In this episode of "Saffron Siege: The RSS at 100", Apoorvanand discusses how the Hindu and Hindutva common sense kept the RSS popular even though it was banned after Gandhi's assassination in 1948. He talks to Harsh Mander about how it emerged from the shadows of being a banned organisation, how it grew from strength to strength through the 1960s, 1970s up till 2014 when Narendra Modi became prime minister, and the leaders who legitimised it along the way.
You can watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Osrg7Zy0GP4
This episode is part of Season Two of Partitions of the Heart. In this season, Harsh Mander speaks to leading scholars and observers who have studied the RSS closely. Together, they examine its roots and core principles, its Hindutva agenda, and its corrosive role in India’s public and social life across a century.
“Saffron Siege” runs from 17 September to 3 December 2025, with a new episode releasing every Wednesday. Himal’s podcasts are available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Production: Imaad ul Hassan, Ayushi Malik, Lydia Smith, Ritika Chauhan, Nayantara Narayanan
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Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
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In her new book ‘The Jackfruit Chronicles’, the award-winning food writer Shahnaz Ahsan invites us into her family’s British-Bangladeshi kitchen, showing how food carries both resistance and remembrance, and reflects the complexities of diasporic life in Britain: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/shahnaz-ahsan-food-bangladesh-diaspora
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 award-winning food writer Shahnaz Ahsan about her new book, The Jackfruit Chronicles: Memories and Recipes from a British-Bangladeshi Kitchen (Harper Collins, July 2025).
Part memoir, part cookbook, The Jackfruit Chronicles is a deeply personal exploration of food, family and identity. Through stories and recipes, Shahnaz documents the vibrant flavours and captivating stories of Bengali food and its place in Britain. Beginning with the arrival of her grandfather in Manchester in the 1950s, the book traces not only one family’s journey, but also the wider story of the Bangladeshi diaspora’s search for home and belonging.
This episode is now available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/GnWLGrFyB3A
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0SwZazJ5odQSPuQrTrY9vd
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4n8PQvk
Let’s keep the conversation going – please share your thoughts on the episode. Leave us a comment here on Youtube or send me an email (shwethas[at]himalmag[dot]com).
To make conversations like this possible, we need the support of our listeners like you. Become a paying Himal Patron to support the Southasia Review of Books: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Sign up to receive the Southasia Review of Books newsletter for Himal’s spotlight on Southasian literature, our latest conversations, and more: https://bit.ly/southasia-review-of-books
In this inaugural episode of the podcast “Saffron Siege”, Harsh Mander speaks to Rajmohan Gandhi, a renowned historian and grandson of Mohandas Gandhi, on the hostility of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh towards Gandhi that ultimately led to his assasination in January 1948.
Rajmohan Gandhi describes how Gandhi's demand for an India that belonged equally to all religions, communities and identities set him against the Hindu right. “Those who ultimately did kill him did not want an India for everybody. They wanted an India where some people would be supreme, others would be subservient or junior or second-class,” says Rajmohan Gandhi.
He describes how the Hindu Mahasabha and Hindutva ideologues were also advocates of Partition and kept their distance from India’s struggle for independence from British rule. “Those who do any serious study will know that the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha kept aloof from the freedom struggle and they openly said that the Muslims are a real enemy and in fact we should cooperate with the British.”You can watch this conversation on YouTube:
This episode is part of Season Two of Partitions of the Heart. In this season, Harsh Mander speaks to leading scholars and observers who have studied the RSS closely. Together, they examine its roots and core principles, its Hindutva agenda, and its corrosive role in India’s public and social life across a century.
“Saffron Siege” runs from 17 September to 3 December 2025, with a new episode releasing every Wednesday. Himal’s podcasts are available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Find us on:
https://twitter.com/Himalistan
https://www.facebook.com/himal.southasian
https://www.instagram.com/himalistan/
All eyes have been on Nepal since last week when a large but loosely organised protest by young people in Kathmandu turned into a revolution that brought down the government. On September 8th, many groups of young college and school goers took out a peaceful protest march in Kathmandu. There had been rising anger about systemic corruption and nepotism among the political class that was the foundation for these protests.
