Sushila Karki spent two years at Banaras Hindu University doing her master’s in political science, her contemporaries remembering her on Friday as a student focused on her studies.
Some of them claimed she met her future husband and pro-democracy activist Durga Prasad Subedi at BHU when he came there to deliver political speeches. However, others said that Karki had known Subedi from the time she was a child studying in a school in Biratnagar, Nepal, where he taught.
“She (Karki) was here (BHU) in 1974 and 1975 to do her master’s. She was a good student,” Anil Srivastava, a former student leader at BHU and a contemporary of Karki, told reporters on Friday.
“As far as we remember, she didn’t have any social life on the campus and was focused mostly on her studies.”
Subedi, an anti-monarchy activist from Nepal, was at the time in India, having been arrested and granted bail after hijacking a Royal Nepal Airlines aircraft and forcing it to land in Forbesganj, Bihar.
The plane was flying from Biratnagar to Kathmandu on June 10, 1973, when Subedi, Nagendra Dhungel and Basanta Bhattarai hijacked it.
The hijackers allegedly seized ₹30 lakh that a passenger was carrying on behalf of a Nepal bank and sent it to anti-monarchy campaign leaders. Bollywood actress Mala Sinha and her husband C.P. Lohani, a Nepali actor, were on the plane.
Subedi stayed on in India till 1980 and frequently visited Varanasi.
“He would visit the Nepal Centre at BHU, which was later named the Centre for the Study of Nepal. He would address public meetings in support of democracy in Nepal and Karki would be in the audience,” a former BHU teacher said, requesting anonymity.
Bhupendra Vikram Singh, former convener of the Nepal Centre, said: “Subedi was arrested during the Emergency, too, but was released soon.”
Karki was quoted in a recent interview as saying that her hostel was near the Ganga’s banks in Varanasi, and that she and other boarders would sleep on the terrace during summer.
Varanasi has had a long association with Nepal’s movers and shakers, with many of the Himalayan country’s royals and politicians spending years in the Indian city. Several of them studied at BHU.
As far back as the 18th century, Raja Prithvi Narayan Shah of Nepal is said to have drawn up his expansion plans while staying in Varanasi.
Shah came under the spotlight a few days ago when his portrait made up the background during a news conference by Nepal army chief Ashok Raj Sigdel in Kathmandu. It triggered speculation about a possible restoration of the monarchy in Nepal.
