Continuity and change as two identifying principles amongst Nepalese nobility Stefanie Lotter The king’s new clothes On 28 May 2008 the Kingdom of Nepal became the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, ending the Shah monarchy that had lasted for 239 years. The former king was asked to vacate the palace and to move to a new state residence, a former hunting lodge, at the outskirts of Kathmandu. Institutions were renamed and the ‘Royal’ as in Royal Nepalese Army removed from titles, signboards as well as letterheads and the image of the king was replaced by Sagarmatha (Mt Everest) in the newly printed currency. The Royal palace transformed in less than one year from a residence into a museum, opening on 27 February 2009, holding in storage and on display the former regalia of the kings’ office: crown, sceptre, military uniform and throne 1 The Federal Democratic Republic, a product of the struggle for democracy and a decade of Maoist uprising, has not yet decided how to represent the material culture of the country’s past. To date the palace museum, far from framing the Shah monarchy as a 1 See ‘Nepal to save royal massacre home’. BBC News, 23 July 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8164597.stm), and ‘Nepal’s cursed palace opens its doors’, The Guardian, 27 May 2009 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2009/may/26/nepal-royal-palace- museum).
Transcript
Continuity and change as two identifying principlesamongst Nepalese nobility
Stefanie Lotter
The king’s new clothes
On 28 May 2008 the Kingdom of Nepal became the Federal
Democratic Republic of Nepal, ending the Shah monarchy that had
lasted for 239 years. The former king was asked to vacate the
palace and to move to a new state residence, a former hunting
lodge, at the outskirts of Kathmandu. Institutions were renamed
and the ‘Royal’ as in Royal Nepalese Army removed from titles,
signboards as well as letterheads and the image of the king was
replaced by Sagarmatha (Mt Everest) in the newly printed
currency.
The Royal palace transformed in less than one year from a
residence into a museum, opening on 27 February 2009, holding
in storage and on display the former regalia of the kings’
office: crown, sceptre, military uniform and throne1 The Federal
Democratic Republic, a product of the struggle for democracy
and a decade of Maoist uprising, has not yet decided how to
represent the material culture of the country’s past. To date
the palace museum, far from framing the Shah monarchy as a
1 See ‘Nepal to save royal massacre home’. BBC News, 23 July 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8164597.stm), and ‘Nepal’s cursed palace opens its doors’, The Guardian, 27 May 2009 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2009/may/26/nepal-royal-palace-museum).
historical period in a wider context, displays recently used
objects without offering an interpretation beyond the
sensationalism with regard to the royal massacre on 1 June 2001
that had contributed to the decline of the monarchy.2
The new government’s passive stance towards the tangible
heritage is contrasted by its marked attention to public
performances. This is surprising as the Nepalese nobility
distinguished itself from commoners at first glance most
obviously through their modes of consumption. However it is the
public appearance of the former king Gyanendra Shah that draws
attention and criticism not his lifestyle or display of wealth.
All his public appearances are observed carefully and
controlled as well as commented on by both, state officials as
well as the media. Status and royal privilege in Nepal are
primarily based on performance, negotiated between king and
government, and only secondly a matter of confirmation through
a defined code of conduct and a set of privileges. Unlike
earlier, the former king is now expected to appear a commoner
at all events in the public sphere.
Bourdieu (2000:19) states that: ‘people can find that
their expectations and ways of living are suddenly out of step
with the new social position they find themselves in.’ He goes
on to link this personal experience with the society and the
modes of intervention available. Social positioning is for
2 On 1 June 2001, Crown Prince Dipendra murdered most of the royal family, including his parents, siblings and probably himself. His uncle Gyanendra became King. The murder took place in the Royal Palace, where to date marks of the shooting are visible.
Bourdieu a public negotiation within a structure of rules in
which ‘the question of social agency and political intervention
becomes very important’. Especially where a new social position
is not performed convincingly and in public, the former status
lingers. Former royalty continues to appear noble, as cultural
capital does not disintegrate with the removal of a title or
office alone. As a political intervention, the government now
regulates the public appearance of the former King in order to
limit his agency. It does so because a king remain to be
identified as a king as long as he lives, Dixit (2008)
predicted correctly that after the abolition of the monarchy
‘Nepal would not have a king, but there would still be a person
hanging about town who is identified as ‘the king’ ’.3Any sign
of royal attitude or continuity of accepted privilege can be
interpreted as a claim to power and a resistance to status
change.4 It is not surprising therefore, that the government
avoids facilitating an audience for the performance of the
former king and likewise, that opponents of the monarchy use
public appearances to shout slogans or throw stones stating the
end of respect and privilege.5 The new social position of the
king has been outlined by the abolition of the monarchy; his3 Dixit, K.M. Himal 2008. ‘Fallen Majesty’, at: http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/69/1025-fallen-majesty.html.4 ‘Last king attends prayer to restore Nepal as a Hindu State’, The Indian, 8 March 2010 (http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/politics/last-king-attends-prayers-to-restore-nepal-as-hindu-state_100331626.html).5 ‘Nepal king target of stone-pelting mob’, The Times of India, 17 February 2007 (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2007-02-17/rest-of-world/27877710_1_pashupatinath-temple-king-gyanendra-mob).
standing however, is negotiated in the interaction with the
public. In other words, it takes people who treat a former king
as a king as well as a former king who continues to accept
honours and behaves like a king. Bourdieu (1982 (1979) 238,496)
calls the persistence of status through crisis the hysteresis
effect. He explains it with the only partially conscious
habitual enactment of the past ‘body believes in what it plays
at (…) it enacts the past, bringing it back to life’ (Bourdieu
1990:73). It is the embodiment of a social position which
facilitates elites to survive through times of crisis and
allows them to change positions within the elites moving from
political to military, economic or other professional
positions.
