Himal Southasian Podcast Channel Himal Southasian

Over the last many decades, India has taken pride in an election process that, while allowing close to a billion people to exercise their franchise, has always been largely free and fair. However, Narendra Modi’s government has taken a series of actions that have called the sanctity of the country's 2024 general elections into question. This includes a dubious scheme of electoral bonds that has allowed parties – Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party more than others – to raise funds from anonymous donors, as well as a reconstitution of the Election Commission that will likely favour the ruling party. The BJP has also dealt a hammer blow to the opposition by arresting two chief ministers on charges of corruption and freezing the largest opposition party’s assets.

In this episode of State of Southasia, Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Aakar Patel on how hard-won gains in democratic processes including elections have been squandered by the Modi government at great cost to the Indian republic. They also discusswhat the opposition’s options are and what an unfree and unfair election in the world's largest democracy meansfor the rest of Southasia.

State of Southasia releases a new interview every four weeks.

Episode notes:
Further reading from Himal’s archives:
The enduring personality cult of Narendra Modi: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/christophe-jaffrelot-gujarat-narendra-modi-bharatiya-janata-party-hindu-nationalism
With an unfree and unfair election, Pakistan prepares to repeat its past: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/pakistan-unfree-unfair-election-military-nawaz-sharif-imran-khan
State of Southasia #02: Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan’s stormy election and its message for the military: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/ayesha-siddiqa-pakistan-election-2024-imran-khan-shebaz-sharif-pml-nawaz-military
In Bangladesh’s sham election, the only real contest is geopolitical: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/geopolitics-us-europe-china-india-sheikh-hasina-awami-league-2024-bangladesh-election
Prabir Purkayastha’s fight against two Emergencies in India – under Modi and Indira Gandhi
Every vote counts in Kashmir: https://www.himalmag.com/reviews/prabir-purkayastha-newsclick-arrest-emergency-india-indira-gandhi-narendra-modi

This Southasian Conversation looks at the costs of Reliance's wildlife ambitions, featuring conservationist M D Madhusudan, environmental lawyer Shibani Ghosh and journalist M Rajshekhar in conversation with Roman Gautam, Editor of Himal Southasian.

Led by Anant Ambani and supported by the Indian government, the Reliance conglomerate’s effort to shelter abused elephants has transmuted into an enormous wildlife centre – raising concerns over the sourcing of some animals as well as over India’s wildlife management. Here we dive deeper into the past and disturbing present of wildlife conservation in India and beyond.

Read M Rajshekhar's story 'The costs of Reliance’s wildlife ambitions' here: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/reliance-ambani-anant-elephants-wildlife-vantara-radhe-krishna-trust-greens

This online conversation was recorded on 4 April, 2024 at 7 PM IST.

You can listen to this conversation on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Youtube.

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, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, speaks to the author Smriti Ravindra about her debut novel 'The Woman Who Climbed Trees' and the representation of the Madhesi community in the literary imagination of Nepal.

The Nepali-Indian writer Smriti Ravindra is a Fulbright scholar and holds an MFA in creative writing from the North Carolina State University. Her fiction and journalism have been published in the United States and in India, and she is the author of The Woman Who Climbed Trees, a searing story of three generations of women and the challenges faced by them in traditional societies across India and Nepal.

The novel begins with the story of a woman who climbed trees every night, and she gets labeled as a witch by her community. And the title also lets on, this is a story of women who break rules and will keep climbing trees despite the constraints of society weighing them down. With the lyrical use of folklore and mythology, Smriti Ravindra unravels the experiences of women who leave their parent’s homes after marriage, and in the process become strangers to their own selves, and outsiders in these settings.

The story, set partly in the late 1980s and early 1990s of Kathmandu, also traces the major political transitions of Nepal, addressing questions of ethnicity and corruption, and in doing so, the book sheds light on the long-ignored topic of the Madhesi experience, particularly that of women, in Nepali literature – which we explore further in this conversation.

