Ranas Good, Ranas Bad…

Three decades of Panchayat rule have been between present day (democratic) Nepal and the period of the Ranas. It is time to re-evaluate their regime..The past is usually interpreted to serve present purposes. The 1857 revolt against British rule in India, for example, has been analysed very differently by older British historians and by Indian nationalists, as even the names given to the episode — 'Indian Mutiny' or 'First National War of Independence' — make clear..In Nepal, after the end of a century of rule by the Rana maharajas in 1951, it was similarly inevitable that perceptions of the period reflected the concerns of the Nepali royal family and of the political parties who had together ousted the Ranas from power. Both the monarchy and the party politicians naturally stressed the failings of the Ranas when measured against ideal democratic standards, but the monarchy's interests demanded that the Rana period also be seen to contrast unfavourably with the situation before 1846, when the Shah dynasty held real political power. The result has been that important continuities, especially between pre- and post-1846 Nepal, have been obscured..Fabric of Intrigue.The Rana era began on the night of 14 September 1846, when Jang Bahadur Kunwar massacred his fellow ministers and their supporters at the Kot Arsenal. We shall never know if the bloodshed was pre-planned, or whether he acted to pre-empt a threat against himself and his brothers. It is likely, however, that Jang Bahadur and other ministers had been involved in the assassination earlier that evening of Queen Laxmi Devi's confidante Gag an Singh, which had led her to call together all leading political figures. Jang Bahadur was nevertheless skillful enough to retain the queen's confidence and was appointed Prime Minister by her. They worked together to expel the families of the slain leaders, but then Jang Bahadur deftly shifted his support to the Crown Prince and engineered the Queen's exile. King Rajendra, probably fearful for his life, announced he would accompany her to Banaras..A web of intrigue and treachery indeed, but nothing thus far led contemporaries to believe that a new era in Nepali history had opened. Intrigue and assassination had been part of the fabric of Nepal's political life since the death of Prithvi Narayan Shah. The control of the government by a powerful minister rather than the king himself had also been common. Bhimsen Thapa had played that role for 30 years from 1806 and after his fall, as King Rajendra had proved incapable either of ruling directly himself or of trusting anyone else to do so, a succession of individuals had made short-lived attempts to take Bhirnsen's place. Many, including British officials observing events from the Residency, believed that Jang Bahadur, too, would not last long..In fact, Jang Bahadur did manage to break the old pattern in some ways. In the summer of 1847, he got the State Council to purge his opponents, to depose Rajendra and put Crown Prince Surendra on the throne in his place. The Kunwars took the name 'Ranas' to show that they, like the Shah dynasty, claimed descent from the famous Rajput rulers of Mewar. This opened the way for the Rana-Shah marriages which became a crucial feature of Rana strategy..In 1856, Jang Bahadur attempted a division of authority within his family: he resigned the premiership in favour of his eldest brother, providing for the younger ones to succeed to the post in turn. He himself retained general supervisory power with the new title of Maharaja, which he intended to go to his own direct descendants. He was thus one ritual step below Rajendra, who, as Maharajadhiraj ('Great King of Kings'), remained the ultimate source of legitimacy, especially in its religious aspect..The arrangement broke down within a year, largely because the British refused to recognise any separate authority other than king and prime minister, and Jang Bahadur resumed premiership. On his death in 1877, his eldest son, Jagat Jang claimed the right to maharajaship but Jang's surviving brothers ensured both posts went to the eldest of them, Ranaudip Singh (see cover picture). A growing reconciliation between Ranaudip and Jagat alarmed the sons of Dhir Shamsher, youngest of Jang Bahadur's brothers. In 1885, they seized power, killing Ranaudip and Jagat. From then on the combined post of prime minister and maharaja was handed down by agnate succession within the Shamsher Rana family: five of Dhir Shamsher's sons (Bir, Dev, Chandra, Bhim and Juddha) ruled in turn between 1885 and 1945, and two grandsons (Padma and Mohan) till 1951..The constitutional relationship between the Rana rulers and the Shah kings resembled the Japanese shogunate, which similarly put political power in one family's hands whilst another retained a symbolic, religious predominance. Closer to Nepal, the Maratha peshwas had also acted as hereditary Prime Ministers whilst King Shivaji's descendants continued to occupy a powerless throne. In devising such arrangements in the 1850s, however, Jang Bahadur almost certainly regarded them as transitional, hoping that he would eventually be able to supplant King Surendra completely. The British Resident in Kathmandu at the