first historical inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley were the Kirati, a people of Mongolian origin following a proto-Hindu religion.7 The Kirati settled the Kathmandu Valley and established small settlements with limited central authority. These eventually grew into a powerful kingdom that saw the reign of twenty-nine kings. The kingdom was economically strengthened by trade with countries as far away as Sri Lanka and was at its zenith in the fourth century B.C. Then the Khasa, pastoral Aryan tribes who had migrated into northwest India between 2000 and 1500 B.C., began to slowly inhabit the Terai region, which today is part of Nepal. These tribes (following a Vedic Hindu religion) grew into confederations of tribes or small kingdoms that were often at war with one another. From one of these small kingdoms of the Terai came Prince Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha), whose followers and missionaries carried the new Buddhist religion as far as Mongolia to the north (crossing Nepal and Tibet en route) and Sri Lanka to the south. Buddhism was established in the Kathmandu Valley and throughout most of Nepal. It added unique features to the Kirati and Khasa cultures of modern-day Nepal such as a belief in the divinity of the monarchy.
About 300 A.D. the Licchavis (a Khasa tribe from northern India) invaded Kathmandu, driving out her Kirati population. The Kirati were pushed to the east where they settled in the hills as simple farmers. Today’s Rais and Limbus (two of Nepal’s indigenous groups) trace their ancestry to them. The Licchavis invasion brought with it one of the most significant and lasting changes to Nepali culture, namely the Hindu caste system. The Licchavis dynasty was centered in Kathmandu but its widespread roaming armies managed to produce the first true Nepali state. It is also certain that the Licchavis looked back to their Indian homeland, which exerted a powerful cultural influence upon the people of Nepal, especially in terms of their Hindu religion (which was syncretized with the established Buddhism and leftover animism) and art. By the end of their dynasty in 750 A.D., the political system mirrored that of the Rajas of India: they were absolute monarchs in theory but actually interfered minimally in their subjects’ lives due to the mountainous geography. The economy during the Licchavis dynasty was based mainly on agriculture. The king established a system of hierarchical political leaders that descended to the local level while it allowed the dynasty to maintain control of the wider area. This political system would later (i.e., in the late twentieth century) serve as a model for the political development of modern Nepal. The Licchavis also continued the tradition of trade with Tibet and India (including the export of Buddhism with the marriage of one of her Licchavis princesses to the king of Tibet, whom she converted).
1.1.3 Medieval Nepal: 750–1750
Around 750 A.D. Nepal began to enter what some have called its “Dark Ages,” about which little is known. It seems there were constant struggles among prominent families and royal lineages (still all Rajputs) for the throne, and leadership changed several times during this period of instability. Kathmandu was also invaded twice by growing foreign powers during the early years of this period (Tibet in 705 A.D. and Kashmir in 782 A.D.), but both attempts proved futile. The most profound change upon Nepali culture that can be traced to this time period is the move away from Buddhism on the part of the kings toward a stronger Vedic-Hindu devotion.
In 1200 the Mallas (Khasa groups who had ruled kingdoms in Rajasthan from the early 600s) began to inhabit Nepal and (perhaps through marriage or political struggle) assumed the throne. The rule of the early Mallas was far from peaceful. North-Indian Malla kingdoms plundered Kathmandu five times between 1244 and 1311. Worse, an earthquake devastated the valley in 1245, killing a third of its populace. Meantime, Hindu kingdoms of northern India were being broken up by the invading Muslims, sending waves of Hindu migrants into Nepal who established dozens of tiny hilltop kingdoms (forty-six in west and central Nepal). A rival Malla kingdom from western Nepal also attacked Kathmandu six times in an attempt to gain control and the city was invaded in 1345 by Muslim sultans from Bengal who plundered and destroyed the city. The result of the medieval period was the dissolution of the Nepali state that the Licchavis had founded, to a collection of feudal hilltop kingdoms scattered throughout the region that were constantly at war with one another.
1.1.4 The re-unification of Nepal: The Shah dynasty 1750–1846
It was from one of these tiny hilltop kingdoms (Gorkha) that Prithvi Narayan Shah arose as king to conquer the surrounding kingdoms, finally conquering the three kingdoms of the Kathmandu Valley twenty-three years later. Thus, Shah emerged as the king of a newly unified Nepal in 1768 and implementing a policy of protectionism, expelled all foreigners, a policy that remained in force until 1951. The Gorkha dynasty expanded, annexing parts of Kashmir (under British control) and Tibet (under Chinese control) to the new state of Nepal. Nepal’s excursions into Tibet bothered China, who sent troops to surround the Kathmandu Valley. The Nepali king appealed for help to the British, who were then given their first chance to visit the country, but the dispute with China was inadvertently solved without British intervention. Then in 1810, the British, bothered by further expansion of Nepal into British territory, itself went to war with Nepal. The war lasted six years and was devastating to Nepal, whose borders shrank dramatically as territory was given up to the British. As a condition of the Treaty of Friendship, which ended the war, a single British official was allowed residence in Nepal, although he was forbidden from traveling outside the valley.
1.1.5 The Ranas: 1846–1951
In 1846 the shrewd army general Jung Bahadur Rana accomplished a military coup, establishing himself as prime minister and reducing the king to a prisoner in his own palace in a puppet monarchy. He later declared himself king and turned his interests solely to the opulent development of his own family’s estate. The hereditary prime ministership established by the Rana regime lasted until 1951. It was a period of time when, to quote one historian, “the rest of the country stayed frozen in the middle ages” (Burbank 1992:24).
1.1.6 The return of the Shahs: 1951–1990
In 1947, Nepal witnessed the first open political protest against the Ranas. In 1951, the puppet king Tribhuvan (of the Shah line) left the palace ostensibly for a picnic but instead sought asylum in the Indian embassy and escaped to India. Meantime, the Nepali National Congress (NCC), an outlawed opposition party, took control of the Terai (the southern region of Nepal). The Ranas, knowing their days were numbered, formed an interim government with the NCC and King Tribhuvan was returned to Nepal, promising democracy. Although he died shortly thereafter, Tribhuvan’s son Mahendra oversaw the first democratic elections in 1959. A year later, frustrated with the corruption and chaos of the newly elected officials, Mahendra again took direct control and the newly elected politicians were exiled to India. Mahendra established the Panchayat, a system where the prime minister, the cabinet, and local government officials were chosen by the king, and in which criticism of the monarchy was a criminal offense. This system mirrored the earlier Licchavis system of government.
Mahendra’s son Birendra ascended the throne in 1972, carrying on the direct-rule policy of his father. He also continued the Panchayat system of government. Strong opposition to the Panchayat government throughout the 1970s led King Birendra to call for a national referendum in 1980. The referendum gave voters the opportunity to support or reject the Panchayat system of government. A very small majority (55%) voted to retain the Panchayat form of government. The narrow margin of victory suggested that many were still unhappy with the current political system and the country witnessed growing protests to Birendra’s reign throughout the 1980s.
1.1.7 Democracy, civil war, and Federal Democratic Republic: 1990–present
In 1990, the people of Nepal, inspired by the fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and motivated by the worsening economic conditions at home (caused largely by a trade dispute with India), began violent pro-democracy demonstrations. The political unrest grew and the violence increased until May 1990, when the king agreed to end the Panchayat system and establish a representative democracy (although it retained a constitutional monarchy). The first free elections were held a year later in 1991.
The years since the
