Girija Prasad Koirala will be remembered as a democrat who strode through Nepal´s modern democratic era of two decades, a man with weaknesses at the party level, but whose commitment to pluralism remained unwavering. Though an autocrat within his Nepali Congress, where he wielded total control from 1990 till recent months, his democratic convictions when it came to the larger polity made Koirala stand resolute against royal adventurism. And political pragmatism made him reach out to the Maoist rebels in the jungle.
At 85, Koirala was the very last national-level politician of Southasia whose activism spanned the period from the Quit India movement of the 1940s till present. All his contemporaries elsewhere in Southasia have passed on before this. In this sense, Girija Prasad Koirala´s death marks the passing of a Southasian era.
He was groomed in political culture by his brother Bisweshwor Prasad Koirala (´BP´), who walked the world stage as a socialist of the Nehru-Nasser period. It was from BP that ´GP´ received his pluralism mantra, which made him uncompromising in matters like civilian control of the military, separation of powers, and supremacy of the judiciary. These were the ´simple convictions´* which helped Koirala steer the polity after the fall of the 30-year royal Panchayat regime, at a time when some believed the country would disintegrate in the absence of absolute monarchy.
Within the Nepali Congress, Koirala emerged as the sole power centre soon after 1990, ruthlessly sidelining the other two of the triumverate which inheritated the mantle from BP, Ganesh Man Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai. He was able to maintain a strong base by building a direct relationship with party workers all over through continous travel, and retaining the power to raise and disburse party funds.