Nepal: Compromise and Liberalization

Abstract

On the evening of October 30, 1968, Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, leader of the Nepali Congress and Prime Minister of the first elected government in Nepal (1959-1960), and his close associate, Ganesh Man Singh, were released from prison after nearly eight years in detention. On the following day King Mahendra granted pardon to 23 leading Nepali Congress exiles living in India, including Subarna Shamsher, Deputy Prime Minister in the Nepali Congress government and head of the party in exile. As the news was received in towns and villages, festive oil lamps were lit, and the Nepali press breathed a sigh of relief that the deadlock over Nepal's most knotty political problem had at long last been resolved. The deadlock had its inception on December 15, 1960. On that day the uncomfortable alliance between King Mahendra and Koirala's popularly elected government was abruptly terminated when the King, backed by the army, imprisoned Koirala and other party leaders. He abrogated the parliamentary constitution and substituted for it Democracy, a system which gave him absolute power and direct control over the instruments of government. While the King steadfastly refused to release Koirala until he agreed to support the Panchayat system, Koirala just as resolutely refused to do so. The stalemate sapped national morale and split the loyalties of the small but important educated segment of Nepal's population, that politically motivated elite which generates the leadership for most aspects of Nepali life and is the key to Nepal's development. Among the factors contributing to a resolution of the stalemate, the most important were the King's heart attack in March, the effects of long-term confinement on Koirala's health, the deteriorating morale and fading prospects of the exiles, and the inability of the government to rally the people behind its development program. On March 15, while on tour in the southwest corner of the country, King Mahendra suffered a heart attack from which he spent the next seven months recuperating. In Kathmandu it was widely rumored that the King had suffered permanent disability. However, he flew to London in November for a complete medical checkup, and after doctors had pronounced him fully recovered he returned to Kathmandu to resume his duties. Nevertheless, it was during the period of the King's illness that the elements which were needed to effect a solution of the deadlock fell into place. The temporary leadership vacuum appears to have intensified efforts to find a solution. During Koirala's imprisonment there were periodic rumors that the throat cancer for which he had undergone an operation during the 1940s had be.