Kathmandu Spring:
The People’s Movement
of 1990
by Kiyoko Ogura
2001, pp. xi+232
ISBN 99933 13 09 2
Price: Nepal Rs 325, South Asia $ 8, Elsewhere, $ 14

On 20 January, the outlawed political parties of Nepal declared the launch of an agitation to overthrow the monarchical Panchayat system and re-establish democracy. They chose to begin their movement on 18 February, the same day that the Rana regime had capitulated 40 years earlier. The Movement for the Restoration of Democracy came under strong attack from the king’s government. But, ultimately, the people’s will prevailed, and on 8 April, King Birendra lifted the ban on political parties and initiated steps towards establishing a parliamentary form of governance. This book provides a blow-by-blow account of the 60 days that ushered democracy’s second coming in Nepal. Kiyoko Ogura has reconstructed this history from interviews with more than a thousand individuals who were at the vortex of events to tell the story of how democracy was won by the people of Nepal.

The author
Japanese journalist and author Kiyoko Ogura wrote about the People’s Movement of 1990 in Shukam Asahi and The Economist magazine of Maimichi newspaper. At present she lives in Nepal as a correspondent for the Tokyo-based Asia Press Interna-tional. This book was published in its original Japanese as 60 Days of a Shaking Kingdom (1999). The accompanying picture shows Ogura in action at New Road, Kathmandu, on 6 April 1990.