Phanishwar Nath Renu’s story of Nepal’s 1950–51 insurrection

Translated from Hindi by Ratik AsokanIntroduction by Amish Raj Mulmi.Introduction“No matter what people say, I will maintain that this revolution is not unsuccessful but rather unfinished,” Phanishwar Nath Renu wrote of Nepal’s 1950–51 revolution. The Hindi writer’s words were both historically true and prophetic: the same can be said of all of Nepal’s popular uprisings, including the most recent one, the Gen Z revolt in 2025..In 1950, possessed by the fervour of pan-Asian decolonisation and the zeal of a young revolutionary, Renu followed his “Sandaju”, Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala – “BP” to all who knew him – into the Nepali Congress’s armed insurrection against the Rana autocracy. BP had first met Renu in 1937, when the latter was hanging, dripping wet in the rain, from the door of the Katihar–Jogbani train in the Indian state of Bihar. Renu was still years from his 1954 novel Maila Anchal, which transformed Hindi literature and earned him lasting fame; BP, a writer himself, was years away from making a name for himself in history as the first democratically elected prime minister of Nepal. BP was travelling with his wife, Sushila, and the couple invited Renu inside out of pity..He travelled with them across the Nepal border to the Koirala residence in Biratnagar, lived there for a period, and studied at a school famously founded by the Koirala patriarch, Krishna Prasad, in defiance of the Rana regime’s suffocating controls on public education. It was a relationship that was to last the rest of Renu’s life..When BP met Renu for the last time, in December 1976, the writer was suffering from prostate cancer. He would be gone within a year. Nepal, meanwhile, had gone to democracy and back again: the Ranas’ overthrow in 1951, a 1959 election that delivered the Nepali Congress and BP to power, a royal coup d’état that sent BP first to prison and then into exile. Renu told BP, “My sickness does not allow me to help you with the democratic revolution in Nepal for now.”.The Nepali Congress’s 1950 insurrection has mostly disappeared from public memory. When BP later dictated his autobiography – perhaps the most widely read and cited document covering the period – he hardly dwelt on the armed revolt. The Nepali Congress, now an establishment party and on the receiving end of the 2025 Gen Z uprising, offers few acknowledgements of the insurrection’s seminal role in overthrowing autocratic Rana rule..Renu’s Nepali Kranti Katha, a first-person narration of what he witnessed of that tumultuous year, then assumes distinct significance – even if, with the author’s literary embellishments, it is not always a work of strict history. Published in Nepali translation only in February 2025, an English-language reincarnation is long overdue. The translation of select portions below is a welcome step in bringing Renu’s account to wider attention..Renu’s book must not be read as a record of Nepali history alone. It captures, just as importantly, the pan-Asian connections and inspirations of the decolonialists of Southasia. The plot and cast of the 1950 insurrection read like those of a political blockbuster. Arms were flown in from the Socialist Party of Burma. The insurrectionists were supported by a spectrum of Indian nationalist leaders, including Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia and Biju Patnaik. Leading the assault on the town of Bhairahawa was K I Singh, formerly of Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army. After the revolution faltered, Singh led a failed coup attempt and fled to Tibet, from where he would attempt a fresh insurrection, seeking support from Mao Zedong..The Soviets, as Renu writes in his account, tried to discredit the insurrection by terming it “bourgeois”. After the Ranas lost control of Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah, whom they had maintained as a puppet on the throne, the British – long-time allies of the Rana regime and unwilling to give up pretensions of imperial power even after leaving the Subcontinent – were willing to lend support to the Ranas’ abortive attempt to make his three-year-old grandson Gyanendra the king instead. For that brief window in history, Nepal was the centre of a decolonising Asia’s attention..The revolution eventually dissipated not because it ran out of steam – Renu’s account makes that clear – but because of a political agreement between New Delhi, the king and the Rana prime minister, Mohan Shumsher. Renu writes of a revolutionary named Shiv Jung going berserk when the Delhi Accord was signed in February 1951. “We do not accept the agreement. We will kill anyone who wants to form a government with Shumsher,” Shiv Jung announces, brandishing a revolver at his fellow revolutionaries..The Ranas were soon politically incapacitated, but the monarchy re-entrenched its power. Renu’s own belief that the revolution was unfinished, that Nepal’s democracy needed a further revolutionary push, would be validated by the Nepali people. They came out on the streets in 1990 to restore democratic elections, and again in 2006 to finally overthrow the monarchy, putting an end to an armed Maoist uprising and the country’s bloody civil war. After the promises of that republican reset were largely squandered, in 2025 they resorted to the streets once more, this time to sweep away a corrupt cabal of establishment parties, including the Nepali Congress..In the history handed down to most Nepalis today, the violence of the Maoist insurrection is typically contrasted with the supposedly peaceful revolutions of 1950–51, 1990 and 2006. Renu’s war diary, if one can call it that, subverts this narrative. It serves as a reminder that Nepalis’ transformation from subjects to citizens was written, from the start, in the blood of often unnamed revolutionaries. Thirbam Malla, who fell at Birgunj in 1950, is remembered by a street in his name in one of the swankier parts of Kathmandu – a city where street names are almost never known or used. Very few remember his story..Today, to ask Nepalis what revolution – kranti – means is to be met with annoyed stares and deflated voices. They can be forgiven their cynicism, for every one of the jana andolans since 1950 promised a world of change but delivered