The real sovereigns are the people

The prince, the ruler, has ruled humanity forever in various hues and forms.

- SUCHETA PYAKURYAL

The prince, the ruler, has ruled humanity forever in various hues and forms. In Nepal, too, he came in different forms and shades. First, he came as a hereditary ruler of small principalities and then as the monarch of the Nepali nation-state. Today, he is a political man, elected by popular vote. His form may have changed over the years, but his core remains the same: masculine, calculating and power-hungry.

During medieval times in Italy, Niccolo Machiavelli drew up a sketch of an ideal ruler, which he titled The Prince. According to Machiavelli, he who was successful in acquiring and maintaining power was the most noble of all princes. This was probably the first European write-up which encouraged blatant obsession for political power. It also advised rulers to try and hold on to power by hook or crook. Only a ruler who manages to successfully retain power can be deemed as noble, said Machiavelli. Teleology, or the notion of "end justifying the means", was portrayed as ethical in the game of "practical" politics. Realpolitik or pragmatism is something that every political actor needed to understand and imbibe was his book's message.

The context, of course, was of medieval Europe. The base was agrarian, and the superstructures were feudal. In those days, the princes had either hereditary principalities that they inherited, or ecclesiastical principalities that belonged to churches, or new principalities that were recently annexed and/or mixed principalities that had both the old and the newly acquired spaces.