Book Review by Jayaraj Acharya on Ganesh Man Singh
Pradeep Bista
(Taken from the latest issue of The Kathmandu Post Review of Books;
co-ordinated by Swarnim Wagle in Kathmandu).
Reminiscences of a Giant
By Jayaraj Acharya
BOOK: Ganesh Man Singh: Mero Katha ka Pana Haru, Volume 1, Presented by
Mathabar
Singh Basnet, Published by Ayam publications, Kathmandu, 1998, Rs. 400.
Ganesh Man Singh (1915 ^V 1997) was a legend in his own lifetime. His Mero
Kathaka Panaharu (Pages of My Story), published last year on the first
anniversary of his death, is the first of the six volumes of his
autobiography. It is currently available only in Nepali. This is a most
remarkable book which must be read by all those who prize democratic values
and those who want to know what it meant to be part of an arduous struggle
to install democracy in Nepal. The name Ganesh Man Singh is itself
synonymous with the fifty-year long democratic struggle, and it is thus
natural that his autobiography makes an authoritative reading on this
subject.
Although Ganesh Man Singh did not have a high academic degree, he was a
voracious reader and an extremely well informed man. This is an impression
that no reader can escape after reading this book. He had a dramatic way of
telling stories. The book, for example, begins by telling the reader that
he was born around the time the First World War was breaking out.
To quote
him, ^SThe army of Kaiser was spreading fast all over Europe. The rest of
the world seemed to be helplessly waiting for an impending peril. The
Indian National Congress was divided and weak. Mahatma Gandhi had not yet
risen in the horizon of Indian politics. In Nepal, the Rana rule was at its
peak as Chandra Shumshere was ruling ruthlessly. It seemed that it was dark
and quiet all around. The only light that shined was the name of Chandra
Shumshere whose first name meant ^Qthe moon^R. The king and the people were
under the shadow ^V hardly visible. I was born in one of those days in the
year 1915.
It was a wonderful coincidence that I was born in a place called
Yatkha, just two or three hundred yards north of the Royal Court of
Hanumandhoka where Prithivinarayan Shah had worn the garland of victory
terminating the Malla dynastic rule in 1768, and where Jung Bahadur Rana
had staged the bloody Kot Massacre in 1846 to usurp absolute power from the
king.^T
Ganesh Man Singh obviously looked at his birth in a historical context.
While he does not clearly say that he was destined to liberate the Nepali
people from the autocratic rule of the Ranas, he seems to be well aware of
the context in which he was to play a role later on in overthrowing the
Rana regime (1846-1951). Singh was born in the first year of the First
World War, and physically so close to a place (the palace) where history
had played dreadful dramas over the centuries.
The birth at such a time and
place: was this an omen for a difficult life filled with struggle? Perhaps
it is also more than coincidental that Singh was to go on to launch his
political career in the late 1930s, around the same time the Second World
War broke out.
The book reflects Singh^Rs amazing sense of humour. He had an enviable
propensity to laugh at himself, and, paradoxically, present his ego in
utter humility. This is an unflinching evidence of what a great and sincere
soul he had. In many ways, Ganesh Man Singh^Rs autobiography is similar to
that of B.P. Koirala^Rs (1914-1982), but it is more refined and more
complete. Singh also demonstrates a photographic memory, recounting in
detail the events that occurred during the early days of struggle for
democracy.
Some of these details have not even been documented in the books
of modern Nepali politics. This fine volume must thus be credited for being
tremendously rich on little known historical facts. Written beautifully in
a literary style, it doubles as a history book. Furthermore, its language
and style are so similar to that of the literary giant B.P. Koirala^Rs
incomplete Aphno Katha (My Own Story) that one may even wonder if B.P.
edited it.
While this is obviously not the case, Singh^Rs long political
association with B.P. may offer an explanation about the roots of this
influence. In fact, a student of Nepali language can actually write a
doctoral dissertation in stylistics comparing the two books.
This first volume of Singh^Rs autobiography has over 300 pages and about 40
chapters. The one page addendum contains the family tree, and there are
pages that contain rare photographs of historic value. One wishes though
that this premier volume contained the little publicised picture of Singh
in fetters in the cage when he was imprisoned by the Ranas in early 1940s
on charges of high treason.
It remains a photograph that tells a grand
story of struggle, something comparable to what the black slaves went
through before slavery was abolished in the west. For some reason, this
volume also does not have a chapter describing the gruesome killing of four
anti-Rana activists in 1940, for after all, Ganesh Man Singh was a close
associate of two of these four martyrs, Dharma Bhakta and Ganga Lal, as a
fellow member of the Nepal Praja Parishad.
This book is primarily a piece of literary work, which begins to sound like
a political narrative only towards the end when Singh recalls poignantly
the story of his first meeting with B.P. Koirala, together with whom he was
to sculpt many of Nepal^Rs landmark political events this century. He says
he wondered - before their first meeting - if B.P. would be ^Sthe one he
was looking for in an imaginary friend in his subconscious mind^T. Reading
about the dilemmas that Singh describes, one feels that all of us confront
similar situations in our daily lives. The only difference perhaps lies in
the degree and quality of the perils that the ordinary and the
extra-ordinary go through.
He describes aspects of his struggle in such a
manner as they constitute a major literary work. It is not just his
description that is poetically dramatic, but the reality of his life itself
provides enough substance for a tragic drama or poetry. Readers of this
first volume can thus claim with confidence that Singh^Rs lifelong struggle
was no perilous than that of any other freedom fighter from any part of the
world - may that be a Thomas More or a Nelson Mandela.
Singh demonstrates in the book a firm grasp of global historical and
literary contexts. He knew he was not struggling blindly, and it is clear
that he knew he was making history. There was no remorse, regret or
bitterness in him about what he was doing. He knew that his fight was part
of humanity^Rs search for freedom, and he knew struggles for freedom always
triumphed. This book is indeed a promising precursor to what is likely to
be an almost fantastic political epic, and one can just hope that the
subsequent volumes will also be as good as this one.
(Prof. Acharya teaches at Tribhuwan University; he represented Nepal as
Ambassador at the United Nations from 1991 to 1994, and played a role in
the process that led to the award of the UN Human Rights Prize to Ganesh
Man Singh in 1995).