"The Royal Palace Massacre, Rumors and Print Media in Nepal", Studies in Nepali History and Society,...

THE ROYAL PALACE MASSACRE, RUMORS AND PRINT MEDIA IN NEPAL | 3

Studies in Nepali History and Society 18(1): 3–32 June 2013© Mandala Book Point

THE ROYAL PALACE MASSACRE, RUMORS AND PRINT

MEDIA IN NEPAL

Marie Lecomte-Tilouine

The relationship between rumor and the news media, as two public means ofdisseminating knowledge, is a complex one, made up of analogies, oppositionsand interactions. Rumor is generally defined by the anonymous, unfoundedor unverified nature of the information it conveys, whereas the news mediarely on investigation. However, this last dimension is usually kept secret inthe same manner as the media’s reports on ‘public opinion’ often relate to the‘social magic’ by which a reality is pronounced. These two opaque aspectscontribute to bringing the media closer to rumor as an unverifiable orunfounded source of information. The difference is that a journalist and/or anews medium director claims responsibility for the authenticity of a report,and his or her professional activity is guided by a code of conduct, in theabsence of which s/he is likely to lose his or her credibility. Like rumor, whichmay cause panic or violence (and may also cause the authorities to takeaction),1 the media influence the two main sources on which they feed: the‘top’ and the ‘bottom’ of society. Yet while rumor eludes investigation becauseof its ungraspable, oral, interpersonal mode of dissemination, which preventsthe exact reconstruction of its modalities, the media’s narrative content ispublic, circumscribed and fixed. In the case of the print media, the magisterialdissemination of knowledge to the public in a formal manner is furtheremphasized by the writing and editing process (including not only the choiceof topics, vocabulary, syntactic constructions, etc. but also the layout,illustrations, etc.).2 These aspects, which contribute to molding publicopinion, are thus also offered up for analysis. The print media’s visibilityencourages debate and argument, whereas informal and anonymous rumoris a matter of belief. It goes without saying that these two modes ofdisseminating knowledge are not independent of one another (with the first

1 Within the vast body of literature devoted to rumors, Edgar Morin’s seminal essay,Rumour in Orleans (1971) is worth reading.

2 On the powerful role of the mass media in giving visibility to scandal, see Thompson(2000).

4 | MARIE LECOMTE-TILOUINE

giving visibility to the second) or of the wider social and political context. Inparticular, rumors and the media are largely responsive to (and creative of)events, and it is therefore in reaction to a highly disruptive event, theassassination of the royal family in the palace in Kathmandu, that we chooseto investigate their relationship and the interplay between them.

The facts can be summarized as follows. On the evening of 1 June 2001,shooting took place where the royal family was gathered for a dinner withinthe palace. The bullets killed King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya, as well asseveral members of the family, and fatally wounded the heir, Crown PrinceDipendra who passed away after spending two days in a coma. Gyanendra,the deceased king’s younger brother was absent from the palace, and hiswife and son survived the incident, even though the latter two had attendedthe dinner. With his elder brother and two nephews now dead, Gyanendraascended the throne. The crown prince, whose fatally wounded body wasfound at the scene, was identified as the gunman.

The palace massacre generated narratives in abundance. The storieswent in numerous directions and emanated from all social spheres. Thesewere all conditioned by the positions of those who spread them, but thisaspect will not be addressed here directly.3 Indeed, our aim is to examine thereciprocal links between journalism and rumor in relation to an event. Itappears that in this case the print media, to different degrees, gave visibilityto rumors but that some of them simultaneously condemned them. Yet, Ipropose not to differentiate them, believing that despite their position andqualitative difference, dissemination and visibility matters more than thepositive or negative connotation. Further, the event chosen for this study isendowed with strong specificities. Firstly, it generated such an immenseneed for information that the boundaries between various categories of mediawere blurred. Indeed, people were seen reading and buying many morenewspapers than in other times. Secondly, its brutality and opacity sparkedrumors. Although this is practically impossible to quantify, we choose it as aremarkable self-created event for which the media brought about a ‘shift in

3 Crown Prince Dipendra’s ‘crime’ in particular seems to separate the Right, whichaccepts it, from the Left, which refuses to believe it. Newspaper headlines show diametricallyopposite views. While a headline of the weekly Dhunge Dhàrà (2001: 1) reads: ‘Whowould have thought that a prince as friendly as Shri 5 Dipendra could kill his family?,’ theweekly Janasattà (2001: 1) assumes that there was a hidden conspiracy, fomented by anunknown instigator: ‘Who has conspired to shoot bullets at the royal palace?’


intelligibility,’ opening up a wide scope of possibilities, and which representeda ‘dividing line’ between a before and an after.4 As we will see, the royalpalace massacre transformed sections of journalism into what could bedescribed as ‘written rumor.’ The news media also sought to contain publicrumor, as if they were competing with it for a monopoly on knowledgedissemination and were threatened by its independent, anarchic growth. Infact, the rumors ascribed to the crowds and those contained in (or possiblyfabricated by) the press form a continuum.

In the case of the palace massacre, the chief uncertainties were aroundthe causes, the scenario and the actors’ roles, not about the event itself: thebrutal murder of the royal family. There was therefore an objective foundationof the rumors. This aspect makes them akin to commentaries or developmentsand distinguishes them from ‘urban legends’ or rumors whose point ofdeparture is unknown, and which may not even be ‘factual.’5 Despite thefactual basis, the rumor-like content of the press coverage was particularlydeveloped. That raises a question as to why the press turned ‘rumoristic’: Isit because in dealing with public figures, it adopted the ‘scandal’ style commonfor covering such topics? Was the event so transgressive that there was noother way to refer to it? Is it because the media’s imagination was enhancedby the opacity of the palace, the ‘black box’ of the kingdom, and that anyquest for the ‘truth’ in such an opaque sphere called for an examination ofpossible agency or cause behind the ‘facts,’ and of possible facts behind theofficial ones?

The ‘black box effect’ is certainly strong. The palace was a strictly privatesphere, yet at the centre of power and of the information network, with itsactions a subject of concern for the whole nation. The particularities of theroyal family, with their freedom of action beyond any legal constraint or

4 For a rich debate on the reluctance to discuss events in the social sciences, see Bensaand Fassin (2002). Their main argument is that, by focusing on structures, the socialsciences (mainly, sociology and social anthropology) deal with events reluctantly andreduce them to social contexts and media constructions.

5 The royal palace massacre contradicts Dampierre’s idea that the audience primarilydefines a scandal (Dampierre 1954). In this case, the very nature of the scandal, theuniversal categories of transgression (regicide, parricide, matricide, fratricide; here allcombined) which it involved, created its world-wide audience. For an interesting discussionof the ‘reality’ of scandal, see Ehrat (2011, chapter 9), who approaches the reality as a‘meta-text’ and argues that the news media play an integral role in the creation ofscandal because they interpret events as purposeful actions for the public.


investigation (in so far as the law did not apply to them) or economic constraint(as their means were also ‘limitless,’ so to speak, compared to those of theirsubjects) always had the potential to generate rumors. Political and familyaffairs were confused and kept secret at the top of the state in Nepal. Newsrelated to the palace often tended to take the form of revelation. It is thusimportant to quickly review these old rumors, and to assess their influenceand development after the massacre.

Birendra, the assassinated king, was above any rumors. But he wassurrounded by close relatives with a sulphurous reputation. To start with,Queen Aishwarya certainly had such a reputation, partly because, like mostprevious queens of Nepal, she was born into the feared and hated Ranalineage that had usurped power for more than a century (1846-1951). QueenAishwarya was depicted as a dreadful, irascible character, whose authorityover the king was dangerous. When she was seen in her black sedan with itstinted windows, yet protected by her sunglasses, city-dwellers mutteredthat she was on her way to the airport to pick up the gold that customsofficial had seized. As for villagers, they would say that she was organizinglarge hunting parties in the royal reserves, and taking part in this activityherself, despite it being strictly forbidden for women. Rumors concerningthe queen intensified as the political situation worsened in the kingdom.During the 1990 anti-Panchayat protest movement, it was said that she hadtried to poison her husband to prevent him from granting the multipartysystem. In 1997 she was even accused of masterminding India Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi’s assassination, as reported by The Indian Express.6 As we willsee, just after the palace massacre, the queen was the first to be accused bythe population and the media alike of being responsible for the bloodshed.She was said to have provoked the fury of the crown prince by opposing hisunion with the girl he loved (a version that is hard to reconcile with the factthat the king was the first to be shot and the queen the very last).7 The queen

6 Indo-Nepal relations came under a bit of a strain thanks to an intelligence reportwhich refers to an unverified tip-off that Queen Aishwarya of Nepal had paid money forhaving Rajiv Gandhi assassinated (Kapoor 1997).

