The birth centenary of former prime minister and Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala alias Girija Babu (1924-2010) was marked on July 4, 2024. The centenary occasion evoked my memories and impressions about him. Though I never met him, I saw him at the momentous moments of history. This is a short visceral piece written mainly to mark Girija Babu's birth centenary. Since I am not a political scientist or knew him closely, I have not made attempts to analyse Girija Babu's politics and his sense of victory and loss in his life. His party has made some attempts towards that. I also edited a short text of an obituary sent to me shortly after his death by Sujata Koirala, whom I have met once.

By all standards, it is an important day not only for the party he led but also for all who especially remember the important modes of transition in Nepali history. Girija Babu is remembered for a couple of very important metamorphoses that this country experienced—the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement with the Maoist guerrillas in 2006 and the abolition of monarchy in Nepal. These historical occasions resulted from the transitions that the Nepali people had brought about especially from the year 1990.

Girija Babu was the prime minister of Nepal during that period. We can mention the four occasions when he became the prime minister. The years when he headed the governments were crucial moments in Nepali history—1991 to 1994, 1998 to 1999, 2000 to 2001, and 2006 to 2008. He also became acting head of state between January 2007 and July 2008 as the country was in a very important mode of change. History had bequeathed that onus on him.

Girija Babu worked with the cohorts for the promotion of the democratic values as espoused by his brother, late BP Koirala, and other leaders of different parties. The people who worked with democratic commitments to various modes of modernisation know that the process of history is not simple. Though they have been working with new ideas, they know that the forces that work against such innovative spirit are far from defeated. Fareed Zakaria, in his recently published book, Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash From 1600 to the Present (2024), cogently analyses this subject in a historical context. Zakaria also reveals the challenging and interesting problematics of the day. Girija Babu, as the title of his book Simple Convictions (2010) shows, was not a very learned person. But his commitment to democratic values was very important and remarkable. The subtitle of the book "My struggle for peace and democracy", tends to spell that out. This book covers the period between the takeover by King Gyanendra Shah in October 2002 to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the Maoists in 2006. Girija Babu called that event "the last struggle of my life".

The title of Kanak Dixit's “Preface” to Simple Convictions, "GP: Man of the moment", foregrounds the same feature. But history is the most powerful force behind Girija Babu's pragmatism he practised without espousing any of its philosophical aspects of thinking. The history of democratic struggle shaped the flow of his moments, to use the Buddhist terminology. I was asked to speak at the launch of the book on March 21, 2010, by its publisher Madhab Lal Mharjan of Mandala Book Point. Not being a Congress Party person or a political theorist, I spoke like a literary writer and theatre person that created similar effect on the occasion. I felt inspired to speak about the book because of its candidness and simplicity. I had even used the term “subalternity” to describe some of GP Koirala's modus operandi while commenting on the book.

I want to mention another event that evokes my memory of Girija Babu. It was the occasion of the 14th SAARC Summit held in New Delhi on 13 April 2007. The Summit was being held at Vigyan Bhawan and our SAARC literary conference was being held at writer Ajeet Cour's Art Academy. The same date was a coincidence and had nothing to do with our conference. Girija Babu participated in and addressed the SAARC summit. He was seen there as a successful prime minister, and a peacemaker who had worked with other parties to put an end to the Maoist insurgency through peaceful negotiation. Using supplemental oxygen, Girija Babu looked in Delhi like someone fighting to fulfil a mission for peace and stability; he had attracted the attention of politicians and the media.

Girija Babu died on March 20, 2010, at the residence of his daughter, Sujata Koirala, in Mandikhatar. My colleague and student Shiva Rijal and I reached there very early in the morning and stood outside, overlooking the compound. Politicians like Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Pushpa Kamal Dahal and others came and went. We heard Dahal calling “Girijababu!” loudly and saw Kisunji leaving in a sombre mood. Narayan Wagle, the then editor of Nagarik Daily, asked me to write an obituary of Girija Babu. I am citing the following lines from the obit, which was published the following day.

"Can we say Girija Babu's death marks the end of an era? The answer to this question is not easy, because he departed not by ending an era but by heralding a fresh continuation. In other words, his death did not mark the end of a period in history; instead, it ushered a complex time to manage. We can see that a number of things go with the death of those who have played important roles in history. Liminal lines separate them. But Girija Babu's death put them alongside."

I recited a poem written on Girija Babu's death at the SAARC literary conference in Delhi the following year. I cite lines from a few stanzas:

That was a day

when he like any other

South Asian makers of history

gently went into a sleep

behind a lawn where I was

watching sparrows tickle the back

of a nondescript morning

that matured into a gloomy day…

when the last words in a text were put

under history's unblinking eyes. …

In demise of this man;

I don't know

if my words would have made sense to him

because he was a simple farmer

who planted sky with dreams intact

in these turbulent fields. …

I don't know

if these farmers

have lived long enough to

reap the harvests of their dream seeds

under the familiar skies

where we have all invested our dreams.

Girija Prasad Koirala played out poetry in history without being close to the Muse.