Bhimsen Thapa

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Bhimsen Thapa, "Mukhtiyar" from 1806 to 1837

Listen to Bhimsen Thapa ^{? / i} ( Nepali : भीमसेन थापा ; born in August 1775 in the village of Pipal Thok in the Gorkha district ; died on August 5, 1839 in Kathmandu ) was the head of government of the Kingdom of Gorkhas (now Nepal) from 1806 to 1837 .

Bhimsen rose to power and worked as the personal secretary of King Rana Bahadur Shah in 1799 when he abdicated in favor of his two-year-old son in order to secure the rightful succession to the throne. When he changed his mind and wanted to ascend the throne again, he was forced into exile in 1800 to Varanasi in British India , where Bhimsen accompanied him. From there, Bhimsen helped the former king return to power in 1804. Out of gratitude, Rana Bahadur made Bhimsen a kaji of the newly formed government. With the help of the ministerial office, Bhimsen was able to pursue opponents of Rana Bahadur and acquire their property. In 1806, de facto ruler Rana Bahadur was also officially appointed "Mukhtiyar", which made him the supreme executive in the state. The position was that of a head of government for the incumbent king and is therefore equated with that of a current prime minister. The first "Mukhtiyar", who should call himself prime minister under the British agreement, was Bhimsen's nephew Madhabar Singh Thapa , also de facto ruler of Nepal. After Rana Bahadur's assassination by his stepbrother that same year, Bhimsen was induced to persecute his political opponents, with ninety-three people being massacred over the course of two weeks. Subsequently, Bhimsen Thapa claimed the title of "Mukhtiyar" for himself.

In his subsequent tenure, the Gorkha Empire reached its greatest extent from Sutlej in the west to the Teesta in the east. However, Gorkha entered the disastrous Gurkha War with the East Indian Society , which lasted from 1814 to 1816 and ended with the Treaty of Sugauli . As a result, Gorkha lost almost a third of his land. It also led to the establishment of a permanent British residency , which for decades was the only Western embassy in the country. In 1816, before he came of age, King [Rana Bahadur's son [Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah]] died of smallpox . This allowed Bhimsen Thapa to continue to rule, despite the defeat in the aforementioned Anglo-Nepalese war. Girvan's heir, King Rajendra Bikram Shah, was again a minor. Bhimsen was supported in his claim by Queen Tripurasundari, the widow of Rana Bahadur. The country's aristocracy played Bhimsen Thapa off against each other, which also ensured his power.

With the death of Queen Tripurasundari in 1832 and the coming of age of King Rajendra in the same year, however, Bhimsen's power was severely weakened. Conspiracies and power struggles with rival courtiers (especially the Pandi family, who blamed Bhimsen Thapa for the death of Damodar Pandi in 1804) ultimately led to his imprisonment, torture and suicide in 1839. The judicial power struggles did not abate with his death, and political instability eventually paved the way for the establishment of the Rana dynasty , which ruled from 1846 to 1951. Its founder Jang Bahadur Rana was a great-nephew of Bhimsen Thapas.

Web links

Commons : Bhimsen Thapa  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Bhimsen Thapa in the WorldCat bibliographic database