7 According to another explanation, published in the weekly Jana âsthà in May2001, the queen caused the massacre by entering into a forbidden room in the Gorakhkalitemple in Gorkha that had been opened the week before the event. Quoted in‘Tutankhamen-like Curse Killed Nepal’s Royal Family?’ Available at: www.hotspotsz.com/printout3190.html. Accessed 14 September 2014.


herself met her death in the massacre and her ‘guilt’ no longer had anysignificance. In fact, becoming a victim, she was somewhat rehabilitated andmerged with her husband the king in the formulaic term ràjà-rànã. It was thenon the king’s brother Gyanendra that suspicions converged. Rumors abouthis alleged role in the bloodshed grew over time, culminating at the end of2006, when a book published after his dethronment met with resoundingsuccess and at last described the ‘real’ facts.8 The coincidence is remarkable.So is the enthusiastic reception of the not so new explanation at the time.

His structural position seems to predispose the king’s brother to crime.As a member of the royal family, he is situated above the law. Unlike the king,however, he has no responsibility, and no role to play. He is imbued with thekingship’s negativity and its many associated crimes irrespective of hisinvolvement. Thus, Gyanendra was already unduly accused of various countsof trafficking, including sacred works of art.9

Such an examination of long term rumors reveals that their content fulfilsa central role in social regulation. They conform and help strengthen specificfunctioning structures. These structures are present in other spheres, notablyreligion. Such was also the case of the king’s negativity which rumors putdown to his close entourage in the same manner it is ascribed to surrogatesor scapegoats in numerous rituals and myths.10 The analogy allows us toconsider the king’s spouse and brother as ‘social scapegoats.’ The sacrificiallanguage that prevails in Nepal contrasts with the African idiom of witchcraft,which is often at the root of rumors, such as in the case of the rumor of theftof sex (Bonhomme 2009). In Nepal, when rumors include supernaturalelements, they are systematically attributed to gods, and often depicted asconsequences of human transgression towards them. In one word, agencyis divine, whereas in witchcraft, agency is human. Yet the two languagesshare the features of stemming from a ritual framework, and of developingoutside the ritual sphere in a rumoristic realm. The nature of the negativity at

8 Raktakuõóa, the ‘historical novel’ by Krishna Aviral, was published in December2006. One might argue that it was written earlier than its date of publication, but itswarm reception coincided with the end of the king’s rule (see Hutt forthcoming).

9 Gyanendra was regarded as being at the core of the so-called ‘Underground Gang’(bhåmigat giroha). See Maharjan (2013) for further details. Dipendra, though knownfor his love of weapons and for his drinking habits, was not usually an object of criticismand was mostly spared by rumors, perhaps because he was the future king.

10 On the royal monstrous doubles, see Lecomte-Tilouine (2009, Chapter 6).


play in the two spheres shifts: while in the context of rituals it is mainlyconcerned with purity, in case of rumors, it relates to morality.

The long existence of rumors of unbelievable wrongdoing also suggeststhe co-existence of the factual/apparent and official reality with the supposed/hidden and unofficial reality, each with its own modalities. Interestingly, thesetwo realities seem to have merged in the palace massacre. The event preservedthe obscure and dreadful narrative reality at the cost of ordinary discourse andfactuality. It was as if rumors were coming true, as if their normally hiddenmatter was suddenly exposed and invaded the public space. Yet, the visibilityand factuality of the transgression did not result in transparency. Facts beingunspeakable remained trapped behind the palace’s opaque veil.

The Unspeakable News

With the king dead and the incumbent in a coma, the government waited formore than fifteen hours to officially announce the news of the palace massmurder. The remarkable aphasia of the state apparatus contrasted well with theno less remarkable dissemination of news through informal informationnetworks. Rumors largely replaced the media. Few Nepalis had to wait until thefirst public announcement to hear about the event. Through the telephoneand word of mouth, the news reached the millions within a few hours.11

During this interval, media professionals were deprived of official pressreleases and found themselves in the position of ordinary citizens: they werealso informed by their relatives and friends. Reciprocally, those journalistswho carried out their own investigations did not behave differently from therest of the population. Large crowds in the Kathmandu Valley set out insearch of information and undertook their own investigations. At dawn,many ventured as close as possible to the bodies kept at the military hospitalin Chhauni, or to the scene of the crime at the royal palace to make first-handinquiries. In villages, people visited their neighbors, tea shops or nearbybazaars to find out more or to hear discussions. As reported by the press,some even travelled as far as the capital.12 From the outset, much of the

11 I myself was informed by telephone in France when it was not yet 4:00 am inNepal, showing the speed and extent of this interpersonal network.

12 In the weekly Simàïkan Subedi (2001: 2) reports a case of an inhabitant of Jumla,who had lost his appetite, started seeing the faces of the king and queen all the time andfinally left for Kathmandu.


population carried out its own investigations, making the difference betweena journalist and a citizen particularly tenuous. The silence in the statemachinery leveled the knowledge landscape, and abolished the verticality ofinformation transmission. As a result, the print media published many personalstories about how the news had first been heard – so personal is the contentthat it is practically impossible for a reader to discern whether the narrator isa journalist or not.

The weekly Punarjàgaraõ, for example, published a detailed account byMadhusudan Pandeya, that can be summarized as follows:

Phones began to ring from 2.00 am onwards. Someone called me; my friend’svoice was shaky, he could not speak. I thought that something had happened athome, but when I finally heard the news, I could not believe it and thought thathe had had a bad dream. However, I told myself that I too had to pass the newson to others; yet, whoever I called, they already knew about it. The informationwas broadcast at 4.30 am on the BBC and Zee News, and I finally got to knowthat the news (samàcàr), that I had heard was true (satya). Then I spent the timelooking at my watch until 6.00 am, hoping to hear all the facts on FM radio, butnothing came. I knew it was true and I was anxious to know how many dead andinjured there were, and the cause (kàraõ) of the incident (ghañanà). I was eagerto know who had fired. At 7.00 am, there was still nothing on Radio Nepal. Onphoning various people, I learned that among the dead there were the king, thequeen, the crown prince, Nirajan, Shruti, Shobha, Shanti, Sharada, Komal,Dhirendra, Khadga Bikram, Gorakh, Jayanti, a total of 13 persons as well as 12wounded.13 However, some said 12, others 8, others 18, and my mind was full ofunconfirmed (apuùña) news. (Pandeya 2001: 11)

The story of Ram Sanjel published in the weekly Janasattà describes asimilar experience, but in a rural area:

This afternoon [1 June 2001] at 4.00 pm, I told a girl named Sushila Basnet thatSingha Darbar might collapse (dhalna). Why on that day did I feel that verylarge buildings were going to collapse?.... I felt like the sky was falling down andI wanted to put this in a poem. But what happened, I did not get anything, I justfell asleep. On Saturday morning...while I was reading the Geeta...my motherhurried over to me: ‘People say that the king, queen, prince, the whole royalfamily died. Someone killed them with a bomb...’ – ‘Mum, what did you say?Without royal authorization no one can go to the palace: the army stands guardthere day and night.’ ‘Go to the store, you will see (dekhna) the rumors,’ said my

13 Only 10 royal family members were killed or fatally wounded on 1 June. Komal,Gorakh and Shobha were not killed.


mother in an insistent tone of voice, butting in. It was past 9.00 am, and on theradio I heard nothing but bhajans, and my mind froze. While wondering, ‘Is thistrue or not?,’ I went down to the bottom of the valley to the teashop. Thereeveryone was talking about it and I said to myself, ‘whatever happened, it istrue, there has indeed been an accident.’ (Sanjel 2001: 5)

By reporting experiences of the ordinary citizens as they were informedabout the event by their own people,14 the Nepali print media contributed totransforming the empty moment into an event filled with shared experiences.Readers were immediately drawn into it with their own experiences.

The two quoted narratives show how rumors spread, despite the initialdisbelief of the person who hears it, and how their authenticity is confirmed.Thus, the first narrator, Pandeya, re-qualifies the rumor as information,samàcàr, and then turns to the most legitimate media, namely, the state-owned ones, for authentication. The replacemet of the usual programs withsad music increased the state of anxiety and uncertainty. Many ruralinhabitants, in fact, treated the very music as the first message and decodedit as a very bad omen.15 In this manner, the authorities informed thepopulation, just as the divine powers do, by spreading an obscure messagewhich was specific enough to make them interprete it as an announcement ofa dramatic change in the course of things.

