The Rana Oligarchy Seizes Power

On September 14, 1846, Jung Bahadur Rana orchestrated the Kot Massacre — a bloody purge of rival nobles in the Kot courtyard of Kathmandu — and seized power as Prime Minister, reducing the Shah kings to figureheads. He established a hereditary system where the position of Prime Minister passed within the Rana family, creating what was effectively an oligarchy. For 104 years (1846-1951), the Ranas ruled Nepal as their private estate: they built European-style palaces while the population lived in medieval conditions, kept Nepal isolated from the outside world, banned education for commoners, and maintained a feudal economy. Nepal under the Ranas had no railways, no universities, and a literacy rate below 5%. Jung Bahadur visited Britain and France in 1850 — one of the first South Asian rulers to do so — but his modernization impulse extended only to his own comforts. The Rana era is remembered as Nepal's dark age.