Remembering Nepali Congress Leader BP

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

Biseswore Prasad Koirala popularly known as BP died in 1982 after the prolonged illness. He was the first elected Prime Minister from 1950 to 1960. He led the armed movement against the then despotic rulers called Ranas and save the then king from extinction. He had been a controversial leader. He had claimed to be a social democrat but had been instrumental to keep the autocratic monarchy. He himself had been a dictatorial leader of Nepali Congress. Nepalis particularly the people having faith in the Nepali Congress (NC) have celebrated the 27th death anniversary of BP throughout Nepal with various programs on July 21, 2009.

BP was a dictatorial leader. If you read memoir of Supreme Leader Ganeshman Singh you will find in the pages from 3 to 7 of the second part of the memoir that BP had proposed to accept the flag of the Nepal Democratic Congress for a new party called ‘Nepali Congress’ to be formed after the merger of Nepali National Congress and Nepal Democratic Congress in the three-day joint conference held in Calcutta from April 8 to 10, 1950 disregarding the previous agreement leaders of both the parties had reached on accepting the flag of the Nepali National Congress. All the leaders had agreed on the tri-color flag of the Nepali National Congress. The three colors are white, blue and yellow. The white part of the flag has a rising sun whereas the blue and yellow have nothing. The white represented the Nepal’s Himalaya, and the rising sun represented the country entering into the new era; the middle blue part represented the mid hills and the yellow part of the flag represented the Tarai. The flag of Nepali National Congress has four stars in the white background of the middle with red border on both the upper and lower parts. BP had given explanations to Ganeshman Singh that Subarna Shumsher had already made hundreds of thousands rupees worth of flags of Nepal Democratic Congress. So, he did not want to waste the money spent on making the flags. BP and Ganeshman Singh were of the Nepali National Congress whereas Subarna Shumsher was of the Nepal Democratic Congress. Thus, the four start flag of Nepali Congress came to exist.

BP had used Ganeshman for the risky mission. Ganeshman was a straightforward and frank person in dealing with all. He never did care of risk in his political mission. The second part of the same memoir under the sub-title “My Team and I in the Kathmandu Mission” states how difficult mission it was when he returned back to Nepal from India. It was incredibly risky mission for the person who had escaped from the jail in Nepal. While he was serving a life term in the jail, Ganeshman managed to escape from the jail and gone to India to work with other colleagues for ending the despotic Rana rule in Nepal. The Rana administration declared an attractive reward for anybody bringing Ganeshman dead or alive. In this situation, BP sent Ganeshman back to Nepal in a political mission. Ultimately, Ganeshman got into the hands of the police and went back to jail again. He would have done better jobs staying in India than sitting in a jail in Nepal.

The NC has launched an armed movement against the tyrannical Rana rule in Nepal in 1950. The NC called its army “Mukti Sena” means Liberation Army. The Liberation Army captured several regions in the Tarai and in the hills, and set up there “People’s governments”. So, the tyrannical Ranas labeled the NC members as ‘terrorists’ and have attempted to create the sense of fear of the NC in the minds of Nepalis.

Then, seeing the sure victory of the Liberation Army of the NC, former King Tribhuvan took the shelter at the Indian embassy in Kathmandu in a bid to fly to India. Indian planes took Tribhuvan and his family except for his second grandson Gyanendra to New Delhi, India in the late 1950. The Rana rulers labeled Tribhuvan as an anti-national and fired him from the position of the king and crowned his second grandson Gyanendra as the king. The Rana rulers attempted to receive the recognition of Gyanendra as the king of Nepal from the Government of India; however, the then-government of India led by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru never recognized Gyanendra as the king of Nepal rather urged them to reconcile and return Tribhuvan as the king. The then-Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher made a proposal for a new agreement between Tribhuvan and Mohan Shumsher. Later on, with the advice of the Indian leaders, Mohan Shumsher and Tribhuvan agreed on recognizing the NC as a third force and include it in the government.

Serving the jail term in Nepal, Ganeshman never accepted the Delhi agreement BP and his colleagues working in India had agreed on. The NC leaders ordered the Liberation Army to stop their military engagement. However, Ganeshman said that the agreement was a betrayal to the Nepalese people, and stopping the Liberation Army from engaging in the liberation means stopping the movement for freedom from the tyrannical rule was only a half done job.

On February 18, 1951, Former King Tribhuvan triumphantly returned to Kathmandu from New Delhi whereas real heroes means NC leaders such as BP and others were sidelined. Hundreds of thousands of Kathmanduites went to the airport to receive the heroes of the Liberation Movement but they found Tribhuvan coming out of the airplane instead of BP or some other leaders. So, the hero of the democratic movement became former King Tribhuvan rather than the real leaders BP and his colleagues because of the Delhi agreement BP and his colleagues had accepted.

After the declaration of the Delhi agreement, Ganeshman came out of the jail victorious. Thousands of Kathmanduites welcomed him as a hero and took him around the city. People from their windows rained on the hero auspicious items such as vermillion, flowers and so on as welcome to the hero. Thus, a spontaneous victory parade was held in Kathmandu.

Ganeshman refused to accept the ministerial position in the interim government headed by Mohan Shumsher; rejected any members other than the members of the NC in the interim cabinet not to mention the Rana rulers but BP accepted even the inclusion of the king’s men in the cabinet and then persuaded Ganeshman to accept the position in the government led by Mohan Shumsher in 1951. BP himself got the portfolio of Home.