A brief review of how the event was daily reported in the press willprovide a more detailed framework for our analysis by reconstituting theoutline of the overall context and coverage of the massacre.16

14 Suryaman Gurung (2001: 1) recounts how he heard the news by telephone at 2:00am in Taplejung and thought it was a military coup. Nayƒ Kiraõ (2001: 3) also publishedsuch a narrative, but written in the third person. The description is notable for using theverb sakna, meaning ‘can,’ on the silence of the media: ‘Radio Nepal, Nepal Television,media could not (garnasakenan) disseminate information on the incident,’ as if it werea question of capacity.

15 The Kathmandu Post of 3 June 2001 also underlines how in Dhangadi, the ‘sad tuneand hymns’ broadcast on the state-owned radio and television were perceived as a signthat something had gone wrong. The Rising Nepal of 3 June 2001, also reported, ‘WithRadio Nepal and Nepal Television interrupting their programs with mourning tunes andmusic, they suspected the worst.’

16 For an elaborate review of the coverage of the royal palace massacre by eight dailynewspapers, see Parajuli (2002). Parajuli pinpoints the lack of investigation, coordinationand teamwork among journalists, as well as their questionable use of sensationalist termsand anonymous sources. On the other hand, she stresses how the print media helped tomoderate the emerging violence in the population.


First Coverage in the Print Media

Very few newspapers covered the event on 2 June 2001. Apparently at thelast minute, Space Time Today managed to announce in big white letters ona black background: ‘Shoot out in Palace; worst feared.’ It reported rumorsof gunshots heard in the palace ‘around 10:30 at night’ and the concern that‘some lives have been lost in the incident.’ The Kathmandu Post printed aspecial edition on that date, late in the evening after the royal funerals. Thenewspaper matched the solemnity of the moment by publishing officialpictures of the departed king and queen, of the (dying) new king Dipendraand of Gyanendra who held the regency because of the new king’s physicalcondition. Regent Gyanendra, unlike the others, was presented in anunflattering portrait in which he sticks out his tongue. The pictures wereaccompanied by detailed biographies of these characters and the protocolsfor royal funerals and ascending the throne. The front page article gives thefollowing explanation for the assassination, taken from ‘anonymous’ but‘close to the royal palace’ sources: Crown Prince Dipendra ‘angry at hisfamily for refusing...the woman he loved, had fired...’ The write-up castssome doubt on the state of health of the crown prince, who despite beingseverely wounded and possibly the murderer of his own family, wasappointed the king. Indeed, it uses the past tense to suggest that he wasalready dead: ‘Sources say, the Crown Prince then shot himself, doctors...havetried valiantly to save his life.’ Doubt about the prince’s culpability alsoinfuses the rest of the newspaper, when, for instance, it is a question of a‘...suspicious massacre allegedly triggered by Crown Prince Dipendra...’(emphasis added). But the newspaper does not stick to a clear-cut position.It adds, ‘the reason behind this insane act is yet to be confirmed,’ assumingthat the act was not a plot but a fit of insanity. Finally, the newspaper reportsthe wrath of the crowd towards Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, withoutgiving specific explanation for it, and imagines the worst: ‘even Nepal’sexistence could come under threat.’ The press could hardly restore the tranquilflow of life for the reader who was caught up in these uncertainties and thealarming information.

Himàl Khabarpatrikà also published a ‘Special Bulletin’ on 2 June 2001.The magazine states that its information was obtained from ‘the palace, thehospital and other sources.’ Then it narrates events, attributed to ‘sourcesclose to the palace,’ in quotes as if the source was a single person. It saysthat the crown prince left the dining room, returned with two automatic rifles


and started shooting; he then left again, changed clothes and came back tofire again. Finally, he went into the garden where he shot himself in the head.For Himàl Khabarpatrikà, the facts and the gunman’s identity areunambiguous, but his motive remains unclear. Like The Kathmandu Post,the magazine casts some doubt on Dipendra’s physical condition with theheadline: ‘Dipendra, as king.’ The report ends the Bulletin by describing acrowd in search of information: walking with live radios, and buying printoutsof the websites that posted information on the incident. It explains that in theabsence of a ‘clear/unquestionable account’ (sahã vivaraõ), rumors,discussions and gossips (hallà, carcà, paricarcà) prevailed and that chaosgrew in the capital, implicitly linking confusion to rumors.

For Nayƒ Saóak, following an argument between the queen and theprince about his marriage, ‘everyone was killed by the bullets fired by amachine gun’ (mesin ganbàña calàiyeko golãbaña...hatyà bhayeko cha). Theuse of the passive was perhaps to avoid designating someone as the shooter.Then the newspaper sums up a version of events from the online newsportal nepalnews.com. This, it says, actually came from ‘a source close tothe royal family,’ identified the prince as the one who fired the shots. Nayƒ

Saóak traces in detail how the story had circulated: ‘from 11:00 am, the newsspread like a wildfire in the capital...all night the phone lines were busy.... Atthe very outset, at 12:18 at night, nepalnews.com posted on its website thatPrincess Shanti R.L. Singh had died, but on Saturday morning, the BBC andCNN broadcast the news citing sources close to [Prime Minister] Koiralaand the army.... The Home Minister, Ram Chandra Paudel, told Reuters thatthe crown prince had shot others, then himself.’ This information, which didnot meet with any assessment on that day, was soon to be the object ofharsh criticism by the Nepali media, including Nayƒ Saóak, three days later.

On 3 June, The Kathmandu Post reprinted some of the content of its 2June special issue but focused on the national mourning and messages ofcommiseration. It once again touched upon the question of the prince’smarriage, but presented a nation ‘speculating as to the causes’ of themassacre. The country was united by a common query, yet divided into twogroups of what we can call ‘unbelievers’: the proponents of ‘I do not believethis happened’ and those of ‘I do not think that Prince Dipendra did this.’The paper reported the fears about the future and about the lack of protectionand essential goods.


The Rising Nepal (3 June 2001), a state-owned newspaper, explains thecircumstances of the transfer of power to Dipendra and the regency ofGyanendra. It does not refer to ‘killing’ or ‘shooting’ at all but mentions‘death,’ ‘dead,’ ‘injured’ and an ‘unanticipated incident at Narayanhiti RoyalPalace.’ It draws up a long list of people with their full name and age,announcing: ‘passed away in the same incident...also died in the sameincident,’ etc. The newspaper provides a meticulous description of the lastrites, and the biography of each of the deceased, illustrated with photographs.It speaks of the shock and the grief of the nation. But apart from pages 1 and7, where the story appears the newspaper devotes the remaining space toother topics, thus indirectly conveying the message that life must go on.17

The next day, 4 June, The Kathmandu Post announces that KingDipendra18 is in a critical condition and that, according to Regent Gyanendra,the ‘shooting was accidental,’ but adds that this announcement, which hemade in the morning, ‘was an attempt to quell various rumors.’ The newspaperreports that according to anonymous ‘observers,’ ‘anger rises because ofthe lack of information.’ People were said to be shouting, ‘hang the murderer’and were visibly seeking archaic forms of punishment to the guilty partyrather than mere ‘information.’ The Kathmandu Post evokes the myth of theend of the dynasty after eleven generations, even though King Dipendrawas still officially alive, as well as Regent Gyanendra and his descendants.By quoting the Maoist leader, Prachanda’s ‘Appeal,’ the paper also refers tothe end of ‘this political system,’ and to a ‘political conspiracy’ involvingforeigners. Finally, it assimilates the Nepali nation to the royal family andinsinuates that the country might suffer the same fate: ‘...the nation itself willbe the victim of an unexpected incident like this,’ or might become unstableas a result of a ‘foreign move,’ an anonymous ‘lecturer’ is quoted as saying.

On June 4, The Rising Nepal focuses on the regent and his message tothe nation, while King Dipendra is relegated to a small insert on the side,which updates the news about his health. The vocabulary, however, hasevolved: the ‘incident’ is now described as ‘dreadful,’ ‘tragic,’ ‘unnatural,’‘serious,’ ‘unanticipated’ and even called a ‘tragedy.’ Space Time Today still

17 Space Time Today devotes three of its eight pages to the royal family. Its headlineannounces that Dipendra and Gyanendra have been proclaimed king and regentrespectively, and it provides biographies of the royal family, their photographs as well asthe funeral proceedings.

