GPK´s funeral pyre was set alight by his daughter. The post cremation rituals have been entrusted to priests. But these acts of not sticking to established custom pale in comparison to decisions GPK and many in the Koirala family took in their lives.
Krishna Prasad Koirala, GPK’s father, was the progenitor of the rebellious and liberal legacy. He thought about emancipation and empowerment of women much before time.
He had refused to allow his wife drink water off his feet after his first marriage.
But his wife — who later died of her first labor pain— refused to eat anything until drinking water off his feet. The Brahmin tradition then required a wife to eat only after cleaning husband’s feet and drinking the water.
Fearing divine retribution, the wife didn’t eat anything for three days forcing Krishna Prasad to eventually relent for saving her life, according to Bishweswar Prasad Koirala’s ‘Afno Katha’ (My Story).
Similarly, a Bengali doctor at the hospital established by Krishna Prasad in Biratnagar had advised him to send his third wife Divya Devi — the mother of BP and GPK — to Kolkata for delivery. Krishna Prasad feared social disgrace in sending her to Kolkata but still sent her to Banaras with excuse of seeing his mother Rajya Laxmi, who was preparing for a holy death.
“Father’s decision turned out a farsighted one as mother developed complications in labor. If a doctor had not come to the rescue and operated, I would not have seen the light of the world and mother would also have passed away,” BP mentions.
“I broke a family tradition while entering this world by bringing medical science into labor room. It may seem an ordinary incident in the present context. But it was a revolutionary step not only for our family but the modern Nepali middle class family then,” BP has written late in his life.
Krishna Prasad had also thought about forming a women’s organization for their emancipation and written to Prime Minsiter Chandra Shumsher’s youngest wife. Chandra Shumsher’s wife agreed to become president and patron of the organization and Divya Devi was its secretary.
During the exile in Bettiah he had sent his daughter Nalini and wife’s sister Kumudini (Sushil Koirala’s mother) to school with knives and asked to use them if required when they had expressed reservation to go to school during riots.
After returning from exile in India, he encouraged his own daughter, sister and BP’s wife Sushila to dance and act in dramas despite strong reactions from the society. He would also ask all the women in the family to learn horse-riding. “Women of our family knew swimming even during that time,” Dr Shekhar Koirala, BP’s nephew proudly says.
MARRYING A DIVORCEE 60 YEARS AGO
In the 1950s, GPK married Sushma Koirala, a divorcee who had a son from her previous marriage. “It was something unthinkable in Nepali society back then,” says Dr Shekhar Koirala.
Sushma´s son, Suresh, eventually adopted the Koirala surname, and is the eldest among the Koirala cousins of his generation. He was present during GPK´s cremation at Pashupati Aryaghat.
Even before his marriage, GPK had shocked many by disregarding custom. While still a new face in trade union politics in the mid-1940s, GPK challenged the prevalent custom of the time by drinking water offered to him by Dr Khalil Miya at the latter´s residence at Bhuta VDC of Sunsari. This was the first known case of a Brahmin in Nepal engaging in such ´sacrilege´.
The Koiralas have also not been very particular about the nationality and religion of their life partners. And in the late 1950s, a member of the Koirala family married a Muslim.
GPK´s sister Vijaya Laxmi informed the Koirala family just before the 1958 election that she wished to get married to Mohammad Akram Zaki of Pakistan, who went on to become his country´s foreign secretary. BP, who was warned by many that marrying off a girl from the family to a Muslim would guarantee electoral defeat, gave a go ahead nonetheless.
Several members of the Koirala family have married across nationalities. GPK´s daughter Sujata married a German, while BP’s sons Shreeharsha and Dr Shashank married a Marathi and Thai respectively.
“There was no such fuss as Koirala family is broad-minded. They gave freedom to everyone to live the way they wanted,” Shreeharsha’s wife Ruchika, who married him while they were studying in Bombay University, says candidly when asked of the family’s reactions.
The Koirala family has also not been very particular about observing post-cremation rituals.
It so happened that the family did not at all observe such rituals after BP´s death, though the family does not detest custom as such.
“I myself did not attend my father´s funeral as I had my exams then,” Dr Shekhar said. “We are not rigid about custom. But it is not that we don´t observe them at all,” he clarified.
Following GPK´s death, Dr Shekhar and several of his siblings and cousins are currently observing an abbreviated mourning ritual that has become popular in the Koirala family -- not consuming salt for three days.
GPK was not a religious man. But he wasn´t an atheist either. Probably the only time in the year he visited a temple was during Dashain. “He was usually in Biratnagar on Ashtami (in Dashain). On that day, he would visit the Kali temple there. The temple was built by his father,” said Dr Shekhar.
In his final years, GPK hobnobbed quite regularly with Buddhist monks, and once said jestingly in Dr Shekhar´s presence, “These people might end up turning me into a Buddhist.”
A HERITAGE OF REBELLION
The Koirala family contributed to social awakening and modernization in Nepal through their rebellious ways, observed Dr Abhi Subedi, professor of English.
“GPK´s father Krishna Prasad, who had the audacity to send some torn clothes to Rana Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher to make him realize how bad the living conditions of poor Nepalis was, planted the culture of rebellion in the Koirala family,” Subedi said.
But it was BP who institutionalized the practice of challenging the establishment, and it was he who did not allow the marriages of GPK and Vijaya Laxmi to become sources of conflict in the family, he opined.
“Had such marriages occurred in other families back then, conflict was certain. But BP was a revolutionary, and he was therefore expected to encourage the flouting of traditions,” he said.
The liberal ideas of the Koirala family, especially that of BP, influenced many Nepalis. “Many Congress sympathizers ended up adopting these liberal values, especially in eastern Nepal,” he added.
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