The immediate trigger, however, was a government announcement of a social media ban.The announcement of the ban itself was due to a government requirement that tech companies register in Nepal and many not having done so but was also seen, by many of the protesters, as a way for the government to silence dissent and criticism. For many weeks before the protest, videos had been circulating of so-called “nepo babies”, that is, children of rich and influential people flaunting lavish lifestyles while much of the rest of Nepal was dealing with poverty and the lack of jobs and opportunities for advancement.
The government came down hard on the protests. Police fired into the crowds and at least 19 people were killed on 8th September. Things then got out of hand. On the 9th, there was widespread violence in anger and retaliation. Mobs set buildings, including the parliament, ablaze, and attacked politicians, their families and anyone who as seen to be close to power. More people were killed with a reported death toll of 51 by the weekend. The prime minister KP Oli resigned, army patrols took over the streets and rumours and speculation took over. The power vacuum has led to fears in Nepal of foreign interference, or a push for a return to monarchy, or even a takeover by the army. Meanwhile, Gen Z-ers have been holding public town hall-style meetings on the online platform Discord to discuss their agendas and a way forward. On Friday night, they voted for Sushila Karki, a former chief justice, to lead the interim government.
In this episode, we look at what Nepal’s GenZ and others hope for in the coming days, months and years, and what about Nepal’s politics, economy and society they see as needs fixing. Nayantara Narayanan speaks to the Ujjawala Maharjan, a poet and educator from Kathmandu, Anjali Sah, a law student in Kathmandu originally from Madhesh, and Tashi Lhozam, a climate activist and social scientists from the Humla district in the highlands of Nepal.
This episode is also available on
🎧YouTube: https://youtu.be/qQwZGV6gWVk
🎧 Apple podcasts: https://apple.co/4n0KJx3
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Find us on:
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A conversation with the British-Bangladeshi writer on her debut novel, The First Jasmines, and the untold stories of women who survived the violence of the 1971 Liberation War: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/saima-begum-novel-bangladesh-liberation-war-birangona
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 British-Bangladeshi writer Saima Begum about her debut novel The First Jasmines (Hajar Press, July 2025).
In 1971, during the nine-month war that gave Bangladesh its independence from then West Pakistan, the Pakistan Army carried out a brutal crackdown against Bengalis in which hundreds of thousands of women were detained and repeatedly brutalised.
What the women had experienced was one of the first recorded examples of rape being used as a weapon of war in the 20th century. However, an uncanny silence has remained when it comes to the birangonas’ own testimonies.
Within Bangladesh, widespread stigma led to the women being ostracised by their communities, and their accounts are suppressed by silencing and shame. Today, a plaque at the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka reads: “There are not many records of this hidden suffering.” Yet across the country, there are survivors with stories to tell.
Set against the final weeks of the Liberation War in Bangladesh, Saima Begum’s novel follows two sisters, Lucky and Jamila, who are captured and imprisoned by the Pakistan military.
Through their story, Begum writes the birangona women back into a history from which they had been largely erased. The First Jasmines brings to light the experiences of the women who endured unimaginable violence and injustices in 1971 and its invisible aftermath – women whose voices have largely been excluded from national memory and popular narratives.
This episode is now available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/GsfNH8aFHus
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0SQfCXYyUvczJwIT0obwLp
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/45RJ0Em
Let’s keep the conversation going – please share your thoughts on the episode. Leave us a comment here on Youtube or send me an email (shwethas[at]himalmag[dot]com).
To make conversations like this possible, we need the support of our listeners like you. Become a paying Himal Patron to support the Southasia Review of Books: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Sign up to receive the Southasia Review of Books newsletter for Himal’s spotlight on Southasian literature, our latest conversations, and more: https://bit.ly/southasia-review-of-books
On the 22nd of August, Colombo police arrested the former president of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe over allegations that he used public funds on a two-day personal visit to the United Kingdom in September 2023.