time believed that Jang Bahadur would only risk the last step if the British would move to support. Such support was never forthcoming and the dual arrangement came to be taken for granted..The system of agnate succession was similarly dictated by political necessity. Jang Bahadur had relied heavily on his brother at the Kot in 1846, and he also knew that Bhimsen Thapa, Nepal's previous strongman, had fallen partly because of family dissension. A division of the political spoils with his brothers presented itself as a natural solution. It was not a perfect one, as subsequent struggles over inclusion on the 'roll' (of succession) showed. In the end, the so-called 'C-Class Ranas' — out-of-wedlock sons who were removed from the roll in 1934 —played an important role in the movement that finally brought down the Rana regime..Rana Brahminism.The Ranas were an elite living in luxury on the surplus extracted from an agrarian population without making the dedicated effort for 'development' which is now demanded of governments. They were thus 'exploitative', but the same could be said of the rulers of almost any traditional agrarian society and certainly of the Nepali state in the years before 1846..Jang Bahadur's family came to power only at the expense of other members of the political elite (the bhardari), and ended a period of acute instability which might even have led to the loss of Nepal's independence. Ordinary Nepalis perhaps gained a little initially because of restrictions Jang Bahadur imposed on landholders' powers over their tenants. A slow strengthening of the central administration continued under later premiers, especially Chandra Shamsher, and although the peasants were exploited, the Ranas did at least leave their successors in a better position to remedy this situation..In his well-known book Fatalism and Development, anthropologist Dor Bahadur Bista contrasts the Ranas' enforcement of a rigid caste hierarchy, set out in Jang Bahadur's Muluki Ain (National Code) of 1854, with the supposedly egalitarian attitude towards Nepal's different peoples displayed by King Prithvi Narayan Shah in the 18th century. Caste barriers in the hills were certainly once less rigid than they later became, and Prithvi Narayan himself may actually have been of Magar descent, as one informant told a British visitor in 1803..Still, the Shah dynasty's relationship with their Brahman gurus and their claim to Rajput ancestry, already put forward in the 17th century, suggest that the 'Brahmanical values' which Bista decries, had got a hold on them well before Prithvi Narayan Shah's time. Although the rigour of the caste system probably increased in the 19th century, the watershed was the end of Nepali expansion in 1816, rather than the coming of the Rana rule. In caste matters, Jang Bahadur's 1854 Ain was just that: a codification of existing practice, not the imposition of a new orthodoxy. The innovation lay in Jang Bahadur's wish for a uniform system of law throughout Nepali territory..In foreign policy, too, the key to Rana attitudes lay in previous history. Nepal's defeat by the East India Company in 1816, together with a China initially unwilling and later also too weak to act as a counter-balance, led to an acute dilemma for whoever was ruling in Kathmandu: how to adjust to the reality of British power without inflaming nationalist feeling inside Nepal? The ideal solution was to play both ends against the middle: present yourself to the British as the man who could keep the Nepali army in check, while posing at home as a bulwark against British expansionism..Bhimsen Thapa had done just this in the 1820s and 1830s, but, as his domestic position came under threat, both he and his opponents manoeuvred for British support. The British Residency did finally become deeply involved in internal politics in 1840, and although in 1842 the British decided to abandon such intervention, most Nepalis believed it could occur again. It was thus natural for Mathbar Singh Thapa, Bhimsen's nephew and Jang Bahadur's uncle, to seek close relations with the Residency in 1843-45, and for Jang Bahadur to follow the same policy..British Tool?.Jang Bahadur had a problem because initially, far from being depicted the British tool he is still depicted as in some popular Nepali histories, he had to overcome their view of him as a desperado who might soon fall. He achieved this by consolidating his hold on power and then becoming the first Hindu ruler to cross the kalo pani to visit Britain in 1850. He proved the sensation of the season for high society in London and Paris..In 1857, Jang Bahadur led Nepali forces to support the British against the uprising in Awadh. Nepali governments had offered military assistance to the East India Company before 1848, but this was the first time an offer had been accepted. Nepal was rewarded by the return of the Tarai districts of Banke and Bardiya which had been taken from her in the 1816 peace settlement. Jang Bahadur himself received a knighthood, but not the backing for making himself king of Nepal which he had probably wanted..It was under Maharaja Chandra, a product of Calcutta University, who came to power in 1901, that are ally close relationship was established between the