Happy Prithvi Jayanti Day

Happy Prithvi Jayanti Day

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

Let Justice Prevail

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Folks in the shadow of the ghost of tyrant Prithvi Narayan Shah is celebrating the ghost’s anniversary on January 11, 2018 to demonstrate the Nepalese that the despot Prithvi’s ghost has not gone, yet rather desperately moving around in the spiritual world whether that might be a heaven or hell, nobody knows. Heavily influenced by his deputy Kamal Thapa for whom tyrannical ruler Prithvi is still a god, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his cabinet made the day of the anniversary of the tyrant as an official holiday for the year 2018 indicating Deuba is clearly reinstating the remnants of the devilish monarch, and showing the traits of his government as the reactionary means doing good for a few at the cost of the mass. Then certainly came back the State celebration of the anniversary of one of the despots in the country.

The Radio Nepal in its news aired on the morning of January 12, 2018 said that the government decided to celebrate the anniversary of Prithvi at the State level under the pressure of the common folks, intellectuals and politicians. This is an absolutely false news the State-run news media have shamelessly aired disregarding the opposition of the indigenous people, and the entire populace whose ancestors have been the victims of the atrocities of Prithvi, against the celebration of the anniversary, and ignoring the common folks’ demand for marking this day as a black day in the history of Nepal.

The Radio Nepal has totally ignored the fact that only a group of academicians, so-called intellectuals and politicians that must have benefited from marking the anniversary of atrocious Prithvi, have been pressing the government to make the day as a State holiday. So, the State media that have been flourishing on the taxpayers’ money need to apologize to the people for the fake news it aired otherwise the State media would be subject to the wrath of the common folks.

The Radio Nepal needs to follow the private media that have been so impartially presenting the voices of the common folks raising voices against the celebration of the anniversary, and accordingly needs to air the correct and unbiased news rather than airing the heavily irregular news prejudicial to the common folks making the State media so shameful and unreliable.

The State Radio Nepal needs to watch how the people in the east and the Kiritipurans in Kathmandu spit in Prithvi on this dark day, and the people in the far west (read the Dinesh Panta’s article on ratopati.com posted on January 11, 2018) vigorously opposed the marking of the anniversary of Prithvi, and then air the impartial news rather than airing the news of what the monarchists have told.

President Bidhya Bhandari and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba so solemnly garlanding the statue of the brutal Prithvi on his anniversary on January 11, 2018 have added another dark blotch on their political history and they would end up as the reactionaries in the history of Nepal. They have been drawing the remuneration from the State treasury in other words the taxpayers’ money only to serve the interest of the clique that had been for honoring the so dishonorable man in the history of Nepal.

A man called Purushotam Ghimire, Jorpati, Kathmandu, ghimirepuru@gmail.com in a letter to the editor titled “iti-haas ko san-man garau” published in “gorkhapatra” of January 14, 2018 has demanded the State punish the folks that have been spitting in Prithvi clearly supporting and defending the genocide Prithvi had committed more than two-and-a-half centuries ago. The concerned editor of “gorkhapatra” also so generously publishing the letter of Mr. Ghimire supported the genocide indirectly.

These guys would have their ancestors had been the victims of the genocide committed by Prithvi would know that how painfully the descendents of those victims of Prithvi have been suffering from his atrocities even after so many centuries. Surely, these guys: Mr. Ghimire and the editor in question must have their ancestors benefited from the victory of Prithvi otherwise they would not be so vehemently defending the massacre Prithvi had done.

Descendents of the victims of the violent actions of Prithvi demand the State to bring those guys that have been defending the genocide Prithvi had committed to justice so that the painful sufferings of the descendents would heal their misery to a certain extent. If the State fails to do justice to the victims of Prithvi then probably the descendents of the victims of the atrocities of Prithvi would rise up to bring those defenders of the genocide to justice.