Sri Lanka’s anticorruption units have been cracking down on corruption cases since the president Anura Kumara Dissanayake came to power in September last year on a promise to fight corruption. More than a dozen political leaders from the previous government and former government officials have been arrested or being investigated for corruption and malpractice. Wickremesinghe’s arrest is the most high-profile one in this yet. In the wake of his arrest, a number of politicians from Wickfremesinghe’s party and others in the opposition have rallied behind him, calling the case unfair and politically motivated.
In this episode of State of Southasia episode, associate editor Nayantara Narayanan speaks to writer, editor and researcher Marlon Ariyasinghe to talk about what Wickremesinghe’s signifies in the larger politics of Sri Lanka, what about its culture has changed and what has remained stubbornly unchanging. You can also listen to this episode on:
🎧 YouTube: https://youtu.be/Z6s98j6P0K0
🎧 Apple podcasts: https://apple.co/3I29HNk
♦️Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
♦️ Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
♦️ Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
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A conversation with Vishwambhari Parmar on curating and translating The Blaft Anthology of Gujarati Pulp Fiction, and uncovering the genre’s darker and more irreverent worlds in Southasian literature.
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 Vishwambhari Parmar, the curator and translator of The Blaft Anthology of Gujarati Pulp Fiction (Blaft Publications, December 2024).
The term “pulp” comes from the cheap wood-pulp paper on which stories considered lowbrow were printed on. Their content often reflected society’s darker sides: crime, corruption, misogyny and problematic caricatures. And despite – or because of – their racier subject matter, pulp fiction was wildly popular in Southasia.
These stories also helped shape much of what we now consider canon in Southasian science fiction, noir, horror and romance. Over time, paperbacks, comics, and higher-quality magazines largely replaced pulp publications – but the stories never stopped being written.
The Blaft Anthology of Gujarati Pulp Fiction, curated and translated by Vishwambhari Parmar, and edited by Rakesh Kannah, preserves this rich and often overlooked Gujarati literary world. From supernatural crime thrillers and folk horror, to Mumbai underworld revenge fantasies, the anthology brings a taste of Gujarat’s bestselling adventure, dark fantasy and mysteries to wider English-reading audiences.
Let’s keep the conversation going – please share your thoughts on the episode. Leave us a comment here on Youtube or send me an email (shwethas[at]himalmag[dot]com).
We’re on a mission to give Southasian literature the spotlight it deserves. Become a paying Himal Patron to support the Southasia Review of Books: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Sign up to receive the Southasia Review of Books newsletter for Himal’s spotlight on Southasian literature, our latest conversations, and more: https://bit.ly/southasia-review-of-books
Harsh Mander wraps up Season 1 of this podcast series with Himal associate editor Nayantara Narayanan. They talk about the significant moments and takeaways from Mander's conversations with eminent and emerging voices on the crisis of Muslims in India: Afreen Fatima, Hilal Ahmed, Amirullah Khan, Seema Chishti, Shahrukh Alam, Aman Wadud, Irfan Habib, Mohsin Alam Bhat, Saeed Mirza, Syeda Hameed, Manoj Jha and Zeyad Masroor Khan.
This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India under the rule of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.
You can watch this episodes on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Uw3bGOXSbgU
Watch and listen to the full season on Himal Southasian's podcast channels.
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
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Zeyad Masroor Khan grew up in a Muslim ghetto in Aligarh, a place he says is still “caught in time” and one he describes as still a slice of “India as it was envisioned by Nehru and Gandhi” with people from different religious communities living close by, running their businesses together and having family connections. But, in this same ghetto, he also witnessed several communal riots as he came of age.
In this podcast episode, Khan speaks to Harsh Mander about what he witnessed and the lessons from that childhood. They also speak about why Muslims live in ghettos, the new dangers they face from economic boycotts and the unabashed hate and division that is even causing their expulsions from parts of the country.
This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India under the rule of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.