Since the abolition of the monarchy, the king of Nepal has
visibly accepted his status change. Images appeared in the
media showing him with little royal attire - for example,
unshaven and in an informal sports jacket. The media denied the
king widely the chance to enact the past by attending functions
or ceremonies, by meeting state guests or by representing Nepal
in any way abroad. The body of the king had to incorporate the
present convincing the public of the new social position of the
now commoner Gyanendra Shah. In recent less defining images, he
is seen in western suit and tie or in daura suruwal the Nepali
official dress. The king’s new clothes are those of a commoner,
any public enactment of the past would provoke and result in
official criticism.
Persisting status
Invisible but far from insignificant; monarchies have also
forged links to the state and to the religious practices of its
people. Not entirely unlike the British monarch, who is also
the supreme governor of the Church of England, Nepalese
monarchs ruled by divine grace though not by divine rule or as
high priests, This differs clearly from the Tibetan Buddhist
system whereby governance lies with the highest lama who holds
both, the highest political as well as spiritual power. In the
case of the Shah kings, divine grace has been granted according
to a folk legend for 12 generations to the first Shah King by
the God GoraknathError: Reference source not foundError:
Reference source not found. In this respect the Shah kings
followed the same pattern as Indian royalty. Kings are here of
the Hindu warrior cast and called by divine signs to rule.
Kantorowicz (1957) in his study of the king’s two bodies
explains that religiously legitimated kings possess a body
natural and a body politic. While the former refers to the
mortal body of the human king, the second signifies the
immortal aspect of divine kingship that is passed over
generations. In the case of the Shah kings an unusual situation
emerged in which the body natural of the king survived the body
politics. For this to happen the two bodies of the king had to
be separated and the concept of the king’s body politics had to
be deconstructed. In other words, the divine gracing of the
king had to come to an end.
In Nepal Shah kings have renewed the divine gracing as
they played a supreme role in mayor religious rituals such as
the Newar rituals of Indra Jatra or Bhoto Jatra, that reinstated the
divine protection for Nepal and its people by public blessings
of the king, the protector of the nation. With the end of the
monarchy the ritual significance of the king as a protector of
the country had to end too.
The image of the king as an incarnation of Vishnu6 that
formerly provided the legitimacy for his ritual involvement,
now proved to be an obstacle in the deconstruction of the
kingship. No other Nepalese state or religious leader could
claim a comparative divine legitimacy to perform rituals that
renewed and protected the country and its people in the same
way as the kings of Nepal, who were for generations perceived
as the god’s incarnation. Furthermore, in a secular state the
general principle of the separation of state and religion would
be undermined if any state representatives would take over such
a role.
Hence, in order to undo the ritual agency of the king and
thereby the second body of the king, the body politic, the
government ordered Gyanendra Shah, not to attend religious
functions that ritually confirmed the king as a protector of
the country.7
Following the logic of dismantling the divine link between
king and country, the government permitted the former king’s
public appearance especially in situations where it broke with
6 ‘The death of Vishnu’, The Times 11 June 2001 (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1000067,00.html).7 ‘Nepal government stops ex-king from religious programme’, India Talkies, 21 September 2010 (http://www.indiatalkies.com/2010/09/nepal-government-stops-exking-religious-programme.html).
tradition and served to undermine the belief in the former king
as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.8 In this context it proved
providential that many Nepali citizens had kept images of the
old king, King Birendra, in their personal Hindu shrines. Here
the previous king received daily offerings as an incarnation of
Vishnu. It would naturally have taken years for any new king`s
image to be incorporated into these house shrines, as loyalty
is part of devotion. After the coronation in 2001, it has
however been emphasised that people were particularly reluctant
to incorporate the image of this new king. This publicly
questioned whether Lord Vishnu had found a seat in King
Gyanendra and therefore contributed to the dismantling of a
social position maintained by divine grace. The status of the
king as ruler by divine grace lingered beyond the existence of
the monarchy, it did however not persist.
Having analysed briefly the complex process of the undoing
of the monarchy in the public sphere, one cannot but be
fascinated by the tenacity of the institution of kingship.
Despite the unpopularity of Gyanendra Shah, whose reign was
marked by despotic attempts to impose order, it remained
difficult to undo the institution of the religiously
legitimised king. Ultimately, the Federal Democratic Republic
of Nepal succeeded despite the enduring symbolic power of the
monarchy
The dismantling of elites as well as their fall or slow
decline is in the social sciences to date still an understudied
phenomenon. Studies have mainly concentrated on the formation8 ‘Last Nepal King breaks ancient taboo..’ The Hindu, 9 February 2010(http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/religion/article103720.ece).
of power, status and class rather than the unlearning of social
positions, the loss of influence, power and prestige. Studying
declining elites reveals however as we have already seen, the
mechanism, constitution and cohesion of power.
With the example of the Nepalese monarchy we are able to
observe immediate actions taken by the government of Nepal to
actively dismantle the institution of royalty. The example
however provides no prediction over the long term development
of the clan. Fortunately it is possible to compare the decline
of the Shah kings of Nepal with the predating decline of
another noble family, the Rana of Nepal. This rivalling clan
had established next to the institution of the Shah kings a
hereditary prime-ministership which they held for a century
until 1951 in a manner not unlike the Japanese shogunate9. While
the circumstances of their fall from power differed, the Ranas
provide us with an interesting comparative example that allows
a long term perspective on downward social mobility and to a
degree a comparative perspective.
Kings without and administrators with powers
Unlike the Shah, the Rana clan, is a 19th century invention that
came about when commoners by the name of Kunwar rose to
political power from a more marginal courtier position.
Initially the Kunwar clan seemed to pose little threat to the
well-established Shah royalty. They were neither of noble9 See Conrad Totman Institute,Political succession in the Tokugawa Bakufu: Abe Masahiro's rise to ower, 1843-1845, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 26 (1966), pp. 102-124.
descent nor did they attempt to base their power on religiously
legitimised entitlement. The Ranas did not initiate a
democratic revolution or oust the established elites in a
putsch to gain status and power through regicide and military
rule. They did come close to the latter when in 1846 at the
beginning of their political influence a young courtier named
Jung Bahadur Kunwar, together with his brothers, killed most of
the established nobility at the court. The massacre was
followed a power struggle between king and queen. One of the
queen’s loyal courtiers was killed which led her to call a
court assembly to find his murderer. The murder case was not
solved but the conflict between the two opposing fractions at
the court escalated in the worst possible way. Jung Bahadur
Kunwar was the only courtier who appeared followed by military
personal as well as his six brothers to the assembly. When
swords were drawn in the heated atmosphere Jung Bahadur Kunwar
dominated the site quickly initiating a blood bath. His
opponents were either killed or fled the country. Now with
little competition at the royal court, the relatively
inexperienced and very young man was instated as prime minister
while his loyal brothers became ministers.
