Tarai

Nepal is divided into three main geographical regions: the plains of the Tarai in the south, historically poor and marginalised; the middle hills of the Pahad, both culturally and politically dominant; and the high mountains of the Himal in the north.

what Durga did on Vijayadashami 

In Hindu mythology, Vijayadashami is the day the goddess Durga achieved her final victory over Mahishasura – a demon king embodying evil in most Savarna tellings, but for many Dalit and Adivasi communities a righteous ruler slain for resisting Vedic tradition and caste society.

Bhai Dooj

A Hindu festival to celebrate the bond between brother and sister, with the application of a mark on the forehead (“tika” in Nepali) to signify wishes for well-being

Liberation Army

Congress Mukti Sena, the militant branch of the Nepali Congress

Girija

Girija Prasad Koirala (1924–2010), Nepali Congress leader and four-time prime minister of Nepal

Bishwa Bandhu

Bishwa Bandhu Thapa (b. 1927), a close ally of B P Koirala and the Nepali Congress who sided with the monarchy after the royal coup d’état of 1959 and became a key architect of the autocratic, partyless political system that followed it

Bhola Chatterji

Bhola Chatterji, an Indian socialist and close associate of B P Koirala. Chatterji travelled to Burma to negotiate a cache of arms from the Burmese Socialist Party for use in the 1950 insurrection.

Tarini Prasad

Tarini Prasad Koirala (1922–1974), brother to B P Koirala and Girija Prasad Koirala, and a labour leader later turned writer and journalist

Bhanubhakta Ramayana

A translation of the Ramayana by the poet Bhanubhakta (1814–1868), considered the first great epic of Nepali literature

Lord of Lanka, your death-messenger has come

A warning delivered to Ravan, the prime antagonist in the Ramayana, by Hanuman, an envoy of the epic’s hero, Ram

Jogbani

A town directly across the Indian border south of Biratnagar, and a key base for the Nepali Congress insurgents in 1950

Lord Hanuman reveals his celestial form

An allusion to the Ramayana, where Hanuman, the monkey god, assumes several extraordinary avatars

a great man first lit the flame of resistance

In 1917, Krishna Prasad Koirala (d. 1945), a prosperous businessman and one-time government official, sent a parcel of tattered rags gathered from peasants to the Rana prime minister in Kathmandu to protest the regime’s indifference to its impoverished subjects. His defiance resulted in the long exile of his family in India and catalysed the political rise of his sons.

historic workers’ agitation

A 1947 labour strike at the Biratnagar Jute Mill, spearheaded by Congress leaders, that evolved into an anti-Rana movement culminating in the 1950–1951 revolution. Renu errs on the year: the strike occurred in 1947, not 1946 as he has it in the original.

Duhai Pashupatinath

An appeal for mercy to Lord Pashupatinath (see above)

In 1946 she had roared at the soldiers

Krishna Prasad Koirala returned to Nepal under an amnesty circa 1930 but in the 1940s was imprisoned for his continued defiance of the Rana regime. With her husband’s health failing, Divya Koirala travelled to Kathmandu to try and see him, but was denied a meeting before his death. Renu errs on the year: Krishna Prasad died in 1945, not 1946.

Himalaya Airlines

Renu gets the name wrong. This was, in fact, Himalayan Aviation, founded in India with surplus Second World War aircraft by the exiled Mahabir Shumsher Rana (1911–1971) – a “C-class” Rana under the Ranas’ elaborate rolls of succession, and hence denied any hereditary right to rule. It was closely involved in supporting the anti-Rana movement, and ferried arms to airfields on the India–Nepal border.

Subarna Shumsher

Also a “C-class” Rana, Subarna Shumsher Rana (1910–1977) was a key financier of the Congress Mukti Sena and its military commander during the insurrection.

Devendra Babu

Devendra Prasad Singh, an Indian socialist and ally of the Koirala family.

Mahendra Bikram Shah

In 1948, Mahendra Bikram Shah (d.1965) founded the Nepal Democratic Congress in Calcutta with the backing of disgruntled “C-Class” Ranas. This group merged in 1950 with B P Koirala's Nepali National Congress to form the unified Nepali Congress, with Shah as its first general secretary. (Not to be confused with Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, the king of Nepal from 1955 to 1972 and the leader of the 1960 royal coup d’état.)

