On 25 May 1850 Jang Bahadur Kunwar Rana, Prime Minister of Nepal and Ambassador to the Court of Queen Victoria, landed at Southampton. It seemed as if we were in a dream, or as if this was the heacen where virtuous men are said to go after death; was how one of Jang’s party described his first reaction. This courties’s account of the whole episode has been translated into English for the first time and is presented alongside the British and French press reports of their visitor’s progress ‘lavishing diamonds and gold, enshrined in a halo of oriental mystery; Jang Bahadur in Europe also looks at the background to the mission, including the changing pattern of Nepal’s relations with British India from 1769 to 1850, and Jang’s own rise to power amidst the intrigue and violence of the 1840s. The second edition of the book, released to coincide with the 200th anniversary of permanent diplomatic relations between Nepal and Britain, includes the English-language account of the visit written, with help from a ghost-writer, by Moti Lal Singh, the Nepali crossing sweeper taken into Jang’s employment after a chance encounter in London.
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