The court massacre did not immediately touch the position
of the king, nor did it create a dynasty of the Rana.
Initially, becoming prime minister did not even serve to
elevate Jung Bahadurs Kunwar’s social status into nobility.
However the elimination of other nobility propelled Jung
Bahadur Rana into the position of effective political power and
from this position, a status change followed.
The Ranas, as the Kunwar clan came to be known when
finally being bestowed a noble title, soon found local and even
international recognition by applying a different and novel
strategy to legitimize their claim to power. Their ingenious
approach was to introduce foreign forms of distinction to all
areas of their engagement with the established power
structures. These bypassed the impenetrable local social
categorizations such as caste that were based on religion and
tradition. Acting the oriental prince in London during an early
state visit and the western statesman and gentleman in Nepal
blurred credentials and traces of the common origin of the
Ranas. Along with a confident performance – which as explained
above, is key to the elites in Nepal - the self representation
of the Ranas hastened their acceptance as an elite.
It is interesting to see how this strategy of applying
foreign forms of distinction commenced with the first defining
foreign mission of a Rana delegation in 1850, when a small
window of historical opportunities presented itself. Jung
Bahadur, the first Rana prime minister of Nepal, travelled to
England and France as the official ambassador of the king of
Nepal. Would the Ranas have conducted this diplomatic mission
merely eight years later after the first war of Indian
Independence (and the transfer of governance over India to the
British crown), the social impact would not have been nearly as
compelling. This is because prior to 1858 incumbent rulers of
Indian princely states were strongly discouraged by the East
India Company to officially visit London, and even envoys sent
by Indian princes were not easily given diplomatic status
(Fisher 2004: 245). In this respect the official Nepalese
mission to England and France in 1850 was a remarkable
diplomatic achievement, underlining the independent status of
Nepal and providing the Ranas with a crucial outside
recognition that reflected well on the development of their
elite status inside Nepal.
The status of the Ranas as political actors was further
consolidated when the recruitment of Gurkha soldiers into the
British army became common practice after Nepal had sided with
the Empire in India’s first war of independence 1857. Allowing
Britain to enlist Nepalese Gurkha soldiers secured the
preferential treatment of Rana government officials in London.
Rana ministers were regularly decorated with the highest
British orders - until 1951, when the Rana dynasty was
overthrown by a democratic movement in Nepal that had forged an
alliance with the Shah kings who by then had lost all political
influence to the Rana clan.
Highly decorated with foreign orders, the Ranas in Nepal
itself employed a different strategy to secure the exclusivity
of their social class. Once in office, they did not initially
fashion themselves as traditional Nepalese nobility but
introduced and monopolized from 1850 to 1950 all Western ways
of distinction. To guarantee the continuation of a new elite
based on exclusive modernity, Nepal had to be ‘isolated’.
Foreign visitors who could have set the Rana lifestyle into
perspective were barred from entering the country, while
Nepalese citizens were prohibited from travelling abroad. The
measures of exclusivity employed by the Rana elite as a means
of distinction from royalty as well as the people followed
Eagletons (2003:22) ideal of cosmopolitanism which he described
as ‘the rich have mobility and the poor have locality…the rich
are global and the poor are local.’
To be fair, the primary purpose of isolating Nepal – as
the Ranas did - was of course to guarantee its status as an
independent country at the fringe of the British Empire.
Emphasizing here that this also facilitated the formation of
the Rana as elite by forming an exclusive group of cosmopolitan
elites, is not to belittle this political cause but to
highlight its convenient side-effect. Noticeable exceptions to
the isolation of the country were the exclusive hunting camps
that the Ranas held for visiting royalty and other honoraries,
as well as the international travel the Rana clan undertook
(whether in their official or private capacity).10 By closing
Nepal to the outside world the Ranas managed to keep the two
worlds separate with only themselves appearing at both sites.
This gave them the advantage of being able to emphasize
different aspects of their identity at different places.
The Ranas became known as ‘traditional Hindu princes’ in the
West – despite their humble origin and only recent elevation to
nobility, while they became autocrats who culturally resembled
Western gentlemen and British colonial elites in the eyes of
the Nepalese people who had no way to compare the Rana with
their role model. Unlike high-class swindlers however, the
Ranas did not make up entirely fictitious identities. They10 See for example Nina Bhatt, 2003, Kings as wardens and wardens as kings: post-Rana ties between Nepali royalty and National Park staff, In Conservation & Society 1(2): 247-68.
merely capitalized on foreign recognition and the introduction
of foreign ways of distinction to speed up the acknowledgement
of their status rise as Nepalese elite. It did not matter even
at the court of St James that the Ranas were neither royal nor
part of an old nobility nor did it matter in Nepal, that their
knowledge of western ways of distinction was not yet developed
fully and their architectural taste, their fusion couture and
their manners less western than peculiar and inventive.
Contemporary transnational elites are less and less able to
capitalize on similar cultural translations due to the high
global visibility via the international media. They cannot
emphasize different aspects of their self-fashioned identity at
different locations because high end consumption is now global
and information over distinctions, honours and degrees are
easily available.
Transforming from Kunwars into Ranas was a major step
towards being on a par with royalty. The strategy of complex
status elevation and recognition deserves now further
attention.
Claiming status through introducing unfamiliar distinctions
The formation of the Ranas may at best be described as a spiral
movement of self-representation and third party
acknowledgement.
Their social rise involved initially a family of seven
brothers, two countries and two very different ways of
distinction. In the course of their rise, the Ranas moved
between Kathmandu and London whereby status gained in one place
was subsequently introduced and displayed at another location.