18 Further on, Dipendra is presented as ‘a gem of a person.’


gives relatively little space to the royal family, devoting only a quarter of itscontent to the subject. It replicates the regent’s message, but also a summaryof the public appeal made by the Maoist leader, Prachanda.

On June 5, The Kathmandu Post announces in large letters ‘RegentGyanendra crowned New King’ and records King Dipendra’s death in a smallerfont. The newspaper reports that the crowd has braved the curfew to followDipendra’s funeral procession, explaining that their motivation was to get tothe ‘real truth.’ The media does not explain why Gyanendra’s only son was notmade crown prince by his father following the accession to the throne of theformer that took place the same day. Similarly, the newspaper published aphotograph with the caption: ‘policemen firing tear gas at Darbar Marg todisperse the enraged demonstrators who were chanting slogans against newlyproclaimed King Gyanendra,’ without explaining the reason for their anger orestimating their number. This important piece of information is not onlydiscretely ‘inserted’ as a caption. The reason for doing so also remains unclearfor those not in the loop, giving free rein to readers’ imagination.

On this day, The Rising Nepal devotes its issue to Gyanendra’s accessionto the throne and to the setting up of a ‘high level committee’ in charge ofinvestigating the royal murders. The paper presents a profile of his majestyand an assessment of his wife’s health. Only a small article at the bottom ofthe page announces King Dipendra’s death. His funeral, organized with fullstate honors, is described with no mention of the curfew imposed for theevent. A few messages of congratulations to the new king and ofcommiserations for the departed still appear in the newspaper, but again, theroyal family does not take up even a quarter of the paper’s content.

The main headline in the Maoist weekly, Janàde÷, dated 5 June 2001reads: ‘Emphasis on raising the movement of the patriots and supporters ofthe people (janavàdã) against the fascist and anti-national forces’ (Janadesh2001a). But the write-up reports on the royal funeral and the accession ofGyanendra in a matter-of-fact style, with no derogatory adjectives. Thetraditionalist stance in the ‘revolutionary’ weekly is rectified in its specialissue dated 7 June, which re-publishes the contents almost ad verbatim,except the article on the accession to the throne, which is replaced by a fiercecriticism of Prime Minister Koirala.

On June 6, The Kathmandu Post announces that the protest movementis swelling, and about to turn into ‘nationwide unrest’: two dozen peoplehave been battered by the police, deaths have occurred in Kathmandu and


Jhapa, and 540 arrests have been made. But the paper plays down the alarmistpicture by concluding that the situation, according to ‘analysts,’ does notreflect anarchy but uncertainty. Similarly, the paper sees a double message inthe many shaven heads in the streets: not only that ‘the king is dead,’ butalso ‘long live the king.’19 On page 8, the paper reveals, incidentally, thatPrince Paras [the newly crowned King Gyanendra’s son] ‘suffers from animage problem’ but, again, it plays this down at once: ‘that could change ifthe prince involves himself in good works.’ On that day, it also publishes apiece which denies rumors about the poisoning of drinking water and milk.

The same day, cattering mainly the congratulatory messages and a profileof his majesty, The Rising Nepal reports in a roundabout way that ‘curfews’had been set up to combat ‘hooliganism.’ The state-owned paper also includesan official message: ‘Govt alerts people against rumors: ...various baselessrumors are being spread currently with the intention of disrupting law andorder...like poisoning of milk and drinking water at their very sources, anddisappearance of certain persons.’ The wording made it clear that thegovernment considered the spreading of these rumors was intentional. Themessage goes on to ask informers to come forward: ‘The Ministry has alsorequested one and all to report to the Home Ministry on phone numbers...ifthey hear any baseless and fictitious rumors.’ The story does not say howmany telephone calls they received or what was regarded as ‘baseless’ and‘fictitious’ at the time. But for the first time, the government-owned newspaperpublished on page 3 a more dramatic version of the situation: ‘The day after,’by MRS, compares the massacre to an earthquake and depicts it as a ‘titanicblow’ which has caused ‘collective agony’ and ‘a sense of uncertainty.’

There is no space here to pursue this exercise any further, but we cannotignore the political dimension of the press that seemed to be suspended brieflyafter the shocking event. It burst forth on the day when the mainstreamnewspaper Kàntipur offered an op-ed by the revolutionary leader BaburamBhattarai (2001), who used offensive text to criticize the government and theking. Consequently, two directors and the chief editor at the KantipurPublications group were arrested. On June 7, The Kathmandu Post’s large-

19 The newspaper reports the most extreme reactions: prisoners and even Muslimsshaving their heads to mourn the Hindu king; the departure of an individual to becomean ascetic; a mother and her daughter who ‘went insane,’ as well as two opposingreactions: anti-Paras and Gyanendra slogans in Kathmandu, and rejoicing in Rukum forthe new king.


type front headline reads: ‘Govt muzzles press.’ The Rising Nepal, at the otherextreme, made no report of the arrest and published a short article entitled:‘Kathmandu relatively calm.’ Still, it relayed the government warning to themedia: ‘Minister Joshi asked the press to be more responsible whiledisseminating the news regarding the incident. He also asked the media not torun after the rumors or speculate on anything.’ Two ideologically opposednewspapers thus started making loose statements, either about a global muzzlingor a global threat. The Kathmandu Post is part of Kantipur Publications, whosedirectors were arrested, and exaggerated the reach of the event. The RisingNepal, a government-owned paper, chose to silence the arrest, a silencingwhich represented another form of threat to the media.20 But beyond thiscommon game of opposition, shared features are apparent in the media coverageof the massacre.

‘The Close to,’ ‘Observers,’ ‘Analysts,’ ‘Specialists,’ and ‘the People’

The semantic field associated with the royal palace massacre in newspaperheadlines, together with the keywords, such as king, royal family, palace,incident, assassination, massacre and bullets, places it under the sign ofconspiracy, mystery, and interrogation. Many titles are posed as questions.The three main headlines in Chalphal dated 10 June 2001, for instance, containthe words ‘conspiracy’ (twice), ‘enigma’, ‘question’, and a question mark.Numerous articles suggest the presence of dark and evil forces, such as:‘They try to hide the conspiracy’ (K.C. 2058 v.s.: 1). Others make apocalypticannouncements such as: ‘State of emergency in the country: thousands ofmurders, many missing, hundreds injured, curfew in capital’ (Nispaksha 2001a).Interestingly, the same newspaper also explained on page 8 that the ‘rumors’of poison in milk and water were false. The reader is taken from one extreme tothe other. Most gave an apocalyptic dimension to the mass murder, speakingof the end of a dynasty, of an era, or the end of history. Some viewed it lesslyrically as the end of the monarchy and possibly the end of the nation.

Many reports employed impersonal style and passive construction. Thearticle ‘Who fired that day?’ in the weekly Budhabàr, for examples containsthe following impersonal verbal expressions: ‘it is explained’ (batàincha), ‘it

20 We should note, however, that this government-owned newspaper was not theonly one to condemn Kàntipur. On the second page of Space Time Today, for instance,the publication of Baburam Bhattarai’s article was depicted as a ‘state offence’ and‘treason.’


is brought to our knowledge’ (janàincha),’it is said’ (bhanincha), ‘it issuspected’ (àsaïkà gariyekocha) (Budhabar 2001: 1). The validity of thepresented information relies most often on references to a source. A majorityof these sources are anonymous and thus unverifiable, but are quoted nonethe less. They claim credibility by deriving their authority from three sources,namely proximity, competency, and numerical importance. In the studiedcontext, the first category prevails over the others, and there is a wide varietyof ‘sources close to’ (nikañ såtra), such as to the palace, the commission [ofinvestigation], the hospital, etc.

Based on ‘sources close to the commission’ (àyog nikañsåtra), the Maoistweekly Janàde÷, for instance, revealed that the bullets used had been shot fromfour different weapons and that ‘doctors’ had told ‘the commission’ that Dipendrawas not drunk (Janadesh 2001b). Here information is made convincing by itsfactuality and by referring to two sources that represent the greatest authority inthe matter. Yet, the major problem raised by the article is the commission’s fear ofnaming Dipendra as the killer, which could stir up the wrath of the crowd. Thisalleged fear is so inconsistent with the quoted facts that confusion prevails.

Revelations in the weekly De÷àntar (3 June 2001) also came from ‘sourcesfrom Birendra Military Hospital’: besides the number of bullets and theirlocation (the young Prince Nirajan having been the most targeted withbetween 30 and 40 bullets in his body), we learn that ‘doctors came to performthe post-mortem, but were told to leave because it was not necessary.’ Yet,the same newspaper on June 10, provides diagrams of the shots, based on‘reliable [lit. high-ranking, ucca såtra] sources in the hospital.’

