The Princess Bares All

Princess Diana, her eyes wistful and her face beautiful, look straight into your eyes. And in sad, husky tones related the story of how she became an emotional wreck when she discovered her Prince Charming loved somebody else. Also laid bare were her intense boneliness amid all the glamour of the royalty, her desperate attempts to harm herself physically and, in this sad state of affairs, her seeking consolation in an adulterous affair with a cavalry officer who was also her horse riding instructor. Only to be let down again with the man going public about the relationship. On November 20, when Diana's interview was telecast on BBC 1's Panorama programme, nothing else mattered in Britain.

The MPs had deserted the House of Commons. The electricity authorities had geared up for the surge in the demand for power. And as it turned out, over 21 million Britons stayed glued to their television sets that night. A record for Panorama in its 43-year history, the audience figures for Diana's interview easily eclipsed the 14-million viewership for her estranged husband, Prince Charles' interview last year. ABC television network reportedly paid up over $640,000 for screening rights in the US, as did some others. At a time when there is intense competition for the air waves, BBC World and BBC Prime too notched up higher viewership oints worldwide. For the BCC, Panorama and interviewer Martin Bashir, it was a television coup. For Diana, it was a coup through television.

Diana did, to an extent, set the agenda. She shed her image of being a mere ceremonial member of the royalty saying she wanted a role which gave her greater freedom to interact with the common people and lend them her affectionate touch. She said: “I'd like to be an ambassador for this country. ” A palace spokeswoman responded: “We will be talking to the princess to see how we can help her define her future role and support her as a member of the royal family. ”

Affirming that she wouldn't “go quickly” and that she had two children to think of, Diana also remarked that she would not press for a divorce. “I don't want a divorce but obviously we need clarity…I await my husband's decision of which way we are all going to go. ” And the same time she seemed prepared for a divorce. Her critics think Diana recently seems willing to negotiate, while her supporters have lauded her spirit to put up a fight. Diana's dig at Charles and her comment that he might not be King material – “I don't know whether he (Charles) could adapt to that (kind of pressure)” – have been seen as a thinly-veiled suggestion that her elder son Prince Williams should ascend the throne, bypassing Prince Charles.

Divorce, for which Diana too seems prepared, while maintaining she would not pursue it, is on the cards. James Hill, secretary of the ruling Conservative Party's Constitutional Committee says: “An amicable divorce, with enough provision for the two boys is the only way out now. ” The Daily Express claims that Priem Minister John Major, in his weekly meeting with the Queen, suggested that a divorce between prince Charles and Diana would “help safeguard the monarchy”. But divorce and re-marriage for the royalty – governed as they have been by centuries-old royal marriage laws – are not that easy. The prime minister and Queen, says the paper, are thought to have discussed repealing the old laws.

Diana, having depicted Charles and the royal household as generally uncaring, has once again sparked off the debate for the reform of the monarchy. The Guardian captioned its editorial comment thus: 'Diana is not the Issue, Nor is Divorce: The Issue is the Monarchy itself'. A reader's letter in The Times put it succinctly: “Nothing has been lost but an artificial mystique. We are increasingly gaining the knowledge that the Royal family is no more (or less) moral, intellectual or beautiful than the rest of us. It is time for us to cease to be subjects and grow into citizens, with all that it implies. ”

The winds of change are already blowing. The Queen has now started paying taxes and lesser royals have recently been excluded from the liberal patronage of the exchequer. The demand for further reforms and cutting down on the pomp and glory of the monarchy should pick up. And, ironically, Diana's interview may after all give a strong push in that direction.

The media went berserk. Every syllable that Diana uttered, every sigh she took, the way she sat, hunched or straight, the way she wore her hair – every little action was dissected eagerly by the media. When Diana's interview on BBC1 concluded, the audience was told that they could switch to the Newsnight programme on BBC 2 to watch a discussion on the interview. The next day's tabloids shrieked, 'Diana: I too had a Lover'. Any number of psychoanalysts and agony aunts poured their comments in within just a couple of hours of the interview. Comments from psychoanalysts included: she rehearsed her lines, has a streak of self-pandering, is a distressed, unhappy and lonely woman with an enormous desire to be loved, and, talking too much of charity and disturbing affections, she is trying to do a Mother Teresa. The politicians generally kept a low profile in this debate. Barring, of course, the armed forces minister Nicholas Soames (a close friend of Prince Charles), who sought to dismiss the princess as exhibiting “advanced stages of paranoia”. He came under fire from both sides – his Conservative party and the Labour Party's Constitutional Affairs spokesman Dough Henderson who found it “strange that a defence minister should be meddling in the affairs of the monarchy”.

But what the episode has brought forward is Diana's challenge to the royal household in a society which takes pride in its monarchy. She has done so by changing the royalty's rules of the game. The roayls do not normally grant interviews to the media. Though Prince Charles went public, no one expected Diana to come out in the open. Through her 50 minute interview – granted on the understanding that the BBC would not seek prior approval of the Palace – she has reached out to the common people. A teletext poll asked 15,000 people if the interview showed Diana better or worse off. Eighty-three per cent answered the question in her favour. She also won a strong constituency among feminists. Says feminist writer Yvonne Roberts: “For women who have had to overcome a lack of self worth, the Princess' openness struck home. In just a few minutes, she mad the leap from one of Them to one of Us. ”

Britich monarchy draws its sustenance from Parliament, which in turn can't afford to ignore public opinion. That's where Diana has struck. Disregarding the royalty's norms, and reaching out to the common man through television, she has challenged the monarchy through the ground rules of democracy, a lesson which the Indian princess sitting in the Lok Sabha will swear by.