Nepal An Historical Perspective

Nepal witnessed great turmoil of history in April, 2006. The Nepalese Parliament's historical decsion to strip the monarchy of its powers on way to become a Republic is an unique episode of this century. Such bloodless revolution against monarchy was not an ordinary chapter. Monarchy was kept in highest regards by the elites and masses of Nepal who considered the monarch as a living avatar of Vishnu. But the present king could not win the love, affection and regards of the people in general and the militant Maoists in particular. A king Mahendra broke the walls of democracy through a sort of coup, with ambitions to restore the real powers with the Maharajadhiraj of Nepal Adhirajya (Kingdom of Nepal), through the backdoors of Panchayati Raj System replacing the Parliamentary Democracy with limited monarchy. It was only in 1990 that his successor, Birendra accepted the status of constitutional monarch after a peoples' movement. Then came 2001, with his ghastly murder and the elimination of his entire family and Gyanendra becoming the king of the shocked nation. He tried to take the clock back to the reign of his father-Mahenda. All these events along with the historical events of Neplaese history have been the theme of this book.

Dr. B.L. Kapoor has authored more than a dozen books mainly on History and Archaeology which are his much preferred disciplines. He is exeptionally fascinated about the country and people of Nepal and his present book is an outcome of admiration for Nepal. In this book, he has focussed his theme on the recent history of Nepal, including the present convulsions of glorious bloodless revolu- tion, the first of its kind in the 21st century which may result as a trend setter for other autocratic, military and dictatorial regimes in our neighbourhood.

Just gathering informations and presenting them hurridly in book form as a compendium was never an objective in my endeavour to author this book. As a matter of fact in January, 2000, I had first journey to Nepal confined to the capital city Kathmandu. During that period from the hotel management, the shopkeepers, the porters, the priests and pedestrians, I could gather several outstanding informations which had enough and firm impact on my mind. The face-to-face talks with them revealed a lot of resentment for the people's representatives as well about the monarchy of Nepal. Also talks with the people make me understand how a common Nepali reacts to India as a country and Indians as tourists and traders. Really it unfolded several other aspects of their general behaviour and thinking about India. During that stay, I was in no less way impressed by the massive wooden mansions of Hanuman Dhoka, Kumari House, the expanded and new look of Singh Durbar along with several brass images of Rajas and Ranas. This induced in me a desire to pen down travelogue about Nepal. I had desired to make similar visits to Lalitpur (Patan), Bhatgaon, Kapilvastu and Gorkha to gather materials for the forthcoming travelogue, the longing for which remained intensive but could not materialize on account of several factors and situations. Prior to my maiden visit to Nepal, I had good fortune to lay hand on the old files of "The Statesman' of Calcutta. One of my relation who is no more now, was an ardent reader of this daily paper and was getting "The Staitesman' by mail when hardly it was available with the news paper agents of towns of Himachal Pradesh. Of course Shimla was an exception being a town of old time's educated and retired people whose admirations of British Raj was unlimited and uninhibited.

**Contents and Sample Pages**