The weekly Jana âhvàn also calls on experts: ‘Specialists in the science ofwar explain that a drunkard cannot change his clothes and quickly load a gun.’And again,‘The scholars who have researched say that a drunkard cannot hita target’ (Jana Aahvan 2001a: 1; emphasis added). In this issue, the ‘rumor’about many collateral victims of the massacre being secretly cremated onSaturday night during the curfew is turned into hard news by being attributedto ‘news sources’ (khabar såtra). Similarly, ‘a witness who does not want tobe named’ testifies to hearing a bang (explosion) at the palace. The testimonywas supported by a ‘woman from Janakpur’ who said, ‘while crying,’ that shehad not been able to see ‘for a week’ her ‘only son’ who works for the army atthe palace. Finally, on page 4 of the newspaper, ‘a source close to the palacewho does not want to be named’ explains that an individual had dressed up tolook like Prince Dipendra ‘for the sum of seven lakh rupees at least,’ and tricked


the palace’s security forces. The journalist commented on these ‘facts’ asfollows: ‘It is not clear whether the individual was wearing a mask or he hadundergone plastic surgery.’ The way ‘information’ is presented in this lastexample is worth mentioning: by relying on a trustworthy but anonymoussource, the comment depicts a difficult-to-confirm scenario in that it involvesidentifying a look-alike who can deceive the security forces themselves. Thejournalist does not question its plausibility. Instead, he casts doubt on themeans used by the mysterious person. That prompts the reader or listener toagree upon the first fact (the existence of a look-alike) even as there isuncertainty about the means used (mask or plastic surgery).

While the print media intentionally blur their key sources of information,they often provide the exact identity of the relatively unknown individualsfrom the crowd whom they quote. In this manner they do not contribute toconferring notoriety, but rather artificially establish the reliability of theirsources. ‘Public opinion,’ by which people are turned into a community withfeelings and beliefs, speaking as one, usually refers to political opinion, andthe palace massacre did not fully erase this dimension. This is evident fromthe weekly Jana âhvàn, which announces: ‘... all the people are looking forthe republic and the Maoists. Now, they place their hope in them to save theunity of the nation’ (Jana Aahvan 2001b: 1). Yet, in the days following themassacre, generalization dealt mostly with beliefs and emotions. ‘The peopleare not immediately ready to believe that it is the Crown Prince Dipendra whofired the shots, the people...also do not believe that he could commit suicide,’announces weekly Suruci (2001b: 1). Savin Shakya deals with people’semotions: ‘When Gyanendra was named regent, great anger was tangibleamong the people. But when he became king, the idea that Paras wouldbecome the crown prince enraged them and they rose up in the streets’(2001: 2).21 Similarly, Janapukàr (2001a: 1) reads: ‘The king understood thatthe mob would be angrier if Paras was named crown prince.’

This kind of statement, presented as information, combines an unverifiedgeneralization with a knowledge that is taken for granted, which in this case

21 It seems that the prime minister was the prime target of popular anger: no insultswere addressed to Gyanendra in the days immediately following the massacre, but PrimeMinister Koirala was sometimes portrayed in a very negative light, as in the article byDambar B.K. in Samadçùñi. The piece compares him to a vulture bringing misfortune tothe country: ‘As soon as Girija Koirala is in power, there are murders, plane crashes,natural disasters, more and more police killings and now...the palace massacre’ (2001: 3).


concerns Prince Paras’s past behavior. Such language can therefore be describedas a meta-language grafted on a tacit knowledge of the essential facts.22 Such alanguage dictated the behavior of the crowd and of the sovereign, but wasto remain a mystery for many Nepalis who were not in the loop. Thischaracteristic of journalese probably makes many people from rural areassay that they do not on the whole understand newspapers. Conversely, itdefines the media’s audience. More importantly, the unverifiable nature ofstatements contributes to detaching the media discourse from factuality,and to bringing it nearer to rumors. In this respect, the differential treatmentof anonymous sources based on their origin makes an interesting case.

National and Foreign Media

The credibility of anonymous sources indeed depends on the context ofcitation, as is clear from the 14-20 June issue of the People’s Review. Thepaper relies on anonymous sources on two occasions, yet simultaneouslyslams the practice in ‘foreign media.’ The two references read as follows:‘Some observers and analysts have interpreted these developments asa...surreptitious nexus between the Maoists and some elements inside thepalace’ (Sharma 2001: 5) and: ‘The fact that Shahi’s ‘press conference’ tookplace in the Birendra Army hospital...was also commented upon by one andall, mostly by observers who argued that it suggested Army complicity’Pradhan 2001b: 1; emphasis added). An article by M.R. Josse, published onthe first page of the same paper, denounces ‘sensationalism masqueradingas truth’ and accuses foreign media of stirring ‘the troubled waters in thiskingdom based, among other devices, on quotes from ‘convenientlyunidentified sources,’ including ‘diplomatic ones’ (2001: 1; emphasis added).

We are thus made to understand that, whereas ‘sources close to’ informnational media, the same sources, when speaking to foreign media, are ‘leaking’information. ‘It is worth noting that individuals who made leaks (lik) toforeign news agencies presented Shri 5 Dipendra as the instigator of theroyal palace massacre,’ says Nayƒ Saóak (2001: 1). This conception depictsthe nation as an organization that requires discretion on the part of itsmembers, especially during the times of troubling.

22 Very few newspapers at the time listed the charges against Gyanendra’s son Paras.Janapukàr (2001b) is a detailed counter-example.


The perception of domestic and foreign media is indeed dependent uponthe circumstance, as Madhusudan Pandeya explains in the weeklyPunarjàgaraõ:

The new government is silent. We do not have trust (vi÷vàs) in foreign news. Inother circumstances, we do not believe in the government media, but in foreignmedia. Yet this time, with the event being rather sensitive (sa§vedan÷ãl), therewas more trust in government than in foreign media. However, the news mediacontrolled by the state remained indifferent (udàsãn) to the people in mourning.They forgot their obligations (dàyitva). This is one of the reasons that led thecrowd to snipe at the prime minister during the funeral procession. (2001: 11)

Many considered it unacceptable that the first news about their king’s murderhad come from abroad. They particularly criticized the deputy prime ministerand home minister’s alleged statements to Reuters, given while the governmentradio and television were only broadcasting music. Equally criticized was theversion of the story by foreign media that accused the crown prince of murder.23

Summing up the discontent, The Kathmandu Post (4 June 2001) explainedthat the popular anger was directed at the prime minister and his governmentfor not disseminating information, and at ‘foreigners’ who depicted ‘KingDipendra as a heinous murderer.’ The Kathmandu Post had apparentlyforgotten that it too disseminated the same version of events on its frontpage on 2 June 2001.

These debates show how reflective a world the media make by constantlyfeeding on each other, as if the history of an event were the history of itscoverage. However, when not dealing with ‘foreign’ – especially Indian –media and ‘tabloids,’ this reflexivity looses its critical edge. In fact, the onlycriticisms of the Nepali media involve their suspected collusion with the foreignmedia: ‘On 2 June 2001, Himàl Khabarpatrikà published a picture [whichshows Dipendra examining a weapon] to inform people that Dipendra hadcommitted the murder. What is amazing...is that the same day the Times ofIndia, which is published in India, gave that same photograph and information.This does not seem to be a coincidence’ (Shri Suryodaya 2058 v.s.: 1). The

23 The international media’s ‘lack of good faith’ is the object of Adhikari andMathe’s article, which presents Nepali media as the victim of the international media.‘The victims of misinformation, or incomplete information, are smaller countries,weaker economies, new democracies and those countries that are compelled to rely onthe good faith of others to communicate with the rest of the world in all areas of theirnational concern’ (Adhikari and Mathe 2001: 46).


journalist was outraged by the fact that the photograph was sent abroad andthe way it was used: ‘It is not abnormal for a prince and future king to take aninterest in weapons....’ But he subsequently moderated his indignation to sowthe seed of doubt: ‘Was he planning his crime? Who can say?’ (Shri Suryodaya2058 v.s.: 1).

