NepalNEPAL: HISTORICAL SETTING
The all-seeing eyes of Buddha, a detail from the great stupa of
Svayambhunath, a Buddhist shrine west of Kathmandu
NEPAL HAS BEEN A KINGDOM for at least 1,500 years.
During most
of that period, the Kathmandu Valley has been Nepal's
political,
economic, and cultural center. The valley's fertile soil
supported
thriving village farming communities, and its location
along
trans-Himalayan trade routes allowed merchants and rulers
alike to
profit. Since the fourth century, the people of the
Kathmandu
Valley have developed a unique variant of South Asian
civilization
based on Buddhism and Hinduism but influenced as well by
the
cultures of local Newar citizens and neighboring Tibetans.
One of
the major themes in the history of Nepal has been the
transmission
of influences from both the north and the south into an
original
culture. During its entire history, Nepal has been able to
continue
this process while remaining independent.
The long-term trend in Nepal has been the gradual
development
of multiple centers of power and civilization and their
progressive
incorporation into a varied but eventually united nation.
The
Licchavi (fourth to eighth centuries) and Malla (twelfth
to
eighteenth centuries) kings may have claimed that they
were
overlords of the area that is present-day Nepal, but
rarely did
their effective influence extend far beyond the Kathmandu
Valley.
By the sixteenth century, there were dozens of kingdoms in
the
smaller valleys and hills throughout the Himalayan region.
It was
the destiny of Gorkha, one of these small kingdoms, to
conquer its
neighbors and finally unite the entire nation in the late
eighteenth century. The energy generated from this union
drove the
armies of Nepal to conquer territories far to the west and
to the
east, as well as to challenge the Chinese in Tibet and the
British
in India. Wars with these huge empires checked Nepalese
ambitions,
however, and fixed the boundaries of the mountain kingdom.
Nepal in
the late twentieth century was still surrounded by giants
and still
in the process of integrating its many localized economies
and
cultures into a nation state based on the ancient center
of the
Kathmandu Valley.
Nepal took a fateful turn in the mid-nineteenth century
when
its prime ministers, theoretically administrators in
service to the
king, usurped complete control of the government and
reduced the
kings to puppets. By the 1850s, a dynasty of prime
ministers called
Rana (see Glossary)
had imposed upon the country a
dictatorship
that would last about 100 years. The Ranas distrusted both
their
own people and foreigners--in short, anyone who could
challenge
their own power and change their position. As the rest of
the world
underwent modernization, Nepal remained a medieval nation,
based on
the exploitation of peasants and some trade revenues and
dominated
by a tradition-bound aristocracy that had little interest
in modern
science or technology.
After the revolt against the Ranas in 1950, Nepal
struggled to
overcome its long legacy of underdevelopment and to
incorporate its
varied population into a single nation. One of the early
casualties
of this process was party-based democracy. Although
political
parties were crucial in the revolution that overthrew Rana
rule,
their constant wrangling conflicted with the monarchy's
views of
its own dignity and with the interests of the army.
Instead of
condoning or encouraging a multiparty democracy, King
Mahendra Bir
Bikram Shah Dev launched a coup in late 1960 against
Bishweshwar
Prasad (B.P.) Koirala's popularly elected government and
set up a
system of indirect elections that created a consultative
democracy.
The system served as a sounding board for public opinion
and as a
tool for economic development without exercising effective
political power. Nepal remained until 1990 one of the few
nations
in the world where the king, wielding absolute authority
and
embodying sacred tradition, attempted to lead his country
towards
the twenty-first century.
Data as of September 1991
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