The State media have no rights to support the defenders of the genocide Prithvi and his descendents had committed, as the State media run on the taxpayers’ money in other words the tax paid by mostly the descendents of the victims of the horrific deeds of Prithvi. So, the State needs to bring the concerned editor that has been supporting the defenders of the genocide of Prithvi quietly publishing the news and views defending Prithvi and his misdeeds, to justice. If the State fails to do so, probably, folks would rise up again to bring the defenders of the genocide to justice.

President Bidhya Bhandari, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, surely Deputy Prime Minister Kamal Thapa have been honoring Prithvi ignoring his dreadful actions of genocide, and adding insult to injury making the descendents of the victims of Prithvi even more painful.  Probably, common folks would bring these guys to justice at one time or another.

We are demanding justice that has been denied for centuries, and fighting against the current government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and President Bidhaya Bhandari re-imposing injustice reinstating Prithvi Narayan Shah: the symbol of genocide and injustice.

Voters have already punished Deuba for his misdeeds, and his name would be written in black letters in the history of Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal that he has so dared to reinstate the tyranny of Prithvi. Then, NC that has been subjected to punishment by voters for the wrongdoings of Deuba needs to punish Deuba.

Concerning President Bhandari, she has been consciously or unconsciously following Deuba for stepping on the footprints of a monarchist such as Kamal Thapa on reinstating the injustice Prithvi had committed centuries ago. Voters also have punished Thapa and his party in the provincial and federal elections held in 2017. Then, Probably, nature or the divine spirit might bring the president that has been beyond the reach of the common folks for punishment to justice.

The government bestowed the status of martyr on 16 people the then Panchayat government of King Birendra killed in the Khoku Chhintang in the Dhankuta district on November 13, 1979, the news http://therisingnepal.org.np/news/21434 stated on January 12, 2018. They were violently murdered for raising the voice against the despotic Panchayat rule of King Birendra, and for reinstating the democracy his father Mahendra killed in 1960. Even though the then Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa was blamed for the genocide, he would not have dared to commit such a heinous act without the order of the then King Birendra. Thus, the State has ultimately recognized the genocide committed by Birendra, and victims were declared the martyrs.

The then crown Prince Dipendra reportedly committed the palace massacre on June 1, 2001 killing his father, mother, brother, sister and other members of the extended royal family members thus he wiped out the entire ruling Shah dynasty committing suicide after killing everybody he could see at the Friday-royal party in which drink and dance went on.

Dipendra’s mass killing was the last one. If anybody flips the pages of the history of the Shah dynastic rule s/he would find such genocides committed several times in the history of 240-year Shah dynastic rule making clear that not only Prithvi but his descendents one after another also had committed monstrous acts.

A short write-up of CK Lal posted on riddlenepa.com on January 12, 2018 has revealed that Prithvi Narayan Shah had captured the East breaking up the unity of Rais and Limbus, and then he had burned the Rais alive, and packed the Kirantis in jute bags and tossed them in the Arun River. So, this is another example of the genocide Prithvi committed. However, on the occasion of the anniversary of Prithvi on January 11, 2018, CPN-UML leader Subhas Nemwang humbly joined the crowd of the monarchists to solemnly garland the statue of Prithvi for appreciating Prithvi for burning the Nemwang’s ancestors alive and for tossing some of them alive in the Arun River.

On the social media including the facebook, the monarchists that have been for re-imposing the injustice Prithvi had committed centuries ago have asked CK Lal for the proof of what he has said about the atrocities Prithvi had committed. For the information of the monarchists asking for the proof of genocide Prithvi committed, descendents of the victims of the cruelty Prithvi committed had been passing the brutality of Prithvi from one generation to another through the word of mouth to escape from another brutality if they were to record the violence in writing. Folks could not disclose the tyranny of Prithvi even during the period of democracy with the constitutional monarchy. They could bring those brutalities to light only after Nepal became the Federal Democratic Republic.

