Of Nepal Studies

A very interesting topic found space at a pre-conference symposium entitled "Celebrating the Work of Professor Michael J Hutt" at the annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya on July 25. The topic for the roundtable was "Is there a discipline called Nepal Studies?" This pre-conference symposium did not necessarily focus on the works of Mike Hutt.

One of the moderators, Stefanie Lotter of SOAS University of London (School of Oriental and African Studies), asked me how I would see the discipline of Nepal Studies from a literary perspective. That was a familiar subject to me because I have been working for a long time in this area as a teacher, writer, research supervisor and participant in various academic and literary colloquiums. I realised I did not have any fixed structure to put in the allotted time at the symposium. However, I put some arguments to show that literature can be heuristically as well as pragmatically an important component of Nepal Studies. Some words about the subject Nepal Studies are in order.
 

Pratyoush Onta, research director of Martin Chautari; Kanak Mani Dixit, writer and creator of Himal Media and South Asian discourses; and Mallika Shakya of South Asian University based in Delhi put forward their arguments about the ontology of Nepal Studies from academic and research perspectives. Other speakers, Bhaskar Gautam, Bidhya Chapagain and Kumud Rana presented their ideas based on their academic and media experiences. To the question, "Is there a discipline called Nepal Studies?" I would say, yes, there is a discipline called Nepal Studies. But the important point is how you would answer this very important question.

I would call it an academic subject because all the components and accoutrements of Nepal Studies have an academic character. Research studies about Nepali themes and the dissemination of the findings constitute one modality of Nepal Studies. People outside academia, too, have done significant work in this area. Researchers who were also historians like Baburam Acharya and Sanskrit scholar Yogi Narahari Nath had Nepal Studies as the focus of their research. But in later times, the historical studies entered a new phase of research as in the works of Mahesh Chandra Regmi, Triratna Manandhar, Pratyoush Onta and Rajesh Gautam, to take just a few examples. There are other people who have done important research work. The cultural studies as introduced by Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall, but not as a hardcore study of culture, have made important headway in Nepal. But the departments of culture and history are facing a crisis for a shortage of students.

Reference:

https://kathmandupost.com/columns/2023/07/28/nepal-studies-has-been-around