Tarini

Tarini Prasad Koirala (1922–1974), a younger brother of B P Koirala, who established Prajatantra Nepal Radio (“Democracy Nepal Radio”) in Biratnagar to support the insurrection

Shiv Jung

Shiv Jung Thapa, a commander of the Congress Mukti Sena after he defected from the Royal Nepali Army 

Yakthumba

Gyan Bahadur Yakthumba (1920–1970), a Second World War veteran who went on to serve as Nepal’s chief of police and ambassador to Burma 

Neither will Radha get her nine mans of oil, nor will she dance

Na Radha ko nau maun tel hoga, na Radha nachegi. A common Hindi proverb, used to describe a deadlock where someone sets an impossible condition to avoid performing a task. A man, or maund, is an old unit of weight, roughly equivalent to 38–40 kilogrammes.

Golchha House

The ancestral residence of a prominent trading family, located in the heart of Biratnagar

Sadar Road

Presumably shorthand for Forbesganj, a city some kilometres to the south of Biratnagar across the open Nepal–India border; its Sadar Road is a notable commercial hub

Juddha Shumsher

Juddha Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (1875–1952), the prime minister of Nepal from 1932 to 1945

Matrika Prasad Koirala

Matrika Prasad Koirala (1912–1997), older half-brother of B P Koirala and first president of the Nepali Congress. Matrika Prasad became the prime minister of Nepal immediately following the Ranas’ ouster, but after forming a controversial partnership with the monarchy he was expelled from the party and thereafter shifted towards royalist politics.

the four-star flag

The banner of the Nepali Congress: a rectangle with horizontal red stripes across its top and base, and a white stripe across the middle bearing four red stars in a diamond pattern

Chapter 9

Democracy Nepal Radio

Prajatantra Nepal Radio, see “Tarini” above

Tribhuvan as Nepal’s supreme ruler

Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah (1906–1955), the king of Nepal from 1911 to 1955, excepting a brief exile between November 1950 and January 1951. Renu refers to him here in the original Hindi with his traditional royal honorifics, as Shree-panch Maharajdhiraj Tribhuvan. 

“Now, people, don’t blame me.”

“Ab jani dosh dehu mohi logu”. A line in Awadhi from Tulsidas’s 16th-century epic Ramcharitmanas, spoken by Dasharatha as he is compelled to send his son Ram into exile, and popularly quoted when someone is about to take a momentous step – often against their will – that may have dire consequences.

“You have never encountered true warriors on a real battlefield”

“Mile na kabahu subhata rana gadhe”. A line in Awadhi from Tulsidas’s epic Ramcharitmanas. The complete phrase, spoken in defiance by Lakshman to answer a threat from the sage Parshuram, reads: Mile na kabahu subhata rana gadhe. Dvija devata gharahi ke badhe. (You have never encountered true warriors on a real battlefield. O Brahmin deity, you are great only within the walls of your own home.)

Babar Shumsher

Babar Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (1888–1960), brother of the last Rana prime minister, Mohan Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (1885–1967), was the commander-in-chief of the Royal Nepali Army at the time of the 1950 insurrection.

Madheshis

The diverse inhabitants of the Nepali Tarai, with a geographical and cultural identity distinct from the Pahadi population (see “Tarai” above)

Purnia district

A district a short distance south of Biratnagar across the Indian border, in the state of Bihar

gram panchayat

Village councils, acting as units of local governance

Morang

The region surrounding Biratnagar

Sandaju

An affectionate nickname for B P Koirala, combining the Nepali words sano (younger) and daju (elder brother) to reflect his position as the second-eldest of five brothers in the Koirala family. While it began as a family name, it eventually became a popular term for BP among Nepali Congress cadres and the general public.

Having safely whisked the king out of the country

Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah (see above) escaped his Rana overlords on 6 November 1950 to seek asylum in the Indian embassy, an act that subverted the Ranas’ claim to legitimacy and set in motion the 1950–51 revolution. After the Delhi Accord and the formation of a compromise government of the Ranas and the Nepali Congress rebels, he returned to proclaim an end to hereditary Rana rule and a transition – ultimately short-lived – to constitutional democracy. 

Lal Salaam

“Red Salute”, the primary greeting and salute used by communists and socialists across much of Southasia