NEPAL: Sr13 Wins Again

Considering the way the Rana family of Nepal came to power 104 years ago, it was scarcely surprising last week to find that the Ranas had won another match against Nepal’s royal family. Watching their beaten King fly away in an Indian government airplane, the good people of Kathmandu could shake their turbaned heads and murmur the Nepalese equivalent for: “They never come back.”

The Ranas won the championship of Nepal in a gory elimination tournament in 1846. The reigning monarch at that time was Rajendra Bikram Sahi, a blue-blooded Rajput (Hindu warrior caste) and a descendant of Vishnu the Lifesaver. For all that, the King was nuttier than a pecan tree in October. He and the Queen persuaded one of their generals, Jung Bahadur Rana, to murder their Prime Minister, who happened to be Jung Bahadur’s uncle. Then Jung Bahadur helped the King murder the Queen’s lover. She was put out about this, but not at the King, who seems to have beaten the rap on an insanity plea.

Barley Grains. Nor was she angry with Jung Bahadur. Instead, she assembled all the nobles of Nepal and accused them of plotting to murder her paramour. Obligingly, Jung Bahadur helped her kill 55 nobles and 500 lesser folk. The Queen was so pleased that she made Jung Bahadur Prime Minister. He knew what to do next. Two months later he exiled the King and Queen, and put their minor son on the throne at Kathmandu.

Since then, as anyone would expect, the Kings of Nepal have been Kings in name only, and the Ranas have been hereditary Prime Ministers. They made a good thing out of it. Half of Nepal’s $10,000,000 state revenue finds its way to members of the Rana family. One Rana is said to own 300,000 acres of land, which would be a big farm even in Texas, but is enormous in the Himalaya-topped little land of Nepal.

Nowadays there are 80 subfamilies of the Rana clan. All of their legitimate sons are automatically appointed major generals on the day they are born. At birth the illegitimate sons of the Ranas become lieutenant colonels. (Some U.S. Army captains see a similarity between American and Nepalese practices in this respect.)

Meanwhile, the Kings languished in obscurity. They retained the right to throw barley grains to the people on festival days, and they continued to bear the honorary title Sri Sri Sri Sri Sri,* which is sometimes written Sr15. (The Rana Prime Ministers bear the lesser title Sri Sri Sri, or Sr1³.)

Special Delivery. The present King, Sri Sri Sri Sri Sri Tribhubana Bir Bikram Jung Bahadur Shah Bahadur Shum Shere Jung Deva, came to the throne in.ign when he was five. Little is known of him except that he is said to be able to ride two horses at the same time, one foot on each. Also, he married two sisters on the same day.

Of his public life, even less was known until December 1948, when Loy W. Henderson went to Nepal as the first U.S. diplomatic representative to that kingdom. Prime Minister Rana was somewhat embarrassed to learn that Minister Henderson bore a letter from President Truman addressed to the King, in person. After due deliberation, Rana decided that the privilege of getting letters from Harry Truman be added to barley-throwing and being called Sr15. Accordingly, a great durbar was held, and Minister Henderson handed the King his letter. A TIME correspondent who went in with the U.S. mission noticed that the King seemed very shy, as if he had not been allowed to associate with many people his own age (45).

Whatever his Rana-enforced limitations, the King is the hero of the anti-Rana Nepal Congress Party, which seeks to establish a constitutional monarchy. Recently, leaders of this party moved in from India, stepped up their agitation against the Ranas. When a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister was thwarted, the King asked PrimeMinister Rana for permission to leave the country. The present Sr1³, unlike Jung Bahadur Rana, refused to let the King go into exile. The King, with some of his jewels and both of his wives, sneaked into the Indian embassy, claimed the right of asylum.

At the request of India’s Sr1¹1 Nehru, Sr1³3 Rana finally agreed to let the Indian government send in two planes to pick up Sr15 and friends. When they landed at New Delhi, Nehru came to meet the plane and a red carpet was rolled out.

Back in Kathmandu, Prime Minister Rana put null grandson, Gyanendra, aged 3, on Nepal’s throne. Rebellion against this act broke out here & there, but Rana’s government claimed it had things under control.

Some observers profess to find a connection between these events and the

Chinese Communist march into Tibet. Truth is, there are no roads between Tibet and Nepal, and the Communists, for once, had little or nothing to do with null flight. It is just the way things are (and for 104 years have been) in the mysterious mountain kingdom of Nepal.

* Sri means “Mr.” Last week Jawaharlal Nehru’s office announced that he had dropped the title Pandit (Learned One) in accordance with the Indian constitution, which does not recognize caste titles. Henceforth, India’s Premier will be known simply as Sri Jawaharlal Nehru.