The perennial quest of heroes is the root of the problems and romances of people everywhere. This concept has struck me at this moment of history, when we are voluntarily searching for heroes or are condemned to choose them. These are two different states of conscience and karma. We need to browse through shastras and historians’ gafgaaf to determine who the heroes are in history and what makes them heroes. We are credulous in such matters because we too are craving to find some materials to read or talk about heroes.

In Nepal, we have followed the same methods as everyone else in other parts of the world—be credulous and choose your heroes. Like everyone else, we have fulfilled one condition; we, too, have made a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’, to use the Romantic English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous dictum, to choose a hero.

We have naturally relied on folklore sources, such as shastras, myths and history, to select heroes. We, too, tend to choose a hero with a thousand faces (Thousand Faces is the title of Joseph Campbell’s book). But finding heroes from the maze of heroes, we do not necessarily choose brave or bir people from history. That is the reason why I have always liked a slim book, Simple Convictions (2007), by Girija Prasad Koirala.

Koirala, alias GP, is the anti-climax of the valorised heroes in Nepali history, earnestly debated by historians such as Mahesh Raj Panta, Pratyoush Onta, John Whelpton, Michael Hutt and Triratna Manandhar. They have discussed the status of the ‘heroes and builders of Nepal’, which is the title of a book by Rishikesh Shah on ancient, medieval and modern heroes in history.

Speaking at the launch of Simple Convictions at the Yak and Yeti Hotel in Kathmandu on February 1, 2007, I had alluded to what BP Koirala was once fondly called by the simple rank in the police service.

One notable contrast could be seen at the signing of the comprehensive peace treaty between seven parties represented by GP and Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ on behalf of the Maoist guerrillas on November 21, 2006. The treaty evoked many aspects of hero creation in Nepalese politics.

On the morning of March 20, 2010, when GP Koirala breathed his last at his daughter Sujata Koirala’s house at Mandikhatar, Kathmandu, important questions regarding the status of the hero of history remained to be answered. I was confused and pensive that morning. My colleague and student, Shiva Rijal and I were the first to arrive and stand outside the fence of the compound overlooking the lawn and the ground floor, where GP was in his last stage. Politicians, including Dahal, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and others, came and left. Dahal was calling out Koirala loudly, as though he were sobbing.

The occasion brought different strands of contemporary Nepali history to a meeting point where the status and concept of a hero were undergoing transformation and confusion. GP never projected himself as a hero, but did make history. With his simple convictions and his failures and achievements, he remained what he was. I wrote GP’s obituary at the request of the then editor of Nagarik, Narayan Wagle. I recall this line, “Can we say Girijababu’s death is the end of an era? The answer is not easy because he left not by ending but by beginning a new era.” (March 21, 2010).

Dahal had descended to the world of another reality from the position of his semi-mythical or semi-folkloristic image of a hero to what he was. The Hindustan Times of November 6, 2006, quoted him saying in Delhi, “I have lived my life in the jungle, now I will lead my life in the light.” He was, and remains, aware of his heroic image while in the jungle. Even today, when he has nearly lost the lustre of the hero imagery, he recalls that state and says that the jungle is waiting for him. KP Sharma Oli evokes his long jail life to add lustre to his hero image. Sher Bahadur Deuba is another politician who, as far as my understanding goes, does not have any illusion about ever being a hero.

Another communist leader, Man Mohan Adhikari, whom I met more than any other major political leader, became the first communist prime minister of Nepal in 1994. He went on a visit to Britain. The Economist wrote in the early week of December 1994, “A communist is no longer a communist when he becomes the prime minister of Nepal.” Adhikari did not arduously attempt to carve out the image of a hero for himself. The Nepali Congress leader BP Koirala, the first democratically elected prime minister of Nepal, tried to project his image as a literary writer and called himself a socialist in politics and an anarchist in literature. Not all political leaders sought to project themselves as heroes worthy of the name.

After the Gen Z uprising, the myth of the hero is being dismantled everywhere. There are many political parties other than the big ones mentioned here. We notice among them some exigency of creating the aura of a hero around their leaders. It seems that they believe it would be easier to unite around a leader who carries the image of a hero.

The major parties, the Nepali Congress and the UML, have long faced a challenge in determining heroes among themselves. The choice of a leader by fixing a date of party convention in the Nepali Congress appears to be the most touted subject in the media now. The reelection of Oli as the UML chair for a third term through the 11th general convention has raised concerns over the capacity of next-generation leaders in the party. Other old parties vow to organise themselves around some established figures. Their myths of heroes leading the party do not have stable positions. It remains to be seen how the youth who dismantled the myth of hero-making in Nepali politics are managing the same problem among themselves.

Society is also a creator of heroes in public and political lives. After a while, this became a psychological question that the British philosopher Bertrand Russell saw as a lust for power. But the post-Gen Z Nepal has created a culture of freedom and openness. We should act with confidence and trust.