British and the Ranas. Since 1857, the British had turned to conciliation rather than supplanting the remaining Indian princes, and by the early years of the 20th century the colonial regime and the traditional autocracies found themselves allied against new –style Indian nationalism. There was thus a natural convergence of interest: the Ranas continued to allow Gorkha recruitment, and also sent Nepal's own forces to light in both World Wars, whilst the British paid for the soldiers and also kept an eye on the growing anti-Rana movement amongst Nepalis in India..The 1923 agreement acknowledging Nepal's full independence made sense in the same context: the more separate India and Nepal were politically, the less likely Gorkha troops in India would be to feel solidarity with the Indian nationalists..Like policy towards British India, Rana isolationism had its roots in the past. From Prithvi Narayan's time onwards, restricting access to the country had been seen as vital for Nepal's national security. During the latter half of the Rana period, however, the maharajas required not security from a possible British attack but from political 'contamination'. In their final years, with British withdrawal from India imminent, the Ranas realised that diplomatic relations with as many countries as possible would strengthen their position in negotiations with independent India and began, belatedly, to change tack..The Damage Done.Another area in which change came too late was in the whole pattern of personal excess which both repels and fascinates us today. The elaborate stucco palaces built in imitation of Versailles and Buckingham Palace, the jewelled head-dresses, the richly-caparisoned elephants, the scale of the hunting expeditions, were all part of this and so, for many of the maharajas, was the pursuit of sex..Jang Bahadur's amorous interests attracted interest even before he came to power. His nephew, Maharaja Juddha, kept up the tradition. The accusation in dissidents' leaflets are confirmed by a 1939 diplomatic dispatch noting his tendency "to pick up any damsel that takes his wayward fancy and then to return her, with a few rupees clutched in her hand, to her parents or husband.".Such behaviour could be paralleled elsewhere in South Asia and beyond, but, as the same diplomat added, times had changed. Juddha's retirement in 1945 and the more subdued style of Padma and Mohan Shamsher were insufficient to repair the damage..Whatever their personal conduct, Rana rulers in this century were aware of Nepal's backwardness and did take positive steps. Chandra Shamsher built suspension bridges, which are still in use today. He also founded the Tri Chandra College. And under Juddha Shamsher, factories weie opened in the Tarai. However, fear that rapid change might undermine their own position was always paramount. In a report for Juddha on industrial development, Singha Shamsher. one of Chandra Shamsher's sons, wrote that it was in the Rana's interests to raise the people's living standards but added, "we cannot possibly take steps that may in any way be subversive to our autocratic authority." Of the two maharajas who seemed ready to take a bolder and more generous view, Dev Shamsher (1901) was quickly deposed by his more conservative brothers and Padma Shamsher (1945-48) intimidated into resignation..In 1951, Mohan Shamsher, Padma Shamsher's hardline successor, had to accept the 1951 "Delhi Compromise". Rana rule was thus formally ended, but as in 1846, the break with the past was not complete. The many marriages between Shahs and Ranas meant that individual members of the Rana family remained members of the inner circle even when power was restored to the monarchy. In November 1951, King Tribhuvan reportedly compelled the Nepali Congress to accept his own choice of Prime Minister by threatening to impose direct rule with the help of Kaiser Shamsher, Mohan Shamsher's brother..The Panchayat system of "guided democracy" which King Mahendra introduced ten years later was similar in spirit to the constitution proposed by Maharaja Padma in 1948, only with Shri Panch Maharajadhiraj rather than Sri Teen Maharaj providing the guidance..The final 'subversion of autocratic authority' came in 1990, but many Ranas still occupy senior positions in the Royal Nepal Army. And King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya are, of course, both great-grandchildren of Maharaja Juddha..Nepalko nimitta sabbhanda thulo kura usko swatantrata ra sarwabhoumikta kayam rakhnu ho ("The important thing for Nepal is to maintain its independence and sovereignty"), runs a quotation from King Birendra suspended above Kathmandu's Ratna Park. If that is the ultimate criterion, then Rana rule was reasonably successful, for Jang Bahadur and Chandra Shamsher, even if principally pursuing their personal ambitions, did much to ensure that Nepal survived the colonial and post-colonial era as an independent state. If we look at their record in social and economic development, the judgement has to be harsher, but probably no other regime which emerged from the instability of the 1840s would have served Nepal better..Whelpton is author of Jang Bahadur in Europe and Kings, Soldiers and Priests and lives in Hong Kong.