only a little of it. Corruption, unemployment, mass migration – these are the enduring truths of modern Nepal..Modern Nepali politics owes a lot to the Koirala clan for both its gains and its ills. Besides BP himself, two of his brothers also went on to serve as prime minister, and their party has cumulatively enjoyed power for longer than any other. It has come to represent everything that has gone wrong with Nepal’s successive revolutions. The hallmarks of the politics of Girija Prasad, BP’s youngest sibling and one of the footsoldiers of 1950, were pervasive corruption, nepotism and sycophancy, as well as unyielding political control of an antiquated bureaucracy and venal student politics that hollowed out higher education. At the moment, the clan is disaggregated, with one group playing for attention inside the Nepali Congress and another through support for the return of the monarchy. The Koirala home in Biratnagar, a key location in Renu’s text, was put to the torch in the 2025 revolt..Reading Renu today, 75 years after the 1950 insurrection, is to return to a world before cynical reality debased Nepal’s revolutionary romanticism. Nepali Kranti Katha is a talisman of hope and idealism, the yearning for freedom, the desire for change and the passion of youth. But it also reads like an account from a different country, one yet to be tarnished by what comes after revolution.– Amish Raj Mulmi.Translator’s noteBetter known as a novelist, Phanishwarnath Renu (1921-1977) did as much as anyone to advance Hindi journalism. “World War II,” he once said, “endowed the surgery department with penicillin and the storytelling department with reportage.” His range was wide and his curiosity infectious. In three decades, from the mid-1940s through the 1970s, he covered droughts and famines, farmers’ movements and caste conflict, Dalit theatre and Test cricket, Bangladesh’s war of independence and much else..Nepali politics was an abiding interest of Renu’s. He lived for some years in Biratnagar under the tutelage of the Koiralas in his youth; in 1947 he returned there to report on a workers’ agitation; and in 1950 he participated, as a press relations officer, in the armed uprising against the Ranas. His guerrilla chronicle, Nepali Kranti Katha, has a chequered publishing history. It first appeared around the time of the uprising in the socialist magazine Janata as ‘Hil Raha Himalaya’ (“The Himalaya are Shaking”); was reserialised in 1971 in the weekly Dinmaan, with the rousing old title and a gloomy new epilogue; and finally gathered in 1977 as a monograph by the big cheese of Hindi publishing, Rajkamal Prakashan..No one will accuse Renu of absolute journalistic rigour. His eyewitness account is closer in spirit to a Bollywood film – or perhaps, more to the point, a socialist boy’s own. Just as he sometimes played fast and loose with the facts, so I have with his text – streamlining narrative, cleaning up syntax, improvising on metaphors and updating the lexicon. This is a dish with two heaps of masala: Renu’s and my own. The author, who emerges from his pages as a wry and genial man, would have had no complaints. Fastidious critics among the living should ask themselves: Why are English translations of Hindi literature so bad? – Ratik Asokan.Nepali Kranti Katha.1..BIRATNAGAR, OCTOBER 1950. The sweet news arrives at dawn. Men gather in the temple courtyard: “Pashupatinath ki jai!”Their cries hang in the air. Freedom is almost here. “Nepal will shake off its age-old royal bondage!” No sooner are the words uttered than they spread: up the mountains and down the Tarai, through hamlets and towns. A peal of thunder before the storm?All day the freedom fighters smile with satisfaction. At night they hardly sleep. The next morning, they rise early, bathe and touch their parents’ feet. Recall what Durga did on Vijayadashami: “Mother, smear my forehead with blood! Father, bless my martyrdom! My sole wish is to die for the nation.” Their elders hold back tears and questions: Where did this madness come from? Where have our children gone?Weeks pass and nothing happens. Diwali’s lamps are lit. A double celebration: “Bless me two days early, for I may be gone by Bhai Dooj…” Sisters dip their thumbs in kumkum and smear tikas on their brothers’ foreheads. Current sparks between their eyes. Neither planned to exclaim: “Jai Nepal!” Wives unsheathe their husbands’ khukuris, raise it to their foreheads: “Jai Nepal!”.IN THE SILENCE of night, fording streams, picking its way through jumbles of fields, tramping the Tarai, the Liberation Army’s first squadron approaches Biratnagar. Guerrilla war is nigh. The same tune unfurls, at the same precise tempo, in each fighter’s mind. Hear the army band: “Freedom soldiers will deliver/ There is only one solution/ Forwards ever, backwards never/ Fly the flag of revolution.” The earth shudders under their footfalls. A thousand martyrs’ souls find peace at last. A commotion in the starry sky, which means…Halt!They pause at the city margins. Final instructions. “Our first task is to capture the armoury, treasury and jailhouse. This should not require a single bullet; use bayonets as a last resort. Then we lay siege, with all our firepower, on the Morang district governor’s mansion, until Colonel Uttam Bikram Rana surrenders with his officers.” The squadron is divided in two. Girija and Bishwa Bandhu lead one half to free prisoners and reclaim the people’s wealth. Commander Bhola Chatterji and Tarini Prasad take the other half to arm the insurrection..FLIES TRAIL THE SENTRY around the armoury veranda. Perhaps they appreciate the Bhanubhakta Ramayana, which he recites to stay awake: Lord of Lanka, your death-messenger has come…Torchlight blinds him. By the time he gathers his bearings, steadies his rifle and stands at attention, he is encircled by bayonets. “Quiet. Don’t make a sound.” He smiles, hands over his weapon. As if long prepared.Guerrillas rush into the building. They find crates of rifles and bullets, heaps of nickel, steel and copper weapons. Then their poor planning strikes them. A soldier can sling two or even three guns on his shoulders, but fit only so many bullets in his pockets. No one thought to bring a satchel or haversack. “Problem solved!” Master Choudhury cries. He unwraps his dhoti: “Here, tie this into a bundle. You can take my kurta next.”