Essay

“Yes, our son is gay”: A Nepali father’s awakening
A path-breaking personal essay calling for social acceptance and full rights for Nepal’s LGBTIQ+ community
Bhojraj Pokharel (translated by Niranjan Kunwar) | May 10, 2023

What really makes a Sikkimese?
India’s Supreme Court set off a storm by describing Sikkimese-Nepalis as people of “foreign origin.” As “Indian” Old Settlers fight for new rights, Sikkim’s Bhutia-Lepcha and Nepali communities face a reckoning over belonging and identity.
Mona Chettri | May 01, 2023

How agrarian utopianism shapes Sri Lanka
The idealised "village" was at the core of the people’s struggle last year. As a fundamental of Sri Lankan nationalist thought, agrarian utopianism helps to explain the country’s past and imagine a different future.
Dhanuka Bandara | Apr 17, 2023

Why the movement against Rampal plant in Bangladesh failed
Five years after a people’s movement to stop a power plant near the Sundarban, Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government has pushed the project through. Why did this movement fail where others in Bangladesh have succeeded?
Anupam Debashis Roy | Feb 24, 2023

The Muslim-left legacy of an Urdu library in Mumbai
The Awami Idara, rooted in a working-class Muslim neighbourhood, connects the long history of Southasian Muslim labour activism to political movements and events across Mumbai, Southasia and beyond.
Amanda Lanzillo | Jan 09, 2023

Finding food in Chandrapur
An up-close account of hunger, food insecurity and ineffective state policies from a district in central India.
Paromita Goswami | Dec 23, 2022

Refusal and responsibility
The predicament and precarity of Tibetan intellectuals in China.
Palden Gyal | Aug 26, 2022

On non-political Assamese
How two civil-society groups have defined politics in Assam.
Suraj Gogoi | Apr 13, 2022

Remembering a Southasian feminist
On the life and times of Kamla Bhasin.
Radhika Coomaraswamy | Oct 15, 2021