The Ranas managed to capitalize on the lack of cross cultural
knowledge, rather than be hindered by it as in some ways the
Shah kings were. As orthodox Hindu Kings the Shah were
reluctant to travel to Europe or the Americas which could
politically have benefited them. For the Shah the loss of
ritual purity and their caste status would have destroyed the
religious legitimacy of the god-like monarchy. In the 19th
century, the belief that “crossing the black waters” would
pollute caste was still predominant.(Whelpton 2005).
On the other hand, the innovative way of the Ranas to seek
outside recognition had the advantage that a locally disputed
status could be substantiated through foreign approval. The
spiral movement of status acquisition relied on a convincing
performance of the Ranas in their new role as upper class
combined with a certain flexibility of factual interpretation.
As a first step the Ranas had to somehow acquire formally the
status of Nepalese nobility. Considering that the caste system
does not normally provide for upward social mobility within a
single generation this was not easily done (Höfer 1979).
As explained earlier, the clan later known as the Ranas,
were Kunwars, they were within the local caste hierarchy
considered to be ordinary Chetri that is, members of the warrior
caste.Within the Chetri caste, they did not belong to the
prestigious subcaste of the Thakuri who traditionally ruled the
little kingdoms, intermarried with Shah royalty and staffed the
higher ranks of military and administration.11
In the mid 19th century, the powerful clans amongst the
Thakuri (Pandey, Shah, Basniat and Thapa) competed fiercely for
government positions, which resulted in a decade of political
unrest.12 Jung Bahadur did not engage in the competition for
positions but eliminated his political rivals as discussed. In
addition, rather than trying to change the caste system, Jung
Bahadur set out to reinvent his family’s origin to align the
past with the necessities of social change.
Shortly after the massacre that led him to power, Jung
Bahadur sent the ruling king and queen into what was termed
voluntary exile to Benares. Then he persuaded their son, the
new king of Nepal, under the pretext of national stability to
make the post of the prime minister hereditary within the
Kunwar family and to bestow a noble title upon his clan as a
reward for his services. Through this act, Jung Bahadur, his
six full brothers and his elder half-brother rose as Ranas
formally into the status of nobility. The document, a royal
decree that created the noble Rana clan, in the translation of
Whelpton (1987:163), reads as follows:
11 See the publications of the Rana family, such as Pancayan Temple (1999), Kunvar Ranajiharuko buhat vamsavali (Kathmandu: Pancayan publication), and Prabhakar SJB Rana, Pashupati SJB Rana and Gautam SJB Rana (2003), The Ranas of Nepal (Delhi: Timeless Books).12 Edwards (1975: 102) counts in 1843 amongst the fifty pagadi officials of the Nepalese court 15 Pandey, 14 Shah, 12 Basniat and 12 Thapa but only 2 Kunwar.
(Your) ancestors were called Kunwars until the present
day. Now (since) I am pleased with you, it seems to me
that you and your ancestors have been Kunwar Ranaji.
Today again, I confer on you the caste of Ranas.
The royal decree managed to accommodate both. It confirms
status change while at the same time upholding the eternal
nature of the caste order. It introduced a previously unknown
noble clan while at the same time claiming their previous
existence. In a caste society, social positions are determined
by birth with no apparent flexibility to accommodate change. In
the above cited decree, the King included explicitly a section
barring the Ranas from intermarrying with Royalty as he aimed
to retain exclusivity amongst the Thakuri caste. Becoming noble
by declaration as an act of invented tradition, these Kunwars
rose formally into high caste nobility, though this did not
initially mean that their descendants could intermarry with
nobility or that their noble status was accepted by other
members of the Nepalese nobility. Facing local resentment, they
had to find other ways to confirm their noble status and turned
to the British Empire.
In the 19th century Britain developed a great fascination
for the Indian caste system, in which they saw not a system of
regulated interaction but a form of hierarchical
stratification. By the time the Ranas came into power, the
British government and the directors of the East India Company
had still a rather incomplete knowledge of South Asian society.
This, Fisher (2004) argues, made encounters with South Asian
dignitaries a matter of strategic manoeuvre rather than strict
protocol allowing de facto for status change through superior
performance. Fisher (2004: 189) states that
With the spread of colonialism, Indians claiming noble
status increasingly advanced their causes in Britain.
Men whose claims had been rejected in India learned that
London would consider their appeals from a fresh and
largely uninformed, albeit wary, perspective.
A mere four years into power Jung Bahadur Kunwar Rana travelled
as the ambassador of the king of Nepal to London and Paris.
This was a strategic move for a number of reasons. Firstly he
established direct contact with Queen Victoria instead of
dealing with the East India Company which underlined Nepal’s
independent status. He emphasized that Nepal had an independent
foreign policy by continuing the journey to Paris to meet
Prince Louis Napoleon. For a country bordering the British
Empire with its enormous territorial reach, this alone was an
important diplomatic statement to make, though it should be
kept in mind that the diplomatic mission was otherwise unable
to advance its causes.13 Nevertheless, traveling to Europe gave
the Ranas the opportunity to explore foreign powers with regard
to their military organization, governance as well as social
stratification and ways of elite distinction.
13 Declared diplomatic aim of the first Nepalese mission to London was the negotiation of an extended extradition arrangement, to employ British engineers in Nepal, and to gain the permission to directly correspond with the board of directors of the East India Company and the Queen without previously consulting the governor-general. None of the above requests was granted (Fisher 2004: 292).
For the duration of his stay in London Jung Bahadur Rana
presented himself to the public as an exotic oriental prince
rather than a government official. He visited public places
such as Vauxhall Gardens or Covent Garden flower market in full
ornate and with his entire delegation. This meant that he wore
the extravagant bejeweled headdress of the prime minister of
Nepal with its sweeping bird of paradise feathers as a personal
crown rather than as state regalia.
