After several delays in elections, Gyanendra suspended the constitution and assumed direct authority in February 2005, asserting that it would be a temporary measure to suppress the Maoist insurgency after civil governments had failed to do so.

He was deposed two years later by the first session of the Constituent Assembly, which declared the nation to be the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal and abolished the 240-year-old Shah dynasty.

[3] After opposition to the hereditary rule of the Rana prime ministers from India, a deal was reached in January 1951, and Gyanendra's grandfather King Tribhuvan returned to Nepal and resumed the throne.

Gyanendra studied with his elder brother King Birendra at St. Joseph's School, Darjeeling, India; in 1969, he graduated from Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu.

[9][10] During his early years on the throne, Gyanendra sought to exercise full control over the government, citing the failure of all the political parties to hold an election after the parliament was dissolved.

When Gyanendra took complete control for the second time, on 1 February 2005, he dismissed Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba's government for failing to make arrangements for parliamentary elections and being unable to restore peace in the country, which was then in the midst of a civil war led by Maoist insurgents.

[13] International organizations expressed grave concerns about the safety of journalists, following the king's decision to restrict civil liberties, including freedom of the press, the constitutional protection against censorship and the right against preventive detention.

[14] In April 2006, the seven-party alliance and the then banned CPN Maoist party in an underground manner[clarification needed] staged protests and strikes in Kathmandu against King Gyanendra's direct rule.

The royal government exercised minimum restraint[clarification needed] but declared a curfew to control the deteriorating situation, which was enforced with live firearms and tear gas.

After 23 protesters were killed, on 21 April 2006, King Gyanendra announced that he would yield executive authority to a new prime minister chosen by the political parties to oversee the return of democracy.

It is widely believed that the then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala was deeply convinced that as long as Gyanendra remained in the power structure, there was always danger to the democratic order in Nepal.

[16] On 23 August 2007 Nepal's transitional government nationalized all the properties Gyanendra inherited from his brother, including the Narayanhiti Royal Palace.

[citation needed] The royal family's departure from the palace was reported as a "major symbolic moment in the fall of the Shah dynasty, which had unified Nepal in the 1760s".

Speaking to a select group of Japanese correspondents at the Narayanhiti Royal Palace on 4 February 2008, Gyanendra said, "[The decision] doesn't reflect the majority view of the people.

Gyanendra had broken his closely guarded silence in an interview with a Nepali weekly paper in which he said he remained silent to "let the peace process succeed".

On 7 February 2008 the BBC reported Gyanendra as saying to Japanese journalists: "The Nepali people themselves should speak out on where the nation is heading, on the direction it is taking and on why it is becoming chaotic".

[citation needed] In an interview, Gyanendra's advisor, Bharat Keshar Singh, claimed that the bill passed by the parliament was a bluff.

On 28 December 2007, the Nepali interim parliament approved a bill for the amendment to the constitution of 1990 promulgated on 15 January 2007, with a clause stating that Nepal would become a federal democratic republic, to be implemented by the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly elections.

[29] Senior journalist P. Kharel told BBC Nepali service in an interview that King Gyanendra lost his throne when he refused to make Nepal "a protectorate like Bhutan".

[30][31] King Gyanendra's Honorary Royal ADC Late Bharat Keshar Simha also expressed the same during an interview with Jibram Bhandari on Sagarmatha TV.

[37] On 8 July 2019, the former king's birthday was observed by thousands of Nepalese who marked the occasion by marching to his private residence at Nirmal Niwas Palace.

[39] In February 2023, the former king attended a public event in Jhapa district to call for the transformation of Nepal from a secular country into a Hindu kingdom.

Having been a state connected businessman, the former king is said to have inherited huge fortunes from his family members and still runs many lucrative businesses through investments and is widely believed to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

He also has an extensive real estate portfolio that includes the Nirmal Niwas palace, his personal residence of approximately 36 ropani land at a prime location at Maharajgunj.