ABSTRACT
Supporters of democracy placed great faith in Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev when he succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father in 1972. He was young and approachable, and democrats anticipated a refreshing and original style of politics. Educated in the West, at Eton and Harvard, and then at Tokyo University, Birendra was believed to be a democrat and to have absorbed western, liberal values. But the new king did not usher in a democratic system and those who hailed his accession as the beginning of a new era soon had their illusions dispelled. Birendra may have dropped hints about his democratic sympathies during his perambulations around august foreign educational establishments, but he was converted to the panchayat mentality once back in Nepal.