You can watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AxaEEUPkc-k
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Find us on:
https://twitter.com/Himalistan
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On 15 August 2025, the Taliban marked four years since retaking control of Afghanistan – a period defined by deepening authoritarianism, economic collapse, and international isolation. As the regime tightens its grip, the country faces yet another compounding crisis: mass deportations of Afghan migrants from neighboring Iran and Pakistan.
Since January 2025, more than one million Afghans have been expelled from Iran alone, while Pakistan – once a long-time host of Afghans – began its own deportations in November 2023, contributing to a total of 2.5 million returnees over the past two years. Many of those forced back had lived abroad for decades, built families, and held legal documentation, only to find themselves suddenly unwelcome and pushed into an Afghanistan ill-equipped to receive them.
In this episode of State of Southasia episode, journalist Zahra Nader, editor-in-chief of Zan Times, speaks to Himal’s associate editor Nayantara Narayanan about the rapidly escalating humanitarian emergency. Drawing from months of Zan Times’ field reporting along the Iran-Afghanistan border, Nader recounts harrowing stories of Afghan refugees beaten in detention, robbed of wages and housing deposits, and returned across the border. Camps in Herat and Nimruz provinces, already overcrowded and under-resourced, now shelter hundreds of thousands – many without access to food, water, or medical care. Women and children, who make up over 60 percent of returnees, face further repression under Taliban rule, including travel restrictions, bans on education and total economic exclusion.
This episode is also available on
🎧 YouTube: https://youtu.be/O617eehXE2c
🎧 Apple podcasts: https://apple.co/45mdzSp
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Find us on:
https://twitter.com/Himalistan
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Manoj Jha, a politician and member of India’s upper house – the Rajya Sabha – is the rare politician who has spoken up about the persecution of Muslims in India and their being pushed into being second-class citizens of the country. Jha believes and has written that Muslims are not mere footnotes but co-authors in the story of India. In this conversation with Harsh Mander, Jha says that the the craving for peace that was once the default template of India has been warped into a politics of hate.
Jha attributed many factors to this change. For instance, “the prosperity or the non-prosperity of the middle class, the shift from a public sector to a liberalised economy. The market can sell anything. If it finds that love has few takers, hate has more takers, it will package hate,” he says.
This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.
You can watch the whole conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8MOhZggVcb4GlossaryRahi Masoom Raza: An Indian writer and poet in Urdu and Hindi who wrote screenplays and dialogies for major Hindi films and among whose important literary works are Aadha Gaon and Topi Shukla.Jawaharlal Nehru on India as a palimpsest: “She was like some ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously.”
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Find us on:
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A conversation with the journalist Ipsita Chakravarty on what it means for the people of Kashmir to tell their stories – in a place where history is contested, identity is under siege, and memorialisation itself is a political act.
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 award-winning journalist Ipsita Chakravarty about her new book, Dapaan: Tales from Kashmir’s Conflict (Context, July 2025 / Hurst, June 2025).
“Haalaat” is a word used in Kashmir to describe the time after 1989, the conditions under which the armed resistance for freedom gained momentum. When the journalist Ipsita Chakravarty first visited the Valley in 2016, she found the haalaat was constantly being turned into stories.
The stories often begin with the word “dapaan” – “it is said” – a signature that links them to Kashmir’s long traditions of storytelling. In a place where the conflict has seeped into homes, language and culture, everyone seemed to be telling stories of the strange conditions that had overtaken their lives.
These narratives – by turns intimate, satirical, surreal – express a kind of public understanding, a distinctly Kashmiri memory of events so often narrated from elsewhere.
In her new book, Dapaan: Tales from Kashmir’s Conflict, Chakravarty listens closely to these stories — not as a chronicle of the Indian nation, but as a way of seeing Kashmir on its own terms. She brings together dark humour, songs of grief and blood maps of memory that reveal how storytelling itself became a form of survival and resistance in Kashmir.
