Until 2006, Nepal government would officially acknowledge the protagonist of this national narrative, King Prithvi Narayan Shah, on this day (Poush 27, his birthday). The day was marked as Prithvi Jayanti and Rastriya Ekata Diwas (national unity day). Call it a tragedy of the time, the government in 2007 scrapped the public holiday on the national unity day. With it have come to an end all of such celebrations. Then the wrath of the political leaders against the recently displaced monarchy and its last personifier, Gyanendra Shah, was fierce and high. Inebriated in the euphoria of the new Republic, they decided to punish the king who had nothing to do with the chaos of the time.
The sad thing about the sudden twist in the narrative is that the hero of yore has been projected as the cause of many things that went wrong in Nepali history. Prithvi Narayan has been charged of being a mono-culturalist ruler, the enemy of the oppressed, a Hindu nationalist and an expansionist. Most of these claims, however, are hard to establish. I want to assess these claims in the light of historical contexts.
To begin with, Prithvi Narayan’s Divyopadesh (Divine Counsels) don’t support these claims. In it, he said his army consisted of Bahun, Khas, Magar and Thakuri and stressed that his Asali Hindusthana (pure Hindu realm) was actually the country of people belonging to all the four castes and 36 sub-castes.
Regarding his Hindu identity, it is a matter of great contention among scholars. While historian Hrishikesh Shaha says the Shahs of Gorkha came of the same stock as of the Khan family which split into subbranches that later called themselves Shahs and Shahis, Dor Bahadur Bista goes to the extent that Prithvi Narayan’s lineage stems from the local Tibeto-Burman speaking Magars.
Prithvi Narayan’s primary goal was to expand the territory and rule, not to promote Hindutwa. And given the geopolitical context, this was the need of the time. He needed a strong nation because he had seen for himself how the firangis (his bete noire) in the South had been taking advantage of the fractured principalities to consolidate British imperialism. So if the threat of British invasion were to be combated, Nepal needed to be made into one strong nation.
The question arises: Then why did a debatably Hindu Nepali monarch have to impose the concept of Asali Hindusthana? By the time Prithvi Narayan was in his unification drive, Nepal had become the home of Hindu people who had been pushed to today’s Nepali territory by Muslim invasions in India. They had to come to this side of the border in droves to seek refuse. Prithvi Narayan considered that if he had to keep the spirit of these displaced people high and counter the firangis, he had to uphold the faith of the oppressed and protect it. Likewise, pre-unification Nepal was facing the imminent threat of annexation into British India. Thus, while it was necessary to thwart the British ambition, it was also necessary to create strong symbols of national unity. Doing this had strategic benefits for the newly made nation. On the one hand, it ensured unity and sowed the sense of nationalism, and, on the other, it helped his subjects feel distinctly higher and holier than Muslims and the firangis in the south. Thus the proclamation of Asali Hindusthana can be understood as his strategy of instilling confidence in the new subjects and gaining sympathy and support from the Hindu Indians in the south whose cultural realms had been sullied by firangis.
Of course, there are some bad sides to the unification story. Prithvi Narayan bears the stigma of savagery and brutality inflicted on the vanquished, notably on Kirtipur’s residents. He is said to have ordered his troops to cut their noses but spare musicians, children and women. But facts and statistics about this incident vary. While Perceval Landon claims, “the weight of the noses and lips…amounted to no less than eighty pounds” and ascribes Father Giuseppe of having seen so many “living men whose faces resembled skulls.” Wiliam J Kirpatrick, who came to Nepal in around 1791, has also recounted encountering ‘noseless’ Nepali porters. Kirpatrick does not mention lipless people.
The nosecutting story is supported by this little known practice of hate in Kirtipur. In the midst of Kirtipur, there is a rock which the locals call chhyaka dhunga, (accursed rock) on which every passerby, particularly the inhabitants of Kirtipur, spits. It is said they spit to act out the trauma of brutality Shah’s troops inflicted on Kirtipur and to celebrate the murder of Kalu Pandey, Prithvi Narayan’s commander, who is said to have been killed at the very spot. Another evidence to support this story is what the Kirtipur locals call nak ganaune pokhari (nose stinking pond) where there stands a stone tap now.
I talked to a few locals of Kirtipur to understand the issue. Phasi Maharjan, one Kirtipur elder, doubts nose cutting had ever taken place to that exaggerated scale. “Defeat was the loss of honor for Kirtipur residents. This is almost like having had one’s nose cut (nak katinu),” he told me. However, Maharjan believes the chhyaka dhunga story could be true. (With hope, history and cultural experts will explore the truth behind these stories.)
This aside, Prithvi Narayan’s treatment with the Valley’s denizens is remarkably human and tolerant. In Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, he was clever enough not to offend his new subjects. He did not invade their cultural and religious landmarks. Instead, he adopted the customs of the Valley and acclimatized himself. He was the first king to have bowed down at the feet of the Living Goddess or Kumari. It was a matter of a great joy for Kathmandu’s Newars to find the new ruler who revered the Vigin Goddess much more than any of the Malla kings. This added to his legitimacy at once.
The personality and character traits of the protagonist of national narrative cannot be anatomized in this little piece. But there is no denying that he gave us something that we could call our own and feel proud of. He bequeathed a great nation to his successors. Had his successors followed his political map of decentralized provinces and concept of powerful local bodies, perhaps we would not have to scratch our heads over federalism today. Some 2 39 years after his death, he still remains the legend of mass consciousness, the source of national imagination, the hero to fall back on and long for nostalgically when national crises deepen.
239 years after King Prithvi Narayan Shah’s death, we stand at such a crossroad of history where politics is focused on what to do to the country he gave to us: Whether to divide it along ethnic lines in the name of federal provinces and take it back to pre-unification order, or keep it as an integrated whole. But if the nation is reverted to pre-unification order, and if chaos returns, a time will come when we will be wishing for another Prithvi Narayan for our delivery.
In Nepal’s new republican political setup, many people may have resentments against the King’s deeds. I remember him, though, not for his failings, if any, but to keep his contributions to the nation alive.
Long live his name!
[Acknowledgement: Prem Thapa, my longtime friend from the university, provided insights for this article]
The writer is with Republica’s op-ed desk. mbpoudyal@yahoo.com
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