.(Pardon this flashback: Phainkan Choudhury hails from Jogbani, is a passionate schoolteacher, an apostle of the Koiralas, and a reliably active Congressman. When the guerrillas set out on their march, he followed them unarmed: “Jai Nepal!” His attire did not amuse Bhola Chatterji: “A white khadi dhoti and a white Gandhi cap? Like a master in his classroom. Their bullets will find your glowing skull in the dark.” Choudhury replied in Maithili: “If I’m shot, I will die. It hardly matters whether their bullets strike my feet or forehead.”)Another problem: the treasury’s safe will not open. Only the governor has the keys. “Can’t the damn thing be broken?”“That risks a loud noise.” “You, keep an eye on the sentry. You, protect our arms.” Titters of laughter. Is this a time for humour? “Eh, who’s that? Is he… butt naked?”“Sir, I must protest. Master Choudhury has not parted with his underwear.” “Lord Hanuman reveals his celestial form...” “Silence! Not one more word!”.THE PRISON SENTRY wakes, perks up, lets out a blood-curdling cry: “Be-ware! Be-ware!” Now he raises his rifle, aims into the dark. Piercing the quiet, the liberation struggle’s first bullet finds its victim, puts him to sleep. Silence reigns again. Then freedom fighters storm the prison, throw its cells open. Cue a stampede. Haggard inmates greet the night sky: “Jai Nepal!” Rascals! They were told to flee discreetly. These events transpire just west of the Koirala house. Imagine that building looking on, with its head held high. The Koirala house… where, 60 or 65 years ago, a great man first lit the flame of resistance… where, in each bedroom, patriots have lain awake contemplating freedom… where no able-bodied men remain (all have joined the Liberation Army). Northeast from the Koirala house lies Uttam Bikram Rana’s manor. His gaudy bungalow squats in a vast, manicured garden, inside high walls. Tall trees protect the main entrance. From the top of the canopy, a searchlight falls on the maidan, where both halves of the Liberation Army squadron have united. “Everyone, lie down, now! Advance in military crawl!”.The guerrillas squirm forward. Once more the searchlight flicks its snaketongue, spies motion, halts. Now the royal Bren guns open fire: a spray of bullets. In the western barracks, a bugle clears its throat and howls. Biratnagar is shaken out of its raw half-slumber. Trit-trit-trit. Tau-tau-tau. Dhaing-dhaing. Tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh. Tau-tau. “Viku, lie down brother, what are you doing? Stay on the ground!” “Take this flask and make Viku drink water.” “Aim up there, at the treetop!” “We will not retreat.” “Who was hit? Take his rifle.” “Girija needs cartridges.” The Liberation Army’s lone Sten gun heats up within minutes. Gunpowder’s acrid scent makes it hard to breathe. Firing picks up from the southern barracks. Their fortunes have deteriorated rapidly. A three-nought-three bullet whistles by Girija’s earlobe. His cousin Viku shouts – “Drop your head to the ground!” – then crumples in pain. Blood runs down his thigh. In the next line, Balbahadur’s rifle falls beside his lifeless head. Within seconds his body is shot to pulp..Under the Bren gun’s fire, nursing a bullet wound in his arm, bleeding on the maidan, his childhood friend Narbahadur searches for his corpse. “If I fall, promise me this one favour,” Balbahadur had told him. “Hand my khukuri to my mother. It will be an invaluable heirloom for my only son.” A comrade has to drag Balbahadur away. Immortal martyr Krishna Prasad Koirala’s youngest son, Nepali Congress chairman B P Koirala’s favourite brother – Girija mourns his slain comrade and wonders if he’s next.(Another flashback: In 1946, when the historic workers’ agitation broke out, Balbahadur was keen to take part, until he learnt about the satyagraha. “What kind of fight is this? The king’s soldiers fire bullets, and we reply with cries of ‘zindabad’? Sorry. I won’t die in such a battle.” Four years later the Congress came around to his thinking. Let us answer force with force! In good cheer he returned to their fold: “Sign me up in the Liberation Army.”.He is survived by his aged mother and his infant son. When will news reach their remote hillside village? Yesterday, at teatime, he sang a hill-people’s song, the gist of which is as follows: “Martyrs on the field of battle go to heaven./ Who has blocked my path?/ Father and mother, wife and son – I do not know you./ Move aside./ My soul is restless for heaven.”)[Trans: In the face of unrelenting military fire, Commander Chatterji orders a retreat, leading his squadron to the nearby town of Rangeli Bazaar. The scene concludes: “Royal Bren guns mock the freedom fighters – mock their guilt and shame. Diwali firecrackers. Tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh.”].A TORNADO BLOWS within the freedom fighters. They walk in silence along the dew-drenched, 14-kilometre trail. Until one loose cannon – literary, aesthetically inclined, a chatterbox, you know the type – pipes up: “Today a new saying was born. Victors fire to seize the day; losers enjoy a fireworks display.” His words touch a sore spot. In English they call this rubbing salt in the wound. “Sir, please keep your sayings to yourself.” “Not in a mood for sayings? Fine. I will speak plainly: Why were we ordered to flee?” “Flee? Scoundrel! You dare compare a retreat to fleeing? You dare compare your brave comrades to firecrackers?”