SAMME'S GEOGRAPHY & CULTURE FEATURE: ALBANIA AND NEPAL

Unification of Nepal and the establishment of a united Kingdom of Nepal

After his conquest of the Kathmandu Valley, Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered other smaller countries south of the valley to keep other smaller fiefdoms near his Gurkha state out of the influence and control of the British rule. After his kingdom spread out from north to south, he made Kantipur the capital of expanded country, and renamed it Nepal from its original name of Gorkha. After this he turned his attention towards the east. The Sena kingdom of Choudandi was conquered by 1773 A.D. and Vijaypur, another Sena kingdom, was annexed shortly thereafter. Prithvi Narayan Shah formally established Nepal as a country and the Kingdom of Nepal was officially born in 1769 AD.

Implications of unification

Had Prithvi Narayan Shah not established the Kingdom of Nepal, it is likely that the smaller and weaker nation states would have come under the control of the British Empire, whose influence was increasing in India at the time. If the British Indian army had not been stopped and defeated at Makawanpurgadhi-Sindhuligadhi, Nepal would not have been born as a country, and the Nepalese would not be known as an independent political entity, a people separate from India. The majority of credit for preventing these outcomes goes to Prithvi Narayan Shah. Some historians of questionable intent calls Prithivi Narayan Shah as the Great in Nepal. However, this history written by the conquered leaves out the critical detail; that the conquered people thought and still think that this event was nothing but a glorified version of internal colonization practiced by Shah dynasty over almost all of the Nepalese people.