Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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CELEBRATING A RECORD REIGN
Sixty Years on the Throne of Thailand: a thumbnail sketch of the Monarchy

Text : John Cadet
Images : Bureau of the Royal Household

On the 5^th of this month, in the sixtieth year of his reign, King Bhumibol Adulyadej celebrates the commencement of the eightieth year of his life, and the country will celebrate with him. Since Thailand is less of an open book than it seems to most outsiders, and since the monarchy is so integral an element of Thai society, it's worth looking both at the individual who has occupied the throne for this record period, and the way in which his people view him - with the understanding of course that given the illustriousness of the subject and the shortness of the article, what follows serves merely as an introduction. However, there's no shortage of other reading to provide a deeper understanding of this complex subject.

Historically, the Western view of a monarch has been - in the words of the song - that `kings are by God appointed'. Disobedience or rebellion was therefore an offence against the heavenly mandate. That hasn't stopped any number of expressions of dissatisfaction with rulers, to the extent that Western monarchies are now an exception and, where still found, of marginal importance where affairs of state are concerned.

The Eastern view of monarchy has gone even further. Rulers have tended to be seen not merely as appointed by heaven, but either to represent particular deities or be living gods themselves. All the same, revolution and modernization have had their way, so that from Persia and India to China and Japan, we find either republics, or constitutional monarchies in which the rulers may be seen and even revered to some extent but not - compared with the politicians - much heard.

Royal occasion

What makes Thailand so exceptional? Why should the Thai monarchy, and in particular the current manifestation of it, be so outstandingly popular and also powerful?

Born in the United States of a royal Thai prince and a commoner mother, educated almost entirely in Europe, the boy who was to become the 9th King of the Chakri Dynasty might have found the names chosen for him - Bhumibol (`Strength of the Land') Adulyadej (`Incomparable Power') - somewhat ironical. He came to the throne only through the premature death of his elder brother, at a time when the monarchy in Thailand was at a nadir. Absolute monarchy had been overthrown in 1932, with leadership of the country exercised mainly by ruthless military dictators. Although they found it convenient to maintain the office of royalty, the new leaders saw no reason to pay particular respect to the office-holder.

Following the abdication and voluntary exile of the 7^th King in 1935, then, it was not until 1945 that royalty returned to Thailand, and only five years after that that the formal coronation of the 9^th king, now reigning, took place.

What followed has been a phenomenal rebirth of royal power in Thailand, quite unpredictable at the beginning of the reign, and without precedent elsewhere. Partly this rebirth can be attributed to historical accident of one kind or another. Early in the reign, one of the military dictators needed to buttress his authority with royal support. At the same time, with the US prosecution of the war in Vietnam, the Thai economy was undergoing rapid expansion. Furthermore, a formidable array of princes and lesser royalty, dispossessed of their heritage in 1932, saw the promotion of the young king as a way to regain their privileges. But without an exceptionally tough, ambitious and dedicated incumbent, one able not only to understand and master the turbulent political and social weather of his time and place, but also stamp his personality and will upon the course of his country's development, no such renaissance of the monarchy would have been possible.

There was of course another factor involved. Thailand, unlike its Asian neighbours, has never been the colony of a Western power. This meant no devaluation of the traditional order, in which the ruler was proved either ineffective in defending his country, or rejected as irrelevant once a revolutionary class had achieved independence, occurred here. Instead, despite the inevitable changes of modernization, Thailand has been able to assimilate a great deal of what is foreign to it to an exceptionally broad and vigorous socio-cultural complex. Here we find modern and international institutions coexisting with customs and beliefs that have archaic roots - parliamentary democracy, universal education, an extensive public health system side by side with the buffalo sacrifice, the propitiation of spirits, and rituals to control the annual rise and fall of the floodwaters. Kingship too has successfully spanned this extraordinary spectrum. While King Bhumibol himself is an active modernizer, engaging especially in directing and funding agricultural improvement for his people's benefit, he is also revered as dhammaraja, a king in the Buddhist tradition whose karma-generated charisma shows he is well along the path to Buddhahood.

From the beginning of his reign, the young king, aided by royalist mentors, threw himself into the task of restoring the prestige and power of the monarchy. Foreign-born though he was, he actively acquainted himself with his realm and people, studying and engaging not only with the educated urban classes that provide the country's military, bureaucratic, religious and commercial elites, but especially the rural population, then a disadvantaged majority. Not only did he travel to all parts of his kingdom, but also became omni-present through skilful use of the mass-media, constantly shown on television engaged in re-establishing lapsed royal ceremonies, particularly the ones with dynastic and religious connotations - Chakri Day in April, in May the Royal Ploughing Ceremony at Phramane Ground in central Bangkok, Chulalongkorn Day in October, and his own birthday on the 5^th of this month. The seasonal changing of the robes of the country's palladium, the Emerald Buddha, usually conducted personally, is a good example of the way in which the population is reminded of the king's unique potency, emphasizing as it does that performing his duties, the monarchy ensures the continuity of the political, social and even natural order - for without the king, who will ensure that the rains come at their appointed time? But while these ceremonies bolster the royal mystique, the population is also left in no doubt as to the practical importance of their king. Day after day, they will see him out in the rice fields, up on the mountains, map and notes in hand, directing the work of administrators and bureaucrats. Royal projects to alleviate poverty, control flooding, and dispense charity are constantly in the news, and agricultural outlets in the cities like the spacious and well-supplied krong-gan luang shops, are popular evidence of royal effectiveness.

Royal Celebration

Hardly surprising then, given the country's political volatility - and how many military coups and changes of constitution have there been in the sixty years of his reign?- that King Bhumibol has come to be revered as the all-beneficent dhammaraja, relied upon to uphold the social order. Politics everywhere is an essential undertaking, but inevitably more or less sordid in the detail of its prosecution. That has certainly been the case in Thailand. But the King is seen to be above the unremitting struggle for power and profit of the military, commercial and bureaucratic elites. Instead he is the deux ex machina who restores order when breakdown seems imminent. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in final images of the 1992 conflict, when peaceful resistance to a military coup met with violence. The king was shown on television calmly insisting to General Suchinda Kraprayoon, the leader of the coup, and his pro-democracy antagonist Col. Chamlong Srimuang, on a peaceful resolution to the dispute - both men on their knees before their seated ruler. Following the audience, further bloodshed averted, Suchinda stepped down from his illegal premiership, while Chamlong called off the lengthy protest of his followers - and all through the agency of this stern but fatherly figure, whose only weapon appeared to be his barami, his karmically-generated charisma. The fact that this was a re-run of the end to the even more violent 1973 Uprising, which saw the expulsion of the three-fold dictatorship, led to the further enhancement of the king's image as a peace-dispenser. Most recently, it was the king again who was seen to avert the danger of further civil strife following the removal of the self-enriching government of the last Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. And if to the outsider it appears that in his reign of sixty years, the king's effectiveness is owed to something more than plain mystique - that occasionally, instead of waiting for the political tide to rise to his revered feet, he might be seen at times descending to meet it - that's not the view of the overwhelming majority of his admiring subjects. To them their king has always been the still centre of a field of beneficent force that only he can activate. Like the Emerald Buddha in the Grand Palace, it is not his actions that guarantee their safety and prosperity, but the fact of his existence.

A great deal more could be said on this subject, but one thing is sure. On the fifth of this month, at the beginning of his eightieth year, and in the sixtieth of his reign, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the ninth ruler of the Chakri Dynasty will receive the loyal best wishes of his countrymen.

"Long may he reign," they will say.

And they will certainly mean it.