's Movement. Then, the threat that Deuba has brought to face democracy can turn out to be an opportunity.

There are enormous risks involved in democratic reversal. Will King Gyanendra be a rational king or an emotional ruler? Time will tell, but one thing is certain: there is no room for any kind of extremism in this politically charged atmosphere. A constitutional monarch, by definition, has to be a judicious mix of the wisdom of contemplation and the power of emotion. The responsibility of a true leader is to resolve the conflicts and manage the contradictions inherent in any system.