Archives of encounters in the 1950s

Unpublished Nepali-‘videshi’ engagement records have ended up across different archives worldwide.

At least two generations of historians who have done research on Nepal of the early 20th century have primarily relied on state archives in Nepal, India and the UK to produce their work. However, after the end of World War II and the beginning of the re-structuring of world politics—the end of the British colonial era in South Asia, the rise of the US as a superpower and the end of the Rana regime in Nepal in 1951—we saw the beginning of a new era of engagements for Nepal and Nepalis with new states, in particular the US, and with other foreign institutions and nationals. Various unpublished records of these new types of engagements have ended up across different archives worldwide. Here, I would like to point to three different types of new archival collections that we need to pay attention to if we want to write good histories of the Nepali- videshi encounters of the 1950s.