Public outings made the Nepalese delegation into highly
visible celebrities whose public appearances were pre-announced
in the press where the delegation’s ostentation and charitable
expenditure was also recorded. While demonstrating apparently
unlimited wealth they made sure that the international press
also reported the delegations cultural sophistication and their
Hindu high caste status.14 Jung Bahadur’s had become aware that
status came with the right appearance and was measured in
miniscule details. Consequently he was not prepared to
compromise on style under any circumstances, not even if it
meant to leave Queen Victoria waiting for two hours since his
escort, a cavalry of twenty-two soldiers as per his title as
ambassador, had not been sent by the British (Dungel 2008). It14 The Ranas retained this practice into the 20th century. In 1934 Reuters wrote that the Nepalese Minister in London had lunch with the King of Italy. Within two days the Nepalese Minister Bahadur SJBRana complained and Reuters gave out an official correction printed in several newspapers such as the Statesman (20.8.1934): The members of the mission preserved their religious custom of refraining from taking meals with persons outside their community and the King of Italy and the Italian Government, who were well aware of this custom, refrained from extending any invitation to luncheons or any other meals.
was important that the delegation reportedly observed caste
purity as any violation could have cost the members of the
delegation their high caste status and made the return to
political office difficult. With regard to meeting Queen
Victoria this meant, that the Nepalese officers did not share
meals with the queen, a custom the Rana ambassadors later
continued way into the 1930s.
Back in Nepal the status of the Ranas had risen through
foreign acknowledgement and association. Jung Bahadur Rana had
met Queen Victoria and had been treated by her with respect. He
had even received an order, something not even the King of
Nepal had received at that time.
Having climbed the social ladder himself by realigning the
history of the clan, Jung Bahadur now made sure that the
modification of caste and origin would become considerably more
difficult. In 1854 he brought about the Muluki Ain, the first
written law of Nepal that took orthodox Hindu values as the
dominant social order and listed all groups hierarchically.15 As
a written document the Muluki Ain codified formerly customary
and considerably more flexible social relations. While the main
purpose of the code was to standardize legal practice and
regulate inter caste conflict, it made it practically
impossible for any group to invent a new clan name or to
elevate their caste status by introducing a new clan. As a by-
product of the new law, Western visitors, including colonial
elites, were due to their non-conformity with orthodox Hindu
15 See for a translation and interpretation Höfer (1979).
values now at least officially considered to be of relatively
low status.
Members of the Rana family interpreted the Muluki Ain to
suit their needs. The few foreign visitors whom they granted
permission to travel to Kathmandu (such as some foreign
aristocrats, the British Residents, several medical doctors and
a few researchers) were usually forbidden from entering the
residences of the Rana and were instead entertained in the
palace gardens. This was justified officially as a measure to
guarantee the observation of ritual purity by preventing
‘pollution’ of the residences and especially their shrines and
kitchens. On the other hand, it directed the foreign gaze to
the impressive architecture of the neo-classical Rana palaces
while their initially less impressive interior remained
private.
Later the Rana clan and also the Shah loosened this rule
and held audiences for visiting foreigners in designated
audience rooms that were richly decorated. Reportedly the
Nepalese nobility underwent rituals of purification immediately
after giving audience if it had come to shaking hands.16
Over time, the Ranas introduced a lavish lifestyle and
built about forty neoclassical palaces, some of which held
several hundred rooms. They imported Western fashion, jewelry,
furniture, decorative items, art and the latest technical
inventions, including several cars for which they built a few
16 Interviews with JRL Rana, S. Rana and others.
streets connecting their residences.17 As K.B. Thapa (1981: 29)
stated, the Ranas even turned down offers of the British to
initiate industrialisation for fear of establishing a new
middle class and thereby levelling social stratification. Being
modern in the Western sense of progress and change became the
Ranas’ way of elevating themselves above the established
traditional elites in Nepal, whose status had been culturally
legitimized (Liechty 1997: 60).18
The kings of Nepal were traditional rulers by divine
grace, and had been regarded more or less widely as
incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu. According to legend they
were granted rule over Nepal by the god Gorakhnath. Even until
their recent replacement as representatives of the state in May
2008, royalty remained symbolically interwoven with the
institution of the state of Nepal through several protecting
and cleansing rituals. The Rana on the other hand never aspired
to such godly legitimacy; they built their prestige solely on
worldly measures.19 17 The Ranas reserved the monopoly on Western commodities such as motorized vehicles and European dress code (Leuchtag 1996: 63). Commoners were also not allowed to build any house higher then the next Ranas’owned house (Mr Regmi for Kupendol/Patan, personal communication).18 Liechty (1997: 60) writes: In a sense power is justified in an increasingly material (materialistic) manner, and relatively less inmoral, genealogical, or divine terms. In the nineteenth century we see power shift from the hands of the Shah kings – who were (are) worshipped as incarnations of Vishnu – to those of the anglophilic Jang Bahadur and his descendants who construct their authority increasingly in secular, material, highly visual terms.19 As shown previously (Lotter 2006), this did not mean that the Ranas were at large agnostic. Divine support played a mayor role in the belief of many Ranas, though this was a matter negotiated at the
Status recognition as a negotiation process
While they instantly impressed Nepalese, who were used to less
ostentatious leaders, the few foreign visitors who were
permitted to enter Nepal were often less impressed by the
display of what they interpreted as mimicry. Lawrence Oliphant
(1852: 142), a writer who accompanied Jung Bahadur to Nepal,
complains for example that the Ranas’ architecture
looked as if a Chinaman had mixed together a Birmingham
factory and an Italian villa, every now and then
throwing in a strong dash of the style of his own
country by way of improvement.
Oliphant disapproved of this new Westernised elite that mixed
styles so that ‘European luxuries strangely mingled with
barbarous inventions’ (Oliphant 1852: 165).
Despite the excitement for novelty, the Ranas must have
been aware of the unfavourable description of their inventive
new palace style, as they kept visiting aristocracy and their
entourage soon as far as possible away from Kathmandu,
organising luxurious big game hunting in the Nepalese
lowlands.20
Initially the Ranas found that they failed to convince
Westerners of their equally sophisticated Western styles -
clan temple of the Kunwar-Ranaji.20 King Edward VII visited in 1876, King George V in 1911, the Princeof Wales and Lord Mountbatten in 1921 and Queen Elizabeth II with Prince Phillip in 1961.
quite like they initially failed to convince the established
old Thakuri elites of their equal caste status. This flaw was
corrected over time.
