Washington, June 2 :    Washington, June 2:  In the world's only Hindu kingdom, history repeats itself not every four or five years, but after a full half century. At the sprawling Indian embassy in Kathmandu, one of the biggest embassy compounds anywhere in the world, officials burned midnight oil last night poring through archived documents, yellow with age, which told a little known story of Nepal's King-to-be, Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. Although Crown Prince Dipendra has been named Nepal's new king by the Raj Parishad, he is unlikely to survive the suicide attempt, according to medical sources in Kathmandu, and it is only a matter of time before Gyanendra is formally proclaimed the king. This will be the second time that Gyanendra becomes King of Nepal. The first time was 51 years ago, when he was just about four years old. Those were the days when the cruel Ranas, the hereditary prime ministers, were more powerful than the king and ran Nepal like a Shangri-La with little contact with the world outside. King Tribhuvan, a visionary and a liberal, was chafing under the restraints imposed on him by his own ministers, but he could do very little. The Ranas had been in absolute control for over a century, and although Britain had formally recognised Nepal's independence in 1923, Whitehall was still running Kathmandu by proxy in collusion with the Rana clan. In 1950, Tribhuvan decided to work with the Nepali Congress, whose leadership was in exile in India, to end the Rana dictatorship and create some sort of a democracy. But the Ranas discovered Tribhuvan's plan and confined him to the palace. Virtually under house arrest, Tribhuvan one day pleaded with his prime minister that he should be allowed to take his consort, children and grandchildren on a family picnic. Reluctantly and after much discussion, the Ranas relented. What followed was high drama. The Indian embassy was then located at Sheetal Niwas, an imposing structure in Kathmandu which now houses Nepal's foreign ministry. As the royal picnic group was bang in front of Sheetal Nivas, the gates of the Indian embassy swung open and into the embassy drove the vehicle carrying King Tribhuvan and his family. As part of plans made in absolute secrecy in New Delhi with the approval of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Tribhuvan and his royal entourage sought refuge at the embassy. Among those who fled to the embassy that sunny morning in Kathmandu along with King Tribhuvan was the Queen, Crown Prince Mahendra and all the little princes and princesses, except one. In the midst of secret arrangements to flee the palace, the royal couple forgot to take prince Gyanendra, then just under four, along with them. The angry Ranas, who discovered Tribhuvan's new plot too late, found young Gyanendra wandering about in the royal palace without anyone to care for him. They promptly caught him and proclaimed him as the new king of Nepal. The wily British acquiesced in the Rana perfidy. Nepal's history may well have been different if Nehru had not put his foot down. India's first prime minister said nothing would change and that India recognised no one but Tribhuvan as Nepal's king. It was one of the earliest assertions of India's pre-eminence in all of South Asia, which has continued to this day despite attempts to introduce various doctrines to undermine New Delhi's importance and occasional compromises. The stand-off continued for two months, but ultimately, the Ranas and the British gave in. The sovereignty of the crown was restored, but Tribhuvan allowed the Nepali Congress to form a government, ending the Rana dictatorship. The process of democratisation continued with the enactment of a multi-party constitution in 1959. But the Ranas continued to plot. A year later, after the Nepali Congress won the elections, King Mahendra organised a constitutional coup, suspended parliament and introduced the non-party panchayat system. The rest is history, the saddest chapter of which, is now unfolding in Kathmandu with the assassinations of King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya.