BANGKOK – A special meeting of the outgoing Abhisit cabinet on Monday approved an initial budget of ฿100 million for the royal cremation of HRH Princess Bejaratana, as well as ฿800 million to educate the Thai population about the existence and significance of HRH Princess Bejaratana prior to her cremation.
HRH Bejaratana Rajasuda Sirisobha Phannavadi, who died on July 27 at the age of 85, was the only child of King Vajiravudh, Rama VI, and Queen Suvadhana. Notable as the lone offspring of a former king but otherwise living a quiet and private life, Bejaratana’s passing will be marked as a high-priority event in Thailand, with a crematorium to be designed by the Fine Arts Department and erected at Sanam Luang.
Simultaneous to the planning of this major event, the government will attempt to convince people that it is, in fact, a major event.
About ฿110 million of the ฿800 million will be spent on the design, creation and distribution of autobiographical materials distributed to the media and schools that will try to portray Bejaratana as an important member of the Chakri dynasty, with hagiographic descriptions of her few actual contributions and lush extrapolations of her ceremonial duties into unverifiable stories about her charity work.
Approximately ฿50 million is earmarked for mining the royal archives for photographs and video clips of Bejaratana, which will be assembled and edited into touching montage music videos for repeated playing on TV Pool at 8pm for the next eight months.
Additionally about ฿215 million will be spent on the launch of a “Remembering Bejaratana” campaign that will introduce the princess, who lived abroad for 20 years, to the Thai people, so that they can then begin the process of fondly remembering her.
The remaining ฿240 million will be used for overhead and incidentals, such as the payment of sub-contractors and suppliers who have been chosen for the campaign in non-public bidding processes, including ฿80 million to a company registered in the Cayman Islands for the important duty of updating of Princess Bejaratana’s Wikipedia page.
Air Marshal Arvuth Ngernchuklin, a former director-general of the Fine Arts Department who designed the crematorium for Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana, was granted an audience with HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn to seek her advice on the cremation and awareness-raising process.
According to outgoing Culture Minister Nipit Intarasombat, Princess Sirindhorn requested a similar awareness-raising campaign as was performed for Princess Galyani.
The organizing committee, chaired by outgoing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, issued a statement today stating in part that “The memory of our beloved Princess Bejaratana will be given the retroactive honor it will be eventually perceived to deserve, and we as a nation will come together to mourn the passing of a great figure we will soon believe to have always cared for deeply. We can only hope that it measures up to the immense contributions that Princess Bejaratana will have posthumously been assigned to have made to our kingdom.”