Meanwhile, new grounds for favourable status negotiation
were found. At lavish hunting camps in the Nepali lowlands the
Ranas were able to demonstrate superior organisational skills
and impressed with the luxurious conditions of the camps. They
arranged for several hundred elephants as well as a good one
thousand staff. In Veblen’s (1899: 56) sense, the Rana
demonstrated conspicuous consumption as a prerequisite of their
high status by showing off not their apparently still imperfect
residences but especially their unlimited resources.
While the aristocracy was treated with opulence, the Ranas
pulled also ranks with less welcome guests of the British
Empire. Nepal had accepted a British Resident after signing the
Treaty of Sugauli in 1816, long before the Ranas came to power.
The British Resident to Nepal was hosted in a comfortable
mansion that signified status but clearly fell behind the
extravagant residences of colonial officers in India and was by
comparison to the newly built Rana palaces rather small.
Landon, a British historian whom the Ranas had invited to
chronicle Rana history in the 1920s, remarked that the legation
contrasted ‘unhappily with the sumptuous homes of even the
junior members of the Maharaja’s family’ (Landon 1928: 190).
The Ranas had by then become masters of perception and status
negotiation, especially when it came to showing visitors their
palace. As Morris (1963: 26) who visited Nepal during Chandra
were custom: ‘A visitor who had come to Kathmandu for the
express purpose of conferring with the Maharaja was often kept
hanging about for days’. Hassoldt, who visited Nepal with a
film crew when Juddha SJB Rana (1932-1945) was prime minister,
gives another example how impression management was also then
standard practice:
An automobile zoomed directly at us, passed by with an
inch to spare. The lights were on inside it, and there I
could see three men with jewelled turbans pretending
that they weren’t looking at us at all. (…) It was
painted gold, entirely gold, even to the spare tyre on
the back (Hassoldt 1942: 186).
Despite the golden cars, foreign recognition even in Kathmandu
was still not sufficiently glamorous to make up for the lack of
a proper royal title that would pave the way to equal the Ranas
with the Shahs.
New kings under the king of kings
Surprisingly, at the height of his diplomatic status upon
returning from London, Jung Bahadur Rana in 1856 had announced
his retirement from the post of prime minister. The king of
Nepal accepted his resignation and honored his services. He
granted Jung Bahadur as a retirement gift the royal title of a
Maharaja, combined with land rights on two of the little
kingdoms within Nepal. Through this act the Ranas had finally
become landed nobility, becoming formally one of the little
kings under the king of Nepal. The spiral movement that had
begun in Nepal by gaining political power and claiming noble
status had moved to London for status confirmation and returned
to Nepal.
Having achieving the coveted title of a Maharaja, Jung
Bahadur found his early retirement unsatisfying and returned
when his brother Krishna Bahadur died unexpectedly after only a
month in office. In June 1857 Jung Bahadur resumed office, now
combining the title of landed nobility as Maharaja with that of
the political office of Prime Minister of Nepal.
At this point, when combining office and royal title, the
Rana clan began to truly rival the powers of the established
Shah dynasty. Accordingly, and serving to solidify status, now
several marriages between the Rana and the Shah were
successfully negotiated by Jung Bahadur.21 Legend has it that
Jung Bahadur pressured King Surendra into these alliances,
reminding him that his own ancestry was not flawless either -
being the great grandson of Queen Kantivati, a widowed Bahun
rather than a first marriage Thakuri (Bhattarai 2000).
With these marriage alliances the Ranas cemented their
status, as further public questioning of their caste status
would now have meant to also disgrace the established royal
family. At this stage, the time was ripe to press again for21 In 1854 Jung Bahadur’s son Jagat Jang had married Princess Tika, followed a year later by Jung Bahadur’s second son marrying the second daughter of the king. In 1857, the year Jung Bahadur had retired but later returned to office, the most important marriage was formed. Crown prince Trailokya married Tara, daughter of Jung Bahadur, followed three years later by her sister Lalit, the later mother of King Prithvi Bir Bikram Shah.
outside acknowledgement of high birth to end the dispute over
nobility once and for all. Jung Bahadur Rana had established
good relations with the British through his diplomatic mission,
and more importantly through the offering of Gurkha soldiers.
During the First World War, one hundred thousand Gurkha
soldiers went to fight in British service, which meant that
Prime Minister Chandra SJB Rana now had a firm stand to bargain
with the British for a favor. In an interview with the author
in 1999, R. Rana explained that a further move to have the Rana
established as an old noble clan fell into this time:
It is Chandra Shamsher who was trying to force the
Maharana of Udaipur. You know in India the Maharana of
Udaipur is the highest of the Rājput families, that is
why he has the title maha-rana, which means the great
Rana. He refused: ‘These stupid fellows from Nepal, they
think that they should join our family?’ – and this
thing kept on and on and on until Lord Curzon became the
Viceroy of India. And Chandra did a lot during the First
World War - he really went out of his way to appease the
British, his wives were knitting socks for the British
soldiers and all that, just to impress Lord Curzon. So
Lord Curzon put pressure on the Maharana of Udaipur and
then the Maharana of Udaipur wrote one letter, one fine
day, to Chandra Shumshere saying (laugh) ‘dear Chandra’
and we suddenly became sursudias and sursudias means the
highest form of the Rājputs, but we are nothing! We are
just a very common stock of people. I don’t believe in
all this – nonsense!
Now the Ranas had a certified noble origin. With no need for
further proof, it now became customary, especially within
Chandra SJB Rana’s extended family, to find suitable marriage
partners amongst India’s nobility. That the Ranas on the other
hand discouraged the royal family to build equally favorable
alliances is only logical, as the control of the Ranas over the
Shah increased further throughout the regime.
Fundamental to their comet-like rise was not only to
introduce new ways of distinction at all places of engagement
but also to seek ways to further ‘speed up’ the impression of
historical time, a key ingredient of old nobility.
