Padma Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana

 Padma Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana

Introduction

 From 29 November 1945 to 30 April 1948, Padma Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, the head of the Rana dynasty, served as Nepal's hereditary prime minister and as the Maharaja of Lamjung and Kaski. One of Nepal's most influential prime ministers in more than a century, he even referred to himself as "A servant of the nation" and advocated for social development.

His Contribution

Throughout his 3 years long tenure as the prime minister he performed various remarkable works. His reforms are mostly related to social welfare that can be summerised as:

• He started work on Nepal's first east-west highway. The road, sometimes referred to as Postal Highway, was primarily built to speed up the delivery of mail.
• He conducted Nepal's first-ever election in the form of a municipal election.
• On January 26, 1948, he introduced the Government Act of Nepal, but it was never fully implemented.
• He sent a number of teachers abroad for training because Nepal lacked a proper education system, he claimed. In addition, he founded a number of educational institutions, including Padmodaya High School and Padma Kanya Multiple Campus, which was also Nepal's first college for women.

Retirement

His own family had threatened him because of his liberal beliefs and reformist deeds, so on March 1, 1948, he left for India under the guise of getting a medical checkup out of fear for his life. He met Indian President Jawaharlal Nehru there, who urged him to bring democracy to Nepal, but he chose to remain in India rather than take the risk of going back. On April 28, 1948, he formally gave his resignation from the company. He didn't frequently visit Nepal until the Rana regime was overthrown in 1951. He remained there until his passing in 1961.