Birendra succeeded to the Nepalese throne on 31 January 1972 after the death of his father, King Mahendra. On his ascension he was effectively
an absolute monarch as he inherited a country where political parties were banned and he ruled through a system of local and regional councils known as panchayats.
[6] Birendra resented the absolute monarch tag maintaining that he presided over a democracy in which representatives to the assembly were indirectly elected and saying that his poor and backward country could not afford a democracy
based on party politics and that it needed firm and decisive government.[9] His first trips abroad as king were to India in October 1973 and China two months later
[10] as he believed that Nepal, sandwiched between the two Asian powers, should have good relations with both.[11
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