A conversation with the book historian on how Daryaganj’s Patri Kitab Bazaar tells the story of Delhi’s urban aspirations, spatial politics and informal economies: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/kanupriya-dhingra-delhi-daryaganj-book-bazaar

On 3 January, the body of Mukesh Chandrakar, a journalist in the Bastar region of India’s Chhattisgarh state, was found in a septic tank, bearing signs that he had been brutally killed. He had been missing for two days. Investigations into the case indicate that his murder is linked to his reporting for a national news channel about corruption in a road construction project. The main accused in the case is the project contractor, who also happens to be Mukesh’s cousin. 

In 2011, Jyotirmoy Dey,  a crimes and investigations editor for  a newspaper in Mumbai who had written extensively on the city’s underworld, was shot dead  by armed men on a motorcycle. In 2016, Rajdeo Ranjan, a journalist in Siwan district in Bihar, was gunned down by assailants on motorcycles. In 2017, Gauri Lankesh, the editor of a Kannada language newspaper who was a vocal critic of right-wing politics, was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru. 

Over the years, despite calls by media bodies for better protections, the risks for media workers have not reduced. The risks are greater for journalists like Chandrakar and Ranjan, who work in small towns and districts, who are less visible and have less access to support than their counterparts in big cities.   

In this episode of State of Southasia, Priyanka Dubey, the journalist who reported on Ranjan’s murder in 2016 speaks to Nayantara Narayanan about the precarities of journalism in India’s hinterlands.

Himal’s podcasts bring you the best conversations on Southasia. Become a paying Patron for just USD 5/ month to support our work: bit.ly/support-himal

Further reading from Himal’s archives:

State of Southasia #05: Laxmi Murthy on journalism in crisis across Southasia

Rana Ayyub on the dangers of doing journalism in India

The political economy of reporting on the War on Terror in the

Afghanistan–Pakistan borderlands

Keeping journalism alive in Kashmir

The crisis in Pakistani journalism

Letter from Myanmar: Journalism under attack

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A conversation with the Nepali-born writer on her debut novel ‘Kanchhi’, and capturing the realities of women’s lives in rural Nepal.

https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/weena-pun-kanchhi-women-rural-nepal-literature

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, speaks to Weena Pun about her new debut novel Kanchhi (Hachett India, September 2024).

In Torikhola in the western midhills of Nepal, Kanchhi, the only daughter of her single mother, is at odds with the rules and customs of her hamlet and opposes the shame imposed on her ambitions and curiosity. One November morning she leaves home, and that is the last anybody sees of her. A decade later, Maiju still prays for her daughter’s return.

This heart-wrenching coming-of-age story follows Kanchhi and her mother negotiating life and societal pressures in rural Nepal. And as much as the book looks closely at women’s place in Nepali society, it also captures the realities of life in the hamlet Kanchhi is from, and the socio-political reasons for Kanchhi’s disappearance. 

This episode is now available on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4h0HUJA

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3PJFumC

Youtube: https://youtu.be/uB0DNnfBY94

We’re on a mission to give Southasian literature the spotlight it deserves. Become a paying Himal Patron for just USD 5/month to support the Southasia Review of Books: bit.ly/support-himal

Bhutan’s Nepali-speaking diaspora, created by the expulsion of the Lhotshampa in the 1990s, can help the country’s tottering economy, the researcher says – if the Bhutan government were ready to reach out.

In the introduction to her book The Ecosystem of Exile Politics: Why Proximity and Precarity Matter for Bhutan’s Homeland Activists, Susan Banki, a researcher of the international refugee system, tells the story of Bhakta Ghimire, a homeland activist from the community of Nepali-speaking Bhutanese. In the early 1990s, Ghimire was a young man working in a cement factory in Samste, in southern Bhutan. One day, he heard rumours that Bhutan’s ethnic Nepalis – also known as the Lhotshampa – were being evicted from their homes following a national census exercise. He rushed to his parents house to find it empty, crossed into India to find them, and eventually joined the stream of Nepali Bhutanese leaving Bhutan.   

