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Himal Southasian

@himalmag.bsky.social

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Southasia’s magazine of politics and culture. Get our newsletters in your inbox: bit.ly/HimalNewsletters

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · Sep 9

"For many young #Nepalis, this was their first large-scale protest. They will never forget that the very first protest they led was met with a hail of bullets," writes Pranaya Rana

Nepal’s K P Oli government has murdered 19 people

This story first appeared in Kalam Weekly. It has been republished with updates and edits. Monday, 8 September, started out optimistic. A Gen Z protest against

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 9m

🎙️📚 “Yes, colonisation was bad. But you could not undo the role of these countries in your life. And when you did try to undo them, it could produce a tremendous amount of violence in those societies.”

A conversation with Aatish Taseer:

Aatish Taseer on exile and the idea of return: Southasia Review of Books podcast #34

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan speaks to the writer…

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 1h

Protest movements in #Nepal, #Bangladesh and #SriLanka, largely led by youth, that have toppled three governments in three years are similar in their negation of the status quo but also in their lack of a blueprint for the future. (@AnupamDebashis and Rishija Singh)

The overlapping factors behind Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka’s uprisings

ABOUT 15 YEARS AGO, three Southasian nations underwent political transitions. In 2008, Nepal became a federal republic, ending 250 years of monarchy. Bangladesh

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 2h

"If Harmanpreet Kaur’s team gets to the final on 2 November and wins, it will be the culmination of a long historical journey," writes Tanushree Bhasin about #India cricket

The 2025 Women’s World Cup could be India’s biggest cricketing moment in over 50 years

Indian women’s cricket’s long struggle for equality and World Cup glory

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 3h

In Sri Lankan Buddhist extremist organisations, the #Israel lobby has found an ideal instrument to push forward its interests and demands, starting with the depiction of solidarity with Palestine as appeasement and promotion of Islamist terrorism. A commentary by Tisaranee Gunasekara

The growing dangers of Sri Lanka’s Israel nexus

MOHAMED SUHAIL, a 21-year-old student, was searching for lodgings in the Colombo suburb of Dehiwala on 23 October 2024 when a mobile police unit arrested him ne

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 5h

"Salil Tripathi excavates the history of colonial intervention in Gujarati culture and language, which helped ossify these around the idea of a glorious Hindu past and invigorated the subsequent movement to sanskritise Gujarati."

Hemang Ashwinkumar:

Salil Tripathi’s portrait of Gujarati pride and contradictions

INARGUABLY, these are Dickensian best-of-times to read a tome on the Gujaratis. If the opposition’s loud protests in India’s parliament are to be believed, a fo

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 6h

As #SriLanka is reprimanded on the global stage for its underwhelming effort to investigate enforced disappearances during its civil war, revisit Bhavani Fonseka’s August 2020 piece about the country’s track record of impunity

The long wait for justice: On the chronic failures of criminal justice in Sri Lanka

Recent events have brought to the fore, yet again, Sri Lanka's legacy of past abuses, its challenges with accountability and its entrenched culture of impunity.

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 6h

🎙️ #StateofSouthasia "We’ve only thought about water as a hazard or as a resource. But it's also a locus of spiritual life. There's a certain experience of water, which includes aesthetics, spirituality, sociability, history, identity," says Daanish Mustafa

Daanish Mustafa on Pakistan’s recurring flood disasters: State of Southasia #33

Since June, Pakistan has experienced yet another season of severe monsoon flooding, with particularly heavy impacts across the Punjab region. Flood waters and landslides have claimed many hundreds of…

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 7h

The protests in #SriLanka, #Bangladesh and #Nepal remind us that disillusioned youth can transform frustration into collective power capable of sweeping away even the most entrenched regimes, write Anupam Debashis and Rishija Singh

The overlapping factors behind Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka’s uprisings

ABOUT 15 YEARS AGO, three Southasian nations underwent political transitions. In 2008, Nepal became a federal republic, ending 250 years of monarchy. Bangladesh

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 9h

Chawkbazaar, Dhaka, Churchgate, Mumbai or Nepal Ganj, Lucknow?

Guess where this photo was taken in Southasia Weekly: bit.ly/HimalNewslet...

Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 9h

"One realises that the much-touted concept of Gujarati 'asmita', or pride, often serves as moral cover for the community’s self-deceiving pragmatism – the secret, shameful underside Salil Tripathi exposes."

A review essay by Hemang Ashwinkumar: buff.ly/SQXNYzH

Salil Tripathi’s portrait of Gujarati pride and contradictions

INARGUABLY, these are Dickensian best-of-times to read a tome on the Gujaratis. If the opposition’s loud protests in India’s parliament are to be believed, a fo

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 11h

Support independent journalism and help produce crucial analysis of Southasia.
Click on the link to become a paying Patron.
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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 11h

History will not remember the Oli regime for its misguided geopolitics or its penchant for promising roads and bridges that never materialise; it will remember 8 September, when the government turned its guns on its own citizens, the future of Nepal. buff.ly/0twK77g

Nepal’s K P Oli government has murdered 19 people

This story first appeared in Kalam Weekly. It has been republished with updates and edits. Monday, 8 September, started out optimistic. A Gen Z protest against

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 13h

The Terai plains bore the brunt of the storm in #Nepal, while across the border, 30 people lost their lives in #Darjeeling and #Bihar.