Speeding up historical time
The status rise of the Rana could not have been achieved in one
cultural setting only. If they had remained in Nepal, the Ranas
would not have succeeded to be recognized as landed nobility
within such a short time. The traditional caste system would
have required 14 generations to accept upward mobility through
Sanskritization, the process of ritual alignment and orthodox
conduct. The Ranas had to become powerful outsiders and rule-
breakers to introduce a new elite within the established caste
system. By the time they were able to force everybody to accept
the invented noble Rajput origin of the Ranas, they had already
created marriage links with other nobility. These links
guaranteed the acceptance within the Nepalese upper caste
society as to question the Ranas ritual status, would now have
meant to also question the status of all offspring of unions
with the Ranas. As this would have included all Shah kings from
1881 onwards, this was not likely. In terms of elite formation
it appears that within exclusive traditional systems of
hierarchy the accumulation of social capital is not sufficient.
Conspicuous consumption, the distinction through taste and
education form here only an entry point to elite status.
Modifying the past to conform to established rules, described
by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) as the practice of inventing
traditions, has to follow in order to solidify a new status.
One of the problematic issues with an invented tradition is the
relatively short period of elite presence. New elites are per
se not as valued as old dynasties. In the case of the Ranas the
perception of historical time has also been manipulated.
Dynastic time is measured in generations and nobility
generally relies on distinguished genealogy with long family
trees and at best a line of descent that reaches into time
immemorial.22 The Rana rule lasted for 104 years and the
duration of only four Shah kings (Rajendra, Surendra, Prithvi,
Tribhuvan) who had passed power from father to son according to
the common law of patrilineal primogeniture (sons of a king
before brothers of a king), the common form of succession
amongst landed nobility.
The Ranas on the other hand introduced an unusual
fraternal system of succession. This lateral succession ensured
that only mature Ranas came to higher offices while the younger
22 Chetri clans in Nepal belong to one of many different gotras (exogamous kinship units) that traces the origin of a clan to a prehistoric hero (Slusser 1998(1982): 58, n42). The Kunwar and the Rana are no exception to this, belonging to the sri badsa gotra.
generation could be extensively trained for their future.23 As a
disadvantage, it complicated the role of succession from the
second generation onwards, when numerous cousins competed for
posts. As a side effect of the fraternal succession, the number
of Rana prime ministers (12, or 10 if one does not count Jung
Bahadur’s three terms in office) implies a long history. The
list of hereditary prime ministers or the display of a gallery
of portraits gives the instant impression of an old dynasty.24
One tends to easily overlook that the 12 Rana prime ministers
represented brothers of only three generations of the Rana
clan.
Portraits of Rana officials show usually timeless gala
uniforms with civil and military orders as Toffin (2008)
noticed. An early photograph of Chandra SJB Rana (Prime
Minister from 1901-1929) shows him even curiously in some sort
of a 17th century western court costume. This visual backdating
of historical time though not a Rana invention facilitated the
cause of elongating their noble tradition.25 Both the visual
23 At times these experienced administrators were paired with very young kings whom they guided, which shifted power further towards the Rana clan (e.g., Prithvi was 6 yeas old when he became king in 1881, Tribhuvan only 5 years when he became king in 1911).24 First Generation of Rana Prime Ministers: Jung Bahadur Kunwar/Ranareigned from 15.09.1846 until 01.08.1856; followed by his brothers Bam Bahadur Rana 25.05.1857 and Krishna Bahadur 28.07.1856 and succeeded again by Jung Bahadur Rana 25.02.1877 and his brother Ranoudip Singh 22.11.1885. The Second Generation comprised of Bir SJB Rana who ruled until 05.03.1901; Dev SJB Rana until 27.06.1901; Chandra SJB until 26.11.1929; Bhim SJB Rana until 01.09.1932 and Juddha SJB Rana until 29.11.1945. The last and third Generation comprised of Padma SJB Rana who ruled until 30.04.1948 and Mohan SJBRana with whom the Rana regime ended on 12.11.1951
backdating as well as the fraternal succession added to the
perceived age and prestige of the Rana dynasty.
The same holds for approximately forty neoclassical Rana
palaces in the Kathmandu Valley most of which were built at the
beginning of the 20th century – which is considerably later than
most of even the colonial architecture in India with which they
are compared today.26
Negotiating ways of distinction cross-culturally
Applying two very different sets of distinction between the
established Shah dynasty – ruling by divine grace and the
emerging Rana dynasty – accumulating power and ruling through
outside recognition, was as demonstrated not a straight forward
practice but a matter of performance and negotiation skills.
Taste as a classical western form of class distinction was
also employed amongst the Rana of the second generation.
Michael Peissel, who visited Nepal during Chandra SJB Rana’s
25 The picture of Chandra shows him with the Order of Bath. In 18th century England members of the Order of the Bath dressed up, especially to sit for painted portraits in 17th century costumes (seefor example Nicolas 1842, vol. III, picture of Prince Albert wearingthe robes of the Order). As a member of the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, Chandra apparently only followed this established tradition.26 Speeding up historical time is also part of the narrative practiceof Rana self-representation. Some members of the Rana family refer to the 19th century when speaking of the Rana period, putting a century distance between the rule and themselves. Strictly speaking this gives a further fifty years of age to the Ranas, as their rule lasted from 1846 to 1951. See for example the self-representation atBaber Mahal Revisited.
regency (1901-1929), was probably the first to report that some
of the Ranas despite their caste prohibition towards alcohol
were connoisseurs of good wine – a marker of western
distinction but an unthinkable way of distinction for an
orthodox high-caste Hindu who should not drink at all. Peissel
(1966: 59, 60) wrote about Keshar SJB Rana:
[He] was every bit the image of a slightly Oriental
Voltaire, but he possessed the shrewdness of a
Talleyrand allied to the intelligence and culture of a
French academician. (…). The Field Marshal's passion for
knowledge was equalled only by his love of refinement. A
gourmet, he had one of the best wine cellars in Asia.