“Alright, as you like, let’s call it a retreat. My question stands: who ordered it?” “I did. Why do you ask?” “Thank you. Please take this Sten gun and finish your job. Go ahead, mow us down. How will I show my face back at base camp? If you don’t fire, I have my revolver.” “Sentimental fool!”Commander Chatterji’s voice stiffens: “Guerrillas of Nepal Liberation Army – Attention!” He goes on: “This was not a defeat. We secured weapons, guns, bullets and cartridges. For two hours we stood up to the enemy’s Bren gun.” Say what you will, Bhola Chatterji. Morale is a fickle thing. Ever made and unmade..BASE CAMP. Operator Lama huddles by his wireless, tasked with intercepting enemy transmissions. Buzz of static, creak of dials, there – perfect frequency. Colonel Uttam Bikram Rana is speaking with Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher Jung Bahadur. Excited barks, full-bellied laughter. “Remember, we are dealing with raving Congress dogs. Yes, they are human animals. But the soldiers in our barracks are able hunters. Those beasts were no match for us. All is well.”Biratnagar’s residents chanted “Duhai Pashupatinath” through the night. At dawn the Bren guns fall silent. New sounds invade the city: the growl of army jeeps (Bat-barr-bat-barr), the heavy tread of soldiers’ boots (Kadap-kadap-kadap-kadap), tinny military commands: (Ba-ton! Ba-yo-net! Load! Fire!). Uttam Bikram Rana gives blanket orders to his impatient forces. “Round up these wretched Congressmen. In case they cause trouble, you have the licence to kill, to shoot on sight!” Raids and looting, arrests and beatings. Women and children wail in witness. Torture victims shriek their accusations. The sun mourns behind rainclouds. No Congressmen are found.The colonel’s new ultimatum: “The women of Congress households have two days to hand over their sons and husbands. Else we will arrest them – and give them special treatment in jail.”.SHRIMATI DIVYA KOIRALA has sent the children and the ailing away to a safe house. Alone in the prayer room, she greets the family deity. As her chanting grows distracted, God leaves her mind’s temple. Instead Girija’s smile appears before her eyes. His sweet voice calls out: “Mother!” Who is it? Who called me? No one? Was it an illusion? Is my son alive?In mounting tumult, she runs to the framed picture of her late husband, Krishna Prasad Koirala, and falls to the ground with a thud. “Lord, give me strength! Master, grant me courage! Dearest, look after your children, who are on the battlefield!” Krishna Prasad replies: “You forever think about your children. Is that appropriate? So many Nepali children have left home to sacrifice their lives! Why not spare a thought for their mothers?” “I do, my lord, I do. Why else would I be sitting here?”Royal soldiers have cordoned off the Koirala mansion. No one dares set foot inside – into the lioness’s lair. In 1946 she had roared at the soldiers: “Have you no shame! Would you dare address a citizen of a civilised nation in such a way? Is this how you speak to women? What has your royal father taught you? And you call yourself a senior officer…” Beating their breasts, howling, a group of women enter. “Sona Amma, Sona Amma! Where is our mother?”“Mother, where is my husband?“Mother, where is my son?”.“Speak, mother! Why are you silent? Your children deceived our guileless sons and brought us to ruin!”“Who will save us from the soldiers? Who will protect our honour?”Matriarch of five lion cubs, glory of Nepali womanhood, Sona Amma finds her voice: “You may come to me with questions. But who can I turn to? Who will tell me if my children were killed last night?… Mother Nepal herself wants to know: who will save me? Let me ask you something: Don’t you have ladles, strainers, khukuris, axes, spades? Where are the safety pins and needles you tuck up your hair with?”Durga in her demon-slaying form rises. Nepal’s mothers pledge: “I will fight till my last breath against royal injustice and tyranny. I will not bow my head.”.A MESSAGE from base camp arrives at Rangeli Bazaar. Over a dozen royal soldiers were killed in last night’s assault. Mass arrests are underway. Mills are closed. Biratnagar is desolate. Then, more uplifting news. The fraternal nation has sent a shipment of arms and ammunition to Eastern Command. Nepalis and Gurkhas in the diaspora – in Singapore, Burma and Malaya – are returning in numbers to join the liberation war. A special Himalaya Airlines flight has left the fraternal nation with provisions. Within moments it will be in Indian airspace. Himalaya Airlines chief Mahabir Shumsher is frustrated. Again and again, he asks Subarna Shumsher: “Where should we land the aircraft?” Subarna reassures him: “Devendra Babu will be imminently phoning from Patna… Just as I said, the trunk call is here.” The special aircraft receives an encrypted wireless: “Robert… Robert… This is Peter calling Robert…Hello Robert. Yes. Divert… Divert West, Patna… Stop… Over.” In the aircraft cabin, a freedom fighter squints over a map of India: “Hello Peter… Peter… West of Patna? Do you mean Behta? Over.”.[Trans: Chapter 2 observes both the royal forces and the Liberation Army preparing for the coming battle. Then there is a glowing – or perhaps hagiographic – flashback that replays how BP led the liberation movement from 1942. Chapter 3 returns to base camp, where foreign journalists are arriving, to be debriefed by our author, identified as the Liberation Army’s press relations officer.].4..AT THREE IN THE NIGHT, the wireless operator shakes the supine publicist, ends his sweet dreams: “Jai Nepal!” Western Command is sending news: “Birgunj liberated…”As Devendra Babu, Sushila Koirala and other comrades look on, the operator decodes the transmitter’s noises – “Beep-beep… be… pi… beep-be” – and feverishly scribbles on paper. “Major General Subarna appointed 23-year-old Thirbam Malla to lead the assault on Birgunj. At the stroke of midnight, Thirbam’s forces attacked the town … Royal soldiers put up a short-lived resistance, then surrendered. “Beep… beep… beep… Thirbam is dead. Seven enemy bullets pierced his body. This brave liberation fighter achieved martyrdom at Raxaul’s Duncan hospital… Be… beep… beep.”The publicist intervenes. “Don’t announce that news…”The office secretary stands up, momentarily forgets himself. What am I to do? Should I unfurl a victory flag outside this room or not?.IN LARGE FONT, on their front page, the different vernacular dailies carry the same news: The Liberation Army has captured Birjgunj… Birjgunj liberated… Birgunj captured… Birgunj… Bir… A special correspondent of the Press Trust of India, embedded with the Liberation Army’s advance unit, surveys the situation with his laser eyes, and files a detailed report: “On a cold November night, the denizens of Birgunj were woken by the Liberation Army’s roaring rifles and Bren guns. Cries of ‘Zindabad’ rose from countless throats. Locals were soon chanting against the royalty. “Down with the king!” Like a flash of lightning, the freedom fighters attacked the royal army, who were left at sixes and sevens. Then they gathered themselves to muster a counterattack, raining bullets on the enemy. But Thirbam, the