There were several ways to reconcile, two apparently incompatible systems, the divine and the democratic. One of the most dramatic - and unavoidable - concerned Emperor Hirohito of Japan.
Relinquishing Divinity
In 1945, after the Japanese defeat in the Second World War, Hirohito was confronted with a demand from the victorious Americans and their allies that he renounce his status as a god. This was an understandable prelude to the forthcoming occupation of Japan by the United States.
The Americans realized that if Hirohito were treated as a war criminal and prosecuted, perhaps even executed, as some of their allies wanted, the Japanese were likely to become ungovernable. What they baulked at, though, was the prospect of dealing with a deity whose slightest word could be regarded by his subjects as superior to any order emanating from Washington.
At the time, the situation in Japan was desperate. The country was in ruins, its economy destroyed, its armed forces decimated and two of its cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, blasted, burned and poisoned by atomic bombs.
The Emperor, whose divinity derived through his direct descent from the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami, had no option but to concur with the Allies’ demand. Hirohito duly shed his divinity in a public announcement on radio.
Suicide Rather than Acceptance
What followed showed how powerful the principle of divine monarchy could be. Many of Hirohito’s subjects refused to accept the Emperor’s mortality. Some could not reconcile themselves to the shocking reality of a deity turned man and committed seppuku, ritual suicide, rather than live with it.
This same attitude, though in less fatal form, persisted in Japan long after the War was over. In 1962, Harold Nicolson, an English author and publisher, observed how the mere proximity of their divine emperor could reduce some Japanese to fear and trembling. Just passing by the moat in front of the imperial palace in Tokyo, Nicolson afterwards wrote, produced awed and reverential behavior.
The King as Hindu Deity
In the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, the late King Birendra was widely regarded as the reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In 1990, this did not prevent democratic elements in Nepal from bullying the King into accepting a change in his worldly status to constitutional monarch. But this new reality seemed to make no difference to the age-old belief in the King’s divine origin.
The belief was so strong that eleven years later, at least for a while, the Nepalese monarchy survived catastrophe: the murder of Birendra, together with seven members of his family, at the hands of his son Crown Prince Deependra. It was not until 2008 that the arbitrary actions of Birendra’s brother, King Gyanendra, in reimposing absolute royal rule, led to his own downfall and the abolition of the monarchy.
Democratized by Telegram
In Thailand, King Bhumibhol Ayulaydej is also regarded as divine. Nevertheless, constitutional monarchy managed to solve the problem of how to modernize, if not always democratize, the governance of countries where ancient beliefs about the divine nature of kings are still prevalent.
In 1932, the King of Siam, as Thailand was then named, was Prajadhipok, an absolute monarch ruling by divine right. Then, on June 24, 1932, Prajadhipok received a telegram from the People’s Party, a group of western-educated Siamese who had just seized power. The telegram read:
“The People’s Party consisting of civil and military officials have now taken over the administration of the country and have taken members of the Royal Family ...as hostages. If members of the People’s Party have received any injuries, the Princes held in pawn will suffer in consequence. The People’s Party has no desire to make a seizure of the royal possessions.
“Their principle aim is to have a constitutional monarchy. We therefore invite Your Majesty to return to the capital (Bangkok) to reign again as king under the constitutional monarchy...
“If your Majesty refuses to accept the offer or refrains from replying within one hour ..., the People’s Party will proclaim the constitutional monarchical government by appointing another Prince ...to act as King.”
Prajadhipok had no option but to agree and Thailand remains a constitutional monarchy to this day.
Constitutional but Still Treated as Divine
Nevertheless, in the Thai attitude to their king, there is more than an echo of the extreme deference accorded personages popularly supposed to be divine.
There is a law on the statute book which forbids any criticism of the King Bhumibhol or the Thai monarchy as well as an attitude of awe that was still extant as recently as 1995 when Narisa Chakrabongse, a second cousin of the King, commented:
“He is considered to be so high, so much above the ordinary run of people ...that one simply does not talk about being related to him.”
Sources
Handley, Paul M. The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej(Yale University Press 2006)ISBN-10: 0300106823/ISBN-13: 978-0300106824
Willessee, Amu amd Wjottaler, Marl” Love and Death in Kathmandu: A Strange Tale of Royal Murder (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press
ISBN-10: 0312329946/ISBN-13: 978-0312329945
Brenda Ralph Lewis - My interest in history dates from childhood. I am presently the author of 120 books and hundreds of articles, all on historical ...