“To ignore evil is to become accomplice to it” MLK  (Martin Luther King: the America Rights Leader). This statement is applicable even today to the evil Prithvi Narayan Shah had committed centuries ago but some of our monarchists including the State-run newspaper "gorkhapatra" have been painting a false nice picture of Prithvi. For what, only they know. According to MLK, those monarchists including "gorkhapatra" are accomplice.

CK Lal: you have bravely exposed the evil deeds of Prithvi, which the monarchists did not naturally like it. We don't hate Prithvi and anybody for that matter we simply want to bring the historical facts to let our future generations know because for centuries the monarchists have painted only the faked nice pictures including the famous portrait of Prithvi that the third-class Rana Balkrishina Sama (originally Shumsher) had an artist paint it. The monarchists have put the fake portrait of Prithvi on a pickup truck and took it to the fake statue of Prithvi for the celebration of the birth anniversary of Prithvi.

Our fight is for justice not to malign anybody including Prithvi that had terrorized the people centuries ago, and his descendents that had continued to do so until the last one Dipendra completed it. We also demand justice to the families of the victims of the genocide Dipendra had committed on June 1, 2001.

In 2006, accepting the proposal of the then Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala correctly following the people’s aspiration scrapped the State-celebration of the anniversary of vindictive Prithvi, who could be equated with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao for genocide. In 2017, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba reinstated the celebration of the anniversary under the pressure of Kamal Thapa, absolutely making the mistake of committing a criminal like act of reinstating the State celebration of the anniversary of malicious Prithvi when millions of Nepalese have been marking the day as the dark day in the history of Nepal.

Voters had already punished the most incompetent Prime Minister Deuba and his deputy Thapa in the provincial and federal elections. Deuba even got punished from the last descendent of Prithvi and had been jailed for corruption; he has been gradually proving that he is a shady politician. Thanks to the people’s movement in 2006, Deuba could see the light of day again but Deuba had not learned the hard lesson, yet. NC also needed to punish Deuba for reinstating the State-celebration of the Prithvi’s anniversary that had been one of the reasons for the debacle of NC in the provincial and federal elections.

A group of intellectuals, academicians and politicians flattened up eating the leftover of Prithvi and his descendents has been dreaming the return of the dark rule of Prithvi and his descendents, and they have been trying to reinstate Prithvi in the name of unification believing they could again reap the harvest of benefits from it at the cost of the entire people of Nepal. These guys have been living with the distorted mindset of the 18^th century in the days of the 21^st century.

Prithvi Narayan Shah was the king of the tiny rural kingdom called Gorkha. His father the king of the tiny ruler Gorkha kingdom had heard that the Malla kings elsewhere were very prosperous and highly cultured, their palaces were extravagantly decorated, and they had the high level of development. He even envied that Malla kings had gorgeous and lavishly done golden thrones whereas the poor Gorkha king had the throne made of mud. He felt lowly and inferiority complex for being humble and not so thriving, and not having anything like a palace not to mention he had heard of the towns, palaces, temples, and festivals and so on in the Nepal Valley where Malla kings were thriving.

So, Prithvi’s father Narabhupal Shah wanted to educate his young son Prithvi Narayan in the highly affluent palace of the Malla kings where he would learn the finest language he had heard of, and see those beautiful towns with his own eyes. In order to make his dream come true, Narabhupal wrote three letters: one each to the king of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur pleading with them to take his son Prithvi to the palace and educate him in every aspect of running the State administration, and the cutting-edge art of warfare.

Reading the letter of the tiny rural kingdom, both Kathmandu and Lalitpur kings outright gave the letter the brush-off stating what this uncultured king of the tiny rural kingdom Gorkha wanted from them whereas the king of Bhaktapur Ranajit Malla demonstrated that he had a soft spot for the prince of even the backward kingdom, and he graciously accepted the humble appeal of Narabhupal.