Sign up for Southasia Weekly, stay informed: bit.ly/HimalNewslet...

Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 14h

🎙️ On the latest episode of "Saffron Siege: The RSS at 100", writer Aakar Patel talks to Harsh Mander about the hypocrisy of #Indian democracy touted abroad versus what is practiced at home. #karwanemohabbat
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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 15h

We've got our finger on the pulse of #Southasia. Sign up to our newsletters to get the latest from Himal and across the region.

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 16h

M M Kalburgi faced censure and controversy for the better part of his life, especially from an orthodoxy that did not enjoy his challenges to traditional hagiography or care much for the deep humanism that drove him.

Srikar Raghavan writes:

M M Kalburgi’s life and legacy in the crosshairs of history

If you happen to be familiar with even some of the Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi’s output – his collected works round out to 27,000 pages and 68 kilograms – it m

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 17h

As the Taliban’s foreign minister visits #India for the first time since the regime took power in 2021, revisit Salfan Rafi Sheikh's August 2024 article about the changing tide of international engagement with #Afghanistan

The Taliban is here to stay in Afghanistan – and the world must start engaging with it

Global isolation of the Taliban has contributed to a proliferation of terror groups endangering Afghanistan, Southasia and the world. Conditional engagement offers a better way forward.

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 18h

"Is it possible to be Asian and Other, or only Asian or Other? Is there a tension between the two terms, or are they one and the same? In our pursuit of self-definition through labels, must we only pick one label?"

A review essay by Meena Venkataramanan:

Vidyan Ravinthiran’s bold take on otherness and “Asian” diaspora identity

ON PAPER, Vidyan Ravinthiran and I are strikingly similar. We are both British Southasian writers, of Tamil descent, who immigrated to the United States. We bot

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 19h

Support independent journalism and help produce crucial analysis of Southasia.
Click on the link to become a paying Patron.
buff.ly/dR6n1KA

Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 20h

As floods in #Nepal and across #Southasia lead to landslides and evacuations, read Peter Gill (and Bhola Paswan’s August 2018 article about why the government’s flood-control strategy of embankments is not as full-proof as it may appear

Explainer: Why embankments won’t solve Nepal’s flood woes

On 18 August 2008, the Kosi River, a large tributary of the Ganga, burst through a man-made embankment on its eastern edge at Kusaha village in Nepal's southeas

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 21h

Sri Lankan authorities’ recent arrest of Tamil Nadu fishermen recalls Tisaranee Gunaseka’s May 2024 article about the tepid relationship between #lka and #India regarding international water boundaries

India’s friendly standing and moral status in Sri Lanka are at the mercy of Hindutva and hypernationalism

New Delhi has earned goodwill in Colombo, but the end of Indian pluralism can embolden Sinhala extremists while Katchatheevu and fishing conflicts risk inflaming nationalist passions

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 21h

What happens when a generation grows up online — and takes its politics there too?
📱 Read how Nepal’s Gen Z used Instagram, TikTok and Discord to topple a government. Sushim Thapaliya writes

A social media timeline of Nepal’s Gen Z uprising

THE CHARRED REMAINS of police stations, super markets, minister’s homes, the federal parliament, the Supreme Court and much else stand as stark reminders of fiv

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 22h

🎙️📚 “At every moment in the book, one is inching towards the discovery that this idea of a return has a kind of inbuilt violence to it. It’s not just a fiction, but it’s a dangerous fiction.”

A conversation with Aatish Taseer on 'A Return to Self':

Aatish Taseer on exile and the idea of return: Southasia Review of Books podcast #34

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan speaks to the writer…

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Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 23h

"That Zohran Mamdani is not celebrated by many Gujaratis – even as they embrace the Hindu supremacist Modi as one of their own – reveals where large sections of the community today draw their boundaries of belonging and exclusion."

Hemang Ashwinkumar:

Salil Tripathi’s portrait of Gujarati pride and contradictions

INARGUABLY, these are Dickensian best-of-times to read a tome on the Gujaratis. If the opposition’s loud protests in India’s parliament are to be believed, a fo

buff.ly

Himal Southasian @himalmag.bsky.social · 1d

While amendments to the NFC award are long overdue to keep up with the needs of the provinces, minister Ahsan Iqbal’s proposed new formula has sparked concern, Salman Rafi Sheikh

Pakistan’s struggle to reshape its fiscal federalism

A recent proposal by Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan’s federal minister for planning, development and special initiatives, has exacerbated deep-seated fears in the countr

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