Studies In Nepali History And Society

This authoritative, thorough volume covers a broad range of topics from history to culture to current struggles in these fascinating countries. Often overshadowed on the world stage by issues surrounding India and Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh are nonetheless vital players in this theater of Asia. Nepal and Bangladesh brings a refreshing level of clarity to a wide variety of topics surrounding both nations including history, current affairs, business and economics, culture, literature, political science, and travel. Written in a voice that speaks to general audiences from secondary instructors to interested business people and travelers to the region, this handbook paints a portrait of both countries that is at once complete and accessible. Beginning with far-reaching narrative histories of both nations the text also contains a compendium of important people and events and concludes with an exhaustive reference section.

Pathways to Power introduces the domestic politics of South Asia in their broadest possible context, studying ongoing transformative social processes grounded in cultural forms. In doing so, it reveals the interplay between politics, cultural values, human security, and historical luck. While these are important correlations everywhere, nowhere are they more compelling than in South Asia where such dynamic interchanges loom large on a daily basis. Identity politics—not just of religion but also of caste, ethnicity, regionalism, and social class—infuses all aspects of social and political life in the sub-continent. Recognizing this complex interplay, this volume moves beyond conventional views of South Asian politics as it explicitly weaves the connections between history, culture, and social values into its examination of political life. South Asia is one of the world’s most important geopolitical areas and home to nearly one and a half billion people. Although many of the poorest people in the world live in this region, it is home also to a rapidly growing middle class wielding much economic power. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, together the successor states to the British Indian Empire—the Raj—form the core of South Asia, along with two smaller states on its periphery: landlocked Nepal and the island state of Sri Lanka. Many factors bring together the disparate countries of the region into important engagements with one another, forming an uneasy regional entity. Contributions by: Arjun Guneratne, Christophe Jaffrelot, Pratyoush Onta, Haroun er Rashid, Seira Tamang, Shabnum Tejani, and Anita M. Weiss

Nepal is a living example of contrasts and contradictions.It is a country that was born in medieval times, grew up in the 16th century, and now finds itself engulfed in the high-tech gadgets and material marvels of the 21st century. Nepal has its share of problem which include inadequate economic development and social infrastructure, poverty and corruption, plus worsening pollution, but now it finally has relative peace and quiet after a hasty Maoist uprising. Indeed, it has passed through several democratic elections, and finally seems to be getting on the right track. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Nepal contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Nepal.

This book brings rarely voiced lives and experiences of women in Nepal to light and combines rich ethnography with discourse analysis. Multifaceted and critical, the volume situates its narrative in the profoundly transformative period after the turn of the century when ‘New Nepal’ was rising on the horizon and sheds light on Nepali women’s experiences in multiple sites, crossing class and ethnic lines. It is based on extensive fieldwork among women domestic workers, construction workers, street vendors, women from the indigenous community of Hyolmo, and others. Mainly through an ethnographic approach, the author explores Nepali women’s experiences on the ground, mostly situated in classed, ethnic, or other socio-cultural peripheries in Nepali social landscape. Through the unusually intimate narrative on these women from the global south, who are still prone to be cast into a deeply colonial, simplistic image of ‘victimized women’, readers will get a nuanced perspective of the multidimensional diversity among these women as well as a sense of kinship with oneself. The book will be invaluable for researchers and students of gender studies, global south studies, development studies, cultural anthropology/ethnography, Nepal studies, and feminist geography. It will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, policymakers, and those with an interest in global gender issues.

This volume illuminates educational transformations and avenues of learning in the context of wider social and political changes in Nepal.