How to win friends and influence nations

‘One early morning, we heard the ambassador’s wife cry out, “Ram, Ram, Ram!” A disaster has befallen Nepal!” She had heard on the radio that a fire had consumed Singha Durbar."

This is not about the arson attack on 9 September 2025, but the one on 8 July, 1973. It started in the South Wing of the then single-largest building in all of Nepal. It took two days to bring the blaze under control, requiring the use of explosives to demolish one wing to protect the imposing western facade.

As Bhekh Bahadur Thapa recalls in the English translation of his memoir A Life in Public Service: Nepal from Autocracy to Democracy, he was then on leave from the Nepal government serving with the IDRC in Ottawa. 

He had already served as Nepal’s Finance Secretary at age 25, went on to be Finance Minister and Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank. He was already younger than some of the GenZ ministers in Nepal’s present RSP government.

Thapa, now 89, was at the launch of the book in February which was attended by former diplomats and bureaucrats. After speeches by panelists, there was a question from the audience about how Thapa had managed to be the diplomat he was, managing Nepal’s international relations on the world stage. 

Writer and journalist Akhilesh Upadhyay, who was moderating the panel, responded by going into the section of the book where we see Thapa as an ambassador to the US, playing tennis with White House officials, cultivating a network of contacts to project the identity and welfare of Nepal, and making it possible for a state visit by King Birendra to Ronald Reagan’s America.

The book is full of anecdotes that suggest Thapa was a clever and strategic diplomat, always calm and unruffled, easily making friends in high places with his maturity and engaging sense of humour.

Thapa’s memoir is heavy on details about Nepal’s administrative history during the years he was active in public service, serving as minister and ambassador under three kings: Mahendra, Birendra and Gyanendra, and alongside five prime ministers. 

Aside from an insider look on how certain treaties, development deals and research projects in Nepal came into fruition, Thapa goes into great detail about his personal and professional relationships with the kings, ministers, ambassadors, foreign leaders and politicians. 

As a reader, one is struck by the level of detail around the events that unfolded in Nepal over the years during Thapa’s tenure. Was Thapa recording a journal over the years of the events and the conversations that transpired, or were they committed to his phenomenal memory?

Either way, the reader gets a glimpse of Nepal’s recent history from the early days of the Panchayat, through the People’s Movement and the democracy period, the Maoist insurgency, Royal Palace massacre of 2001, and Gyanendra’s coup of 2005.

Not enough is said about the political parties of the time whose presence led to the way Nepal’s multiparty democracy came to be shaped. The book keeps its focus on the administration and the key figures around it, mostly those in the Panchayat era. Towards the second half of the book, we do start to hear about political parties, but not in great depth.

Another figure whose presence in the book is conspicuously less prominent is that of his wife, Rita Thapa — the person who seems to have rescued him every time financial quandary or family care became a challenge. Yet, we do not see her as a full person. Perhaps because of the personal tragedies in his life, the children are also barely mentioned. 

The book is therefore less personal and more technical. Throughout, we learn about Thapa’s thinking as he navigated the world of diplomacy to win him the trust of those who mattered. There are tips here for a new generation of Nepali officials and diplomats about how much commitment and focus is needed to be good at one’s job and serve the national interest.

This book adds to tomes that have been written on Nepal’s fragile relationship with India. ‘India has always wished for Nepal to remain dependent on it,’ writes Thapa, who served as Nepal’s ambassador to India and later in the Eminent Persons Group  on Indo-Nepal relations that has been allowed to languish. The book has several insights into the Indo-Nepal trysts with diplomacy and agency. 

China’s role is also recorded, viewed through conversations during a visit to Beijing, but all that was before Nepal’s neighbour to the north emerged as a world economic and military power.

The book also has such sudden instances of quirkiness and humour. For instance, we see a young Thapa in America explaining to a government official why he would like to return to Nepal instead of settling down in the US. “Because, Nepal is beautiful,” he said.

The text is immaculate and does not read much like a translation, credit for which clearly goes to the team that put the edition together: translator Prawin Adhikari,  Anagha Neelakanthan and Bhekh Thapa’s daughter, Manjushree.

As Nepal enters a new era of governance and diplomacy, A Life in Public Service: Nepal from Autocracy to Democracy should be essential reading for students of political science, economics and foreign affairs who can gain a fresh perspective on the country’s trajectory. 

There are dozens of forgotten state secrets recorded in the book, but the reader must also remember this is a story told from one person’s perspective and there may be others. 

So, what really made Thapa the diplomat he was? I met him in 2004 at the Kantipur TV studio when he was serving as king Gyanendra’s foreign minister. He was there for a studio interview, and I was just done with my English newscast. 

He surprised me at the door: “Pratibha! I’ve been reading your articles in The Kathmandu Post. You must keep writing.”

I thanked him, glad to have been noticed for my work by a stranger. That was perhaps one of the things that set Thapa apart — he excelled at staying close to those in power, while also noticing those who were not.