This episode is now available on
Soundcloud: on.soundcloud.com/tnv3Tfpg39EG4sPC8
Spotify: spoti.fi/498g4Gv
Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3TxYgyF
Youtube: youtu.be/bX4IvY311-0

himalmag.com/podcast/smriti-ravindra-the-woman-who-climbed-trees-madhesi-women-identity-nepal-literature

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Southasia Review of Books is a podcast and a monthly newsletter that threads together our latest reviews and literary essays, with curated reading lists and all things books-related from Himal’s extensive archive. A special reading list curated by Smriti Ravindra will be featured in this month’s Southasia Review of Books Newsletter. You can subscribe to Himal’s newsletters here: bit.ly/HimalNewsletters

A new episode of the Southasia Review of Books Podcast will be available once every four weeks. If you like this episode, please share widely, rate, review, subscribe and download the show on your favourite podcast apps.

In this episode of State of Southasia, Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Ayesha Siddiqa, a political and military analyst from Pakistan and currently a senior fellow at the department of war studies at King’s College in London. Siddiqa is also the author of Military Inc, a revelatory book about the Pakistan military’s economic activities and their fallout. Ayesha Siddiqa discusses the support for Imran Khan in Pakistan’s recent election, the formation of a new government under Shebaz Sharif and growing public disaffection with the military

State of Southasia releases a new interview every four 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, the novelist V V Ganeshananthan joins host Shwetha Srikanthan, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, to talk about the books that define her latest novel, Brotherless Night, and women’s writing on Sri Lanka’s long history of anti-Tamil violence.

V V Ganeshananthan, also known as Sugi, is the author of the novels Brotherless Night (a New York Times Editors’ Choice) and Love Marriage, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post. She also teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota, where she is an associate professor of English, and co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast on Literary Hub, looking at the intersection of literature and the news.

Brotherless Night, published in 2023, contends with the Sri Lankan civil war’s end by returning to its beginning through the voice of Sashi, a young Tamil woman growing up in the northern city of Jaffna. As violence unfolds around Sashi, her four brothers and their friends, they navigate the complexities and contradictions of seeking political liberation while confronting the cruelty of the Sri Lankan government, Indian peacekeepers and Tamil militant groups.

As the book’s title lets on, there were huge costs to this war absorbed by young men in Sri Lanka’s north and east, but there’s also immense loss experienced by women - mothers, students, civilians and activists. Part of the success of Brotherless Night is that it’s not only an essential contribution to writings on Sri Lanka’s civil war, but it humanises the lived experiences of Tamil women and the ways in which they’ve been affected by anti-Tamil violence. Through Brotherless Night, Ganeshananthan poses urgent questions on whose stories are told and who gets to tell the stories and histories of conflict in Sri Lanka – which we explore further in this conversation.

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Southasia Review of Books is a podcast and a monthly newsletter that threads together our latest reviews and literary essays, with curated reading lists and all things books-related from Himal’s extensive archive. A special reading list curated by V V Ganeshananthan will be featured in this month’s Southasia Review of Books Newsletter. You can subscribe to Himal’s newsletters at bit.ly/HimalNewsletters. A new episode of the Southasia Review of Books Podcast will be available once every four weeks. If you like this episode, please share widely, rate, review, subscribe and download the show on your favourite podcast apps.

At Screen Southasia, we host monthly online screenings of compelling documentaries from the region, including Nepal, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka. We present a diverse range of films, both classic and new, that showcase the unique cultures, histories and perspectives of Southasia.

Screen Southasia is a partnership between Himal Southasian and Film Southasia.

In this Screen Southasia Q&A session, recorded on 5 February 2024, we speak with the filmmaker Jude Ratnam on his film 'Demons in Paradise'

Synopsis
Sri Lanka 1983 – Jude Ratnam is five years old. On a red train, he flees the massacre of Tamils instigated by the Pro-Sinhalese majoritarian government. Now a filmmaker, he takes the same train from South to North. As he advances, the traces of the violence of the 26-year-old war, which turned the Tamil fight for freedom into self-destructive terrorism pass before his eyes. He unveils the repressed memories of his compatriots, opening the door to a new era and making peace possible again. Demons in Paradise is the result of ten years of work. For the first time, a Tamil documentary filmmaker living in Sri Lanka is seeing the Civil war from the inside.