Tens of thousands of Nepali-speaking Bhutanese were forced to flee their homes in southern Bhutan after a citizenship policy disenfranchised them, a cultural policy imposed Bhutan’s dominant Drukpa traditions – including clothing norms – on them, and a census exercise forced them from their homes. These families have lived as refugees in Nepal, India and other parts of the world – many in precarious conditions in refugee camps, others resettling in countries such as the United States and Australia. And activists like Ghimire have been asking for the right to return to Bhutan.

On this episode of State of Southasia, Banki speaks to Nayantara Narayanan about the status of these refugees today, the history of the Lhotshampa question and why Bhutan’s king and government are missing an opportunity by not reaching out to the Nepali Bhutanese community amid Bhutan’s current economic troubles. She says that Bhutan’s Nepali-speaking diaspora, created by the expulsion and refugee crisis of the 1990s, can help the country’s tottering economy with remittances and through exchange programmes, if the government were to reach out to them.

Himal’s podcasts bring you the best conversations on Southasia. Become a paying Patron for just USD 5/ month to support our work: bit.ly/support-himal

This podcast is now available on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4gL5Y2W

Apple podcasts: https://apple.co/3WfoLLJ

Youtube: https://youtu.be/h5HS0e7CE9w

Website: himalmag.com/podcast/nepali-bhutanese-lhotshampa-refugees-diaspora-susan-banki

In her biography of the city, the Kashmiri writer highlights the complications of Srinagar’s identity and recentres the everyday lives of its people, particularly women.

https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/srinagar-kashmir-identity-women-memory-tourism-history-sadaf-wani

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, speaks to the Kashmiri writer Sadaf Wani about her new book City as Memory: A Short Biography of Srinagar (Aleph Book Company, June 2024). 

Srinagar, in its changing forms, has been the centre of political and cultural activity in Kashmir for centuries. The city has a rich history that has been overshadowed by its turbulent political past and present, which  has shaped all readings and accounts of the place. 

Without losing sight of the ongoing political conflict and militarisation in India-administered Kashmir, Wani offers a corrective. In her biography of the city, she explores the collective historical, cultural and personal memories of Srinagar. From its cultures of leisure to the manufactured “normalcy” of life in Srinagar today, Wani unpacks how the city’s people, and its women in particular, are reclaiming their narratives.  

We’re on a mission to give Southasian literature the spotlight it deserves. Become a paying Himal Patron for just USD 5/month to support the Southasia Review of Books: https://bit.ly/support-himal

This episode is now available on

🎧Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4a6WEDX

🎧Youtube: https://youtu.be/38PoFGJkwEw

🎧Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4a9aRk3

Putting the year in perspective, editor Roman Gautam and the hosts of Himal’s podcasts take a look back at the highlights, stories and episodes that shaped an extraordinary and challenging year

December is nearly over, and 2025 is just around the corner, so we’re bringing you a very special episode where Himal’s editor Roman Gautam and podcast hosts Nayantara Narayanan and Shwetha Srikanthan reflect on what has been an incredible year here at Himal Southasian. 

In 2024, we launched a new website, a revamped Himal’s Patron programme, brought you more ambitious stories and great Southasian journalism, improved and expanded our newsletters, and launched two new podcasts. 

We’ve also doubled our output of podcasts: from publishing an episode every two weeks, we’re now releasing a new episode every single week. Now you get even more of the State of Southasia, where Southasia’s top minds unpack essential news and events, and the Southasia Review of Books, the place for all things literary in the region.

So here’s a roundup of what we’ve been able to pull off this year and what’s in store for Himal in 2025. 

Become a paying Himal Patron to keep our podcasts paywall-free and open-access for everyone in Southasia, and help us bring you more intelligent conversations on the region’s politics, culture and society in 2025 and beyond: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal

On 21 November, a deadly attack targeted a convoy of Shia Muslims traveling from Parachinar to Peshawar in Pakistan’s Kurram district, a region with a long history of sectarian violence. The convoy, consisting of over 100 vehicles, was ambushed by Sunni extremists on the Tal Parachinar Road, a crucial lifeline for the Shia-majority area. Despite being under security escort, the convoy was attacked at multiple points with heavy gunfire, leaving 130 people dead, including women and children.

Survivors claimed that the attackers were Sunnis and some accounts said that announcements had been made from mosques in the area calling for the killing of Shias. The event highlights the growing sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia communities in Pakistan, especially in Kurram, a region historically marked by land disputes but increasingly shaped by extremist ideologies.

