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NepalThe Growth of Political Parties
The earliest opposition to the Rana regime that
departed from
the conspiratorial politics of the palace began during the
rule of
Chandra Shamsher, a conservative who was not interested in
modern
political participation, even though large numbers of
Nepalese
soldiers had been exposed to new ideas during and after
World War
I. Just after the war, Thakur Chandan Singh, a retired
army
officer, started two weekly newspapers in Kumaon, Tarun
Gorkha (Young Gorkha) and Gorkha Samsar (Gorkha
World).
At the same time, Devi Prasad Sapkota, a former officer in
the
Foreign Department, founded the weekly Gorkhali in
Banaras.
These journals were forums where Nepalese exiles could
criticize
the backwardness and repression of the Rana regime. During
the
1930s, a debating society called Nagrik Adhikar Samiti
(Citizen's
Rights Committee) was founded in Kathmandu to discuss
religious
issues, but its discussions veered into politics. When one
of its
meetings featured a political speech denouncing the Rana
regime,
the government banned the debating society. By 1935 the
first
Nepalese political party, the Praja Parishad (People's
Council),
began among Nepalese exiles and set up cells within the
country. In
Bihar it published a periodical, Janata (The
People),
advocating a multicaste, democratic government and the
overthrow of
the Ranas. The Rana police managed to infiltrate the
organization
and arrested 500 persons in Kathmandu. Four leaders were
executed
(they were still were commemorated as martyrs in 1991),
and others
received long prison terms, but the survivors escaped to
India to
carry on their political agitation.
In India the British were having their own problems
with an
independence movement headed by the Indian National
Congress, led
by Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Under Gandhi's
leadership, the Indian National Congress pursued
nonviolent
campaigns of civil disobedience that mobilized millions,
including
members of all castes and women, into agitations for
reform and the
end of foreign rule. Simultaneously, there was a growth in
terrorism and police repression that seriously
destabilized all of
South Asia. Lacking a British promise of independence, the
Indian
National Congress opposed participation in World War II
(1939-45),
but even with many of its leaders in jail during the war
there was
continuing public disorder and police violence. After the
war
ended, the British realized that their position in South
Asia had
become untenable, and they prepared to leave. With China
in the
middle of a communist revolution, their old allies the
British
preparing to leave India, and thousands of soldiers
returning from
abroad, the Rana government could no longer avoid making
radical
changes in Nepal.
Many of the Nepalese exiles in India had worked closely
with
the Indian National Congress during its struggles with the
British,
realizing that only after the elimination of its colonial
support
would the Rana regime fall. In Banaras in October 1946, a
group of
middle-class Nepalese exiles formed the All-India Nepali
National
Congress (Akhil Bharatiya Nepali Rashtriya Congress). Many
of its
members were students who had agitated and subsequently
had been
jailed during movements in India. During its council in
Calcutta in
January 1947, the new organization dropped its "All-India"
prefix
and merged with two other groups, the Nepali Sangh
(Nepalese
Society) of Banaras and the Gorkha Congress of Calcutta,
which had
closer connections with lower-class Ranas. The Nepali
National
Congress (Nepali Rashtriya Congress) was officially
dedicated to
the ouster of the Rana dictatorship by peaceful means and
to the
establishment of democratic socialism. One of its first
mass
actions was participation in a labor strike in the jute
mills of
Biratnagar in the Tarai, which disrupted traffic at the
Indian
railhead in Jogbani, and required army intervention.
Although this
action garnered much publicity for the party and brought
thousands
of protesters into the streets even in Kathmandu, the
strike was
suppressed, and its leaders, including Bishweshwar Prasad
(B.P.)
Koirala, were imprisoned.
B.P. Koirala (1914-82) became the leader most closely
identified with the Nepali National Congress. His father,
a Brahman
businessman, spent a good deal of time in Bihar and
Bengal. He had
become involved with political activists and progressive
ideas,
especially those of Gandhi, and participated in anti-Rana
agitations including the publication of Gorkhali at
Banaras.
B.P. Koirala thus grew up in an atmosphere oriented toward
radical
Gandhian action. By 1937 he was studying law in Calcutta
and had
started working for the Congress Socialist Party. He was
arrested
in India a number of times and spent 1942 to 1945 in jail
after
instigating Nepalese soldiers to rebel against the
government. His
views during his early years, influenced by Gandhi, tended
toward
radical democratic decentralization and included cottage
industries
instead of large factories as models for economic
development. His
wing of the Nepali National Congress stressed nonviolent
confrontation and general strikes, but he was not opposed
to force
should all other paths prove ineffective. He advocated a
constitutional monarchy as a transitional political form
for Nepal.
The strong-willed, conservative Juddha Shamsher
resigned as
prime minister in November 1945, passing on his job to
Padma
Shamsher, who announced that he was a servant of the
nation who
would liberalize the Rana regime. Padma Shamsher's
repression of
the Biratnagar strike, however, showed that he was not
interested
in the kind of political and labor reforms advocated by
the
Congress. In the aftermath of the repression, on May 16,
1947, he
delivered a speech outlining important reforms, including
the
establishment of an independent judiciary, elections for
municipality and district boards, expansion of education,
publication of the national budget, and the formation of a
special
committee to consider plans for further liberalization.
The Nepali
National Congress called off its continuing agitations,
and B.P.
Koirala and other top leaders were released from detention
in
August. In January 1948, the prime minister announced the
first
constitution of Nepal, which set up a bicameral
Parliament, a
separate High Court, and an executive power vested in the
prime
minister who was to be assisted by a five-member Council
of
Ministers. Although this constitution reserved almost all
powers
for the executive branch and kept the same rules of
succession as
before for both king and prime minister, the Nepali
National
Congress agreed to function within its framework. Beset by
conflicting forces from all sides, however, Padma Shamsher
resigned
his position in early 1948.
Data as of September 1991
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