BP Koirala

Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala (विश्वेश्वरप्रसाद कोइराला; 8 September 1914 – 21 July 1982), better known as B. P. Koirala (बीपी कोइराला), was a Nepali revolutionary, political leader, and writer.

Koirala was the first democratically elected and 22nd Prime Minister of Nepal.

He held the office for 18 months before being deposed and imprisoned at the instruction of King Mahendra.

The rest of his life was spent largely in prison or exile and in steadily deteriorating health.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest political personalities in Nepal, Koirala was a staunch supporter of democracy.

He asserted that guarantees of individual liberty and civil and political rights alone were not sufficient in a poor country like Nepal, and that democratic socialism was the solution to Nepal's underdevelopment.

The second son of Krishna Prasad Koirala, a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala was raised in Banaras.

Until the age of 14, he attended a school established by his father.

Afterwards he joined the Harishchandra School in the city.

He began writing when he was in the ninth grade.

The British Raj charged him and his brother, Matrika Prasad Koirala, with having contacts with terrorists in 1930.

They were arrested and set free after three months.

Because of this, Bishweshwar began to study at the Scottish Church College in Calcutta as per his father's wishes.

Towards the end of 1930, he left college and returned to Banaras.

In 1932, he completed his intermediate level of studies.

His father again insisted that his son join Scottish Church College in Calcutta.

So for the second time, he joined the college, but left it soon afterwards.

In 1934, he completed his bachelor's degree in Economics and Politics from Banaras Hindu University.

In 1934, he joined the Indian National Congress.

He also earned a degree in law from the University of Calcutta in 1937, and practised for several years in Darjeeling.

While still a student, he became involved in the Indian nationalist movement.

During World War II, he was interned by the British in Dhanbad for two years (1942–1944).

Following his release, with Indian independence imminent, he set about trying to bring change to Nepal.

In 1947 he founded in India the socialist Nepali National Congress, which in 1950 became the Nepali Congress Party.

On 9 March 1947, Koirala crossed over to Nepal to help his brother Girija Prasad Koirala instigate the Biratnagar jute mill strike.

He was arrested along with Girija Prasad Koirala and four other National Congress leaders and taken with his fellow agitators to Kathmandu via a 21 days long, slow walk across the hills.

The prisoners' march attracted much attention and helped to radicalise the peasants whose villages lay en route.

The Koirala along with other detainees were kept in a Kathmandu bungalow but were soon released after a 27-day hunger strike, popular protests, and at the request of Mahatma Gandhi in August 1947

Koirala went back to India, and began looking for arms to storm Kathmandu.

Finally, Koirala led the Revolution of 1951, which overthrew Nepal's 104-year-old Rana regime.

The last Rana prime minister was dismissed in October 1951 when the Rana-Congress coalition cabinet (in which Koirala served for nine months as the Home minister) broke apart.

Koirala then concentrated on developing the Nepali political structure.

He was the Prime Minister of Nepal from 1959 to 1960.

He led the Nepali Congress, a social democratic political party.

He was the grandfather of Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala and the older brother of former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala and the younger brother of former prime minister Matrika Prasad Koirala.

King Mahendra responded with a new constitution enabling free parliamentary elections to take place in 1959.

Only a fragmented parliament was expected, but Koirala's Nepali Congress scored a landslide, taking more than two-thirds of the seats in the lower house.

After several weeks of significant hesitation, Mahendra asked Koirala to form a government, which took office in May 1959.

Koirala led his country's delegation to the United Nations and made carefully poised visits to China and India, then increasingly at odds over territorial disputes.

Yet, he was in trouble at home almost from the beginning.