Jail Journal

Jail Diary of BP Koirala

• August 28, 1967:

  I have grown sentimental about children these days. It is not only my own children that I have become fond of. I seem to have developed fondness for all children in general also. It seems that the most important ideal that one can steadfastly adhere to is a child who needs to be loved, cared for and whose future one can dedicate oneself to. A child is a concrete ideal, whose present care and future well-being one can apply to without any doubt. One cannot be sure of God; socialism may turn out to be a mirage; democracy a mere debate - nothing, nothing is as certain as a child who demands immediate attention and who inspires me to sacrifice in the interest of his future. I want to be loved by all the children of Nepal.



• September 17, 1967:

  Received mother's letter informing that Shailaja (Shailaja Acharya) wants to marry Pradeep Giri. They are in love. They are postponing their marriage till my release.

  I am glad of this news. Pradeep (Pradeep Giri) appeared to me to be a good boy, intellectual type, the type that would suit Shailaja, who herself is an intellectual type. I am only afraid that temperamentally she or he may not be a marrying type. Intellectual types do not do well in a situation that a marriage is called upon to face.

  I received this letter after a long time. Mother seems to be too weak to write herself and therefore has this written by Bunu on her dictation. Bunu had come here and has left with Kalpana (Kalpana Koirala, daughter of TP Koirala) for Pakistan.



• September 18, 1967:

  TP and Rosa came. TP told me that Pradeep Giri's people are not happy over his intended marriage with Shailaja's. Pinaki Babu also gave assent most unwillingly and only when Shailaja told him what he would do if she married a muslim. Perhaps Pinaki Babu thinks that that would the worst calamity and hence gave his consent to her marriage with a sanyasi. But Shailaja is in trepidation, because she herself does not know if it would turn out to be a success.

  I will write to her that she should marry and take the risk. But I am not permitted to write to her. Marriage is not love, because most loves we see in life or read in books are either virginal or adulterous. Marriage is, if anything, antidote of love. It is not company, because we can get company without marriage. Marriage is a desire to own a person and be owned by him. Marriage is thus a bondage and one who is not prepared to be owned cannot make a success of it.



• September 21, 1967:

  Received TP's letter which had been held up for a long time. The letter contained a remark - the Government is vindictive towards the Koirala family - which most likely had merited a most strenuous censorship. TP had been provoked into making that comment because of the release of others like SP, (Surya Prasad Upadhaya) VV (Vishwa Vandhu Thapa) who had lately been arrested for some anti-Government activities, while Girija (Girija Prasad Koirala, youngest brother of BP Koirala) was being kept in imprisonment since the last seven years.

  TP writes that if we are all released, he would be the happiest in the world. Would I be the happiest man if I am released today? No, in jail most of the time I am unhappy, and at times I suffer agonies of deprivation. But I feel that in the present political situation, which is so unfavorable to any democratic movement, the happiness of my release will be only temporary. I cannot be of any help to anybody outside and I cannot even be of help to myself. For a sensitive man like me who needs freedom and liberty more than anything else, jail is not always the worst place. Imprisonment is at least not an experience of humiliation; imprisonment is a kind of martyrdom and can be, in a way, a satisfying way of living. Man does not live by bread alone. I do not know. But I think I would prefer death to life that has no other sustenance than bread. In the present situation, I cannot even earn my bread without total dismemberment of my personality. Death is preferable to such existence; imprisonment is preferable to death.



• January 1, 1968:

  "Your real life is not behind but before you. It is the new year and not the old which is your opportunity." - Lyman Abbott

  TP writes that if we are all released, he would be the happiest in the world. Would I be the happiest man if I am released today? No, in jail most of the time I am unhappy, and at times I suffer agonies of deprivation. But I feel that in the present political situation, which is so unfavorable to any democratic movement, the happiness of my release will be only temporary. I cannot be of any help to anybody outside and I cannot even be of help to myself. For a sensitive man like me who needs freedom and liberty more than anything else, jail is not always the worst place. Imprisonment is at least not an experience of humiliation; imprisonment is a kind of martyrdom and can be, in a way, a satisfying way of living. Man does not live by bread alone. I do not know. But I think I would prefer death to life that has no other sustenance than bread. In the present situation, I cannot even earn my bread without total dismemberment of my personality. Death is preferable to such existence; imprisonment is preferable to death.