Jung Bahadur Rana

Jung Bahadur Rana made himself hereditary prime minister of Nepal, reduced the king to a figurehead for a century, and gave asylum to the leaders the British most wanted. He rose through the army and the court in a period of assassinations, and in September 1846 the Kot massacre - a night meeting of the nobility that ended in a general slaughter in the courtyard of the armoury - left him in control; how far he planned it is still argued. He took the title Rana, made the office of prime minister hereditary in his family, and the Ranas ruled Nepal until 1951 while the Shah kings reigned without power. He visited Britain and France in 1850, the first ruler from the subcontinent to do so, and came back with a taste for neoclassical palaces and a realistic view of British strength. In 1857 he sent Gurkha troops to help retake Lucknow, and afterwards received Awadh territory for it - and also received Begum Hazrat Mahal and Nana Sahib's people as refugees, and declined to surrender them. His legal code of 1854 was the first in Nepal. The Muluki Ain of 1854 codified caste into law across Nepal and governed the country until 1963, which makes it one of the most consequential things he did and one of the most criticised. In London he was received by Queen Victoria and attended the opera, and Nepali accounts of the visit circulated for generations. He kept Nepal formally independent throughout, which no other Himalayan state managed. Three of his brothers and their descendants held the premiership after him by a rule of succession within the family. He died on a hunting trip in the Terai and was cremated on the bank of the Bagmati.

• Lived: 1817 CE – 1877 CE
• Nationality: Nepali
• Roles: ruler