Newslook :: Nepal's Premiere Online Newsmagazine, Since 1999

Western media's craving for Himalyan "exotica" and their unusual enthusiasm for Mustang and its royalty is remarkable. But things are destined to change since questions such as how long will Raja Jigmi Parbal Bista reign and who will succeed him, have never been so louder. By Jonathan Gregson.

Mustang's crown prince takes on the unlikeliest of jobs to keep body and soul together

"Did your trip go well?" Jigme asked with the professional concern of an up-market tour operator. Which, in one sense, he is. Jigme had just organised my journey into the Himalayan kingdom of Mustang - a land so remote that the first European went there only in the Fifties - which had involved travelling on a wiry Tibetan pony for five days up the Kali Gandaki, the deepest river gorge on earth, fording swollen torrents and climbing 14,000ft passes.

Now safely back in Kathmandu, I was sitting with Jigme and his wife in a roof-top restaurant overlooking the great Buddhist stupa at Bodhnath. "Yes, everything worked fine," I said, thinking not so much about the logistics as my interviews with the King of Mustang in his walled city of Lo Manthang. I was researching a book on the Himalayan monarchies called Kingdoms Beyond the Clouds, and the Mustang Raja had been most helpful. "Ah yes," Jigme observed, "my father is a very interesting man."

It is an odd sensation knowing that your travel agent is heir to the throne. But, like our own Prince Charles and other crown princes the world over, Crown Prince Jigme Singi Palbar Bista has had to find new ways to fill his days as he awaits his kingly role. Never one to stand on ceremony, he is primarily a businessman, with a carpet factory as well as Royal Mustang Excursions to run.

Jigme is now 43; his father a sprightly 70-year-old who can stay in the saddle all day. But the crown prince does not let this waiting game stand in the way of his business career. For one thing, Jigme does not have the resources of the Duchy of Cornwall behind him. "I have to earn money," he says, "to pay for the education of my children." Jigme has neither the time nor wealth to be groomed for his future role. He prefers to discuss export markets for his carpets - "Germany is down and too price-driven, so I am concentrating on America" - rather than his royal prospects. "I am happy with my career," he declares. "Though I'm not making a lot of money, I am earning experience."

And while some crown princes may wonder whether they are temperamentally suited for kingship, Jigme faces an altogether tougher dilemma. He does not know for certain whether he will inherit the royal title. For he is the adopted son of King Jigme and Queen Ridol of Mustang, who have no children of their own. So while the present king is twenty-fifth in a line of direct succession that goes back to the 15th century - making Mustang's royal dynasty far older than most European monarchies - he may also be the last.

Although not the king's real son, Jigme is still of the royal lineage. His biological father, the king's brother, was barred from succession because he had been recognised at an early age as a reincarnate lama. So instead he became abbot of the most important monastery in Mustang. There being no restrictions against marriage in this branch of Tibetan Buddhism, the lama fell in love with Jigme's mother. So much in love that, when she died, he went mad with grief and abandoned his child, his monastic calling, and his country.

Jigme was taken into the royal palace and adopted by the childless monarchs. Then, as a dutiful son, he accepted an arranged marriage to a girl from the old Tibetan aristocracy. If Jigme succeeds to the throne then the royal line is secure (he has a teenage son).

But that remains a big if. Back in 1789, the Mustang raja entered a treaty recognising the kings of Nepal as overlords. Since then this remote, Tibetan-speaking region has legally been part of the larger kingdom of Nepal. So the final decision rests not in Mustang, but with King Birendra of Nepal.

Sources close to the palace in Kathmandu suggest that "the absence of a natural heir complicates the situation". Normally the succession is automatic. But in the case of an adopted son, consultations take place to choose a successor who is most acceptable to the people of the area, in the context of the traditions and values involved in the rajaship.

Does Jigme's being a businessman make him any less acceptable? When younger royal siblings in other nations pursue their own careers they are generally applauded. But a crown prince? Working in the media or PR might be OK for the younger royals, but Prince Charles has to stick to official duties or heading up charities. Prince Jigme has no such qualms. Moreover, his business interests restrict the time he can spend in Mustang to familiarise himself with his future role.

The king himself regrets his son's absence. "Jigme still has much to learn," he told me. Among the royal titles is that of "protector of religion". Will this modern-minded businessman, who relaxes by swimming lengths in the pool and listening to disco music, fulfil that role? "As for myself," he says, "I have belief and respect for the Buddhist religion. My father is a very religious man, but I don't have so much time to pray."

So there are doubts - as among other royal families - over whether the crown prince is the right man for the job. What is different is that Jigme is the only claimant left. And Mustang is a last outpost of Tibet's once great civilisation. Life goes on much as in Old Tibet, before the Chinese invaded and the Dalai Lama fled to India. Should Jigme not become king, then a 500-year-old tradition that has helped preserve this unique culture will become extinct.

Courtesy: The Times (London), October 7, 2000

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Book Review:
Kingdoms Beyond The Clouds
by Jonathan Gregson
MacMillan: 2000 (Pounds 14.99)

Tea With The Last Of The Kings

By Michael Williams
If you ever wanted a lesson about how the world is shrinking, this is it. High on the roof of the Himalayas, squashed between the leviathan powers of India and China, is a group of tiny states which have remained veiled in the clouds for centuries. Bhutan, Tibet, Sikkim, Mustang, Nepal - all still rooted in feudalism, and, with the exception of Nepal, almost untouched by tourism of any kind.

Mustang, in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, was closed to Westerners until 1992. Bhutan - the most forbidden of the forbidden kingdoms - was an absolute monarchy until two years ago, and admitted only a handful of rich Westerners. Tibet and much of Sikkim were long off-limits because of border sensitivities. Yet now you pick up a package holiday to all of them. Bhutan was even voted fourth most desirable world destination in a recent poll for Conde Nast Traveller.

Jonathan Gregson didn't take that route. Instead, in a classic of old- school travel journalism (writing about the places themselves rather than about the Zeitgeist) he travelled by horse, by grinding bus and on foot, drinking endless cups of yak butter tea, in a quest to interview the last remaining rulers of these medieval kingdoms. He managed to track down the last representatives of centuries-old dynasties just at a moment when their countries were undergoing profound change.

They prove an eccentric bunch. King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan, a contemporary of Gregson at an English boarding school, has voluntarily given up absolute power and is now engaged in increasing his country's "Gross National Happiness", despite the fact that his people are among the poorest in the world.

In Nepal, Gregson gets the first interview for nearly a decade with King Birendra Bikram Shah Dev, the only ruling Hindu monarch in the world. But in an Alice-in-Wonderland conversation, the reincarnation of Shiva manages to say nothing for fear of invoking memories of the spring revolution of 1990, when the population of Kathmandu put out the city's lights in protest against its royal ruler.

Even less forthcoming is Prince Wangchuck, the Chogyal of Sikkim, Old Harrovian and a graduate of Ealing Business School. He has been so depressed since his father's death and the absorption of his country into India that he now devotes himself to "religious works".

The "king" of Mustang, now part of Nepal, has done better. He owns a carpet factory and a trekking company, and rents out accommodation in his family's houses. Some of the most charming parts of this book are accounts of chaotic life with the king's family.

The most enduring brand of Himalayan royalty is, of course, the Dalai Lama, who at his Dharamsala home-in-exile is far more forthcoming with interviews. But the auspices are not good here, either. Unless the Chinese rulers of Tibet allow democracy, this descendant of Buddha may go the same way as his quainter royal contemporaries. Jonathan Gregson has captured a moment about to pass.

Courtesy: The Independent (London), October 02, 2000

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