Mahendra of Nepal
King of Nepal (1920-1972)
Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (11 June 1920 – 31 January 1972) was King of Nepal from 13 March 1955 until his death in 1972. He led the 1960 royal coup, in which he dismissed the government, suspended the constitution, banned political parties, jailed their leaders, and established the Panchayat rule.
He ruled the country with his Panchayat system for 28 years, with the Panchayat system itself remaining until the introduction of multi-party democracy in 1990. During his reign, Nepal experienced a period of industrial, political and economic change which opened it to the rest of the world for the first time, after the 104-year-long reign of the Rana rulers, who kept the country under an isolationist policy, came to an end in 1951.
Early life
Mahendra was born on 11 June 1920 at the Narayanhiti Palace to King Tribhuvan of Nepal. He was the eldest child of King Tribhuvan and Queen Kanti. Under the Rana dynasty, the power of the king was reduced to that of a figurehead. Although Tribhuvan was nominally king since 1911, the royal family had been held captive in Narayanhiti Palace since the rise of the prominent Rana dynasty.
Even though he did not have formal education, King Mahendra was privately educated inside the palace and learned politics, economics and Nepali literature, history and culture. He had secret affairs with Gita Gurung in child, he could not marry as she was concubine.
“Mahendra of Nepal” enters the record as king of Nepal (1920-1972). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mahendra, Nepal and King can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Mahendra of Nepal” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Mahendra, Nepal and King provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q313110. VIAF identifies the subject as 60217319. The Library of Congress control number is n50039007. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1920, 1972, 1955 and 1960.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mahendra of Nepal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.