crafty young liberation commander, and his indomitable and freedom-mad contingent, carried the day. By morning the royal governor had surrendered.” News of Thirbam’s martyrdom is shared with the Congress cadre, who pass on the sad tidings to the masses. His final rites are performed in the liberated areas in accordance with military protocols. A bugle rises in mourning, then the rifles salute. Major General Subarna nominates Tej Bahadur Amatya, a beloved Congress activist, as Birgunj’s new military governor. Chairman B P Koirala appeals to the Indian government to recognise this newly liberated nation. His party flag is raised outside every government building; soon it appears outside civilian houses..THERE, IN KATHMANDU, the emperor’s descendants watch on, with their hundred English titles, their thousand feudal honours, their millions worth of plundered gold, silver and bronze – all of which has mysteriously lost its sparkle. Kali’s blackness envelops the Durbar. Mohan Shumsher, the last of the royal line, grinds his teeth in rage: “I will drink their blood, I will dine on their daughters, I will eat the raw flesh of these Congressmen… Yes, mortars, field guns, machine guns, Bren guns… Fill my cup with their blood…”The Nepali Congress relocates its central office, regional struggle committees and information bureaus to the eastern Tarai. Nepalis displaced by royal terror return home in numbers. Some 400 freedom fighters arrive to form the eastern blockade. No more guerrilla hit-and-runs. Now it’s time for ordered warfare. Major General Subarna and Eastern Command chief BP survey the camp perimeter. Their presence on the battlefield warms the soldiers’ hearts. In each freedom fighter’s ears, Subarna’s deep voice rings: “Friends, remember that this is not a battle against the Ranas but for democracy, for every Nepali who loves democracy. As the people’s army, we are accountable to the people.”.FRESH FIRING on the western front. Mohan Shumsher’s army descends on the Tarai, flaunting its arms and ammunition, looting and flaying villages on both sides, spreading terror. An advance guard of liberation fighters rush to meet them in Amlekhganj. Our first defence! Catching sight of the blockade and the gathered arms, the royal officers are brought to a halt. This isn’t a people’s army but an experienced battalion of regulars. Machine guns will not suffice. Unleash the mortar fire! The Liberation Army’s chief has not slept in two nights. Possibly he takes pills to stay awake. Aware that this is a decisive period, he opens a new battle front: the Third Squadron, headed by General Secretary Mahendra Bikram Shah, will march on Nepalganj. In response, more royal soldiers are daily dispatched from Kathmandu, advancing in small patrols. Back at the jute mill, which is now the Liberation Army’s headquarters, Major General Subarna addresses the gathered war council, laying out his strategy for taking Biratnagar. First we corner the enemy in the west, then we attack them with all our might from the east. Shivhari, Tarini, Bishwa Bandhu, Shiv Jung and Bhola Chatterji are unanimous in their approval. Some ten thousand workers will support us. Our movement is also strong among farmers. Biratnagar’s residents anxiously await their liberators! BP turns to his new squadron learner, Yakthumba, an officer on sabbatical from the British Army in Burma. His usual elusive smile disappears as he turns serious. “Our battalion is capable of undertaking the decisive strike on Biratnagar, but we will need 500 rifles for the task.” “Five hundred rifles?” Color drains from the faces of most war council members. “Where will these come from? Neither will Radha get her nine mans of oil, nor will she dance.” Subarna calmly responds: “We can take care of that.”Yakthumba promptly stands up and salutes the Major General. .IT IS STILL halfway to morning. In the camps along the eastern front, liberation fighters labour through the night, retrieving rifles and three-nought-three bullets from enormous boxes. (The fraternal nation sends its regards.) These are dapper, chipper soldiers. See them shine their shoes and fasten their belts. Hear them sweetly sing: “Nepal demands our blood/ Let us redden its mud.” A lone star blazes in the western sky. Its light sparkles on the iron cannons and rifle barrels of 500 men, whom Yakthumba divides into two columns and leads in victory cries. In lockstep they march towards Biratnagar. Royal checkposts line the paved and unpaved roads between Jogbani and Biratnagar. Hearing cries and rifle shots – Tra-tau! Tra-tau! Jai Nepal! – the sentries sense a gale approaching and flee to Uttam Bikram Rana’s fortress. Facing no resistance, the Liberation Army, one after the other, captures the jute mill, the cotton mill and the match factory. Then it marches through the city gates. A column of freedom fighters follows the main road towards Golchha House, arrives at an intersection – and under royal fire. Another column heads towards Uttam Bikram Rana’s fortress, reaches the southern maidan. Hidden on the ramparts, soldiers unleash their machine guns and Bren guns. Both columns respond in kind as best they can..MOST BIRATNAGARIKS have fled. Those who remain tremble at each round of firing. The most fearful, in no particular order, are: royal toadies, feudal lords with untaxed haciendas, criminal millionaires, black marketeers, pensioners, state workers. Consider Malhuramji. In an earlier time – under the earlier regime – he was a top smuggler, the best in the business. Foreign currency, Chinese watches, kerosene and cement, clothes and oil: he brought the necessary goods to an India starved by import restrictions. Indian Congressmen and state officials were his top clients. How often he threw banquets for them! But none of that matters now. Bullets are falling on his godown, and bullets do not care for his services. His mouth fell open at the first firing – and it has remained so. With his jaw stuck this way, he can only slur and mumble: “It’s the apo-ca-lypse.” Still he cannot abandon his safe, with its money, gold and jewellery. Or consider this family. A veteran civil servant stands with a loaded rifle in his veranda, behind his house gate, which is bolted shut. Upstairs, his eldest son, Mukunda, sits with the retainer beside the family safe, himself clutching