Exploring Himalaya: The Nepali way

Perspectives ‘from within’ the country can offer Himalayan Studies a distinctive Nepali flavour.

After the 1950s, as Nepal ceased to be the Shangri-La for Western scholars, systematic study of Himalaya, in the light of social science perspective, came to be considered as their forte, akin to the larger canvas of growth of social science imagination in Nepal. Consequently, Himalayan Studies in Nepal have also been imagined as beginning with the scholarly engagement of Western social scientists alone. Given the historical condition of Nepal’s ‘non-coloniality’, to use Mary Des Chene, it might seem premature to raise the clarion call for decolonising Himalayan Studies in Nepal. But will it not be too surprising to uncritically accept that in relation to Himalaya there had been a complete void of scholarship ‘from within’ Nepal?