His taste for beautiful women and fine food was as
famous as his political and diplomatic ability.
Living with two sets of customs, the Ranas had to
negotiate, and with increasing foreign visitors find
compromises in protocol when they wanted to socialize with
foreign friends. When in the later years of the Rana regime a
banquet for a mixed audience was held, they found a convenient
way to do so without openly disrespecting caste purity. The
long table of the banquet would for example be composed of
several tables with slight gaps between, formally separating
guests and hosts according to their caste.27
Keshar SJB Rana too received an inventive press coverage when
send to discuss military matters in India, England and the US
in July 1939. With the now established image of an oriental
27 Information of D. Rana, referring to the palace of Baber Mahal.
prince it was apparently impossible to write about the Ranas
without emphasising their high caste status. Charles Graves
wrote:
It was off Jermyn-street that I encountered his
Excellency Commanding General Sir Kaiser Shumshere Jung
Bahadur, who represented Nepal at the Coronation two
years ago. When he left, on that occasion, I understood
that he was of such high caste that he could never
return to this country; but the medicos in Kathmandu
recently gave such alarming report of his health that a
special dispensation was granted by the Maharaja to
enable him to cross the ‘Black Water’ for treatment
incognito (The Times 24.07.1939).
The British Press was obviously keen to hold on to the image of
the exotic oriental princes and the Rana of the 20th century
seemed happy to play along, although the times had changed
since Jung Bahadurs first visit in 1850.
The decline of the Rana
For the duration of their role as prime ministers of Nepal, the
Ranas built and then retained their social high class and high
caste position. While it provided stability, the system of
fraternal succession also produced much conflict amongst
competing young officers. With the autocratic power of the
prime minister Chandra SJB Rana and then Juddha SJB Rana
introduced a system of distinction within the ever growing Rana
clan. This did not solve all conflicts over the role of
succession but limited bloodshed. With a quickly growing clan
due to the many polygamous marriages of the Rana patriarchs the
Rana were able to fill all important administrative positions
in the country and staff the upper ranks of the military.
However, as a result of the repressive role of succession that
did not allow excellence to advance faster through the ranks,
conflict was inbuilt into the system.
In 1951 King Tribhuvan whose position had been kept solely
representational by the Ranas, sided with the political
opposition to the ruling Ranas that had formed underground in
India, despite a ban of political parties. Amongst the
opposition were also several capable young Rana officers who
according to the established rule of succession would not have
stood a chance to ever gain a noticeable administrative
position.
As a consequence of the political unrest in 1950/51and the
mounting international pressure for a democratic solution, the
Ranas were forced to hand over power to the political parties
and the king. The bloodless revolution on a personal level
meant that many Rana families now had to vacate their palaces,
as they were turned into ministries and government offices. But
few left the country to live in India or the UK and most simply
continued to live in Nepal as wealthy but now less powerful
elites. Very few Ranas went into party politics and while some
invested their wealth wisely now holding some of the largest
companies of the country, most gradually declined. Living off
the land and paying tax they were unable to keep up the lavish
lifestyle of former generations. Within half a century their
attitude became less courtly and their styles and tastes less
distinct.
The fact that the Shah Kings continued to intermarry with
the wealthy side of the Rana clan is an indication for their
once well-crafted elite status. Now that both clans are without
state powers their ties will probably remain strong. Amongst
themselves the changes within the society around them will not
be as pronounced.
Conclusion
The Shah dynasty set the standard for a religiously legitimated
royalty who defied competition to their rule through a well-
established legend and accepted divine grace. The
deconstruction of this concept of kingship in the new era of
Nepal revealed how kingship and state had been conceptually
fused in the two bodies of the king. Nepal had to become a
secular state in order to undo the institution of the Hindu
monarchy in the Hindu Kingdom and to conceptually undo the body
politic of the monarch whose religious significance lingered in
the Hindu rituals protecting the state of Nepal.. The Shah
dynasty was able to withstand severe crisis – including the 104
year long competition of the Rana regime. Only the
deconstruction of its religious base and the performed
reduction of the King to an ordinary citizen without ritual
powers allowed for the decline of the Shah dynasty. Comparing
this static religious elite foundation with the dynamic
approach the Rana dynasty took highlights the creative
inventiveness of the latter.
The Rana of Nepal in their quest for power played two
systems of distinction – the Western and the Nepalese - against
each other. They struck a fine balance between altering local
rules and traditions almost unnoticed and making their
international recognition widely known. What makes the earlier
creation of the Rana elite and their cross-cultural application
of distinctions so instructive is the condensation of elite
formation into a relatively short time span. The self-enforced
isolation of Nepal furthermore creates a unique environment
almost resembling a laboratory experiment in which the Ranas
write the rules and in which their successes and failings
highlight the underlying mechanisms very vividly. They used the
transnational display of status and of symbols of distinction
across two separate cultural systems to utilize these in turn
as stepping stones for their status rise. In the times of Jung
Bahadur they were in effect the only translators between the
two worlds and could exaggerate and embellish almost at will.
In later days they found themselves increasingly scrutinized in
these practices but by then their status was no longer
disputed. They had gained political military and economic power
in Nepal and had been perceived as cultured and distinguished
as well as men of high caste.
In their decline it seems the Ranas and the Shahs are not
entirely dissimilar. International support for the Ranas
dwindled when their repressive rule in 1951 lost its
international backing after India’s independence. The 21st
century did no longer provide for a Shah king who under
pressure did not trust the democratic process but opted for
direct rule under the laws of the state of emergency. With many
urgent social problems to solve one would hope that the new
political system will be strong enough to withstand any attempt
to return to repressive rule. Members of both dynasties
continue to hold considerable economic powers in Nepal and
individual members of the Rana family are in high ranking
positions in the military and the diplomatic corps. The social
decline of Rana and the Shah and their current status as
ordinary citizens within the Republic of Nepal is however
undisputable. The impression of a Nepalese upper caste and
class that matters beyond private family gatherings dwindles.
References
Bhattarai, G.D. 2000. Matrimonial alliance between Shahs and
