Jung Bahadur revisited

Jung Bahadur revisited
Himal Southasian, July 2008
Ramesh Dhungel

Is there something redeeming for the modern Nepali citizen in this strongman of long ago?

The current confusion in Nepal is not unique in the context of the chaotic nation-building processes of the rest of Southasia. Yet, the country’s 19th-century history was significantly different. At that time, most of the smaller but stronger states of India were disappearing, one after another, from the political geography of the Subcontinent. British power in the region had reached its height, in large part due to its unchallengeable military supremacy. In this scenario, Nepal was the only country in the region that was able to maintain an independent existence, by resisting the military hegemony of the British colonial might in India.

While aspects of historical personalities might indeed be critiqued even centuries later for their possible failings, the role of individuals in the shaping of states bequeathed to the present generation must be acknowledged. Among such personalities linked to the building of Nepal were the founder king Prithvi Narayan Shah, his son, Bahadur Shah, and the shogun Jung Bahadur. Each of these played important roles in making Nepal a strong state, and in maintaining its independence such that, in modern times, the citizens would have the ability to build a society on the basis of sovereignty. The successful military campaign launched by Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha, for its territorial expansion, was by far the most important event in the history of Nepal. Through this military campaign, more than 100 princely and feudatory states scattered within the territory of present-day Nepal were brought under the control of a single unit. The early rulers of the consolidated Nepal – which was actually an enlarged Gorkha – seemed eager to accept the historic name of ‘Nepal’, in order to refer to the entire territory that they had brought under the control of the kingdom of Gorkha.

Prithvi Narayan Shah was not the only stalwart of his dynasty. His youngest son, Bahadur, also distinguished himself in military campaigns meant for territorial expansion, which was the raison d’etre of the fledgling state. The names of several Gorkhali commanders and army officers – including Shivram Singh Basnet, Kalu Pande, Kahar Singh Basnet, Ramkrishna Kunwar, Bakhtabar Singh Basnet, Amar Singh Thapa, Bhakti Thapa and Balabhadra Kunwar – are equally important in recalling this period of military-led expansion. History provides a reminder that a strong state of Nepal, which was capable of resisting at least three major invasions by its giant neighbours, British India and China, was not least a result of Gorkha’s strong military strategy and force projection, based on guerrilla tactics. Indeed, it was due to this historic feat by the early rulers and officials of the country, united through military might, that the inhabitants of diverse ethnic backgrounds were able to preserve their historical and cultural traditions. This might seem an incongruous statement amidst all of the talk of the Gorkhali state having subsumed all ethnicities and regions through the expansionism of the Khas (Nepali) language; but it is also true that Nepal’s ability to remain independent and isolated actually helped identities remain distinct all the way into the modern era, which began for Nepal in 1950.

Thus secured from external invasion, Nepal became a safe haven for traditions of both Vedic and Buddhist origin. Believing that the Hindu and Buddhist traditions of the Indian Subcontinent were under threat by external or non-Indic cultures and practices – ie, Muslim and European (Christian) – Prithvi Narayan Shah took pride in creating a safe state (rajya), where local traditions and cultures of the Himalaya and Subcontinent could be protected and nurtured. Thus, although Nepal was an emerging nation of multiethnic communities, adorned with unique local traditions linked to Hindu, Buddhist and Shamanistic practices, Prithvi Narayan proudly announced that the kingdom he had created was actually an asli hindustana, or an ‘uncontaminated’ land of local and ancient traditions of the Indian Subcontinent. The modern-day commentator might point at this formulation and claim that Prithvi Narayan was seeking to create an exclusive Hindu state, but that is not at all clear; neither is how exactly Prithvi Narayan understood the term Hindu.