The interim government was supposed to hold elections for a constituent assembly (CA) to write a new constitution of a New Nepal to be built by Nepalis. BP spent most of his time on tearing down the interim government for taking the power from the Ranas.  Once even Mohan Shumsher had advised BP that BP needed to hold elections for a CA in 1952 following the Delhi agreement, the elections would be in favor of the NC, as the political situation was the most favorable to the NC.

BP and his half-brother Matrika Prasad Koirala engaged in the dirty politics of gaining supremacy over the NC and the state power. Taking the side of the palace, Matrika secured the favor of the former king and then the king appointed him to the Prime Minister. BP did not put pressure on Matrika to hold elections for a CA rather went on manipulating the party leaders to win the power back from Matrika. However, Former King Tribhuvan successfully taking the advantage of the Koirala brothers’ fight for power got back the absolute power and consolidated it.

After the death of Tribhuvan, his son former King Mahendra appointed one political leader after another to the Prime Minster and tested their ability of running the administration. However, he did not offer the position of the Prime Minister to the leader of the NC that had brought down the dictatorial Rana regime and put the displaced king back on the throne. So, BP did not get any chance of becoming a Prime Minister.

So, BP had no choice but to launch a non-cooperation movement demanding a constitution and elections for a parliament. The NC cadres had successfully put on hold the administration but former King Mahendra did not dare to take strong actions against the protesting leaders as the public opinions had not been favorable to him in other words had not gone against the NC leaders, yet. So, Mahendra gave his version of a constitution and held elections for a parliament in 1959.

The NC received the absolute majority in the elections for the parliament. With such an overwhelming majority the NC leaders could do many good things for the country and the NC, too. However, the NC government headed by BP did not take the advantage of the absolute majority the NC had in the parliament and ran the administration on their discretion rather than following the rule of law. Consequently, the anarchic rule of the NC cadres prevailed in the country. The NC ministers became corrupt and abused the authority and the power they had enjoyed. For example, the then-Minister for Civil Work and Construction Ganeshman went to complain the then-Prime Minister BP that some contractors had mismanaged the jobs but BP remained quiet. NC cadres and leaders used to say that none could remove them from power for five years. Consequently, the NC government became disastrously unpopular among the Nepalis.

Feeling the pulse of the NC leaders and reading the Nepalese people’s opinions about the government, Former King Mahendra usurped the power from the NC leaders and put them in a jail on December 15, 1960. Thus, the destiny of the first elected Prime Minister was set by the King. Nepalis did not rise up against the king’s undemocratic actions although some NC cadres attempted to do something without the people’s support. Thus, BP had become so unpopular only after eighteen months of getting the absolute majority from the people.

In 1967 the then government released BP and Ganeshman from the Sundarijal jail. Both of them went to India for self-exile. They have received the support from the then-government led by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

In 1977, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of emergency in India. She put all the opposition leaders including the great Indian socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan: the patron of the NC leaders. She gave BP and Ganeshman the choice of remaining quiet in India or returning back to Nepal. BP and Ganeshman chose to come back to Nepal rather than accepting the emergency rule of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

BP and Ganeshman came back to Nepal following the policy on the reconciliation with the then regime. The then-regime known by the name of Panchayat had already been quite unpopular among the Nepalis because of the corrupt nature of all political cadres engaged in this no-political party system imposed by former King Mahendra in 1962. All political parties remained illegal. So, there was no reconciliation among the NC leaders and then the corrupt Panchayati leaders.

Once BP had said that his neck and the neck of former King Mahendra’s neck were conjoined. It was quite clear that if the monarchy became dead BP himself would be dead, too. However, neither Mahendra publicly accepted the notion of having his neck and BP’s neck conjoined nor he had offered anything to BP for this sentimental statement of BP.

In April 1979, a group of Nepalese students wanted to go to the embassy of Pakistan in Nepal to submit a statement of protest against the hanging of Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. However, the police stopped the student at Lainchaur, Kathmandu from moving ahead. This police behavior became the reason for the spontaneous uprisings of the students against the Panchayat regime.

If BP had not accepted former King Birendra’s offer for referendum on the choice of between an improved Panchayat system and a multi-party political system, most of the political analysts agreed that the Panchayat system would have fallen even in 1979. Under the political leaders’ pressure, students ended their movement against the Panchayat system and accepted the referendum.

In 1980 the then government led by infamous Surya Bahadur Thapa held the referendum on choosing the Panchayat system or a multi-party political system. Blue color stood for the multi-party while yellow became the color of the Panchayat system. Prime Minister Thapa used the billions of rupees worth of the Nepalese forest resources causing deforestation just to prove the people’s choice was of an improved Panchayat system. The government took months to bring the ballot boxes from different parts of the country to the headquarters for counting the votes. If BP had pressed the government to count the votes on time otherwise rejected the referendum then the real picture of the referendum would have known but BP quietly accepted whatever the government had done for proving ‘the referendum had gone in favor of the Panchayat’. So, Nepalis had to wait another decade for bringing back the multi-party system in 1990.

One of the outstanding political leaders, BP died in 1982 from the chronic disease of neck. He is remembered as the social democratic leader by most of the NC members whereas non-congress Nepalis remembered him as the leader who has spent the whole life on saving the monarchy although he has publicly advocated democratic socialism. He has said in his memoir that if democracy is added to communism then it becomes the democratic socialism.

BP is a great fiction writer, too. He has written several novels while he has served a jail term at Sundarijal, Kathmandu. However, he had no time to correct even simple typos in his writings. He is a great man no doubt but his political standing has made him the great leader of the NC only.

July 24, 2009.