|
NepalTHE MAKING OF MODERN NEPAL
The Expansion of Gorkha
Among the small hill states struggling for power during
the
later Malla period was
Gorkha (see Glossary),
founded in
1559 by
Dravya Shah in an area chiefly inhabited by Magars.
Legends trace
his dynasty to warrior princes who immigrated from
Rajputana in
India during the fifteenth century. During its early fight
for
existence, the House of Gorkha stayed out of the two major
confederations in western Nepal. No major expansion of the
kingdom
occurred until the reign of Ram Shah, from 1606 to 1633,
who
extended his territories slightly in all directions.
During the
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Gorkha
continued a slow
expansion and appeared increasingly often as an ally of
one or more
of the three kingdoms in their quarrels with each other,
giving the
rulers of the hill state experience in the affairs of the
Kathmandu
Valley. Nar Bhupal Shah (reigned 1716-42) extended his
lands toward
the Kairang Pass in the north and Nuwakot in the east. He
attempted
to take Nuwakot and failed, but he did arrange the
marriage of his
son to the daughter of the raja of Makwanpur.
This son, Prithvi Narayan Shah (reigned 1743-75), made
full use
of his position to achieve supreme power and was one of
the great
figures in Nepalese history. Following in his father's
footsteps,
he apparently dedicated himself at an early age to the
conquest of
the valley and the creation of a single state. Before
going on the
offensive, he traveled to Banaras, or Varanasi, to seek
financial
assistance and purchase armaments, thus obtaining a
personal view
of conditions in the outside world, especially the
position of the
British East India Company. On his return to Gorkha, he
established
a number of arsenals and trained his troops to use the
more modern
weapons he had obtained in India. He arranged alliances
with, or
bought the neutrality of, neighboring states.
When King Ranajit of Bhadgaon (reigned 1722-69)
quarreled with
King Jayaprakasa of Kathmandu (reigned 1735-68), Prithvi
Narayan
Shah took Nuwakot and laid siege to Kirtipur, which was
controlled
by the king of Patan, Tej Narasimha (reigned 1765-68).
During the
fighting, Prithvi Narayan Shah was almost killed, and when
his
troops failed to take the town, he withdrew. At this
point, he
changed direction, as the Gorkhas were to do effectively
time and
again. The Gorkhas instituted a blockade of the entire
valley,
closed off all trade routes, and began executing blockade
runners.
Gorkha agents remained active in the towns, and the army
attempted
to starve the valley into submission.
When a second siege of Kirtipur also was unsuccessful,
Prithvi
Narayan Shah turned his attention toward Lamji, one of the
Chaubisi
principalities, and overran it after several bloody
battles. The
Gorkha army reappeared at Kirtipur. After a siege of six
months,
the town was treacherously delivered to the Gorkhas, and
its
inhabitants were deliberately mutilated. The Gorkhas moved
on to
Patan in 1767, but their attention was diverted by the
appearance
of a 2,400-man expeditionary force sent by the British
East India
Company to aid the traditional kings of the valley. The
British
column, ravaged by malaria contracted in the Tarai, had to
withdraw
quickly without accomplishing anything other than delaying
the
Gorkhas. This token opposition by the British, however,
was not
forgotten by Prithvi Narayan Shah and his successors. With
the
field again clear, on September 29, 1768, Gorkha troops
infiltrated
Kathmandu while the population was celebrating a religious
festival
and took the town without a fight. Jayaprakasa fled to
Bhadgaon
with Tej Narasimha and Prithvi Narayan Shah was crowned
king of
Kathmandu. He soon entered Patan unopposed and then moved
against
villages east of Bhadgaon, arriving before the town the
next year.
His troops were admitted into Bhadgaon by nobles who had
been
bought off. Ranajit retired to Banaras, Jayaprakasa
retired to die
at the shrine of Pashupatinath, and Tej Narasimha died in
prison.
For the first time, the hill ruler, the raja of Gorkha,
had become
sole ruler in the Kathmandu Valley. One of his first acts
in 1769
was to expel permanently from his territories all
foreigners,
including traders, Roman Catholic missionaries, and even
musicians
or artists influenced by northern India's style.
The conquest of the three kingdoms was only the
beginning of a
remarkable explosion of Gorkha military power throughout
the
Himalayan region. Prithvi Narayan Shah quickly made a
movement
toward the Chaubisi states in the west, but after
encountering
resistance in Tanahu, the Gorkha armies drove east into
the Kirata
country, overrunning all of eastern Nepal by 1773. They
were poised
for the invasion of Sikkim, but because its rulers came
from Tibet,
Sikkim was viewed as a client of Tibet (and thus of the
Chinese).
A warning from Tibet and the death of Prithvi Narayan Shah
in 1775
stalled hostilities, but a full-scale invasion began in
1779.
Resistance was encountered until 1788, when Gorkha forces
drove the
ruler of Sikkim into exile in Tibet and occupied all of
western
Sikkim. Guerrilla warfare continued as the Gorkhas
constructed a
base near Vijaypur to administer the eastern conquests. In
the
west, a marriage alliance with the rajas of Palpa kept
them quiet
while General Ram Krishna Rana conquered Tanahu and
Lamjung
(Gorkha's traditional rival) and advanced to Kaski by
1785. By 1790
all rulers as far as the Kali River had submitted to the
Gorkhas or
had been replaced. Even farther to the west lay Kumaon, in
the
throes of civil strife between two coalitions of
zamindar
(large landowners responsible for tax collection in their
jurisdictions), who struggled to control the monarchy. One
group
invited the intervention of the Gorkhas, who defeated
local forces
in two battles and occupied the capital, Almora, in 1790.
The
Gorkhas were poised for greater adventures, but by then
they were
irritating bigger players and began to encounter
resistance to
their ambitions.
Data as of September 1991
|
