Shree Mulkaji Saheb
Bakhtawar Singh Basnyat
श्री मूलकाजी साहेब
बख्तावर सिँह बस्न्यात
Mulkazi (Chief Kazi) of Nepal
Mulkaji
In office
1801 A.D. – February, 1803 A.D.
Preceded byKirtiman Singh Basnyat
Succeeded byDamodar Pande
Personal details
Born1759
DiedJuly 15, 1840(1840-07-15) (aged 81)
Parents
  • Kehar Singh Basnyat (father)
  • Chitra Devi Pandey (mother)
RelativesUncles Abhiman Singh Basnyat, Bamsa Raj Pandey, Damodar Pande,
Military service
Allegiance   Nepal
RankGeneral

Bakhtawar Singh Basnyat (Nepali: बख्तावर सिँह बस्न्यात) was Mulkazi (Chief Kazi) of Nepal.[1]

Mulkazi Kirtiman Singh Basnyat who was backed by Queen Regent Subarna Prabha Devi, was secretly assassinated on 28 September 1801, by the supporters of Raj Rajeshwari Devi.[1][2] Damodar Pande was also blamed for the murder.[3] During the investigation, many were punished without any evidence and he was given the position and title held by his brother Kirtiman Singh for a brief period.[4]

During his tenure as the mul kaji, on 28 October 1801, a Treaty of Commerce and Alliance[note 1] was finally signed between Nepal and East India Company. This led to the establishment of the first British Resident, Captain William O. Knox, who was reluctantly welcomed by the courtiers in Kathmandu on 16 April 1802.[note 2][11] The primary objective of Knox's mission was to bring the trade treaty of 1792 into full effect and to establish a "controlling influence" in Nepali politics.[5] Almost eight months after the establishment of the Residency, Rajrajeshowri finally managed to assume the regency on 17 December 1802.[3][12] Rajrajeshowri's presence in Kathmandu also stirred unrest among the courtiers that aligned themselves around her and Subarnaprabha. Sensing an imminent hostility, Knox aligned himself with Subarnaprabha and attempted to interfere with the internal politics of Nepal.[13] Getting a wind of this matter, Rajrajeshowri dissolved the government and elected new ministers, with Damodar Pande as the Chief (Mul) Kaji on February 1803, while the Resident Knox, finding himself persona non grata and the objectives of his mission frustrated, voluntarily left Kathmandu to reside in Makwanpur citing a cholera epidemic.[13][5][3]

Notes

  1. ↑ The treaty was signed by Gajraj Misra, on the behalf of Nepal Durbar, and Charles Crawford, on the behalf of East India Company, in Danapur, India. Among the articles in the treaty, it decided on perpetual peace and friendship between the two states, on the pension for Rana Bahadur Shah, the establishment of a British Residency in Kathmandu, and a establishment of trade relations between the two states.[5][6]
  2. ↑ Knox had previously accompanied Captain William Kirkpatrick in the 1792 British diplomatic mission to Nepal as a Lieutenant in charge of the military escort. In Knox's 1801 mission, he was accompanied by experts like the naturalist Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, who later published An Account of the Kingdom of Nepal in 1819, and the surveyor Charles Crawford, who made the first scientific maps of Kathmandu valley and of Nepal, and proposed that the Himalayas might be among the highest mountains in the world.[7][8][9][10]

References

  1. 1 2 Acharya 2012, p. 34.
  2. ↑ Rishikesh Shah (1990) p=95
  3. 1 2 3 Pradhan 2012, p. 14.
  4. ↑ Acharya 2012, p. 35.
  5. 1 2 3 Amatya 1978.
  6. ↑ Nepal 2007, p. 51.
  7. ↑ Waller 2004, p. 174.
  8. ↑ "Francis Buchanan-Hamilton And His Pioneering Natural History Collections in Nepal in 1802–1803". Archived from the original on 3 November 2014. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  9. ↑ "Three maps of Nepal relating to the pioneering natural history collections of Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, 1802-3". Archived from the original on 31 December 2014. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
  10. ↑ Sorkhabi, Rasoul. "The Great Game of Mapping the Himalaya". Retrieved 31 December 2014.
  11. ↑ Pradhan 2012, p. 14; Nepal 2007, p. 51; Amatya 1978; Acharya 2012, pp. 35–36.
  12. ↑ Acharya 2012, pp. 36–37.
  13. 1 2 Acharya 2012, p. 43.

Bibliography


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