Fraser Sugden’s ‘Land, Labour and Agrarian Change in Nepal’s Tarai-Madhesh’ explains why decades of political upheaval have failed to break the hold of landlordism and poverty in Nepal’s southern plains

Pro-Israel groups and Buddhist extremists are expanding Israeli influence in Sri Lanka, stoking anti-Muslim sentiment as the government maintains ambivalence around Palestine and the Gaza genocide

A top monk’s alleged rape of a child threatens to unmask the Sri Lankan sangha, but its moral decay is rooted in the millennia-long transformation of the Buddha’s dhamma into Sinhala Buddhism

Fraser Sugden’s ‘Land, Labour and Agrarian Change in Nepal’s Tarai-Madhesh’ explains why decades of political upheaval have failed to break the hold of landlordism and poverty in Nepal’s southern plains

Rising military influence, crackdown on the PTI, and compromised electoral landscape indicate a shift towards autocratic rule

Pankaj Mishra’s look at intellectual history gives Asia’s tradition of anti-imperialist thought a pre-history.

Since February this year, Kukis and Nagas have reignited old animosities, adding to the ethnic violence and armed hostilities in Manipur

Pankaj Mishra’s ‘The World After Gaza’ searches for common ground between diverse histories of suffering, but his centring of Jewish trauma leaves Palestine diminished. Esmat Elhalaby, by contrast, recovers a forgotten history of anticolonial solidarity.

The transparency activist talks about the Election Commission’s partisan behaviour and allegations of it enabling voter fraud leading to questions of legitimacy of elections and governments

As Nepal demands climate reparations after the Bhotekoshi-Trishuli flood, it needs greater domestic research and data capacity to make robust Loss and Damage claims before a recalcitrant global system

Pankaj Mishra’s ‘The World After Gaza’ searches for common ground between diverse histories of suffering, but his centring of Jewish trauma leaves Palestine diminished. Esmat Elhalaby, by contrast, recovers a forgotten history of anticolonial solidarity.

Himal Southasian is South Asia’s independent, non-nationalist regional magazine, offering news, analysis, reviews, and stories from across the subcontinent.

Southasian sex workers defied the iconic feminist’s view of “prostitution” as “commercial rape” – and built a movement for their own empowerment

The professor of critical geography discusses how climatic variability, unregulated development and colonial water governance exacerbates Pakistan’s flood vulnerability

Despite decades of tension between feminists and sex workers, it is finally becoming clear that the former has much to learn from the latter.

Southasian sex workers defied the iconic feminist’s view of “prostitution” as “commercial rape” – and built a movement for their own empowerment

YouTube video by Himal Southasian

A US scholar made her name as an expert on Nepal’s cultural heritage – while illicitly buying sacred artefacts and smuggling them out to the United States

A US scholar made her name as an expert on Nepal’s cultural heritage – while illicitly buying sacred artefacts and smuggling them out to the United States

Some stories keep going long after they’ve been published. In 2024, Himal published an investigation by the reporter M Rajshekhar into Vantara – the massive private wildlife project helmed by Anant Ambani, a son of India’s (and Asia’s) richest family. This was the first major investigation into Vantara,

Saima Wazed steps down, India-Sri Lanka defence cooperation, Delhi student accommodation collapse and more

The first Nepali film to win at Cannes, Abinash Bikram Shah’s ‘Elephants in the Fog’ is a reminder of the gap between legal change and lived reality for the country’s transgender community