Shailaja Acharya

Acharya was born in 1944 Her mother, Indira Koirala Acharya, had participated in the democratic revolution of 1950, and was one of the first four Nepali women to be arrested by the Rana regime.

Acharya had a sister, Madhu Bastola and a brother, Pradeep Acharya.

Acharya is the niece of former Nepal prime ministers Matrika Prasad Koirala, BP Koirala and Girija Prasad Koirala.

Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala is her niece.

She was close friends with former Indian Prime Ministe r Chandra Sekhar.

She had an Intermediate of Science (I.Sc.) degree.

She did not marry.

She was a senior leader in Nepali Congress, rising to the post of party vice-chair.

Among the second generation of Nepali Congress leaders, she was considered one of the few ideological pathfinders.

She was deeply involved with her constituency in Morang.

A member of the influential Koirala family, Acharya entered active politics as a student, and was held political prisoner for three years as a teenager, after she showed a black flag to King Mahendra in protest of coup d'état by the monarchy against the democratically elected government in 1961.

Upon release, she went into self-exile in India where she fostered a close friendship with Indian leaders, notably Chandra Sekhar, while she continued to advance the democratic struggle against the Panchayat System.

She played an instrumental role in organising the youth movement, collecting and smuggling arms and ammunition for a possible armed conflict and publishing a paper to raise political awareness.

She accompanied BP Koirala when the latter returned to Nepal and was immediately arrested upon arrival.

She spent a total of five years in jail during the Panchayat regime.

On 18 February 1961, she showed a black flag to King Mahendra in protest of the latter suspending democracy in Nepal and imprisoning the democratically elected prime minister BP Koirala who was also her uncle.

She was jailed for three years for the offence.

She spent a total of five years in prison during her struggle against the Panchayat system.

She spent nine years in self-imposed exile to India.

During her stay there, she was one of the most prominent leaders in organising and mobilising the democratic resistance from India.

She, along with Bhim Bahadur Tamang and Chakra Prasad Bastola, was instrumental in re-organising Tarun Dal, the youth wing of the party, in 1973-74.

The three oversaw the logistics of the Tarun Dal meeting at a school in Baburi village of Varanasi.

She was also the Chief Editor of Tarun, which was published from Varanasi during the same period.

She was instrumental in collecting arms and ammunition — along with Nona Koirala, and Chakra Prasad Bastola, another veteran Nepali Congress leader who was also her brother-in-law — in an effort to smuggle arms into Nepal to conduct an armed revolution.

Some of the arms were later used in the 1973 Nepal plane hijacking.

After the party abandoned the ides of armed struggle, the arms and ammunition were donated to the Bengali people who were fighting against the government of East Pakistan.

She returned to Nepal in 1976 along with BP Koirala, but she and everyone else were immediately arrested upon landing at Tribhuvan International Airport, and taken directly to Sundarijal jail.

After the reinstatement of democracy in Nepal in 1990, she won two terms to parliament from her home district of Morang.

After the reinstitution of democracy, Acharya was elected twice to parliament, in 1991 and 1994.

Between 1991 and 1993, she was the Minister for Agriculture, a post she resigned in protest of corruption in the government.

She won her first term in May 1991, from Morang-5 constituency.

In 1997, she became the first woman Minister for Water Resources, and in 1998, she became the first woman deputy prime minister.

After King Gyanendra suspended democracy in another coup, she continued to support constitutional monarchy publicly, in defiance of her party's position.

She served as The Prime Minister of Nepal for three months in 1998, She also was the first Nepali woman to be elected as the Deputy Prime Minister of Nepal

She was appointed ambassador to India in 2007.

Acharya was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2007.

Shailaja Acharya (शैलजा आचार्य) (1944 – 12 June 2009) was a Nepali revolutionary, politician and diplomat.

She died of pneumonia in Kathmandu on 12 June 2009.

She is remembered for her principled positions, her defiance of tyranny at a young age, her role in the fight for democracy, and her philanthropic activities.

She was awarded the honour of Maha Ujjwal Rashtradip by the government of Nepal in 2014.