Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange

After two decades of relative dormancy, the idea of Southasian cooperation has begun to develop nuances and shades in the minds of policymakers in the countries that make up the region. While earlier there had been a superficial appeal to the ‘civilisational’ unity of the Subcontinent, there is now a more fleshed-out, and necessarily complex, approach to conceptualising ‘Southasia’. This evolution in regional thinking has ramifications in the arena of geopolitics and culture, trade and commerce, peace and development, and most importantly in the arena of social justice. Southasian cooperation will lead to a peace dividend in the form of poverty reduction, with economic revival in the ‘periphery’ of each of the countries where they meet on the ground.

The Southasia Trust, which publishes Himal Southasian – Southasia’s first and only regional magazine, stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives – has established a separate unit, the Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange (formerly SaRU). The formation of the unit is linked to the inadequacy of the purely journalistic approach in exploring issues and trends that impact on the population; there is a need to conduct social scientific research, especially in the arena of culture, over a longer time frame with even more rigorous and specialised tools. The findings of such research will them be published as ‘tracts’ or monographs that will be placed before scholars and policy-makers even as Himal’s pages also carry the findings of such research.

Himal has long played the role of bringing together individuals and organisations in Southasia, even without the task being an official part of the magazine’s goals. And so the Hri Institute was born, adding the task of functioning as a forum that forges connections between individuals and organisations working on issues within the Institute’s areas of interest in Southasia to the research aspect. In Buddhism, “Hri” is a sound or a vibration, the utterance of which awakens the empathy that is an inherent part of every sentient being.

The Hri endeavour, besides the more overt political issues of cross-border relevance, will focus on culture, music, literature or the performing arts

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Graffiti that reads Azaadi or Freedom on the footbridge over River Jhelum in Srinagar.

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The Kashmiri and the Indian by Shivam Vij

People-to-people dialogue is the best way out of the Kashmir logjam.

The battle for bauxite – Sudha Ramachandran writes about the Dongria Kondhs of southern Orissa who are up in arms on the grounds that their land, culture and way of life, their very survival as a distinct tribe, is under serious threat from UK mining giant Vedanta Resources.

Delayed transit – Saad Hammadi on the Nepal-Bangladesh transit trade agreement, the modalities of which have finally been worked out between the two countries. What remains to be seen now is how soon these agreements will be implemented.

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Southasian Classifieds

Job vacancy at South Asia Women's Fund (SAWF)

The Caravan-Panos Special Assignment Fellowship for Print Journalists

Announcement for application to short-term fellowships

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