Young rural prince Prithvi came to Bhaktapur tired but Prithvi found fresh after the royalties welcomed him so lovingly as if they had known him for some time. The royalties treated him as one of them, and made every possible effort on making Prithvi felt at home. He was escorted down to the dug down royal gold-gild spout from which water flowed perennially to wash his dirty legs and hands he had made during the arduous trek from Gorkha to Bhaktapur. He was amazed to see so many awesome idols of different deities carved in stone around the spout. Prithvi thought that it was really next to the heaven, as he perceived it. Then, Prithvi found the room intended for his sleep so beautifully decorated. He found all the princes and princesses were so beautiful and delicate as if they had never been on sun. [1]

King Ranajit Malla treated Prithvi not only as generously as possible but also adopted him as his son, and made him have an access to everything in the palace as other royalties had. Prithvi had every sort of the royal privileges in the Bhaktapur palace. Then, Prithvi learned the Nevah language, culture, art of warfare, making of arms and armaments; however, he never learned the royal etiquette his adopted cousins had followed. He could not develop the generous mind as of his adopted father Ranajit Malla.

Prithvi learned the regular lessons of politics, economy, arts, culture, and welfare everyday seven days a week. Then, he played with other princes and princesses, too. Those royalties became practically his sisters and brothers. Princess performed brother worship annually. Prithvi became not only the guest of honor but also one of the royalties.

Prithvi discovered the strength and weakness of the Malla Kings. Gradually, Prithvi realized the Malla kings were very powerful, and they have the strength of any royalties needed to possess but they had the weakness, too that was they had no unity among the Malla kings, and they had been luxurious. So, Prithvi kept this weakness of the Malla kings deep in his mind.

Thus, Prithvi tasted the luxury of royal life at the Bhaktapur palace Malla kings had enjoyed, which Gorkhali kings could never dream of. His kingdom had nothing except for the agriculture, raising livestock, some horticulture, and the subjects were subsistent farmers. Trade and commerce had hardly visible. No artisans that could build beautiful palaces, temples, and other structures, no sculptress that could mould beautiful idols, no painters that could paint beautiful pictures, no musicians and dancers that could really entertain the royalties, were available. The Gorkha kingdom was really a rock bottom poor kingdom, Prithvi thought for himself.

Prithvi developed a taste for the affluent royal life his hosts had enjoyed, which he could not dream of at his rural kingdom Gorkha. Prithvi had the choice of taking the artisans, artists, musicians and dancers to his kingdom and let them teach his subjects so that he could have the similar lifestyle that of the Malla kings but that was not going to happen in a number of years; however, he could fight and win the kingdoms one by one. So, he must have set his life target to win the kingdoms of Malla kings while in the Bhaktapur palace, and emulate the splendid lives of the highly prosperous Malla kings.

Then, Prithvi engaged in the palace intrigues to test his ability. He plotted perfectly well to make the princes fight against each other, and became instrumental to the death of the first legal son of Ranajit Malla thus denying Ranajit the heir to his throne. That was the first step of his victory in the Nepal Valley. Then, Prithvi graduated from the royal palace of Ranajit Malla, and became well versed in the royal power politics. Thus, Prithvi matured from the raw person with no background of social, political and economical status to a well-versed politician as well as a warrior of the day.

However, one thing Prithvi did not give a fig to, was the etiquette of the royal palace. Surely, a rural prince as Prithvi was, he had difficulty in appreciating the very sensitive and sophisticated royal behavior and the norms and values royalties had followed, which the rural royalties of Gorkha kingdom had been far from developing any sorts of the etiquette of the Malla royalties. Prithvi was as raw as a farmer from the hill when he entered the royal palace of Ranajit Malla in Bhaktapur. Prithvi did not learn the royal etiquette, and he remained as rough as he had been throughout his life of 50 years.

Upon return from the Nepal Valley to his rural kingdom Gorkha, Prithvi became the first highly educated Gorkha prince, as most of his predecessors were almost like the common farmers and were hardly literate. So, they used their handprint in red ink as the royal signature, which followed until King Tribhuvan: descendant of Prithvi. However, Prithvi also could not develop a royal insignia or he did not have time to do so, he also used the handprint as his royal signature.