The hostility towards Shia Muslims extends beyond Kurram. Nationally, they face hate speech, discrimination, and systemic marginalisation. Even though the media often remains silent or underreports sectarian violence, this lack of coverage further dehumanises the victims, allowing violence to continue unchecked. 

In this episode of State of Southasia Sana Batool, a researcher and writer, explains how this conflict has evolved from local resource disputes to ideological battles, particularly during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s, when sectarian violence intensified. She says that despite constitutional guarantees of religious freedom, the judiciary rarely prosecutes sectarian violence effectively, and state inaction has bred deep mistrust among Shia communities.

State of Southasia releases a new interview every two weeks.

In his new memoir, spanning the 1980s and the present, the renowned writer and activist reflects on neoliberalism in the West and turmoil in Southasia, and fiercely critiques the War on Terror and the crimes of Israel: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/writing-dissent-activism-southasia-palestine-revolutions-memoir-tariq-ali

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

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, speaks to the renowned Pakistani-British activist, writer and public intellectual Tariq Ali about his new memoir, You Can’t Please All: Memoirs 1980-2024 (Verso, November 2024).

Through anecdotes and reflections, Ali offers glimpses of the fascinating company he has kept – Edward Said, Satyajit Ray, Hugo Chávez, Benazir Bhutto – as well as moving accounts of his family and how they lived during the early years of Pakistan.

A sharp-eyed eyewitness to a chaotic and confusing world, Ali understands that its problems don’t ever change, they just take different forms. In this memoir, he recounts a life committed to socialist and anti-imperialist activism, to writing and cultural intervention that ushered in a new era of dissent. 

This episode is now available on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/49viosP

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3OLtTDa

and Youtube: https://youtu.be/xAjFyMVhLGw

Manipur has been mired in an ethnic and political conflict since May 2023, primarily involving violent clashes between the Meitei community, which predominantly resides in the Imphal Valley, and the Kuki-Zomi-Hmars, which are tribal communities mostly living in the state's hilly areas. The violence, fueled by longstanding ethnic tensions, has resulted in hundreds of deaths, widespread displacement and the destruction of property. The state’s governance has collapsed and citizens have armed themselves against each other because of the failure of law and order. Several incidents of murder, rape, kidnapping, torture, sexual assault and arson have been reported on both sides. 

At the heart of the crisis is a demand by the Meiteis for Scheduled Tribe status, which would grant them affirmative action benefits in education, employment, and political representation. This demand has been fiercely opposed by the Kuki and Naga tribes, who fear that such a move would undermine their own rights and lead to greater dominance by the Meitei community.

The state government has been accused of neglect and mismanagement and the central government has failed to intervene effectively. Manipur’s chief minister Biren Singh, of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, has been criticised for inflaming tensions, particularly after calling the Kuki people “narco-terrorists” and stoking ethnic divisions. Despite strong calls for his removal, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah have allowed him to keep his post. 

In this episode of State of Southasia, Patricia Mukhim, a senior journalist from Shillong, highlights the state’s failure to address long-standing inequalities and warns of the current dangerous stalemate, with both communities disillusioned and no resolution in sight.

State of Southasia releases a new interview every two weeks.

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, associate editor at Himal Southasian, speaks to Ari Gautier on his new short story collection, Nocturne Pondicherry, translated from the French by Roopam Singh (Hachette India, June 2024), and his novel, Lakshmi’s Secret Diary, translated by Sheela Mahadevan (Columbia University Press, September 2024). 

Blending philosophy, retellings of Southasian mythology, and the little-known history of French colonialism in Pondicherry, Lakshmi’s Secret Diary tells the fictionalised story of a temple elephant seeking to escape captivity. Through Lakshmi’s journey, where she encounters a colorful cast of animals, both real and mythical, Ari Gautier provides a searing critique of the caste system and colonial rule and sheds light on the paradoxes of human-animal relations in India, where animals are both abused and worshiped. 

In Nocturne Pondicherry, we see the city in altogether a different light. Ari’s immersive, dark and unsettling collection of short stories peels back layers of ghettoised Black Town where its ill-fated dwellers are at the mercy of caste oppression, anger, greed and lust. 

This episode is now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud and Youtube.