This episode is now available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/O9e-C4-NM1kSpotify: Apple Podcasts: Let’s keep the conversation going – please share your thoughts on the episode. Leave us a comment here on Youtube or send me an email (shwethas[at]himalmag[dot]com). To make conversations like this possible, we need the support of our listeners like you. Become a paying Himal Patron to support the Southasia Review of Books: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalSign up to receive the Southasia Review of Books newsletter for Himal’s spotlight on Southasian literature, our latest conversations, and more: https://bit.ly/southasia-review-of-books
The educationist, writer and women's rights activist Syeda Hameed had a ringside view on much of what was unfolding in the new India in the years after it became independent. This was a country that had become free, but after Partition when a million Hindus and Muslims had been slaughtered by the other. Yet, Hameed remembers the first decade of free India as one of immense hope.
"My family comes from Panipat," Hameed says. "And Panipat was a symbol of Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb – the mingling of the Hindu-Muslim, the composite culture... There was a beautiful commingling and that is really the India, that was my DNA, you know." Speaking to Harsh Mander, Hameed says she does not feel any of that hope now.
This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.
You can find audio versions of this conversation on:
🎧 Spotify:
🎧 Apple podcasts:
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Find us on:
https://twitter.com/Himalistan
https://www.facebook.com/himal.southasian
https://www.instagram.com/himalistan/
Bhutan’s bold new urban venture, the Geluphu Mindfulness City, is being pitched as a landmark in values-based development. Envisioned as an economic hub rooted in sustainability and Buddhist ideals, the project spans 2,500 square kilometres along the country’s southern border with India. But while official narratives emphasise harmony and prosperity, they overlook a critical historical context: Geluphu was once home to thousands of Lhotshampa – Nepali-speaking Bhutanese who were expelled from the country in the 1990s.In this episode of State of Southasia, writer and researcher Maximilian Morch who studies Asia’s borderlands speaks to associate editor Nayantara Narayanan about the implications of the project. Morch says that the announcement project has been “incredibly painful” for displaced Lhotshampa communities, many of whom still hold land documents for plots now earmarked for development. “There are refugees alive today in Nepal who own the land that the GMC is being built on,” he says. “They have not been consulted. Their concerns are being bulldozed.” He also questions the economic viability of the city, given Bhutan’s growing brain drain and struggling public services, noting that “special economic zones tend to have weaker worker rights and less employment protection.” Morch raises questions about who benefits from Bhutan’s development strategy, and who is being left out. You can also listen to this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gVElZ4oZpe8Apple podcastsEpisode notes:Maximilian Morch’s recommendations:- The dark shadows of Bhutan’s Gelephu ‘mindfulness city’ project (Scroll.in)- Susan Banki on the battles of Nepali-Bhutanese refugees: State of Southasia #16 (Himal Southasian podcast)- Unbecoming Citizens: Culture, Nationhood, and the Flight of Refugees from Bhutan - Michael Hutt (non-fiction) Further reading from Himal’s archives:
Bland lessons and careful lies from Bhutan’s prime minister
Dictated democracy? Bhutan struggles to stabilise its government and political system
The dragon bites its tail – Part I, Part II, Part III
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on:
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The filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza talks to Harsh Mander about a civilisational slide in india over the past three decades. “The idea of India as in our constitution being slowly eroded in front of our eyes and nothing was done about it,” he says. In this episode Mirza talks about how the Hindu right is rewriting history and scripting one-sided narratives through cinema, about the takeover over film schools by political agenda and more.
Mirza recalls his immense despair in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, followed by communal riots and bomb blasts in his home city of Mumbai. At the time he made a film called Naseem in which he wrote the epitaph of India. But Mirza believes that India’s current troubles will pass as everything before it has. After making Naseem, he travelled across the country meeting ordinary people who restored his faith in its pluralism.
This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India.
Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.
You can watch the full episode on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/5WO0WRYFbls
♦️ Glossary
Scoundrel Times: A term coined by the American playwright Lillian Hellman referring to the McCarthy era which was defined by selfishness, cruelty, corruption, and fear in the US government and society.