Looking West
Nepal’s military campaign permanently ended after the Anglo-Nepal War of 1814 and the Treaty of Sugauli of 1816. Thus, the old relationship based on rivalry between Nepal and British India also came to an end. Between 1816 and 1846, Nepal remained entrenched under very ugly internal court conflicts. Most of this period was dominated by the shrewd and autocratic rule of Nepal’s third prime minister, Bhimsen Thapa. In general, Bhimsen’s policies were anti-British, but ultimately his adventurism became counterproductive – both to himself and to Nepal. The country witnessed a period of palace intrigue and wrangling for power that took Bhimsen’s life, but not before the Sugauli Treaty had truncated the empire into the region between the Mechi and Mahakali rivers.

After the Kot Massacre of 1846, which left dead most of the contenders for power, a certain figure suddenly began to tower over Nepali politics: a relative of Bhimsen Thapa’s by the name of Jung Bahadur. Having witnessed the failure of Bhimsen Thapa, and the major territorial and military loss of Nepal caused by his short-sighted anti-British policy, Jung Bahadur decided to move towards securing cordial ties with the British colonial authorities in Calcutta. He even offered Nepal’s military help to the British authorities during what is known as the first independence movement, launched by the Indian princely states in 1857.

Although Jung Bahadur’s image, as portrayed by native and most foreign historians, is not a particularly positive one, historical manuscripts preserved in the Royal Asiatic society and the British Library of London throw a different light on this ruler. Undoubtedly, Jung Bahadur was a ruthless autocrat, as attested to by his leadership of the Kot Massacre. He was also shrewd, and the founder of what would be the more than century-long autocracy of the Rana clan in Nepal. However, his contribution towards territorial gain (if that is to be perceived as a positive thing, so long as it is in historical time) and the building of Nepal’s international identity should not be overlooked.

After the treaty of Sugauli, Jung Bahadur was the only Nepali ruler to be able to change the political boundaries of the country, by gaining a significant territory of the western Tarai, including Banke, Bardia, Kailali and Kanchanpur. Known as naya muluk, this territory, originally part of the Gorkhali conquest, had been wrested at Sugauli, and was returned with thanks for the services rendered in crushing the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ in Lucknow. Jung Bahadur himself led the Nepali forces that entered the erstwhile Awadh.

One significant part of Jung Bahadur’s reign was his visit to England in 1850. The main intention of his visit to Europe was to observe the military prowess of England and other major European countries. He returned fully convinced that going against Britain, or British rule in India, would eventually lead to losing Nepal’s independence, as well as the loss of various other direct and indirect benefits for Nepal. Jung Bahadur was well aware that the princely states of India were either under threat of losing their own independence, or had already been swallowed up by the ‘government’ of the East India Company in India. Thus, he wanted to make sure that he did not repeat the mistakes of his uncle Bhimsen.

Instead, he began working to establish a tactful diplomacy with the British authorities, both in India and England. In this way, Jung was able to gain international recognition for himself and Nepal, by establishing and maintaining a special relationship with England. After Prithvi Narayan, Jung Bahadur thus comes across as the most significant historical personality associated with the Nepali nation state. The former established the country, with the capital in Kathmandu; the latter ensured its independent existence through a correct reading of geopolitics and the growing power of the East India Company. Admittedly, Jung Bahadur bowed before the might of the British, and appeased the Company by giving support to the recovery of Lucknow. But modern-day Nepali citizens can perhaps grant him these faults, in light of what he achieved in return.

Honour and diplomacy
Manuscripts relating to the triangle of correspondence between the British envoy Brian Hodgson in Darjeeling, Governor-General Charles Canning in Calcutta and Jung Bahadur in Kathmandu throw fascinating light on Jung’s efforts to bring the lost territory of the western Tarai back under Nepali sovereignty. These sources also highlight the shrewd moves by Jung Bahadur on multiple occasions, for Nepal’s (and, doubtless, his own) prestige and general benefit. During the early 1830s, Brian Hodgson, the British Resident in Nepal, submitted a report on the Nepal Army to the governor-general, in which he formally proposed establishing a separate Gorkha regiment in the British Army. Hodgson’s proposal offered benefits for both countries, and his intention was to employ the unused army personnel of Nepal in service of British colonial strength in India.

