THAILAND'S MOMENT OF TRUTH - ZENJOURNALIST

and shortly after meeting them, invited some student delegates into the palace for an audience. They
emerged to say that Bhumibol had ordered the junta to agree to a new constitution. Most of the protesters
believed they had won, but tens of thousands remained camped around Chitralada Palace overnight, and
the following day, violence erupted. Tanks rolled down Rachadamnoen Avenue, with troops firing on
students; they were also shot at from above, including by Narong himself, from helicopters hovering
overhead. Students commandeered buses and fire engines and tried to ram them into tanks. At least 70
people were killed.
Desperately trying to escape the bloodshed, some students clambered over the walls of Chitralada Palace.
They were given sanctuary by the royal family:
Probably the most important act that symbolically defined the monarchy in Thai politics was on
the morning of 14 October when demonstrators who were beaten by police in the street beside the
palace climbed over the fence seeking refuge inside the palace ground. Then, the royal family in
informal dress came out to meet and expressed sympathy to students. By the evening, the military
junta had been forced out, thanks to a rival faction within the military that gained the upper hand,
and – it is said – to an agreement between the junta and the palace. A grim-faced King Bhumipol
appeared on television and declared 14 October ‘‘the Most Tragic Day’’, and appointed as prime
minister the President of his Privy Council. [Thongchai, Toppling Democracy]
The Three Tyrants fled the country. It was an unprecedented moment in Thai history, the first time a
popular uprising appeared to have succeeded in achieving political change. And as Thongchai argues,
almost paradoxically it was also the beginning of the king’s status as the ultimate arbiter and saviour of
the nation at times of great crisis:
The same moment, then, that gave birth to people’s power and to the opportunity of politicians
in the parliamentary system was also the new beginning for the monarchy in Thai politics. Most
importantly, the king became the higher authority “above” normal politics. But being “above”
politics no longer meant being beyond or out of politics. It meant being “on top of” or overseeing
normal politics. [Thongchai, Toppling Democracy]
Handley describes how the events of October 1974 became a seminal moment in terms of fostering
Bhumibol’s image of a democratic monarch who ruled for the good of the people:
October 14 has ever since taken on legendary proportions, in Thai consciousness and in
Bhumibol's own record. To the students of that and succeeding generations, it was an
unprecedented people's uprising against tyranny...
In official histories, however, it was the king who had single-handedly restored constitutionalism
and democracy. Rather than credit the popular uprising, later books and articles overwhelmingly
emphasized King Bhumibol's intervention against the dictators, saving the country from disaster.
However it was characterized, the October 1973 uprising marked a new zenith in the restoration
of the throne's power and grandeur. [Handley, The King Never Smiles]