Taimur: A 14th century ruler of Turco-Mongol origin and founder of the Timurid Empire situated in an around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia
Khiljis: A Turco-Afghan dynasty who ruled large parts of the Subcontinent fron Delhi between 1290 and 1320
Aurangzeb: The sixth Mughal emperor who ruled from 1658 and 1708
Seljuks, Mamluks, Ottomans: Powerful Turkic dynasties with Islamic rulers
♦️Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. ♦️ Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/♦️ Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: ♦️ https://twitter.com/Himalistan♦️ https://www.facebook.com/himal.southasian♦️ https://www.instagram.com/himalistan/
A conversation with the Indologist Wendy Doniger on her wide-ranging study ‘The Cave of Echoes’, and the importance of understanding other peoples’ myths and rituals: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/wendy-doniger-history-myths-hinduism-india
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 distinguished Indologist and scholar of Sanskrit and Indian textual traditions Wendy Doniger about her book, The Cave of Echoes: Stories About Gods, Animals and Other Strangers (Speaking Tiger, July 2025).
In The Cave of Echoes, Wendy Doniger writes that, “it is impossible to define myth, but it is cowardly not to try.” For her, the best way to approach myth is not by defining it, but to look at it in action, which is precisely what she has set out to do throughout this book: to explore what myth does, rather than what myth is.
This book is a celebration of the universal art of storytelling and the diverse narratives that shape how people understand their world and their pasts. Drawing on Hindu epics, Biblical parables, Greek myths and modern mythologies, Doniger examines the enduring force of myth and tradition, and how they shape societies.
She shows how myth not only allows cultures to define themselves, but also how the myths of others can reflect back truths often overlooked in our own. Along the way, Doniger raises critical questions about how we interpret mythic stories, and how different communities across Southasia and beyond engage with these foundational texts and traditions.
This episode is now available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/g9ZB8Tsb5bUSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4QXQSdxK4MF30bV5rXQULW?si=5b1e0acc9cec40f6Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wendy-doniger-on-importance-of-understanding-other/id1464880116?i=1000719434400
Let’s keep the conversation going – please share your thoughts on the episode. Leave us a comment here on Youtube or send me an email (shwethas[at]himalmag[dot]com).
We’re on a mission to give Southasian literature the spotlight it deserves. Become a paying Himal Patron to support the Southasia Review of Books: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Sign up to receive the Southasia Review of Books newsletter for Himal’s spotlight on Southasian literature, our latest conversations, and more: https://bit.ly/southasia-review-of-books
In this conversation with Harsh Mander, the legal academic Mohsin Alam says that the crisis of Indian Muslims, which is about safety, integration, and citizenship, is tied to the crisis of Indian democracy. How the Indian state and society treats with its weaker populations, including religious minorities, will determine whether India remains a democracy or not.
Alam points to evidence that anti-democratisation of the economy has had a terrible impact on minorities and Muslims in particular. He says that greater neoliberalism has led to a loss of solidarity among majorities and minorities, among different communities.
This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.You can watch the entire episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gMol26m0aYw
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Find us on:
https://twitter.com/Himalistan
https://www.facebook.com/himal.southasian
https://www.instagram.com/himalistan/
On 2 April, the US president Donal Trump announced a set of import tariffs on almost all countries. He claimed the measure was to eliminate trade imbalances and called them recirpocal. The Trump administration then applied individual tariffs rates depending on which countries had the largest trade deficits with the US.
The US first set a 3-month deadline for countries to make trade agreements with it or else the tariff would be imposed. Earlier this month, Trump unveiled revised tariffs on at least 20 countries including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, threatening 30 percent on all goods imported into the US from Sri Lanka and 35 percent on goods from Bangladesh. He announced a new deadline of August 1.
Southasia’s economy, like much of the rest of the world, has been sustained and has grown due to access to the US markets. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh’s garment sectors are likely to be the most impacted by the tariffs. In India, there are worries over agriculture, steel, aluminium and pharmaceutical exports.
