The fleeting fantasy of a king who would return to save Nepal

Nepal's days of rage, when its young people won the ouster of the prime minister, left the door open to the most unthinkable outcomes - even rumours about the restoration of a dethroned king.

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That turned out to be a brief royalist dream. It is a former chief justice, Sushil Karki who now leads Nepal after last week's protests and arson attacks, not King Gyanendra, who ended his family's 449-yearold dynasty by abdicating in 2008. And with that, the door swung shut on the fantasy of remaking Nepal as a kingdom.

But the so-called Gen Z protests disclosed something about the extremity of Nepal's situation, once its army had restored order.

"The young people gave no sense that they wanted the monarchy back," only that they were furious at the post-monarchical establishment, according to Amish Mulmi, 41, an author who writes about Nepal and its geopolitics. "They just didn't want these parties back."