a Baruah gun (an ancient contraption that must be stuffed with gunpowder). In the living room, the little ones, Pushpa and Gaibi, lie hidden under a quilt on the daybed. Beside them, clutching her seventh-month-old Tirat to her chest, squeezed between the trunk and cot legs (as in a trench), his wife is crouched on the ground. Suddenly, without a concern in the world, Tirat starts drinking her milk. .From time to time, bullets land on the kitchen’s tin roof. How many times, the civil servant’s wife wonders, did I implore them: Let’s take the children to Jogbani or Rangeli, we can hide in a barn there. But Mister was adamant. And Mukunda – he sent away his wife at the first chance, leaving us behind. If sons would listen to their mothers…[Trans: A neighbour’s maid knocks on the gate and is let in. There is a brief discussion between the three in the living room, before the action turns upstairs.]All the while Mukunda methodically recovers his father’s savings, and places the currency in cloth bundles, which pile up on the retainer’s head. The generational wealth transfer is interrupted when his father arrives upstairs: “Why is the safe open?” “Move aside. Else I will shoot you.” “One can’t murder one’s father with a Baruah gun. Take this rifle. Go ahead, kill me, kill us all…” Mother, familiar with their daily Oedipal melodramas, croaks: “Now is not the time for nonsense!” The bureaucrat comes down with his gun and savings. “I committed so much theft for this boy’s benefit – and now he calls me a thief. You know I am a close friend of Krishna Prasad Koirala. If I have kept my distance from him all these months, it was for your sake. Woman, close the door behind me. I am joining the freedom struggle. Damn my wealth and damn my family. Better to die in battle than by parricide. Jai Nepal!” [Trans: At the home of a freedom fighter named Shankar Jung, his mother, aunt and 16-year-old sister, Usha, are huddled in a room; Usha agitates to join the battle. Cut to Uttam Bikram Rana’s fortress, where his two sons persist with indiscriminate firing through the night.].AS THE SUN RISES, so does the intensity of royal shelling. Civilians lingering too long outdoors or suspiciously peering out of open windows are fired on. They fall dead, pell-mell. On all three fronts – the fortress, the bazaar and Sadar Road – liberation fighters take cover. Hiding in royal trenches, under incessant royal fire, they are desperate to sneak out and attack. After breakfast, Yakthumba’s squadron fires on the fortress with a Bren gun without pause for 15 minutes, silencing one gunner for good. Back at the jute mill, Major General Subarna appoints Krishna Prasad Koirala as military governor of Biratnagar. He senses that the showdown will be prolonged: “Thus it is imperative that we cause minimum casualties in our quest for victory.” Yakthumba sends back a message in code: We are firmly answering them. We have not allowed them to set foot outside the fortress. We await further instructions. When the war council orders him to surround the fortress, he takes 50 fighters from Bhola Chatterji’s unit and forms an advance guard. Chatterji’s remaining men are deployed as commander bodyguards, sentries at state offices, sentinels at the city gate, and in-charges at the armoury, godown, powerhouse, laboratories and cookhouse. Bishwa Bandhu and Shivhari gather locals to form a Citizen’s Defence Committee..ON THE CEMENT ARCH of the main city gate, where a large crowd has gathered, there was once a plaque that read: “Victory to Shri Juddha Prabhu.” Now it lies broken. Juddha Shumsher’s statue is beheaded. All traces of royal authority are being erased. A Liberation Army recruitment office is set up; volunteers are enrolling. Boards in Devanagari are hung outside various buildings: public health, Citizen’s Defence Committee, transportation, supplies, food. Koirala orders his forces to take control of every petrol and diesel pump. Sentries are also deployed to the two jute mills, the sugar factory, the cotton mill, the oil and coal depots. Fuel coupons are handed out. At the transportation office, there are 30 trucks, 12 jeeps, four station wagons and another four cars. These are placed under Gaurmani, head of the drivers’ union, who proudly stresses that his members joined the struggle even before the freedom fighters rolled into town. “Forty hours ago, we received royal orders to park our vehicles in the state garage. Disregarding this command, we placed Nepali Congress flags on our bonnets”. The sea of people churns. Nepalis mill about by the main gate, sing and dance, seeking a glimpse of their brave fighters. Slogans echo in the sky – then suddenly halt. Kicking up dust, two jeeps arrive on the scene, screech to a halt. The first is a station wagon repurposed as a Red Cross ambulance, which carries five dead bodies: three civilians and two freedom fighters. Behind it is a jeep with four bound captives – royal soldiers caught as they fled..More cars arrive, one with the military governor Koirala, and his bodyguards. He is followed by Bishwa Bandhu, Shivhari, Shiv Jung, Bhola Chatterji, Tarini Prasad. Their faces are worn-down, grimy – and alit with smiles. A loud tannoy announcement: Brothers! This afternoon, at 3 pm, there will be a large meeting at the maidan by the jute mill, at which the Nepali Congress chief Matrika Prasad Koirala will deliver a speech. A historic meeting! Over 15,000 people attend, cheer, wave the four-star-flag. At base camp, seated beside the wireless, the publicist rapidly files updates from the three fronts. At a message from the western front, his expression darkens. Birgunj’s liberation is in danger: having gathered its dispersed forces, the royal army is marching on the city, for a final battle. This might be the last message we broadcast from base camp. But wait, another update, two squadrons from Eastern Command are making their way towards Dharan and Dhankuta. Jai Nepal!.[Trans: Chapter 5 alternates between discussions of tactics among liberation leaders and discussions of the international community’s response, of which the Soviet Union’s response is worth quoting: “This so-called Liberation Struggle is in fact a bourgeois plot to take power; this is not the proletariat’s battle!” Chapter 6 offers a snapshot of a field hospital. Chapter 7 returns to Biratnagar, where a key battle unfolds: under the white flag of surrender, the royal army duplicitously fires upon the guerrilla forces that have surrounded Uttam Bikram Rana’s mansion, killing many. Chapter 8, set on the banks of the Kosi River, quotes from the letters of Dr Kuldeep Jha, who is unable to save an injured soldier for want of penicillin.].9..