In the beginning, the authorities in Calcutta and London paid scant attention to Hodgson’s suggestion. It was only after more than a decade that Jung Bahadur used the proposal to solve the employment problem among the so-called ‘martial tribes’ of Nepal, in order to build a deeper and lasting relationship between England and Nepal. Thereafter, by remaining in close contact with Hodgson in Darjeeling, Jung Bahadur took the initiative of establishing a separate Gorkha regiment in the British Army.

While Jung Bahadur was always looking to please the British authorities, he was careful not to do so at the cost of his own and Nepal’s prestige. He was very sensitive about the status of both his person and his country. One notable instance of this was when Jung Bahadur, claiming to be a plenipotentiary ambassador of the sovereign king of Nepal, declined to attend a formal meeting with Queen Victoria, unless he was escorted by a cavalry of 22 soldiers, as per his title. The British authorities were forced to postpone the meeting for two hours to ready the required horses. During his visit to England in 1850, Jung Bahadur was honoured with a 19-gun salute, considered to be quite high according to British tradition, with only the kings of powerful states of India and other parts of the world receiving such honours. He would have been quite happy with that.

In consideration of Jung Bahadur’s friendly service to the British Empire, Queen Victoria eventually awarded him one of the highest British medals, the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. A special ceremony to confer the medal was held in Calcutta, with the governor-general of India assigned to grant the medal on behalf of the queen. By that time, however, most British Indian officials of high rank, including the governor-general, had become suspicious of Jung Bahadur’s shrewd way of, somehow, always coming out of situations on top. Evidently, they were also envious both that such a high British honour was being bestowed on him, and of his growing popularity in England and abroad. Consequently, Calcutta decided to humiliate Jung Bahadur by giving him only a 17-gun salute during the awarding ceremony. In addition, Jung Bahadur was unhappy with the way that the medal was conferred during the ceremony, including the fact that the governor-general used his left hand to pin the medal on his chest.

Jung Bahadur did not take the slight lying down. Immediately after his return from Calcutta, he asked James Cannyon, an English tutor to his sons and son-in-law, to transcribe a letter that he would dictate in Nepali. A copy of this letter was also sent to Brian Hodgson. In it, Jung Bahadur requests that a message of his dissatisfaction be forwarded to the secretaries of Queen Victoria, as well as to other high-ranking palace officials. He even warned that he would return the medal if he did not receive an apology from the British authorities. In his letter (see pic), he wrote:

My pay was my salute of 19 guns; it has been cut down to 17 and I am told to keep quiet. Her Majesty the Queen most graciously conferred on me the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, but Her Viceroy while giving it to me with one hand with the other took away my two guns, and while thus disrating me … Col. Ramsay (the British Resident in Kathmandu) told me that it was useless to say any thing of it.

At a time when kings, nawabs and satraps were falling like nine-pins all over 19th-century Southasia, Jung Bahadur emerged as a man of international stature in the Subcontinent of the day. He was probably a tyrant, probably a man of personal avarice; but we cannot forget that he was a product of his time, one who found the opportunity to wield power and grabbed it. He can be (and is) critiqued for having drafted the civil code that relegated various ethnicities of Nepal to specified levels in the hierarchy of ‘touchability’. He consolidated the legal system, and established the role of succession such that the Rama regime would stand for a century. He dared to transgress the traditional stricture against travelling across the kalapani (black water), in order to understand global geopolitics. He came back convinced that the British Empire could not be fought, but rather had to be appeased.

The growing demand for a ‘history from below’ is proper and necessary. After all, it is certainly true that, for too long, the writing of history has been limited to the exploits and glorification of rajas and nawabs. Amidst the larger stream of the Subcontinent’s history-writing, those that form a side-stream can oftentimes be neglected. At the same time, the trend towards ‘histories from below’ can potentially lead to the neglect of certain contributions of days past – even by tyrants. Clearly, it will be necessary to come to a more full understanding of Jung Bahadur, even in his excesses, in order to understand better the history of 19th-century Nepal to the present.