page_title: Bhimsen Thapa
section_title: Hold on power
hierarchical_section_title: Bhimsen Thapa / As Mukhtiyar: 1806–1832 / Hold on power
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Bhimsen Thapa from William Wilson Hunter's Life of Brian Houghton Hodgson: British resident at court of Nepal
context_page_description: Bhimsen Thapa was the Mukhtiyar and de facto ruler of Nepal from 1806 to 1837.
  Bhimsen's life is known for his dramatic rise and fall from power. Bhimsen rose to influence after helping the exiled ex-King Rana Bahadur Shah engineer his return to power in 1804. In gratitude, Rana Bahadur made Bhimsen a Kaji of the newly formed government. Rana Bahadur's assassination by his step-brother in 1806 led Bhimsen to massacre ninety-three people, after which he was able to claim the title of the Mukhtiyar. The death of King Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah in 1816 at the immature age of 17, with his heir, King Rajendra Bikram Shah being only 3 years old, along with the support from Queen Tripurasundari allowed him to remain in power even after Nepal's defeat in the Anglo-Nepalese War. After the death of Queen Tripurasundari in 1832 and the adulthood of King Rajendra, the conspiracies and infighting with the British envoy Brian Houghton Hodgson, Senior Queen Samrajya Laxmi Devi and rival courtiers finally led to his imprisonment and death by suicide in 1839.
  Bhimsen's prime ministership is best remembered for the Anglo-Nepalese war.
context_section_description: In May 1816, Edward Gardner arrived in Kathmandu as the first British Resident after the conclusion of the Treaty of Sugauli. Bhimsen used all his influence to cultivate peace, although not friendliness, with the British, "a Power," as he said, "that crushed thrones like potsherds." His foreign policy after the war was essentially the one handed down by Prithvi Narayan Shah – to keep Nepal isolated from any foreign influences. As such, although he was forced to accept a British resident in Kathmandu as per the Treaty of Sugauli, he made sure to cut off the resident from all contacts with life in Nepal to the point of making the Resident a virtual prisoner. Apart from petty harassment, the Resident was only allowed to travel within the Kathmandu valley, that too only with special escorts. The resident was also barred from meeting the king or any courtiers at will. Thus the threat of having a Resident in Kathmandu was not as keen as had been anticipated.
  On 20 November 1816, King Girvan Yuddha died of smallpox, aged nineteen. Girvan had two wives – the first wife committed sati with Girvan, while the second wife also died of smallpox after 14 days of Girvan's death. Thus, Girvan was succeeded by his only son, Rajendra Bikram Shah, an infant of two years old, after 18 days of his father's death on 8 December 1816. Therefore, Bhimsen Thapa, in collusion with the queen regent, Tripurasundari, remained in power despite the defeat of Nepal in the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814–16. There was a sustained opposition against Bhimsen from factions centered around leading members of other aristocratic families, notably the Pandes, who denounced what they felt was his cowardly submission to the British. Paradoxically, the peacetime after the Anglo-Nepalese War saw the inflation and modernization of the Nepal army, which Bhimsen used to keep his opposition under control, while at the same time convincing the suspicious British that he had no intention of using it against them. Bhimsen appointed his own family members and his most trusted men to the highest positions at the court and in the army, while members of older aristocratic families were made administrators of far-flung provinces of the kingdom, away from the capital.
  Thus, Bhimsen was able to continue making all the administrative decisions of the country, while the Regent Queen Tripurasundari would unquestioningly approve these decisions by stamping the royal seal issued in the name of King Rajendra on these government orders. The Regent never dared to express any doubts regarding Bhimsen's decisions. Nevertheless, to make sure that the King, his wives – Samrajya Laxmi Devi (senior) and Rajya Lakshmi Devi (junior) – and the Regent were insulated from influences of people other than Bhimsen and his closest relatives, Bhimsen had instated his youngest brother, Ranvir Singh Thapa, in the royal palace to keep a watch on the royal family and to keep guard against any outside person. Any priest or courtier who wished to be granted an interview with the King, the Queens, or the Regent, had to get approval from Ranbir Singh and the interview had to be conducted under his watchful presence. Similarly, the royal family was not allowed to leave the palace without Bhimsen's permission either. Bhimsen had also neglected the formal education of Rajendra, due to which he had grown to be uncritical and weak minded to the extent that he was even unaware that he was virtually a prisoner. However, his wives were more alert and wary of Bhimsen since, according to Baburam Acharya, they received unfiltered news of the world outside the royal palace from their handmaidens, who would leave the palace compounds and go to their homes during their menstruation and gather news and rumors of the day, which they would then relate to the Queens.
caption: Bhimsen Thapa, the Prime Minister of Nepal from 1806 to 1837
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