After the death of Narabhupal, Prithvi became the king of the tiny rural kingdom Gorkha, and he must have set his goal to gradually win the tiny rural kings of that time and then finally to launch a campaign to win the highly prosperous Nepal Valley. However, Prithvi found the resource constraint, which he could not comprehend how to resolve.

Obviously, he did not learn how to mobilize the resources required for armaments and for maintaining the soldiers while undergoing training at the palace of the Ranajit Malla. So, he went around to see how to gather together resources. He hit the house of a blacksmith whom he confided in that he had not sufficient resources. The blacksmith voluntarily contributed a rupee and advised Prithvi to collect money from his subjects in the similar manner. [2]

Clearly, Prithvi did not know how to tax the subjects. Thus taking a clue from a blacksmith, Prithvi became wiser and stronger and ultimately richer, could buy arms and ammunition, and force his subjects to make some arms locally. He imposed tax on smiths in kinds such as iron, copper, and lead and so on required for making arms and ammunition. Smiths had to pay the yearly tax in those metals no matter how. So, smiths had to scout for the copper ore, lead and iron ores on their own, and then they had to smelt them into metals. [3]

Smiths developed a unique technique of finding copper ore. They discovered green sludge led them to the copper ore called chalcopyrite: a sulfide of copper and iron. So, they went on hunting for green sludge and wherever they found it they simply dug in leading to the copper ore. [4] They hand-crushed those ores, and mixed them with cow dung roasted for 24 hours in other words preheated the ores, before smelting them in the charcoal fire. Cow dung mixed with chopped rice straw, and then sun-dried is good for slow heating. That was the most exceedingly brutal way of forcing some folks of the occupational group to work on unthinkable Prithvi had forced them to do. [5]

Prithvi brutally punished those smiths that failed in paying tax in metals. Some of those smiths lost their heads because they could not find sufficient metals they needed to provide their king Prithvi with. So, some folks got punished for their no fault. This system of paying tax in kind continued for many years even after Prithvi left this world of humans to be a wandering ghost.

Prithvi had the money from the tax he collected following the clue of a blacksmith, and armaments made of the metals smiths produced, for launching a prolonged war. He had effectively imposed tax on his subjects rather heavily sometimes leading the subjects to the extreme poverty, as he did to the smiths. However, he made a lot of money and assembled sufficient arms and ammunitions and soldiers to capture one tiny rural kingdom after another surrounding his rural kingdom. Prithvi even went on seizing Nuwakot that belonged to the Malla king emboldening him to advance.

Prithvi learned while in the Bhaktapur palace that the Malla kings were opulent and had been leading luxurious lives, and they celebrated different festivals affluently when they did not care about anything else except for entertainment eating extravagant festival dishes, drinking abundantly the alcohol until it made them tipsy, and watching different festival activities. Citizens were also have developed the same habit. During the festival they drank and danced playing different musical instruments on the streets without caring about anything happening around. That was the right moment Prithvi needed to exploit. He did so.

So, Prithvi launched an attack on Kathmandu when the then king Jayaprakash Malla and citizens were celebrating the festival of the pulling of Living Goddess Kumari on a three-level golden chariot by ropes. Jayaprakash Malla had set the tradition of this festival after Goddess Kumari regained him the kingdom lost to his son. This is called Kumari Jatra even today. All citizens were enjoying the festival feast when Prithvi attacked. Those folks feasting on the festival dishes when received the message that the barbarians assaulted, they simply brushed off the assault and said, “Hit them by roasted meat.” [6] The result was Prithvi captured Kathmandu with a little resistance, and without much troubles.

Jayaprakash fled and took the shelter at the Patan palace. Malla kings had been enjoying so luxurious lives they were not the match for the hill and rough folks like Prithvi and his soldiers to run and fight and protect the sovereignty immediately. The Malla royalties had been so affluent they hardly knew how to wield sword to protect from the assault or attack the enemies.

