Jail Journal
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Jail Diary of BP Koirala

Explanatory notes in parenthesis are given to help readers locate the characters in BP Koirala's personal and political life - Editor.
  • January 25, 1967:

    Leader is not merely a mouthpiece of a nation. He is also - more importantly - the directing brain of the nation. What is political sagacity?

    My political opponents - all have been vanquished except the King, who too, however, has lost to me politically. His victory over me has not been political, but military. My failure is that I did not understand the role of army in the politics of Nepal, otherwise I would have attempted at educating the army to make it an instrument of democracy or else would have tried to guard against its interference in politics.

    "What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power - but power without responsibility - the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages." - S. Baldwin, 1931 (said against Beaverbrook and others.)

  • January 26, 1967:

    I send for doctor at the slightest excuse and I am in the habit of consuming a lot of medicine. This is due to nervousness caused by long detention. There is a sense of lack of security, hence nervousness and hence the need and assurance of a medical man who is easily available to us here. The military doctors must be interpreting this imperative need of mine of medicine unsympathetically - an old man's quest for health, as an evidence of malingering, as a trick to get medicine at no cost. Among us KP is least in need of medical attention. He does not take medicine unless he is bed-ridden, which he seldom is. His constitution is finest amongst us.

    I read Krishna Chander's novel "Ek Violin Samunder Ke Kinare." Liked it, because of it being out of the usual style and an uncommon story, a mixture of myth and reality. The story, apart from its mythological order of Shiva granting a boon to one of his devotees, is a collection of disjointed events of fantastic, humorous, pathetic nature - as if the writer did not care for the unity of the plot or the plausibility of the coherence of the structure of the story; yet they are held together by a theme like a thread throughout the story that despite human traits like love, an ancient man cannot live in a modern world and that such enduring questions lose significance with changes in social mores.

  • January 27, 1967:

    Yesterday in a novel I read about love being both a theory and practice. I want to add: Love is the only art that diminishes with practice.

  • February 1, 1967:

    When I review my political activities, I come to a startling conclusion - that I am not a revolutionary, but a rebel. My impatience with method and organization had been imputed to my mercurial temperament at best or at worst to my laziness of character. I had myself accepted this explanation of my incapacity for methodical work. But of late, I am coming to see myself in a better light. I am capable of hard work, and pursue my objective with a persistence that is almost tenacious and obstinate; otherwise I would not have been in politics, which has mostly brought flustering experience to me in the first place. I do not neglect to protect the interests that I have in my heart. I have also put in hard labour in such works as I am interested in. My hunger strike for 29 days is no evidence of my lack of steadfastness. During the last ten days, when every hour was an age and called for almost superhuman determination to hold on, I mostly came out successful in the test. During the election in 1958-59 I worked harder than anybody. Also, in organizing the Nepali Congress itself I can take justified pride that I came out successful. Nepali Congress is my creation, more than anybody's. Therefore, I do not accept the charge that I am mercurial or lack steadfastness.

  • February 3, 1967:

    I cannot help being a rebel. This explains why I did not hold on to the control of the Mukti Sena after 1951 revolution. (Djilas thought that I was a fool to do so). Why I did not use it when I was turned out of the Government without ceremony in November, 1951 (Narendra Deo thought that I was again a fool). Why military aspect of politics did not interest me? Why I did not take trouble to build my base in Nepal's army when I had a chance (during my premiership)? Why I did not build a secret organization. Why, if I failed in these things, I am so singularly successful in open politics (vide election result) etc.?

    Perhaps I am too much of a democrat to be a revolutionary; and too much of a rebel not to be a democrat. Although I claim to have been influenced more by Marx than Gandhi, I think in reality I am more influenced by Gandhi than Marx.