Between 1990 and 2008, a series of dramatic political events in Nepal ended 240 years of Hindu kingship and gave birth to a secular, federal, democratic republic, proclaimed by a Maoist-led Constituent Assembly. The kings of Nepal acted as the central figures of Hindu royal rituals, which were simultaneously their lineage rituals and events of national political significance. In some of these rituals, the king enacted his relationship with the deities, who blessed him and sanctioned his kingdom. During the political shakedown, the last king of Nepal was denied access to such royal rituals, but some of the key rituals survived, with changes, in the secular republic.
Anne Mocko's Demoting Vishnu looks at how the political and administrative elites of the interim period (2006–8) orchestrated ex-king Gyanendra's demotion. She shows how they disrupted and appropriated his calendar of royal rituals, some of which they transferred to the prime minister. Remarkably,...