Malla kings of three city states such as Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur lived so peacefully they needed not fight against each other as they did not compete for expanding their territory rather they competed for developing arts of music, dance, songs, drama and literature, highly sophisticated paintings, sculptures, temples, with so many exotic carvings in wood and stones for centuries. Some of them wrote poems, drama, and some of them played the role in the drama they had staged. Practically, these Malla kings were not fit for a sudden combat. So, Prithvi had easy time to capture Jayaprakash and his counterpart in Patan, and he savagely killed them.

Once Prithvi had seized Kathmandu and Patan, he had a little problem of taking over the rein of his adopted father Ranajit Malla that had put so much of efforts on teaching him various aspects of the royal life of that time, and on bringing him up to an able prince. In fact, Ranajit Malla had been waiting for Prithvi and then turned over his rein to Prithvi who had been his guest and later on an adopted son. So, Ranajit had no problem of relinquishing his throne in favor of Prithvi. [7]

When Prithvi and his soldiers were firing at the palace from the nearby rooftops, Ranajit Malla sent a messenger to tell Prithvi, “Why do Prithvi need to fire when I relinquish the throne in his favor?” Prithvi did not kill Ranajit Malla, as he was the adopted father of Prithvi but Prithvi sent Ranajit Mall to kashi popularly known as Banaras (Holy palace for Hindus in India) in exile. Most of the Hindus aspired for going to kashi, and dying there, as that place was believed to be the holiest, and they might go to heaven after death if they were to die there.

After seizing the three city-states in the Nepal Valley, Prithvi went on a rampage and massacre the Malla royalties that he thought would be the potential threat in the future. He knew the strength of the Malla warriors. So he did not want to see any of them alive. Mallas fled in thousands, and some of them changed their names to Pradhanang to escape from the atrocious butchery of Prithvi and his generals and colonels. Thus, Prithvi won the three city-states in the Nepal Valley with the blood in his hand. [8]

Kirtipur became the hard nut for Prithvi to crack. It was on the top of a hillock. So, Kirituprians had the advantage of fighting against the invading Gorkha soldiers. They repulsed Prithvi and his army several times. Prithvi lost his general called Kalu Pande in the campaign against Kiritipur. [9]

Prithvi was about to lose his head if one of the Kiripurian soldiers were not to stop his colleague from chopping the head of Prithvi saying, “It was not the ethics of the soldier to kill the king. Only a king could kill another king.” That was the etiquette not only the Malla royalties followed but also their soldiers even at the war. However, Prithvi totally disregarded it and followed his unruly behavior as the rural prince of Gorkha learned in his childhood and never unlearned.

What Prithvi did to the brave Kirtipurians after his victory was the total massacre, and cut off the noses and ears of men, women and even elderly because they assisted the warriors in relentlessly fighting against his army. [10] That was the atrocity never known in the human history of that time. He simply so happily swam in the pool of blood of his opponents. If Prithvi were not the savage he would have appreciated the bravery of those warriors that fought so heroically.

After winning the Nepal Valley, first thing Prithvi did was to trash the laws, rules and regulations, social norms and values and disregard any human values, and he did not made any written laws or rules and regulations instead his word of mouth became the law that his descendents and then the Rana prime ministers followed. He did not run the administration with any new ideas neither did follow the old orders Malla kings had set for centuries. He ran the administration with a sword in his hand as rightly depicted in his famous portrait. Anybody raising his/her head got the head chopped off immediately. He gave birth to a new proverb “Nepal ko kanun daiba janun” means Nepalese law only the god knows. [11]

Then, Prithvi engaged in the religious cleansing. He gave choice the people of other faiths than Hindu either to quit the country or die over there. Most of the Christians left the country rather than getting killed. However, some of the Nevah Christians stayed on in the country preferring to die rather than leaving the so dear homeland. Again Prithvi smeared his hands with the blood of Nevah Christians that opted to remain in the motherland.

