By Jan Sharma Around winter 44 years ago, King Mahendra had dismissed the popularly elected government of B. P. Koirala, dissolved Parliament, ordered the detention of political leaders, and outlawed political parties. Had the King acted without India’s backing?
Koirala in his Atmabritanta has shed significant light on this question, clearly indicating India’s direct role in his ouster as well as dismantling of the democratic edifice. Unfortunately, very little research has been done on this aspect, which is significant in the light of King Gyanendra’s 4 October 2002 takeover.
Bharat Shumsher was leader of the Opposition when Koirala was premier during 1959-60. A compilation of his interviews, Nepalko prajatantrik andolan ra bidrohi Bharatshumsher, has just been published.
In the 206 page book, Bharat Shumsher indeed emerges as a rebel: he is a Republican, even if he seems to greatly admire King Gyanendra. He is also an atheist. But if you are looking for new insight on India’s role in disbanding democracy in 1960, you will be thoroughly disappointed, as I was.
The book otherwise makes an easy reading. Historian Rajesh Gautam’s painstaking efforts to put the records, however incomplete, in black and white for the benefit of the future generation of Nepalis is worth applaud.
The great grandson of Prime Minister Maharaja Chandra Shumsher did his M.A. in Economics from the School of Economics and Sociology in Bombay, India. Soon after, he was named the director general of the Agriculture Department.
The interviewer gives only his year of birth as 1928 and then goes on to quote the author that he began his political career when he was hardly 22! He began his political career with the Gurkha Dal led by Randhir Subba, an India-born Nepali Christian.
He initially explored the better known Praja Parishad headed by Tanka Prasad Acharya, but was disappointed at his very first meeting.
“I was surprised,” he recalls. “His party had no ideological leaning. Nor was there any plan for a nation-wide network of party organization. The only thing the Praja Parishad was engaged in was self-praise and, of course, hurling abuses on the Congress and the Ranas. No explanation. No debate.”
He describes B. P. Koirala as a “skilled and intelligent statesman” but without the required experience in administrative management. He also denies that he ever made an attempt on his life when Koirala was the home minister in the Rana-Congress coalition, but the incident turned out to have political implications.
“The event was used as a pretext to bring the entire military force under the control of the royal palace. It was after this incident that B. P. was invited to stay as a guest at the royal palace for security reason. B. P. saw through his windows the very next morning King Tribhuvan taking salute from the National Army. The grave of democracy began to be dug on that very day. Under a democratic regime (after February 1951), the command of the army should have been transferred from the Rana Prime Minister to the people’s representatives. That did not happen.”
He then recounts how Indian ambassador C. P. N. Singh, a Bihari bhumiyar Brahmin, manipulated the Nepali politicians and kept both King Tribhuvan and Prime Minister M. P. Koirala under his thumb.
The palace, regrettably, has no tradition of making public documents available for serious students of history for research. M. P. Koirala, who used to maintain erratic diary records, never published his memoir to provide his side of the story, if not an authentic version.
Bharat Shumsher says Singh prevented B. P. from being appointed Prime Minister between 1951 and 1955. Was it the same force that inspired King Mahendra to dethrone him in December 1960? The book’s silence on this issue is conspicuous.
He claims that the K I Singh “revolt” was the product of the tug of power between King Tribhuvan and Crown Prince Mahendra. The tussle between the two power centers is nothing new as King Rajendra and Crown Prince Surendra similarly clashed in 1946.
He describes Mahendra as a “born despot.” There is no insight into the circumstances that led self-exiled Nepali Congress leader Subarna Shumsher to issue a statement on 15 May 1968 (except describing it as a “total surrender” to the King).
B. P. Koirala’s statement of 30 December 1977 calling for national reconciliation between the popular force and the King gets same cryptic treatment.
Pro-republican Bharat Shumsher, who spends most of his time in India, refused to meet King Birendra even once. Yet, he has not only met King Gyanendra on several occasions but also refutes the often heard argument that Birendra was more liberal than his brother