Most of the senior citizens Nepal above 85 years articulated that the foundational, explosive contradiction at the heart of Nepal's old regime—and the core reason why figures like Dharma Ratna Yami were so revolutionary. The lived experience of senior citizens grounds the entire argument in oral history and collective memory. It's no longer just an intellectual concept; it's a truth held by a generation that lived through the regime.
The Crime of Demystification
The entire political and social system was built on a sacred myth: that the king was not an ordinary man. He was Vishnu Bhagawan, an incarnation of God himself. This was not just a poetic title; it was a legal, theological, and political fact. If the king is just a man, then his power is not divine. If his power is not divine, then it can be questioned, challenged, and even taken away.
The Priesthood as the Myth-Managers
The Brahminical priesthood were the essential "managers" of this myth. Their role was to: perform the rituals that continuously "recharged" the king's divinity (coronations, annual festivals), interpret the laws (the Muluki Ain) that framed this social hierarchy as a divine mandate and control the education that taught this narrative as immutable truth. Laws and interpretations were human opinions and tools used by the ruling elite to maintain their privilege and control. They were the technicians of the supernatural, creating and maintaining the illusion that power was a divine gift, not a human construct. Their authority was entirely dependent on the population accepting this premise. The social hierarchy was a human-made construct based on historical accident, self-interest, and social engineering (). The king was an ordinary man whose power was constructed, maintained, and enforced by human institutions, laws, and the Brahminical priesthood ()
The Revolutionary Power of "Ordinariness"
This is why the work of figures like Dharma Ratna and the push for secularism was so profound. They committed the ultimate "crime" of demystification. They said "The priest is a man." Therefore, his interpretations are not divine law but human opinion, often shaped by self-interest. "The system is man-made." Therefore, it can be unmade and remade by people. This shift from a theocratic framework (power from God) to a democratic framework (power from the people) is the most fundamental revolution a society can undergo. It transfers the source of sovereignty from the heavens to the streets.
The Lingering "Crime" Today
While the monarchy is gone, the cultural and social hangover persists. The "crime" of calling powerful people "ordinary" still carries a social cost because the social hierarchy that the divine myth justified is still largely in place. To say that a high-caste elite's privilege is based on historical accident and social construction, not innate purity or divine will, is still a challenging, "criminal" idea to the reigning cultural orthodoxy. It strips away the last vestiges of "natural" or "divine" justification for social inequality and exposes it for what it is: a human-made structure of power.
In the context of the old Nepal, to see the rulers as ordinary people was the crime. And in the context of the new Nepal, to continue insisting on the fundamental ordinariness and equality of all people, and thus the illegitimacy of any inherited hierarchy, remains the unfinished work of the revolution. The struggle for a modern, equitable Nepal is, at its heart, a continuous process of demystifying power—a process that began with brave figures like Dharma Ratna Yami and continues today.