Prithvi plundered the ancient treasury of Malla kings. He was the poor king of the Gorkha kingdom so he did not have seen any high value jewelers in his life before he reached the Bhaktapur palace. Then, he got everything robbing the Malla royalties. He became the master of the so well developed kingdoms of the Nepal Valley.

It all happened in 1768 when Prithvi won the Nepal Valley just eight years before the European colonists in America declared United States of America freeing from the British empire in 1776. By that time Nepal had already a towering temple called Nyatapola: the tallest temple that none of the devastating earthquakes could tore it down except for its parasol. Anybody could guess how building technology had developed by that time. While America moved ahead freeing from the colonial rule Nepal came under the colonists and remained colonized for more than two centuries.

Then, Prithvi halted all sorts of development that Malla kings and their predecessors Licchavi kings had pioneered and built up in thousands of years. His concern was only for keeping the hard won kingdom he never could have realized if not his godfather Ranajit Malla had not so graciously taught him so many things to be a warrior of his caliber.

Even then Prithvi had chased away the Malla royalties those dared to remain in the homeland were mercilessly killed he had the phobia of the Nevah community. First thing he did was to bar the people of the Nevah community from serving in the army. Then, he held a sword over the heads of the Nevah community at all the time. Even for minor offenses, Nevah people got punish with death. The Nevah community was repressed so much that their backbone was broken thereafter for centuries.

Prithvi closed all formal learning institutions the Malla kings had set up. The Nevahs had to teach the music, songs, and paintings to the younger generations in the areas, which were off-limit to the spies of Prithvi and his administration. Thus, Nevahs managed to keep the culture, tradition, language, and the remnants of the ancient technology from getting destroyed by the administration of the plunderers and robbers. The Nevah is only one example but every ethnic group faced the same fate as of the Nevahs.

Today, some people possessed with the ghost of Prithvi Narayan are for reminding the folks the dark old days when their ancestors suffered so much from the atrocities of Prithvi celebrating the anniversary of such a merciless person that had put the development of Nepal in a reverse gear and managed to make Nepal one of the least development country in the modern world after 240 years of taking Nepal to the opposite direction.

Those ghost-possessed people could go and garland the statue of Prithvi and seek the blessing from the spirit of such a cruel man for pushing Nepal back again if possible, and then running the country for serving the socio-economic prosperity of a few at the cost of the majority. These guys want to plunder and rob the common folks again as Prithvi did about two-and-a half century ago.

Three academies such as Nepal Academy, Academy of Arts and Music, and Academy of Science jointly decided to mark the anniversary of the despot Prithvi on January 11 mounting the portrait of Prithvi on a truck, and taking it to the his statue in front of the Singh durbar Secretariat, according to the 7 o’clock morning news of the Radio Nepal on January 7, 8, and 9, 2018. Surely, they have been doing to demonstrate the remnant of the colonizer Prithvi.

Surely, it brings smile in the faces of the repressive elements but it is sowing the seeds of conflict again because some repressive elements have been trying to take back the power from the people that had fought for it for the last 70 years and shed a lot of blood; and some of them became the martyrs, and finally they got it today. For example, youths in the Southern plain area called Terai have not forgotten how they have been treated in the past and even now, and they feel that the suppression has continued even today.

The academies would have been well off and would be credited with honor if they were to celebrate the upcoming martyrs’ week with the same fanfares as they have planned for marking the day of the tyrant in the name of the unification of the present day Nepal forgetting Nepal had been much more bigger extending from the Tiesta to the east to Kumaon and Gadwal to the west than despot Prithvi had made. Without the sacrifices of the martyrs, these guys celebrating the anniversary of Prithvi would hardly have any education to reach such prestigious positions in the academies.

