Word: mahendra
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Most of the world's newly independent nations lack the traditions and the training to make democracy work. Yet such is the magic of the word that dictators use it to justify their own brand of one-man rule. Indonesia's Sukarno and Nepal's King Mahendra call it "guided democracy," Guinea's Touré has "total democracy," Egypt's Nasser his "presidential democracy." The strongman most entitled to claim "democracy" for an essentially undemocratic system may well be Pakistan's benevolent dictator, President Mohammed Ayub Khan. His catch phrase: "basic democracies...
...rebellions go these days, the one against King Mahendra does not amount to much-in three months' fighting there have been scarcely a dozen casualties. But its consequences could be grave for all Asia, and it has already brought the power of Communist China nearer the heart of the Indian subcontinent. TIME Correspondent Charles Mohr last week reported that King Mahendra is dangerously close to invoking the aid of Red China in his conflict with the Indian-backed rebels against his regime...
Show of Hands. Mahendra, 41, revered as a reincarnation of Vishnu and also known as King of Kings, Five Times Godly, Valorous Warrior, Divine Emperor, ascended his throne in 1955. It had been secured for him by his father, who four years earlier toppled the prolific and powerful Rana family, which had ruled Nepal for a century. The young King was filled with democratic good intentions. A poet as well as a pragmatic politician, he personally edited a constitution for his 9,000,000 people (91 % illiterate) and gave his consent to Nepal's first national election...
...Koirala, who advocated the same vaguely socialistic ideas that animate India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Late in 1960, when Koirala pushed through legislation subjecting landlords to a property tax and expropriating large estates for the benefit of Nepal's millions of landless peasants, King Mahendra abruptly dissolved Parliament, jailed Koirala and as many of his Cabinet ministers as the inept Nepali police could lay hands on. After suppressing the nation's 15 political parties, the King has ruled through an appointed six-man Cabinet headed by brash young Foreign and Home Minister Tulsi Giri...
During Nepal's eight-day festival of Indra-jatra, the Kumari works hard at the goddess trade-receiving the homage of King Mahendra, being toted through the city in a gilt-covered copper carriage drawn by 25 men, giving her worshipers tika (a dot of white powder on their foreheads), getting used to sitting quietly on her throne...