WITNESS: Royal flaws in focus at birth of Nepal's republic

Gopal Sharma has been a Reuters correspondent in Nepal since 1995, covering the Maoist insurgency as well as the peace process which led to the fall of the monarchy. In the following story, Gopal recounts the royal family's decline.

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Four people, clad in white mourning clothes, carried a dummy corpse in a bamboo coffin.

"Gyane is dead. We are carrying his body to the cremation grounds," they said, using an abusive shortened form of King Gyanendra's name.

Watching the crowds gathered to celebrate the birth of the republic of Nepal last Wednesday, it was clear to me they were not yet done protesting against the king.

I flashed back to 2001, when I was awoken by a midnight telephone call. An old friend was on the line, saying he had heard the Maoist insurgency had exploded a bomb in the royal palace.

The Maoists at that time were still classified as "low intensity", mainly confined to remote villages and valleys in this Himalayan nation and I thought they did not yet have the strength to do this. I was right.

As a helicopter hovered in the sky and after frantic telephone calls, it became clear: Crown Prince Dipendra had massacred his parents and seven other royals at a family dinner, then shot himself.

The reason? The heir to the throne was unhappy over his parents' refusal to let him marry his girlfriend.

I didn't know then that this massacre would be a watershed in Nepal's political history. Breaking the mystique of a once highly revered Hindu monarchy, it turned out to be the beginning of the end for the 239-year-old institution.

POWER SEEPS AWAY

Over the next seven years, the king would slowly lose his grip on the royal office. He was criticized in 2005 for taking absolute power to battle the Maoists, and street protests were widespread the following year as political parties prepared to found a republic.

In Nepal the monarchy has traditionally been seen as a symbol of national unity, so much of the hatred against it was blamed on Gyanendra and his playboy son Paras -- known for reckless driving, nightclub brawls and wild living in one of the world's poorest countries.

In Gyanendra's early days as king, he once sat on a special gilded throne resembling a five-headed serpent god at a Buddhist ceremony.

Devout Buddhists sprinkled holy water and washed his feet.

As his power ebbed away, it was not easy covering Gyanendra's direct rule, worsening Maoist civil war and mounting street protests.