THE princess whose forbidden love brought the Nepali royal family to its knees has returned to the Himalayan kingdom to canvass villagers in elections this week that will seal the fate of its king.

Devyani Rana is talking to local women to rally the royalist vote for her father’s political party in an election which is certain to abolish the monarchy and transform Nepal into a republic.

She is the woman for whose hand in marriage Crown Prince Dipendra battled with his family; a struggle that broke him mentally and led him to murder his parents in a palace bloodbath in June 2001.

“People are not reverential here in Nepal,” she said. “They don’t ask about private lives, about what happened, the incident. I’m not a bitter person. I feel I’ve been lucky. I’ve been given a second chance to start my life again.”

The murder victims included the revered King Birendra. He was succeeded by his brother, Gyanendra, whose autocratic incompetence has brought the dynasty to ruin.

Crown Prince Dipendra ran amok and staged a Shakespearian palace massacre, seized by a drunken fury over his parents’ refusal to allow him to marry Devyani.

Using an automatic assault rifle, he shot his father and then prowled the corridors of the Narayanhiti Palace, shooting and killing his mother, Queen Aiswarya, his brother, and six other relatives before turning the gun on himself.

Today, Devyani believes history would have been different had the old king lived. The monarchy, she thinks, would not be at the mercy of its subjects.

“The previous king was such a sweet man,” she said. “You felt happy when you were in his presence, I just felt happy. The current king is one of the few people who makes you feel small. He just looks at you.

“I do feel things would have been different if the incident had not happened.”

Devyani, 36, now says she would never have been happy as queen. “I would have been very restricted and I couldn’t have dealt with that,” she told The Sunday Times in her first public comments.

But many feel she would have humanised, and possibly saved, an institution whose kings were once considered living gods.

“Some of the older generation still want the royal family, but not the younger generation,” she said ruefully.

Devyani is bright, kind, chatty and down-to-earth. Despite being the daughter of a maharaja and an Indian princess, and related to most of the Indian royals, she shops in Next or Marks & Spencer and rummages in some of Delhi’s cheapest markets for bargains.

She jogs in Delhi’s parks, is a yoga evangelist, and retains a fierce passion for women’s rights. She said she was still struggling with the Indian custom of touching people’s feet as a show of respect. “I still recoil from it,” she said.

Delhi became her home when she fled after the palace massacre. She married the grandson of an Indian cabinet minister and built a career with the United Nations Development Programme, travelling throughout India and Pakistan to monitor environmental projects.

She has never discussed what she refers to as “the incident” and she stressed she could not discuss political issues without the permission of her UN employers, but she appeared relaxed to be back in Nepal and eager to help her father rally the royalist vote.

As she stepped onto the stage where her father was delivering a passionate address to villagers in Barabise, a small town nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, the crowd gave her an ovation, shouted her name, and garlanded her in red hibiscus and pink bougainvillea.

She was striking in an orange sari, but her face looks friendlier and less intimidating than the angular beauty she was at the time of “the incident”.

It seems difficult to reconcile her current concerns of climate change and economic development with a life among the machinegun-toting young playboys of Nepal’s royal family.

Before the palace massacre, Dipendra and Devyani’s romance was the talk of Kathmandu. She was a regular visitor to the Narayanhiti Palace and they were often seen dining à deux in the city’s restaurants.

Dipendra’s mother Queen Aiswarya, however, bitterly opposed the love match. She was from a branch of Devyani’s Rana clan which considered itself of higher rank.

She also looked down on the social position of Devyani’s mother as a mere princess of India’s Gwalior royal family.

There were longstanding tensions, too, between Devyani’s father, Pashupati Shamsher Rana, and the king. Her father is a maharaja and the grandson of the last Rana ruler of Nepal.

It was against this backdrop that Dipendra was told he would have to choose between marrying Devyani and keeping his title of crown prince.

The tragedy and the suspicion it aroused gave fresh impetus to the Maoist insurgency in Nepal’s mountain villages. So did King Gyanendra’s dictatorial response.

Between 2002 and 2005 he dismissed three prime ministers before taking absolute power himself.

However, his coup increased his own isolation and brought together the Maoists and the constitutional parties in common cause.

They orchestrated street protests in 2006 which forced Gyanendra to return the country to democratic rule.

The coalition government has already passed a resolution to abolish the monarchy, subject to its candidates winning an inevitable majority in this week’s constituent assembly election.

Even Devyani’s father, whose political life has served the royalist cause, can see little hope for the monarchy after the election and is refocusing his party on democratic opposition.

Despite her campaigning, which she says is purely family support for her father, Devyani has no political ambitions of her own.

Her modest life in Delhi, her marriage to her “wonderful, understanding” husband, and her career with the UN have given her a life outside the confines of royalty and the self-promotion of politics.

“I’ve got one year left at the United Nations. I’m 36 and I want to have a child before it’s too late. I would like to use the skills I’ve learned at the UN to help Nepal,” she said.

“The villagers here are not asking about the constituent assembly, they’re thinking about electricity, roads, water and schools.

“Nepal is such a beautiful country, and we need more to be done, not by politicians, but by people. I don’t understand why people feel they need power to do anything. I have no interest in becoming involved in politics,” she said.

The princess who could have been queen, who might have saved the monarchy from itself, is over it.

“I believe in making your own fate and destiny,” she said.

Rise and fall

1769 Monarchy is founded by Gurkha ruler Prithvi Narayan Shah
1846 Hereditary prime ministers from Rana family take control, rule for more than 100 years
1951 Absolute monarchy restored following coup
1990 King Birendra approves democratic constitution
1996 Maoist rebels begin campaign to abolish constitutional monarchy
2001 Crown Prince Dipendra kills nine members of royal family including Birendra, whose brother Gyanendra ascends to throne and declares emergency rule
2006 Parliament reinstated after protests. King stripped of powers
2007 Parliament votes to abolish monarchy
2008 New parliament expected to approve transition to republic

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