Prehistory
Kathmandu
Valley
Neolithic tools found in
the Kathmandu Valley indicate that people have been living
in the Himalayan region for at least 9,000 years. It
appears that Kirat ethnicity people were the first people
to settle in Nepal and ruled Nepal for about 2,500 years.
Ancient
Terai News writes,
"Nepal has been highlighted for the last several
centuries in Indian Sanskrit literature like 'Skand
Purana'. 'Skanda Purana' has a separate volume known as
'Nepal Mahatmya', which explains in more details about the
beauty and power of Nepal." Nepal is also
mentioned in Hindu scriptures such as the Narayana Puja
and the Atharva Siras (800-600 BC).
Around 1000 BC, small kingdoms and
confederations of clans arose in the region. From one of
these, the Shakya confederation, arose a prince named
Siddharta Gautama (563–483 BC), who later renounced his
royalty to lead an ascetic life and came to be known as
the Buddha ("the enlightened one"). The
7th Kirata king, Jitedasti, was on the throne in the Nepal
valley at the time. By 250 BC, the region came under the
influence of the Mauryan Empire of northern India, and
later became a vassal state under the Gupta Empire in the
fourth century AD. In the fifth century, rulers called the
Licchavis governed the majority of its area. There is
a good and quite detailed description of the kingdom of
Nepal in the account of the renowned Chinese Buddhist
pilgrim monk Xuanzang, dating from c. 645 AD.
The Licchavi dynasty went
into decline in the late eighth century and was followed
by a Newari era, from 879, although the extent of their
control over the entire country is uncertain. By the late
11th century, southern Nepal came under the influence of
the Chalukaya Empire of southern India. Under the
Chalukayas, Nepal's religious establishment changed as the
kings patronised Hinduism instead of the prevailing
Buddhism.
Medieval
By the early 12th century,
leaders were emerging whose names ended with the Sanskrit
suffix malla ("wrestler"). Initially
their reign was marked by upheaval, but the kings
consolidated their power and ruled over the next 200
years; by the late 14th century, much of the country began
to come under a unified rule. This unity was short-lived;
in 1482 the region was carved into three kingdoms:
Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur.
Kingdom
of Nepal
Main
article: Kingdom of Nepal
Hindu
temples in Patan, capital of one of the three medieval
Newar kingdoms
After centuries of petty
rivalry between the three kingdoms, in the mid-18th
century, Prithvi Narayan Shah, a Gorkha King, set out to
unify the kingdoms. Seeking arms and aid from India, and
buying the neutrality of bordering Indian kingdoms, he
embarked on his mission in 1765. After several bloody
battles and sieges, he managed to unify the Kathmandu
Valley three years later in 1768. However, an actual
battle never took place to conquer the Kathmandu valley;
it was taken over by Prithvi Narayan and his troops
without any effort, during Indra Jatra, a festival of
Newars, when all the valley's citizens were celebrating
the festival. This event marked the birth of the modern
nation of Nepal.
In 1788 the Nepalese
overran Sikkim and sent a punitive raid into Tibet. Kangra
in northern India was also occupied by the Nepalese. In
1809, Ranjit Singh the ruler of the Sikh state in the
Punjab, had intervened and drove the Nepalese army east of
the Satluj river.
Statue of a
Gurkha soldier
At its maximum extent,
Greater Nepal extended from the Tista River in the east,
to Kangara, across the Sutlej River in the west as well as
further south into the Terai plains and north of the
Himalayas than at present. A dispute and subsequent war
with Tibet over the control of mountain passes forced the
Nepalese to retreat and pay heavy reparations to China.
Rivalry between Nepal and
the British East India Company over the annexation of
minor states bordering Nepal eventually led to the
Anglo-Nepalese War (1815–16). At first the British
underestimated the Nepalese and were badly defeated until
committing more military resources than they had
anticipated needing. They were greatly impressed by the
valor and competence of their adversaries. Thus began the
reputation of "Gurkhas" as fierce and ruthless
soldiers. The war ended in the Treaty of Sugauli, under
which Nepal ceded recently captured portions of Sikkim and
lands in Terai as well as the right to recruit soldiers.
Factionalism inside the
royal family had led to a period of instability. In 1846 a
plot was discovered revealing that the reigning queen had
planned to overthrow Jung Bahadur Rana, a fast-rising
military leader. This led to the Kot Massacre; armed
clashes between military personnel and administrators
loyal to the queen led to the execution of several hundred
princes and chieftains around the country. Jung Bahadur
Rana emerged victorious and founded the Rana lineage.