Globally, newspapers are more prone to quoting each other or toreproducing each other’s entire pieces than to making any active criticism.Many newspapers devoted long sections to the coverage of the murder byvarious media. The weekly Simàïkan contains a ‘best-of’ on two large pagesentitled: ‘The point of view of various newspapers after the royal palaceincident,’ and quotes articles from Gorkhàpatra, De÷àntar, Chalphal,

Ràjdhànã, Space Time, etc. (Simankan 2001: 3 & 7).The press therefore displays a real ‘mise en abyme’ or mirroring of the

information, with one paper citing another paper, which cites a person whoclaims their source is of anonymous origin, which was also used by yetanother paper, and so on. This loop effect is further reinforced by the re-publiction of the entire articles or parts of articles in different issues of thesame newspaper, and by the printing of the same photographs, in one formof news media or another. The re-uses and quotes bring about a strongsense of déjà-vu and circularity. The media thus portray a world that feedsupon itself while supposedly reflecting society’s public debate – ashighlighted by Bourdieu (1994: 5) in another context. Perhaps one of thereasons why the media despise ‘rumor,’ is that the latter follows othercirculation routes.

Rumors and Media

Indeed, rumor does not receive a good press. It is depicted in the media as ascourge that flourishes in the absence of verified accounts. ‘The people, likea blind man feeling an elephant, have to acquire information based onassumptions and rumors,’ laments Kishor Nepal (2001: 1) in Nayƒ Saóak. Inthe same manner, The Kathmandu Post (4 June 2001) deplores the fact thatrumors and ‘the tabloid press’ have ‘an open field,’ without providing furtherdetails. However, following the royal massacre, the vocabulary was notradically different across the board. The above-quoted issue of TheKathmandu Post, for instance, speaks of ‘carnage,’ of ‘bloody massacre,’ of‘fear of going out.’ Furthermore, despite the condemnation, the mediacontributed to the dissemination of the rumors by mentioning them and by


inconsistently presenting an inextricable set of facts and ideas sometimesthem as labelling rumors, and sometimes as information. Take, for example,the following selection of rumors listed by the weekly Sahàrà (2001: 6) thatalso contain some ‘information’ published in other newspapers:

About fifty people died in the palace incident; trucks full of corpses transportedthem, and the dead were cremated in Pashupati on Saturday night.

Dr. [Upendra] Devkota, who took care of the royal family at the militaryhospital, was abducted, disappeared, or was killed.

Poison was poured into water and milk.

Someone dressed up and wearing a mask of Prince Dipendra fired the shots.When witnesses saw Dipendra in other clothes, they realized that it was not him.

The confusion between rumor and information is enhanced in the articleentitled, ‘These are the rumors in the city,’ published in weekly Suruci, whichreads: ‘How is it that all the media say that Dipendra fired shots, and that noone raises the possibility that it was a ‘professional killer’? If this is so, whodid the killing? Will the committee of enquiry provide unbiased information? ...If Paras is appointed crown prince, the Màle [Marxist-Leninist] will start aprotest movement’ (Suruchi 2001a: 1). What is labeled ‘rumor’ here are pointsraised by many journalists in their ‘analysis’ also. The conflation furtherundermines the distinction between ‘rumor’ and ‘information’.

Another article, ‘The murderous episode made more mysterious by rumorsand hearsay!’ is more investigative in nature: ‘What was the motive behindthe collective murder? At what time and how was it perpetrated? Who fired?Twelve days later, Nepali citizens are unable to obtain answers to thesequestions’ (Punarjagaran 2001: 1). The article then goes on to note thedisagreement in the reported times of the massacre (9:00 or 9:15 pm), thepossibility that there was an exchange of fire, the fact that four weaponswere fired while only three were mentioned, the fact that Dipendra was notdressed in military clothing when he was taken to the hospital, a substantiallist of uncertainties and contradictions in the way the event was reported.The word ‘rumor’ is finally used to qualify the possible death of Dipendra atthe spot, the eventuality that many other died in the shooting, the reason forthe curfew was to burn their corpses in secret, and finally the existence of asurveillance camera which supposedly filmed the scene to show that theskulls of the king and queen had been split by a sword. These rumors would


explain why an autopsy was not carried out. Again, that Gyanendra and thearmy committed the massacre is supposedly evidenced by the fact that theydid not allow King Dipendra to be treated abroad. ‘All sorts of rumors havecirculated, but the reason for this will be understood once all light has beenthrown on the incident,’ the newspaper concludes.

In this case again, some of the scenarios that are reported as rumors arenot baseless. They explain disturbing elements, such as the curfew imposedon the evening of the royal funerals, the fact that the royal bodies were notpublicly displayed and that the water suddenly started to flow from somedried or broken fountains (Nispaksha 2001b: 8). Many of these so-calledrumors are therefore deductive, yet they systematically make pessimisticinterpretation of the clues.

It should be noted that the press was also active in clarifying specifictrouble spots. Such is the case of the Nepàlãpatra weekly’s report on theroyal funeral ceremony: ‘Some find it mysterious that the body of the queenhas not been seen, and was carried in a palanquin’ (Nepalipatra 2001: 1). Thepaper explains that it is a tradition to carry the corpse of the queen to thecremation site in her wedding palanquin.

At the other extreme, the print media also used ‘rumoristic language’ intheir common, obfuscating wording to denounce the guilty without actuallyidentifying them. An example is People’s Review: ‘The morning after the Palacekilling, the security council of the Indian government met and the Indian leadersopined that they were keenly observing the developments in Nepal. Theyeven said that the Indian army would move into Nepal...’ The indeterminacy ofthis alarming news is particularly remarkable in an article which is titled:‘Disinform, destabilize and defuse...’ (Pradhan 2001b: 1).

Rumors and the mysterious official musical omen brought the royalmassacre to the public in a continually blurred, anonymous, contradictoryand enigmatic manner, notwithstading the type of media.24 Vague wording,

24 The print media was also peppered with strange inserts in Nepali of the communiquefrom the ministry of communication and information. One in People’s Review reads:‘...leaving aside the idea of murder and violence, each caste, ethnic group, class,community should contribute to...’ (People’s Review 2001: 5). Another published inSamadçùñi reads ‘Superstitions and bad customs lead society to its decline. Rather thanleaning towards superstitions about witches and evil spirits, enlightened citizens shouldtry to solve problems by analyzing the real facts...’ Even if such inserts are a regularfeature of Nepali print media, which enable them to ‘earn’ public funds, their matter, inthis context, added to already fearsome contents.


unnamed sources and alarmist insinuations flourished, that were furtherinterspersed with terrifying rumors, bad omens, premonitions, and frighteningastrological predictions. The form of these rumors was such that they acquireda number of references, making them almost ‘hard’ information. Let us takean example: ‘Several months ago, one former director general of the IrrigationDepartment had recalled a forecast by a sage in a Western Region villagethat one day Prince Paras would be the King of Nepal...both he and methought that it was quite impossible...it seems, the forecast was virtually atruth’ (Pradhan 2001a: 3). This narrative, which is written in the first person,commits the journalist to play the role of a reliable intermediary of an evenmore reliable second intermediary between the reader and the anonymoussage. Such a long chain of information is made more convincing by thestress the piece places on the intermediaries’ initial incredulity. Interestingly,the forecast is not about the massacre, but about one future event that it mayhave triggered. By persuading the reader that the omen is virtually true, thejournalist himself forecasts the future: he links the present reality of themassacre to the future crowning of Paras, which at the time seemed certainfollowing the coronation of his father Gyanendra.

Other predictions found in the press, on the contrary, anchored the presentreality in the past and suggested that the massacre was not in factinconceivable and unforeseen. ‘On 12 Jeth 2058 v.s., the daily newspaperNayƒ Saóak published news (samàcàr) about the harmful event (aniùña)possibly taking place at the palace. On reading this, everyone had laughed.But on the 19th [Jeth], the harmful event did take place there...,’ announcedthe weekly Shri Suryodaya (2058 v.s.). These omens, clearly link themomentous event to a ‘before’ and an ‘after,’ thereby securing historicalcontinuity.

