PALACE REVOLT IN NEPAL

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26266, 10 November 1950, Page 7

PALACE REVOLT IN NEPAL

NATIONALISTS PLAN COUNTERBLOW

NEW DELHI, November 8. Nepalese nationalists to-day served notice that they would attempt to overthrow the powerful military regime which has set a three-year-old boy on the throne of Nepal in place of his grandfather. The baby. Prince Gyanendra, was taken yesterday from the Royal Palace at Khatmandu and installed as King by the hereditary Prime Minister, the Maharaja Mohun Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana.

Authorities in India’s United Provinces. bordering Nepal, have been ordered to watch closely the developments on their borders. The Nepalese Government has ordered indefinite suspension of the weekly air service between Calcutta and Khatmandu. The air service, which started only a month ago, is the only modern link with the Himalayan State.

This week’s coup proclaiming Prince Gyanendra ruler of Nepal is the outcome of a long struggle between powerful political factions. The antagonists are the Prime Minister, who heads the ruling aristocracy, and a political group which seeks popular government with the King as a constitutional monarch.

Tne King—the Makarajadhiraja Tribhuvana Bir Bikram Jang Bahadur Shah Bahadur Shamsher Jang—has now soiight shelter at the Indian Embassy in Khatmandu after being ousted in a palace revolution because of disagreement with the Prime Minister over political reforms.

The present movement for democratic rule came into being in 1947. Its spearhead is the Nepal National Congress headed bv Biswesar Prasad Koirala, whose father led an unsuccessful attempt to unseat the Rana family (hereditary Prime Ministers) 15 years ago.

The Ranas promptly crushed the Congress. Koirala and his family were imprisoned, and astringent measures taken against sympathisers. The Indian Prime Minister (Pandit Nehru) secured the release of Koirala and members of his family, who are now exiled in the Indian Union.