“GREETINGS! You are listening to Democracy Nepal Radio. Today Mohan Shumsher’s two special envoys returned from New Delhi to Kathmandu. Informed sources claim that the Indian government rejected their terms for an agreement, and averred its recognition of Tribhuvan as Nepal’s supreme ruler. Back home, the Liberation Army captured Ilam without firing a bullet. Intense fighting is still ongoing at Bhojpur-Khotang… But wait, one moment, a breaking update: freedom fighters have unfurled the victory flag at the government office there as well…” Democracy Nepal Radio broadcasts the news thrice daily: first in the morning, then in the afternoon, then again at night. Its programming also includes music and folksongs, reportage and one-act plays. The various segments are united by the same underlying message: “Let’s dispel the darkness of centuries. Let the sun of democracy rise over Nepal.” Because royal forces persist in their slaughter, many will not live to see this new dawn. This is why civilians in Jhapa, Ilam and Bhojpur have come to disbelieve the sanguine radio pronouncements. Morale is dimming even within the Liberation Army. Everyone knows their top secret: ammunition is rapidly dwindling. At most they have two days to take Uttam Bikram Rana’s fortress. Else… well, rousing national anthems and blood-boiling reportage will not unseat the royalty..PURANSINGH AND HIS FRIENDS have successfully converted the Caterpillar bulldozer into a kind of tank. They plated it with iron and attached a Bren gun to its scooper. Turning the weapon in all four directions, Puransingh takes aim. “Commander Yakthumba, here is your Panzer!” A surprise! In the evening, Eastern Command sends another appeal to Uttam Bikram Rana. Or rather, a final warning: “Now, people, don’t blame me”. To which royal soldiers reply in bullets: “You have never encountered true warriors on a real battlefield”..THE GOLDEN DAWN of 23 December. New life courses through the Liberation Army’s barracks. Even reserve soldiers prepare for combat. Everywhere there is passion and excitement. Freedom fighters set out for Biratnagar, with a cavalcade of trucks. Unarmed civilians follow unruly on their heels. A new problem for the commander: “No, no! Stop the public. Be firm!” Promptly soldiers form a picket to cordon off the road. Volunteers of the Nepali Congress try to reason with the crowds. But the people wish to march alongside their army. “Brothers! We want to ensure that the Liberation Army faces no issues on its march to victory, that nothing unfortunate transpires. Thus we demand that you not advance another step!”Elsewhere Commander Yakthumba and C B Subba oversee preparations for the final battle. Gaurmani, leader of the drivers’ union, smiles in the bulldozer-tank pit. When Eastern Command’s party finally arrives, Yakthumba steps forward to welcome them: “Yes, everything is in place, we are ready, awaiting your orders.” Commander Koirala gives the signal to Gaurmani: Start! Ba-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta….The giant iron tortoise crawls forth, crushing Nepal’s life-giving earth underneath. Freedom fighters march behind, offering covering fire. While royal bullets harmlessly rebound off the tank’s iron exterior, soldiers are not so thick-skinned. Take the wounded into the trenches! Arre, it’s falling, it’s falling, the fortress’s walls have fallen! Jai Nepal! Embedded with the advancing contingent, the press relations officer sees the fortification collapse with his own eyes. Immediately he files a report for Democracy Nepal Radio:“The wall has tumbled over and broken into a thousand pieces. The Liberation Army’s tank has entered the fortress roaring. I see royal soldiers scaling the western walls, hoping to escape, but one by one they are falling to the ground. Anger has driven our freedom fighters to the point of madness. They long to teach the enemy a lesson.“Now I have entered the fortress myself. BP is running towards Uttam Bikram Rana’s bungalow. Freedom fighters are dragging a corpse. Perhaps, perhaps, yes, it is Uttam Bikram Rana’s third son, Sudarshan Shumsher. On that fateful day, he gave the order to fire under the white flag of surrender, martyring dozens of our men. A soldier threatens to drink his blood. Hellish sight: he has bitten into flesh and is actually drinking. Commotion! Cries of pain! Cries of victory! Sounds of bullets and bayonets. No! No! No!”BP forces a path through the crowd, reaches Uttam Bikram Rana’s bungalow, turns around, spreads his arms wide: “Stop firing!” But the freedom fighters are baying for the hated colonel’s blood. Yakthumba and C B Subba struggle to keep their soldiers in check..With their hands above their heads, enemy soldiers line up in surrender. Ripped off from his shoulders, the royal machine gunner’s head is kicked around like a football. Recalling his inhuman cruelties, the freedom fighters itch to get at Uttam Bikram Rana. BP consoles Rana’s crying grandsons and granddaughters. (One boy has a finger in his mouth.) The colonel himself is motionless. Around him, a bevy of women wail for forgiveness. “Colonel sahib, now your family are captives of the Liberation Army. Do not worry, no more bullets will be fired. Yes, two of your sons were struck by bullets but their wounds are minor. Please believe me: no one will attack you now. Calm down. Drink a glass of water, and give some to your children too.” Even as he sips water, Uttam Bikram Rana’s stare is fixed on BP. He cannot believe that they might spare his life. When the Congress chairman seats a crying child in his own lap, the petrified colonel finally crumbles, adds his tears to his grandchildren’s. He deliriously mumbles: “You are not a man but a god. I dared to kill a god. Do not forgive me. BP, you are Nepal’s true leader.”.