P.N. Shah's Place In History

Parmeshwar Devkota

In a long human history, two types of kings ruled in the world - either the kings such as Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great or Ashurbanipal, king Sennacherib and alike. In our context, as we overthrew the Shah Dynasty and established the federal democratic republic after steady struggle and countless sacrifices, we have been ironically divided on the contribution of Prithvi Narayan (P.N.) Shah who unified small principalities into a great Nepal with his astute military strategy and people-centric campaign. But, some historians and so-called intellectuals see terror and forced annexation in it, comparing him with the kings of Assyria Ashurbanipal (668-627BC). 

Defeating the Elamite king Humban Heltas in Susa, cruel king Ashurbanipal accounted his atrocities, "Susa, the great holy city, abode of their gods, seat of their mysteries, I conquered. I entered its palaces, I opened their treasures where silver, gold goods and wealth were amassed. I destroyed their Ziggurat (temple) of Susa. I smashed its sharing copper horns. I reduced the temple of Elam to naught.’’

On the other hand, another group of historians compare P.N. Shah with Cyrus the Great and Darius the Great, arguing that he worked to unify the country tactfully. They say that the then divided states and people had different languages, cultures and traditions, but P.N. Shah and his soldiers were sensitive about respecting the different traditions and practices. P.N. Shah spared long-practiced Kipat system in the Limbuwan. This allowed the community to have the ownership of various types of lands and natural resources such as farm field, pasture, forest, rives and minerals. 

The historians of this group claim that P.N. Shah was so lenient with the defeated principalities and their citizens. He seldom intimidated those communities and nurtures the mentality of conquering them. Rather, he tried to convince the principalities to join the unification drive so as to be more secure and uphold cultures, customs and religions.

In the pre-historic times, Darius had organised his empire into administrative regions and introduced coinage and started new monetary system and road linkage in his territory and uniformity in the use of Old Persian language. P.N. Shah also followed similar path of nation-building. Similarly, Cyrus the Great was also tolerant toward the Babylonian people. In that period, the Jewish people were captive in the Babylonia. Cyrus, by defeating the King of Babylonia, not only freed the Jewish people and let them return to their homeland,  Jerusalem, but also,  assured them to help build their  temple. So, the Jewish Bible cites name of the Cyrus the Great as a liberator.

Like Cyrus the Great, P.N. Shah assimilated with the people of Kathmandu Valley in no time and sought easy compromise with the principalities of Koshi area. Had P.N. Shah not died at the age of 52 years in Devighat, he would have expanded the country to a significant size. With this conclusion, we began celebrating the birth anniversary of P.N. Shah and the National Unification Day again.