August 8th, 2001
As the majority in India is Hindu by birth and increasingly aggressive about being so we shall take an example from the history of this community to show that being Hindu by itself does not make people better.
Nepal is the only Hindu monarchy in the world. The ruler or King is considered to be an incarnation of the Lord Vishnu, the Preserver, one of the Triumvirate constituting the Godhead.
The recent massacre in Kathmandu has not affected the belief that the King of Nepal is Vishnu incarnate. Or the divine, above the law, status of the ruling family.
This, the 2001 A.D. massacre is not unique as being an example of politics made murky by drinks drugs and sex. There is an abiding atmosphere of intrigue and conspiracy in the Hindu kingdom of Nepal which Hindus normally consider a Muslim monopoly.
In the biography of Brigadier General Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence [born 1806 and dying in the siege of the Residency of Lucknow in 1857] there is an account of the Nepal Court from 1843-1845. During this period Henry Lawrence was Resident at the Court of Nepal.
Henry found that the Nepal Kings had lost political power to the chief of the Thapa clan, Bhim Singh in the early 19th Century. The Royals continued to enjoy great wealth and bask in the glory of monarchy. Matters were made more complicated because of the Raja or King’s belief that he was under a spell cast by his son. According to Henry the youth was a brutal, half crazed being who extracted an unspecified access to power. No one knew how the duties and responsibilities were divided between father and son.
Henry Lawrence called the two “Mister” Nepal and “Master” Nepal. There was also the Rani or queen who Henry describes as a “silly self-centred woman ruled by most violent passions”. Avarice hate and ambition predominated.
Each of the three wanted to oust the other two and murder all opponents.
When Henry arrived in 1843 Bhim Singh Thapa had been dead for four years. Matabar Singh, a nephew of Bhim Singh, had come to Kathmandu a few months earlier. He had been living in Shimla as a pensioner of the British and came to Nepal ostensibly as an ally and to strengthen the position of the Rani. His own real objective was to enjoy the kind of power Bhim Singh had exercised at the peak of his career. To this purpose he was prepared to hack out of his way any persons who looked as if they were obstacles. According to Henry Lawrence Matabar Singh failed to consolidate his position because he murdered so many people that the survivors combined against him.
The King was also plotting against Matabar. The victim was too vain to perceive this danger. The King displayed a high order of low cunning by heaping honours on Matabar Singh and this helped in keeping him from reading the reality of the situation.
On 17th May 1845 Matabar Singh was summoned for urgent consultations at midnight. On arrival at the palace he was assassinated in the presence of the King and it is alleged by Henry that one of the assassins was the Rani’s secret lover.
Henry’s letter on the aftermath of incident says “Mr and Mrs Nepal are very good just now, the youth [Master Nepal] rather grump, the lady on the stilts; the papa rather frightened at his own heroism in mangling the corpse of the dead lion.”
“He writes that he killed him, but he hacked at him only when dead”.
Herbert Edwards said “This slow murder of the minister [Matabar Singh] took two long years. The victim was in exile [in Shimla] and had to be enticed. He was a Gurkha and his suspicious nature had to be lulled. He was ambitious and had to be fooled with power. He had an uncle to avenge and he had to be fed with human blood. He was as brave as a lion and had to be killed by cowards.”
Henry remarked on the fact that everything settled down fast after the murder of the most powerful man in Nepal. “Twelve hours after the murder not a voice was heard in favour of the man who the day before had been everything”
Henry recorded meeting two of the assassins riding in a horse carriage a few weeks after the murder. With them was Matabar’s nephew, Jang Bahadur who was strongly suspected of complicity in his uncle’s killing.
It was Jang Bahadur who established the hundred years rule by the Rana oligarchy.
The British befriended Jang Bahadur. They awed him by taking him to London and showing him their wealth and power. Jang Bahadur was advised to remain in the shelter and the sanctuary of the hills which he did except to come to the aid of the British in 1857 when the Gurkhas vied with the Tommies and the Sikhs in looting arson and torture of the people of Lucknow. A people who had given the longest battle to the British and killed their commander, Henry Lawrence.