Prithvi had grabbed the power from the people that had enjoyed rights to live honorably following the system prevailing before Prithvi came in, and set the tradition of the rule of a class of a small groups of Chhetris keeping all other folks including ethnic people, and other Chhetris that did not have an access to power in dare poverty, and this clique ruled with a sword in the hand rather than an any ideology except for keeping the people repressed.

Prithvi and his descendents also set the tradition of making factions within the small group of a ruling class of Chhetris and making the factions fight against each other for the position of power. Consequently, prime ministers such as Bhimsen Thapa, Mathabir Singh, Ranodeep Singh lost their lives, and then the sons and grandsons of Jung Bahadur Rana that had killed Mathabir Singh, and later on hundreds of courtiers at the Kot Massacre to come to power, had either got killed or fled the country.

These academy people taking the initiative to propagate the demon-worship in the name of Prithvi unifying the country have been either ignorant or deliberately ignored the fact that Prithvi and his descendants had ruled the country with a sword in the hand denying everything to the common folks; and these academy guys have been misusing the taxpayers’ money for celebrating the anniversary of the despot. Common folks would never forgive them for such misdeeds.

Had not the so many martyrs shed their blood sacrificing their youthful and beautiful lives for the sake of the rights to live honorably for the common folks over 70 years these guys that have been marking the day of the tyrant Prithvi would have been living in poverty as did their ancestors, and their brethren even today as the result of the authoritarian rule of the despotic rulers over the two-and-a-half centuries.

Some politicians such as Ishwor Pokharel and Jhalanath Khanal have attended the events marking the anniversary of Prithvi and heaped the praise on Prithvi in the name of unifying the country but actually they have appreciated the repressive rule of the Prithvi and his descendents, and the colonization of the highly prosperous people by the barbarously backward clique of the Shah rulers.

Shame on these politicians that have been innocently or deliberately have been advocating a rule of a small group even after Nepal entered the republican State. Are these guys really for taking back the country to the rule of a clique? However, voters would teach them a good lesson, as they did to Sher Bahadur Deuba and Kamal Thapa that had made the anniversary of Prithvi a public holiday.

Only after the elimination of the Shah dynastic rule in 2008 that Prithvi had set up two-and-a-half centuries ago, Nepalese have been free from the colonization, and came out of the dark period of the rule of Prithvi and his descendants. Thereafter, every ethnic group including Khas could speak in their mother tongue without fear and persecution, and could celebrate their festivals and follow their culture and tradition without penalty. Thus, the dark period of the Shah dynastic rule ended, and Nepalese could again move on the fast-track development.

Happy despot’s anniversary

January 10, 2018

Updated on January 11, 2018

Updated on January 12, 2018

Updated on January 14, 2018

Updated on January 17, 2018

References

[1] Mary Shepherd Slusser: Nepal Mandala: A cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley Volume I: Text 1998 p 76

[2] From the movie about Prithvi

[3] Ludwig F. Stiller, S.J.: The Rise Of The Gorkha House, 1975

[4] I got this information from the miner owner of the Wapsa copper mine in the Solukhumbhu district when I visited with a team of geologists of the HMG/UNDP Mineral Exploration Project in 1976

[5] Siddhi B. Ranjitkar: The Mineral Industry In Nepal: Mining Magazine U.K. Publication, February 1982 p 161-165

[6] Local Nevah folks at Ko-hity have this message passed from generation to generation. Prithvi led his army through Ko-hity and attacked Jayaprakash while he was performing offerings to Living Goddess Kumari.

[7] History passed on from one generation to another among the Nevahs

[8] Some Mallas in Dhankuta and Pradhanangs in Bhaktpur told the story of how their ancestors fled and changed their names from Malla to Pradhanang to escape from being the victims of Prithvi.

[9] Ludwig F. Stiller, S.J.: The Rise Of The Gorkha House, 1975 p 120

[10] Ludwig F. Stiller, S.J.: The Rise Of The Gorkha House, 1975 p 127

[11] In most of the cases, this proverb is still applicable even today, as the partisan lawyers interpret the constitution and laws as their party bosses want.