Several newspapers took this exercise even further by using professionalsin this field, such as historians or journalists who quote the work of historians,to trace the history of political crimes and assassinations that have occurredin the royal family. They thus situate the massacre in an ancient nationaltradition.25 As for future prospects, all kinds of scenarios, most of themcatastrophic, were imagined, such as a takeover by the army or the country’sannexation by India. In this field as well, the media again drew uponprofessionals, who predicted no less catastrophic scenarios. One intriguing

25 See, among many other examples, Nepàl Jàgaraõ (2001).


example is found in Jàgaraõ Nepàl, dated 11 June 2001. The weekly publishedthe following interpretation by the astrologer Badri Prasad Ghimire of theastral configuration of King Gyanendra’s moment of accession to the throne:

...because the wrong planet Ketu is there, it is possible that the king will begrieved by his son...because of Mars, it will be necessary to deploy a large numberof police officers in the country...various kinds of disasters will strike ...unimaginable incidents will happen again...there will be a softening of thedemocratic practices of the government, and the confidence in and reverence ofthe people towards the king will be weakened...there will be an atmosphere ofgreat fear....26

The Force of Rumor

The mystery of the mass murder at the very heart of the kingdom was thematter of a thorough investigation in which any small distressing detail waslikely to become the nucleus of a hidden truth of a broader dimension. Thiseffervescence did not go unnoticed. The random spread of rumors which thepalace massacre triggered is rendered in the article ‘Hallai hallàko de÷,’published in Samadçùñi. The article, depicts rather comically, the entire countryas literally shaken by rumors. By playing on the proximity of the wordsmeaning rumor ‘hallà,’ to tremble (hallinu), and to shake (hallàunu), thedifficult-to-translate text reads:

For the country to tremble (hallina), there is no need for a big earthquake.Anyone can shake it. Parties cause agitation in the streets...people are trembling.Police tremble with fear because of the Maoists. The army trembles because ofthe death of the king and queen.... Sometimes the strange rumor/tremor spreadsabout Dipendra that he died on the 1st of June. Sometimes the governmentspreads a rumor/tremor that he survived until the 4th.... Sometimes rumors thatpoison was mixed with water shakes/is ‘rumored in’ the city and each familymakes its phone vibrate/spread rumor in informing their family. This rumor hasshaken Kaushalnath as well. He agitated all the tanks. At other times there is therumor that poison was poured into the milk and the general manager of the MilkDevelopment Organization shakes each bag of milk.... And the country trembleswhen it is shaken by others, sometimes India, sometimes America.... Finally thiscountry trembles as soon as it is shaken. (Samadrishti 2001: 2)

26 The main headline of this issue is also worth quoting: ‘Exchange of fire, Dipendrais shot while trying to save his father.’


Rumor – hallà, hallà-khallà or sometimes ho-hallà – suits the idea ofinformation from an obscure source being passed from one person to another.However, contrary to ‘rumor’ in English (or ‘rumeur’ in French), which evokesa distant, indistinct sound, hallà is endowed with a much stronger intensityand is similar to hubbub, uproar, tumult, or a sound meant to cover upsomething else. In medieval France, for instance, the purpose of the towncrier who solemnly bellowed out the official news was to cover the ‘noise’ ofthe crowd. In Nepal, to my knowledge, the crier, kañwàl, only played (orplays in the regions where they still exist) the role of announcing commonactivities or meetings, while the headman provided official information onthese occasions. Information thus followed the path of the delegation ofpolitical power. It has long been conflated with the latter, with no one otherthan the holders of power being attributed this function. Even as late as inthe 1980s, when few households could afford the luxury of buying a radio (orthe needed batteries), the majority of the rural population received the newsfrom the state-owned daily Gorkhàpatra, which was sent by the governmentto the head of the municipality, who would then publicly read out the newsfor the other mostly illiterate members of the community.

Hallà is a noise that threatens to drown out the official, single delivery ofthe truth. It is said to be fuelled by the fantasies of a society, particularlythose that give meaning to a catastrophic event or a situation of uncertainty.It seems that, in the case studied, it contributed to strengthening nationalunity at a time of crisis. Everyone was not only equally awestruck and afflicted,but also threatened by the same collective dangers: popular rumor spoke ofpoison and the print media of a possible annexation or disintegration of thenation. The analogy between these two ways of passing on knowledge wastherefore reinforced although the danger was immediate and physical in thefirst and subtle and politico-cultural in the second.

We have seen that rumors and information are barely distinguishable inthe Nepali print media coverage of the royal palace massacre. That may besimply because such an extraordinary event confers plausibility on alleventualities. However, a closer examination shows that the range ofpossibilities unravelled by both the press and rumors does not in fact growin every direction. For instance, it is noteworthy that while in June 2001 thesixth year of the People’s War was ongoing, no one imagined that Maoist


rebels or other political forces could have planned the palace massacre.27

More surprisingly, very few commentators explored a possible conflictbetween the crown prince and his father the king, though witnesses reportedthat he shot at him first. Last but not least, it seems that both rumor and/orsome journalists seized upon the opportunity to mark out the future directionfrom the vast range of possibilities. The tangible basis of the print mediamakes this point apparent, but it does not help to solve the question of theintentionality of this inflection.

Such was the case of a prediction, first published in an Indian newspaperthe day after the royal massacre. Based on the information obtained by ‘aKathmandu-based journalist,’ this ‘ancient prophecy,’ as it was called,announced the end of the Shah monarchy after Birendra’s reign.28 Becauseit is based on a legend contained in the chronicle of Gorkha, we immediatelysee that this ‘ancient prophecy’ draws from the chronicle. But the content isradically transformed to agree with the new situation. The new story goesthat god Gorakhnath met Prince Prithvi Narayan and asked him for yogurt.He ordered the prince to hold out his hands to receive the blessing and thenspat yogurt on the outstretched palms, asking the prince to eat it as prasàd

(the remains of an offering). The proud young prince refused and droppedthe yogurt on his feet. According to the new ‘ancient prophecy,’ the godcursed him and announced that his descendants would lose their throne ineleven generations. In the chronicle, on the other hand, the god laughed andtold the prince that he would now conquer any country he stepped into. As

27 In 2009 I asked people in Rolpa and Surkhet districts who, in their opinion, wasresponsible for the royal palace massacre. Many answered that they did not know butthat it was ‘from inside’ (bhitrabàña).

28 The first print version of this story I have found appeared on June 3 issue of The

Telegraph, a reputable Indian newspaper published from Calcutta. The article quotes aKathmandu-based journalist, saying: ‘The entire episode is being constructed on hearsay,there has been no confirmation on how the end came. But since news of the deathsleaked out, the legend of Baba Gorakhnath’s curse has been doing the rounds in thecapital and elsewhere in the Hindu kingdom. The godman’s curse and Prithvi Narayan’sprediction have been in circulation for a few years, and with last night’s tragedy bothseem to have gained credence’ (Pramanik 2001). Gorakhnath’s prediction also appearsin India Today (Mishra 2001). The legend also circulated in the Nepali media, supportedby other rumors, which I have not found in the press, such as the fact that there was noroom left for the portrait of a new king in the row of all the Nepali kings hanging on thePashupatinath temple.


for the eleventh generation, it appears in another episode of the chronicle, inanother prophecy, made to Drabya Shah, the founder king of the dynasty, towhom Gorakhnath said that his eleventh successor (i.e. Prithvi NarayanShah) would gain victory over the kingdom of Nepal. Although anyonecould immediately understand its fabrication, the new ‘ancient prophecy’was disseminated by the press, as it was based on familiar elements in thehistory of the kingdom, and offered a satisfactory explanation for the incredibleevent. It is, of course, impossible to say whether there was a deliberate movebehind the making up, because a thin line exists between ‘making sense of’and ‘giving sense to.’ The resolution will forever remain in the blurred areawhere media and rumor meet.

As the coverage of the royal palace massacre shows, the blurred areatends to expand proportionate to the event’s disruptiveness, gravitatingtowards the hidden alarming scenarios as conveyed by rumor with a parallel,obscure rationality from over the normalized existence and immediatecause/effect. ‘Unbelievable’ and ‘unpredictable’ events, such as theassassination of the entire royal family in an enclosed and inaccessible space,start the confusion between these two rationalities. Yet, it seems that onlythe ‘obscure’ one can restore the disruptive event to normality by highlightingits hidden historical continuity and unsuspected causality. On the one hand,rumor brings meaning to such an event by revealing its links with the earlierrelated facts or events. On the other, rumor also reorganizes the loss ofmeaning due to the disrupting event by turning it to a new direction. Whileit is not possible to determine the performativity of the rumors, it certainlylends meaning to the five years (2001–2006) of crazy, desperate attempts tomaintain a monarchy. This framing of the reality is the most important aspectof the print media, which played a vital role by speaking the unspeakable, bymaking it present and intelligible in many different ways, the most obviousones being the repetition of the facts and assumptions, and the proliferationof questions, suppositions, doubts and suspicions. In this whirling field ofnarratives, the confusion of rumor with information, and the simultaneousdissemination and condemnation of rumor by the print media have helped tochannel and limit uncertainty. That may also have contributed, as we havetried to show, to writing the future path of history.29

29 Yet we cannot say that this emanated from a coordinated conduct between theagents active in the print media, given their lack of ‘team work’ (underlined by Parajuli


Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Mahes Raj Pant who collected a large part of the Nepalipress for me following the royal palace massacre. My thanks also go toPratyoush Onta and Michael Hutt for their valuable comments.

