Interesting Fact of the Day or "The Nepali PM That Helped Win a War"

While Nepal’s contribution of 160,000 soldiers to the allied cause during WW2 is widely known in Nepal and not unheard of in the rest of the world, its Nepals non-personnel contributions that I wish to highlight today.

Not many know, but in addition to the men Nepal, under PM Juddha Sumsher Rana, also contributed 3,000 walnut trees for the purpose of making rifle butts, 8000 sal trees for railways sleepers, 192 service revolvers, 145 binoculars, and 95 machine guns. The PM also donated Rs. 115,500 to various Imperial Relief Funds from his personal family reserves. Further (and this is where it gets interesting), the magnanimous and clearly very rich prime minister sent 50 cigarettes, a pound of tea, a pound of sugar, a pound of biscuit, and a photograph of himself to each leaving solider. Tell me that is not awesome!

The reason for Juddha Sumsher’s generosity was clearly political; and alas lady luck is no man’s mistress. Things didn’t turn out the way JSR had hoped. Winston Chruchill’s Conservatives lost and the new British Labor Government wanted out of the subcontinent. The Rana regime was left on its own, and didn’t make it much longer.

Regardless of how history turned out, Nepal’s unheard, albeit invaluable, contributions to the cause is worth remembering. Also worth remembering is the man who gave away photographs of himself to soldiers going to war.


Information provided by: Nepal Under the Ranas, Adrian Sever, pp. 350.
Photograph taken from ancestry.com