Mukhtiyars and Kajis: Nepal's Chief Ministers Before the Ranas (1768-1846)

In the Gorkha Kingdom and the early Kingdom of Nepal, executive authority was exercised by nobles holding court titles rather than by a single fixed office. The most important of these was the Kaji, a term the historian Mahesh Chandra Regmi traced to the Sanskrit 'karyi', meaning a functionary or officer. A Kaji was simultaneously a senior minister, a military commander and a provincial governor; typically several Kajis sat in government at once, alongside Chautariyas (royal-blood ministers) and Sardars.

The senior-most Kaji was the Mulkaji, or Chief Kaji, who acted as the head of the administration. 'Mukhtiyar' (from an Arabic-Persian root meaning one granted full authority or power of attorney) was a stronger designation: the person to whom the sovereign delegated near-total executive power. King Rana Bahadur Shah formally created the post of Mukhtiyar in 1806 to concentrate authority, effectively superseding the older Mulkaji role.

Because Shah kings after Prithvi Narayan Shah were frequently minors or embattled, the Mukhtiyar or Chief Kaji was often the true ruler of the day. This is why figures such as Damodar Pande and Bhimsen Thapa are described as 'de facto' rulers and are sometimes listed among Nepal's earliest prime ministers, even though the modern title 'Prime Minister' did not yet exist. The office was personal and factional, not constitutional, so who held it was decided by court intrigue, marriage alliances and, repeatedly, by bloodshed.

Kaji Kalu Pande was the trusted chief minister and commander-in-chief of Prithvi Narayan Shah during the Gorkha campaign to conquer the Kathmandu Valley. He is remembered both as a shrewd diplomat, who helped isolate the Malla kingdoms before attacking them, and as a candid adviser who at times cautioned the king against premature assaults.

Kalu Pande led the Gorkhali forces at the Battle of Kirtipur, a walled town then part of the Lalitpur kingdom. In the disastrous first assault, the Gorkhalis were repulsed and Kalu Pande was killed; Prithvi Narayan Shah himself narrowly escaped. The king later wrote that Kalu Pande's death at Kirtipur left him disheartened about ever taking the three valley cities.

Although he died in 1767, a year before the fall of Kathmandu and the conventional 1768 start of unified Nepal, Kalu Pande set the template for the powerful Kaji. His descendants, the Pande family, would remain one of the two great noble factions of the era, feuding for generations with the rival Thapas.

After Prithvi Narayan Shah's death the throne passed to child kings, and power fell to regents. Following the regency of Queen Rajendra Lakshmi, Prince Bahadur Shah, the second son of Prithvi Narayan Shah, served as regent from 1785 to 1794 for his nephew, the boy-king Rana Bahadur Shah. Bahadur Shah drove an aggressive expansion, pushing Nepal's frontier west toward Kumaon and Garhwal and east toward Sikkim, and presided over the Sino-Nepalese War of 1788-1792 against Qing-backed Tibet.

When Rana Bahadur Shah reached maturity in 1794 he dismissed his uncle, imprisoned him and had him executed. Real administrative power then increasingly rested with the Pande family. Damodar Pande, the youngest son of Kalu Pande, was the most influential Kaji from the mid-1790s and rose to Mulkaji (chief minister) by 1803-1804.

Damodar Pande's fall came when the exiled ex-king Rana Bahadur Shah returned to Kathmandu in 1804 and reclaimed the office of Mukhtiyar. To avenge his exile, Rana Bahadur ordered Damodar Pande beheaded at Thankot on 13 March 1804, together with two of his sons, without a proper trial. The execution poisoned relations between the Pandes and the ascendant Thapas for decades and is often cited as the grievance that later helped topple Bhimsen Thapa.

Bhimsen Thapa (born August 1775; died 29 July 1839) was the dominant figure of the pre-Rana period and is widely called Nepal's first and longest-serving 'prime minister' in the sense of a de facto head of government. He rose by helping Rana Bahadur Shah return to power, and after the king's assassination in 1806 he consolidated control as Mukhtiyar. His grip was reinforced by his niece, the junior queen Tripurasundari, who acted as regent for the child kings Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah and later Rajendra Bikram Shah.

Bhimsen Thapa governed for roughly 31 years. Under him Nepal's territory reached its greatest extent, stretching from the Sutlej River in the west to the Teesta in the east. He was, however, a leading advocate of confronting the British East India Company, and served as commander-in-chief during the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814-1816.

The war ended in defeat and the Treaty of Sugauli (1816), under which Nepal ceded roughly a third of its territory and accepted a permanent British Resident in Kathmandu. Bhimsen retained power for two more decades, but the death of Queen Tripurasundari in 1832, King Rajendra's coming of age, pressure from Resident Brian Hodgson and the revived Pande faction eroded his position. He was dismissed in 1837 and, later imprisoned on murder charges, died by suicide in 1839.

Bhimsen Thapa was posthumously honoured among Nepal's national heroes and is popularly associated with landmarks of his era, including the tall tower rebuilt as the Dharahara in Kathmandu.

After Bhimsen Thapa's fall, the mukhtiyarship changed hands amid intense factionalism. Fatte Jung Shah (Fateh Jung Shah), a Chautariya of royal blood, held the office of Mukhtiyar from 1840 to 1843. Then Mathabar Singh Thapa, a nephew of Bhimsen Thapa who had lobbied to rehabilitate his uncle's name, returned from exile to become Mukhtiyar on 25 December 1843.

Mathabar Singh Thapa is historically significant as the first Nepali chief minister to formally adopt the Western-style title 'Prime Minister', which he assumed in early 1845 (early January 1845). This marks the point where the older Kaji/Mukhtiyar vocabulary began giving way to the modern office name that has been used ever since.

His rule was brief and ended violently. When he refused to back Queen Rajya Lakshmi Devi's schemes over the succession, she conspired with his own maternal nephew, Jung Bahadur Kunwar (later Rana). On 17 May 1845 Mathabar Singh was shot dead at the palace by Jung Bahadur. His killing removed the last strong Thapa and cleared the path for Jung Bahadur's own rise.

After Mathabar Singh Thapa's murder, Fatte Jung Shah returned as Prime Minister from September 1845. But the court remained a nest of rival factions, Chautariyas, Pandes, Thapas and Basnyats, all manoeuvring around the weak King Rajendra and the ambitious Queen Rajya Lakshmi Devi.

The crisis broke on 14 September 1846. After the murder of the queen's confidant Kaji Gagan Singh Bhandari, she summoned the court to the Kot, the palace armoury at Hanuman Dhoka. There Jung Bahadur Kunwar and his brothers killed around 30 to 40 leading officials, including Prime Minister Fatte Jung Shah and many senior ministers and generals. The episode is remembered as the Kot massacre (Kot Parva).

The massacre annihilated the old noble balance and left Jung Bahadur supreme. He soon made the office of Prime Minister hereditary in his family, taking the surname Rana and founding the Rana regime that ruled Nepal until 1951. The 78 years of Kajis and Mukhtiyars, from Kalu Pande to Fatte Jung Shah, thus form the crucial bridge between the Shah unification and the Rana autocracy.