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10 June, p. 3.Bensa, A. and E. Fassin. 2002. Les sciences sociales face à l’événement. Terrain 38:

5–20.Bhattarai, Baburam. 2001. Nayƒ Kotparvalàã Mànyatà Dinu HÒdaina. Kàntipur,

6 June, p. 6.Bonhomme, Julien. 2009. Les Voleurs de sexe. Anthropologie d’ une rumeur africaine.

Paris: Seuil.Bourdieu, Pierre. 1994. L’emprise du journalisme. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences

Sociales 101: 3–9.Budhabar. 2001. Tyo Din Golã Calàune Ko Thiyo? 6 June, p. 1.Dampierre, Eric de. 1954. Thèmes pour l’étude du scandale. Annales ESC IX(3):

329–336.Dhunge Dhara. 2001. ørã 5 Dipendra Jasto Milansàr Yuvaràjadhiràjbàña âphnai

Parivàrko Hatyà Bhayo Bhanne Kurà Kasle PatyàÒcha? (interview with ShivendraBasnet). 14 June, p. 1.

Ehrat, P. Johannes. 2011. Power of Scandal: Semiotic and Pragmatic in Mass Media.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Froissart, Pascal. 2000. L’invention du plus vieux média du monde. MEI (Média etInformation) 12-13: 181–195.

Gurung, Suryaman. 2001. Yaspàlã Ta Kele Siune Kele òàlne Ho. Janapukàr, 14 June,p. 1.

Hutt, Michael. forthcoming. The Royal Palace Massacre, Conspiracy Theories, andNepali Street Literature.

2002), nor even that it was deliberate. We would thus not follow Pascal Froissart’sutilitarian vision according to which rumor is ‘used sometimes as a foil, and sometimesas a tool, by the journalists’ (Froissart 2000: 195).


Jana Aahvan. 2001a. Tatkàlãn Yuvaràj Dipendrale Golã Hàneko Bhanàiprati DarbàrmaiDuã Mat. 10 June, p. 1.

Jana Aahvan. 2001b. People are Looking for the Republic. 10 June, p. 1.Janadesh. 2001a. Ràùñraghàtã Tathà Phàsibàdã øaktikà Viruddha De÷bhaktipårõa ra

Janabàdã ândolanlàã æcàimà Uñhauna Joó. 5 June, p.1.Janadesh. 2001b. Darbàr Bhitra Càravañà Bandukbàña Golã Caleko Puùñi. 12 June,

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June, p. 1.K.C., Chitrabahadur. 2058 v.s. Yinãharåle úaóayantra Lukàuna Khojdaichan. ørã

Såryodaya, 25 Jeth, p. 1.Kapoor, Coomi. 1997. Rajiv Said He Would Secure Eelam for Prabhakaran. The

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in Nepal. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Maharjan, Harsha Man. 2013. An Attempted Assassination of a Journalist: Rethinking

Periodization in Nepali Journalism Historiography. In Ruptures and Repairs inSouth Asia: Historical Perspectives. Yogesh Raj, ed., pp. 103-121. Kathmandu:Martin Chautari.

Mishra, Subhash. 2001. Twist of Faith. India Today, 18 June. Available athttp://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/nepal-royal-massacare-eerie-silence-envelops-gorakhnath-mandir/1/232190.html; accessed 23 June 2013.

Morin, Edgar. 1971. Rumour in Orleans. New York: Pantheon Books.Naya Kiran. 2001. Ràùñrakai Dhaókan Rokiyeko Tyo Vibhatsa ra Hçdayavidàrak Ràt.

8 June, p. 3.Naya Sadak. 2001. Ràjdarbàr Hatyàkànóa úaóayantrako Upaj. 4 June, p. 1.Nepal Jagaran. 2001. Nepàlkà Ràjàharå Ko Kasarã Mare? 4 June, p. 4.Nepal, Kishor. 2001. Anyol, Bhrama ra øokako Sthiti. Nayƒ Saóak, 3 June, p. 1.Nepalipatra. 2001. øavayàtrà SÐgai Uñhekà Yã Anuttarit Pra÷naharå. 8 June, p. 1.Nispaksha. 2001a. De÷mà Sa§kañkàlãn Sthiti: Kaiyau§ko Hatyà, Dherai Bepattà,

SayaÒ Ghàite, Ràjdhànãmà Karphyå. 6 June, p. 1.Nispaksha. 2001b. Pànã ra Dudhmà Viù Hàleko Hallà. 6 June, p. 8.Pandeya, Madhusudan. 2001. 058 Sàl Parva ra Ghañanà Lukàiyeko Tyo Kùaõ!

Punarjàgaraõ, 12 June, p. 11.Parajuli, Rama. 2002. Nàràyaõhiñã Hatyàkànóa: ØBroóa÷iñÙ ko Kavarej. In Mióiyàko

Antarvastu: Vividh Vi÷leùaõ. Pratyoush Onta, Ramesh Parajuli and Rama Parajuli,eds., pp. 49–71. Kathmandu: Martin Chautari.


People’s Review. 2001. Murder and Violence are Social Crimes. 14–20 June, p. 5.Pradhan, P.R. 2001a. On the Record, Off the Record. People’s Review, 7–13 June, p. 3.Pradhan, P.R. 2001b. Disinform, Destabilize and Defuse: RAW Thesis. People’s

Review, 14-20 June, p. 1.Pramanik, Probir. 2001. Curse Strikes without Waiting for Wedding. The Telegraph,

3 June, p. xx.Punarjagaran. 2001. Hallà ra Aphavàhale Hatyàkàõóa Rahasyamaya Thap! 12 June,

p. 1.Sahara. 2001. Yi Hun Hàvàdàrã Hallàharå. 10 June, p. 6.Samadrishti. 2001. Hallai Hallàko De÷. 10 June, p. 2.Sanjel, Ram. 2001. Kavayitrã/Gãtkàr Cƒdanãmà øabda÷raddhàn̂jalã. Janasattà, 9–15

June, p. 5.Shakya, Savin. 2001. ØNàràyaõhiñãparvaÙ Jo Pra÷nai Pra÷na Baneko Cha. Janasattà,

9-15 June, p. 2.Sharma, Ramesh. 2001. Royal Massacre: A Jigsaw Puzzle. People’s Review, 14–20

June, p. 5.Shri Suryodaya. 2058 v.s. ØHimàlÙ ra Øòàimsa aph InóiyàÙ ko Euñai Bolã. 25 Jeth, p. 1.Simankan. 2001. Ràjdarbàr Bhitrako Ghañanàpachi Vibhinna Patrikàharåko Dçùñikoõ.

6 June, p. 3 & 7.Subedi, Baikuntha. 2001. 19 Gate Pachikà Dinharå Kasarã Bitdaicha? Simàïkan,

13 June, p. 2.Suruchi. 2001a. Saharmà Yasto Hallà Cha. 10 June, p. 1.Suruchi. 2001b. øri 5 Dipendrale Nai Golã Hàneko Ho Ta? 10 June, p. 1.Thompson, J. B. 2000. Political Scandal: Power and Visibility in the Media Age.

Cambridge: Polity Press.

Complete issues

Chalphal 3 and 10 June 2001De÷àntar Sàptàhik 3 and 10 June 2001Himàl Khabarpatrikà 2 June (special bulletin) 2001Nepàl Jàgaraõ 11 June 2001Janàde÷ 5, 7 (extra issue) and 12 June 2001Nayƒ Saóak 3 June 2001Space Time Today 2 and 4 June 2001The Kathmandu Post 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 June 2001The Rising Nepal 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 June 2001

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Biographical note

Marie Lecomte-Tilouine is a senior researcher at the Laboratoired’Anthropologie Sociale, Collège de France, Centre National de la RechercheScientifique (CNRS), France. She has been doing research on Nepal for over 25years. She is the author and editor of several books including Hindu Kingship,Ethnic Revival, and Maoist Rebellion in Nepal (2009), Bards and Mediums:History, Culture and Politics in the Central Himalayan Kingdoms (2009) andRevolution in Nepal: An Anthropological and Historical Approach to thePeople’s War (2013). Email: [email protected]

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