Jail Journal

Jail Diary of BP Koirala

• October 10, 1968:

  Sent message to GP asking him to be diplomatic and reasonable, not to annoy the King and India, not be on the wrong side of India and the King, to explain the position to Subarna and the workers honestly. I regret that I did not fully instruct Girija when I had the opportunity to do so at the last private interview with him. I was myself so greatly upset that I totally forgot that a very critical situation had now developed in which extreme caution, patience and political sagacity were needed. The King has the upper hand; therefore we cannot afford to annoy India although it has been mostly bungling in its dealings with the King. We moreover cannot afford to see the disintegration of the party which Subarnaji is holding together for some time. My strength depends upon the party remaining intact. It is here I have an apprehension that my not submitting to the King's demand to endorse Subarna's statement from jail may result in the effective party members losing confidence in Subarna altogether and veering round GP. I have taken proper care of my prestige - because I know that if I go out with a loss of prestige I cannot be effective in politics and will lose all the glamour and the political capital that I have built up by being in prison - but sometimes doubts assail me if I have not taken too much of care of my prestige at the cost of the party which might disintegrate as a result of continued political stalemate, which my acceptance of the King's demand would likely to have broken. But here again, the question is: could I have trusted the King? If the King sat tight over my acceptance of his demand as he did over Subarna's offer of cooperation, then? I would have lost prestige without a corresponding gain.

  I should have had discussed all this with GP, when I had my last private interview with him.

  I feel very much concerned about my health too. I apprehend that perhaps I am suffering from some serious disease - maybe cancer even - which the doctors are not able to diagnose. I get constant pain in my stomach and lower region of the belly, there is occasional pain in the left testicle and on the tip of the penis. I have been getting constant pain on the back and the right shoulder. I constantly think of Sushila.



• October 11, 1968:

  It is no use regretting what I have done. What is done is done now. Today the newspaper carried the news that 45 men have been granted pardon by the King, most of them were living in exile in India. I do not know if we have lost them altogether and if they will cease to be useful politically after they return home. Are we disintegrating? If I had accepted the King's terms, could I have stemmed this disintegrating process? By holding on have I rather ensured the integration of democratic forces on better and firmer foundation in the future? Those workers who could not hold on any longer had in any case been lost to the democratic cause - whatever I might have done. Is it so? Is it not the chief quality of leadership to ensure that existing workers do not lose heart? After all in future too I will have to build upon the people who have held on for long. I cannot afford to lose them. I should not have given them the sense of total frustration. I do not know anything. I am totally in dark, and I am not sure if my step has been correct.

  But what has been done is done. I feel extremely unhappy, but now it cannot be helped.

  Have I made Subarna's position untenable? Will we have to climb down still further? Seeking pardon from the King individually?

  I have no fifth in God. A living faith in him would have been a source of great moral strength to me today when I feel that I am totally without help. I think when great decisions are taken whose results are incalculable - involving even life and death - persons who are forced to take such incalculable decisions have to fall back upon some inner moral resources to sustain them. I lack those resources, hence my insufferable agony.

  GM does not seem to suffer from this kind of mental agony. For one thing, he is fully convinced that even if we had accepted the King's terms we would not have been released and the situation would not have improved; rather it would worsened by the evidence of our weakness. He is firmly convinced that the intention of the King was only to humiliate us. This conviction saves him from the sense of regret. I seem to agree with him, but I cannot build up such unflinching conviction in me and that is the source of my agony. The question presents itself to me repeatedly - tragic miscalculation - tragic for democratic cause and tragic individually for my dedication to this cause.



• October 14, 1968:

  After a week of agony and excruciating doubt about the correctness of my decision not to yield to the King's demand to support his system - doubt because my decision, though made in response to the King's purpose, involves also the political status of Subarnaji who as the acting president of our party and in consultation with his colleagues in India has categorically pledged to support the present system of Government and thus lends itself to the interpretation that I have repudiated his stand. I am now at peace with myself. I have written a letter to Sushila and Chetan which too seem to have partly drained off my mental agitation.

  My stomach gives me a lot of worries - I get pain, almost constant; sometimes it is severe, otherwise it is a dull kind of pain. The pain in the intestine has considerably gone down, and its swollen rigidity that I could feel in the region of lower left abdomen is also lessened. But the stomach pain has increased. Ganesh Manji says that he would give up politics after his release, because democratic politics has no future so long as the King is there and the army remains as it is, oriented against democracy. I tell him that the situation is not so desperate for democrats and even if it is, we cannot but work for it, just as a doctor does in a desperate medical case - he tries till the last. GM gives his indication that he will retire from politics. If his mind is set on this step, his political judgment is also likely to be affected by this decision. A politician is a practical man who calculates the possibilities and on the basis of this

  calculation determines his course of action; he never deviates from the course set by the limits of possibilities. If one decides to give up politics, his judgment need not be based on the calculation of possibilities, he may be impelled to take an extreme position, or he may decide to cut short his loss at once and retire without waiting for the possible gain that the future may bring to him. I am afraid GM's unyielding posture or his desperate political posture that he creates in his thought for democracy, may be attributed to his decision to retire. What I mean to say is that the cause of his present political judgment is the firm decision that he has made with regard to his retirement from politics and not vice-versa, i.e. the cause of his decision to retire is not the desperate political situation in which he thinks he cannot be effective to the cause of democracy. If it is so, I will be gravely misadvised if I listen to GM's political views or be influenced by his rigid political stand.

  By the way I told him today that my difficulty was that I considered myself to be a part of the democratic movement in Nepal and that I could not, therefore, afford to take a personal stand in politics.



• October 18, 1968:

  Interview with mother, TP, Rosa and Prakash. Girija did not come here from Biratnagar. TP thinks that the negotiation with the King that GP was carrying on has been halted, and according to his calculation it may be resumed after some time. I asked him if friends were displeased with my decision of not endorsing Subarnaji's statement under conditions of stress, he said, "No, why should they when you are not at fault."

  Mother is preparing to go to Canada with Bunu, where Zaki (the husband Bunu) is being posted as counselor. Mother is finding it difficult to collect foreign exchange. She said that she might have to go to Canada alone because Bunu would have left before she collected enough foreign exchange. I was amazed at her sangfroid when she said that she would manage to reach Canada because the plane journey had made thing very easy.

• October 29, 1968:

  Sushila and SP came to see me. I make them understand that I would not endorse Subarna's statement from prison, and if released I will support it.



• October 30, 1968:

  Released in the evening with GM. A great press conference immediately after the release supporting Subarna's statement. GM did not attend the press conference saying that an endorsement of Subarna's statement immediately after release would detract from the unconditional nature of my release. I saw his point.

  How I feel to be among my own men - mother, Sushila, Bunu, Rosa, Girija, Tarini, Kalpana and others. A large crowd started collecting at our place immediately after I arrived there. Went to bed late at night.



• October 31, 1968:

  Awfully busy meeting groups of people throughout the whole day. I am overwhelmed by their warm sympathy. Young men in large number came to see me. It is a very encouraging development. I am seeing general enthusiasm on my release all around.