On this episode of State of Southasia, the economist Umesh Moramudali speaks to associate editor Nayantara Narayanan about the impacts of the Trump tariffs on Southasia – the hit on exports, the possible impact on unskilled labour, and the ramifications for balance of payments and debt restructuring in countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
This episode is also available on:
🎧 YouTube: https://youtu.be/nHMJavnrDEo
🎧 Apple podcasts: https://apple.co/44WDzlT
🎧 Himal website: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/umeshmoramudali-trump-tariff-exports-srilanka-bangladesh
Episode notes:
Umesh Moramudali’s recommendations:
- The Wolf-Krugman Exchange (podcast)
- The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road Ahead for the World Economy – Michael Pettis (non-fiction)
- The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa – Deborah Brautigam (non-fiction)
- Between Debt and the Devil – Adair Turner Further reading from Himal’s archives:
- Trump’s approach to Southasia bolsters China’s regional sway
- Jayati Ghosh on the USAID shocker and the politics of foreign aid: State of Southasia #19
- Trump’s aid cuts have broken global health – but we can fight back
- How the IMF bailout is changing Sri Lanka’s foreign policy
- Pakistan’s IMF bailout is not without political consequences
- Why did India fail to industrialise where East Asia succeeded?
- Elite capture is the real issue plaguing Pakistan’s economy
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Find us on:
https://twitter.com/Himalistan
https://www.facebook.com/himal.southasian
https://www.instagram.com/himalistan/
Irfan Habib, who is regarded as one of India's best historians, tells Harsh Mander that encouraged by the Narendra Modi and BJP leadership, The Hindu right is attempting not just to rewrite India's history to erase Muslim presence and contribution but to manufacture it entirely. Now 94, Habib looks back to when India got independence – when he was a young man – and at the inclusiveness and spirit of service of national leaders at the time. He also looks critically at the divisive politics of the present but believes that "ultimately I think India is a large country with varied languages and I think a pure Hindu religious philosophy can't unite the country."
This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.
You can watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uyoDoPELQdU
Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice.
Read more: https://www.himalmag.com
Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on:
https://twitter.com/Himalistan
https://www.facebook.com/himal.southasian
https://www.instagram.com/himalistan/
No Place to Call My Own’ seethes with a quiet anger of our times, where a young woman struggles with her own sense of self and belonging, and the restless anxieties of adulthood in Urban India.
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 and filmmaker Alina Gufran about her debut novel, No Place to Call My Own (Westland Tranquebar, January 2025)
Stories with self-aware but disillusioned millennial women protagonists are on the rise, and many of these characters, especially in recent Southasian literary fiction, are caught up in the messiness of late-capitalist life.
Through Sophia, a young woman navigating life and painful self-discovery across cities, No Place to Call My Own tackles issues related to class, religion and economic precarity. Unfolding against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, the 2020 Delhi riots, and a global pandemic, the novel questions what it means to fit in when apathy becomes a mode of survival.
Sophia’s journey is not just her own but that of any woman who finds themselves caught in between – unable to back down and refusing to conform – and who doesn’t quite feel rooted to one place or identity. Though the picture Alina Gufran paints of this generation may be grim, it will be immediately and uncomfortably relatable to anyone contending with what it means to belong in Urban India today.
This episode is now available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/K-fhyQAxkAI
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7BFGQl29bldpT52KgMNHAC
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alina-gufran-on-millennial-precarity-and-unbelonging/id1464880116?i=1000717116210
Let’s keep the conversation going – please share your thoughts on the episode or on Alina Gufran's novel. If something resonated with you, leave us a comment here on Youtube or send me an email (shwethas[at]himalmag[dot]com).
We’re on a mission to give Southasian literature the spotlight it deserves. Become a paying Himal Patron to support the Southasia Review of Books: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal
Sign up to receive the Southasia Review of Books newsletter for Himal’s spotlight on Southasian literature, our latest conversations, and more: https://bit.ly/southasia-review-of-books