The king was made a titular
figure, and the post of Prime Minister was made powerful
and hereditary. The Ranas were staunchly pro-British and
assisted them during the Indian Sepoy Rebellion in 1857
(and later in both World Wars). Some parts of the Terai
Region were given back to Nepal by the British as a
friendly gesture, because of her military help to sustain
British control in India during the Sepoy Rebellion. In
1923, the United Kingdom and Nepal formally signed an
agreement of friendship, in which Nepal's independence was
recognized by the UK.
Nepalese royalty in the
1920s
Slavery was abolished in
Nepal in 1924. Nevertheless debt bondage even involving
debtors' children has been a persistent social problem in
the Terai.
In the late 1940s, newly
emerging pro-democracy movements and political parties in
Nepal were critical of the Rana autocracy. Meanwhile, with
the assertion of Chinese control in Tibet in the 1950s,
India sought to counterbalance the perceived military
threat from its northern neighbour by taking pre-emptive
steps to assert more influence in Nepal. India sponsored
both King Tribhuvan (ruled 1911-55) as Nepal's new ruler
in 1951 and a new government, mostly comprising the Nepali
Congress Party, thus terminating Rana hegemony in the
kingdom.
After years of power
wrangling between the king and the government, King
Mahendra (ruled 1955-72) scrapped the democratic
experiment in 1959, and a "partyless" panchayat
system was made to govern Nepal until 1989, when the
"Jan Andolan" (People's Movement) forced King
Birendra (ruled 1972-2001) to accept constitutional
reforms and to establish a multiparty parliament that took
seat in May 1991. In 1991–92, Bhutan expelled roughly
100,000 ethnic Nepalis, most of whom have been living in
seven refugee camps in eastern Nepal ever since.
In 1996, the Communist
Party of Nepal (Maoist) started a bid to replace the royal
parliamentary system with a people's socialist republic by
violent means. This led to the long Nepal Civil War and
more than 12,000 deaths. On June 1, 2001, there was a
massacre in the royal palace. King Birendra, Queen
Aiswarya, Crown Prince Dipendra and seven other members of
the royal family were killed. Dipendra was accused of
patricide and of committing suicide thereafter. This
outburst was alleged to have been Dipendra's response to
his parents' refusal to accept his choice of wife.
Nevertheless there are speculation and doubts among
Nepalese citizens about who was responsible.
Following the carnage,
Birendra's brother Gyanendra inherited the throne. On
February 1, 2005, Gyanendra dismissed the entire
government and assumed full executive powers to quash the
violent Maoist movement, but this initiative was
unsuccessful because a stalemate had developed where the
Maoists were firmly entrenched in large expanses of
countryside yet could not dislodge the military numerous
towns and the largest cities. In September 2005, the
Maoists declared a three-month unilateral ceasefire to
negotiate.
In response to the 2006
democracy movement King Gyanendra agreed to relinquish
sovereign power to the people. On April 24, 2006 the
dissolved House of Representatives was reinstated. Using
its newly acquired sovereign authority, on May 18, 2006
the House of Representatives unanimously voted to curtail
the power of the king and declared Nepal a secular state,
ending its time-honoured official status as a Hindu
Kingdom. On December 28, 2007, a bill was passed in
parliament to amend Article 159 of the constitution —
replacing "Provisions regarding the King" by
"Provisions of the Head of the State" -
declaring Nepal a federal republic, and thereby abolishing
the monarchy. The bill came into force on May 28, 2008, as
the constituent assembly overwhelmingly voted to abolish
royal rule.
Republic
The Communist Party of
Nepal (Maoist) won the largest number of seats in the
Constituent Assembly election held on April 10, 2008, and
formed a coalition government which included most of the
parties in the CA. Although acts of violence occurred
during the pre-electoral period, election observers noted
that the elections themselves were markedly peaceful and
"well-carried out."
The newly elected Assembly
met in Kathmandu on May 28, 2008, and, after a polling of
564 constituent Assembly members, 560 voted to form a new
government, with th monarchist Rastriya Prajatantra Party,
which had four members in the assembly, registering a
dissent note. At that point, it was declared that Nepal
had become a secular and inclusive democratic republic,
with the government announcing a three-day public holiday
from May 28 to 30. The King was thereafter given 15 days
to vacate the Narayanhiti Royal Palace, to re-open it as a
public museum.
Nonetheless, political
tensions and consequent power-sharing battles have
continued in Nepal. In May 2009, the Maoist-led government
was toppled and another coalition government with all
major political parties barring the Maoists was formed.
Madhav Kumar Nepal of the Communist Party of Nepal
(Unified Marxist-Leninist) was made the Prime Minister of
the coalition government.
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