[Trans: In 1971, when ‘Hil Raha Himalya’ was re-serialised by Dinmaan, Renu added the following epilogue.].11.Over the next 20 years, each time Nepali politics took a sharp and seemingly fatal turn, our press relations officer retrieved his old diary, reread the same few pages, left fresh notes in their margin: Saturday, 17 February 1951 An agreement has been reached! Mohan Shumsher will be prime minister, and BP will serve as his deputy. The defence ministry is assigned to Babar Shumsher (from the royalist faction) and the finance ministry to Subarna Shumsher. No matter what people say, I will maintain that this revolution is not unsuccessful but rather unfinished. Today Shiv Jung suddenly raises his opposition. With a squadron of armed soldiers, he seizes control of the cotton mill. Nirjhar has read the Hindi news, and I am broadcasting the military governor’s message, when the electricity goes out. While the emergency dynamo is being readied, Shiv Jung and his rebel soldiers surround the radio station. Nirjhar stammers in Angika: “Shiv Jung has lost his mind!” The way he said it made me chuckle, despite everything. Just then, Shiv Jung enters, pointing his revolver at us: “Hands up! Everybody here are [sic] captured – hands up!”.Placed under house arrest in a room beside the ratio station, Man Mohan growls: “Kill these Indians. First take care of the Madheshis.” Shiv Jung glares at me: “Where is your Tommy gun?”“I handed it in at the armoury yesterday.”Shiv Jung and his armed friends disappear inside to search the radio station. Outside there is heavy footfall, cries and intermittent firing. Standing right beside me, Nirjhar whispers in his sweet village dialect: “Boss! Don’t talk back to this guy. He lost all sense of proportion. This madman will shoot you.”Shiv Jung returns, still pointing his revolver: “Everybody captured! We do not accept the agreement. We will kill anyone who wants to form a government with Shumsher.” I gather my courage to respond: “But we are not forming a government with Shumsher!”Nirjhar mutters: “Brother, please, do not quarrel with him.” “Hands up!” Yakthumba arrives with his men. At the sight of him, the rebels drop their weapons and raise their arms in surrender. Yakthumba seizes Shiv Jung’s revolver. “Say it now, captured.”.If Yakthumba had not intervened in time, Shiv Jung might well have killed some former comrades. Now he accepts his mistake and begs the military governor for forgiveness. As a representative from Democracy Nepal Radio, I’m summoned to Kathmandu for the swearing-in ceremony. But I will not be going. I do not want to see BP as the deputy prime minister, that too under Mohan Shumsher. That would fly in the face of everything we… well, what, exactly?In the capital, K I Singh raises voice against the agreement. In the west, Bhairavprasad Upadhyay refuses to lay down his arms. Netrabahadur Gurung’s words ring in my ears: “India has a royal pair in her hands!”.Wednesday, 21 February 1951 Narsinhnarayan Singh, the general secretary of Purnia district’s Socialist Party branch, has ordered all his comrades to return from Nepal. Just as well. Canvassing for the gram panchayat elections in the villages around Morang, some of our brothers took their fun a step too far. When Narsinh Mandal opposed this order, Narsinhnarayan threatened to kill him.I myself was reared on this Nepali earth from the age of eight. I know how touchy Nepalis can be. I also know that, somewhere in their hearts, all regular Nepali people harbour a little sourness towards Indians. Nor are we any better. Worse, in fact. We do not even hide our disdain for their supposed backwardness. Many Indian industrialists, who had done business in Nepal for decades, fled during the civil war. At the military governor’s invitation, they are now returning. This time they plan to remove thorns with thorns. Stealthily opposing all socialist policies in Kathmandu, they also court Nepali Congressmen and raise the alarm: Protect your party from the influence of Indian political activists. Otherwise, the socialist disease will cross the border and spread here as well. I better leave before things get worse. .Sunday, 4 March 1951 Two months ago, during the mourning period, I received this letter from BP: “Your father and younger brother died within a fortnight. I know that you are suffering great sadness. I feel your sadness, too. But will it do to simply drown in sorrow? Surely nothing good will come from this. Much despairing news awaits us; so many people came to die in this country. By the end of the year, you will receive the death notice of many beloved comrades – and you will have to endure this news. Come here as soon as you read this letter. Pay us at least one visit. If it does not suit you, then return. Yours, Sandaju.” Today, before leaving Biratnagar, I hoped to write a brief letter: “Sandaju! Forgive me. I am returning home with your permission.” .But I did not write it. Nor did I write to New Delhi: “Mr Prime Minister! For the past few weeks we have been intercepting the wireless chatter at the Indian embassy in Kathmandu. I recognise a voice – a rather punctured voice – that surely belongs to our respected Ambassador. Hailing from Bihar myself, I understand his intonation and sayings rather well. He speaks just like our regional landlords. Taking himself to be a king-maker or the king’s caretaker, he behaves crookedly. Having safely whisked the king out of the country, and then brought him back, he considers himself to be the true king. Demeaning Nepal’s leaders and its people at every level, he views this country as Bihar’s frontier. (Do you share his misunderstanding?) Your Excellency, you have installed not a large-hearted humanist but a professional Sir as our ambassador to Nepal. His punctured voice will surely strengthen public opinion against India.” But no, I will not write a letter to anyone. I will rather only salute Nepal herself: “Nepal, my beloved mother, Sona Amma, let me touch your feet!” On the border, I give a Lal Salaam to my friend Kuldeep Jha. “So then, Doctor Saheb, I’m off. You please stay vigilant, ensure that the plant of Indo-Nepali friendship does not dry up…”.~ Ratik Asokan is a writer in New York City.~ Amish Raj Mulmi is the author of All Roads Lead North: Nepal’s Turn to China (2021). His writings have appeared in Al Jazeera, Roads and Kingdoms and Mint Lounge, among other publications. He is a consulting editor at Writer’s Side Literary Agency and a contributing editor at Himal Southasian.