Kathmandu, Aug 14 (IANS) When Manisha Koirala visited a little-known museum in Kathmandu recently, it created a hype because she is a popular Bollywood star. However, few know that the Sundarijal Museum is also an indirect memorial of the Indian freedom movement as the man it commemorates was one of the most stalwart advocates of India’s independence from British colonial rule.
Bishweshwor Prasad Koirala, popularly known as B.P., Manisha’s grandfather and the first elected prime minister of Nepal, was also a fighter for Indian independence who was jailed twice in India by the British.
‘Though I was born three years after India became independent, all our family members know about B.P.’s involvement in India’s politics during the British Raj,’ says Koirala’s nephew, Dr Shekhar Koirala, a member of parliament from B.P.’s Nepali Congress party.
‘B.P. was the first leader who raised a political issue for India’s independence. He realised that if Nepal wanted to be free from the tyranny of its own Rana prime ministers (who received support from the British government), India had to be independent.’
Since the Koirala family was exiled to India when B.P. was only three, India’s history, culture and politics was as much part of his blood as Nepal’s, strengthened by his education in the Scottish Church College in Calcutta, the Banaras Hindu University and the Calcutta University.
As a student, he became drawn to the Indian struggle for independence and joined the Indian National Congress in 1934. According to his nephew, he was also involved in the Socialist movement in India and was the joint secretary of the Patna branch of the Socialist Party of India.
In 1930, the young Nepali leader came under the radar of the British government and was arrested as a ‘terrorist’.
Koirala spent four years in various Indian jails under the British Raj, including Bankipore, where he was kept for six months along with the first Indian president, Dr Rajendra Prasad, for taking part in the Quit India movement.
He was then shifted to the Hazaribagh jail where his prison mate was Jagjivan Ram, who later became defence minister and deputy prime minister of India.
‘The day he was released from Hazaribagh, B.P. received a telegram from home,’ says Shekhar Koirala. ‘He learnt that while he was inside, his father, Krishna Prasad Koirala, had passed away.’
It was in India, inspired by the Indian freedom movement, that Koirala founded the socialist Nepali National Congress, which later became the Nepali Congress and is today, the second largest party in Nepal.
When B.P. fell ill in Hazaribagh jail, Dr Koirala says Dr Rajendra Prasad persuaded the British authorities to release the lanky but impassioned young man who was sent to Mumbai for medical diagnosis and treatment.
Three years after India’s independence, the Nepali Congress led a pro-democracy movement in Nepal that ended the Rana regime and finally, elections were held in 1959. The Nepali Congress won a landslide victory and B.P. became the first democratically elected prime minister of Nepal.
However, his tenure was cut short in 1960 when the then king Mahendra staged a coup and jailed B.P., who spent eight years behind bars without trial.
In 1968, after growing international pressure, especially from India, B.P. was released but sent to exile in Banaras. He returned from exile in 1976 but passed away six years later, succumbing to throat cancer.
The Koiralas, known as the Gandhi family of Nepal, gave the republic two more prime ministers – B.P’s stepbrother Matrika Prasad Koirala and youngest brother Girija Prasad Koirala.
All five brothers as well as B.P.’s niece Shailaja Acharya remained associated with India’s fight for independence as well as its socialist movement.
(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in(
