Migration and climate change in Nepal, 'The Woman Who Climbed Trees' and more – Southasia Weekly #07
Gihan de Chickera

Migration and climate change in Nepal, 'The Woman Who Climbed Trees' and more – Southasia Weekly #07

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This week at Himal

This week, Jeff Joseph writes about Nepal’s inescapable trap of migration, agriculture and climate change – with farmers driven to migrate due to low agricultural incomes, only to return to farms impacted by growing climate risks.

Amanda Lanzillo asks how we might define a Southasian 20th century, delving into three recent books where historians move beyond the notion of a bounded Subcontinent by focusing on regional and local politics, complicating simplistic nation-state narratives. 

For Episode 2 of the South Asia Review of Books podcast, host Shwetha Srikanthan interviews Smriti Ravindra on her debut novel The Woman Who Climbed Trees. The podcast discusses the underrepresentation of Madhesi women in Nepali literature, Mithila folklore and mythology, and contemporary conversations around ethnicity and citizenship in Nepal.

Migration and climate change in Nepal, 'The Woman Who Climbed Trees' and more – Southasia Weekly #07
Nepal’s unescapable trap of migration, farming and climate change
Migration and climate change in Nepal, 'The Woman Who Climbed Trees' and more – Southasia Weekly #07
Southasia Review of Books podcast #02: Smriti Ravindra on exploring the Madhesi identity in the literary imagination of Nepal
Migration and climate change in Nepal, 'The Woman Who Climbed Trees' and more – Southasia Weekly #07
How should we define a Southasian 20th century?

This week in Southasia

Gihan de Chickera

India's continued support to Myanmar junta despite indiscriminate air-strikes

A new report highlights India’s continued backing for Myanmar’s ruling junta through military support, infrastructure and training. The advocacy group Justice for Myanmar has named the Indian Air Force and ten Public Sector Undertakings, most of them administered by India’s Ministry of Defence, as being complicit in war crimes. As the military junta continues to lose ground against coordinated resistance by anti-junta armed groups, it has resorted to air-strikes, particularly in Rakhine state, leading to civilian deaths. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, described the human rights situation in Myanmar as “a never-ending nightmare”, adding that the junta showed “a chilling disregard for human life.”

India’s support has included the supply of Automatic Weather Stations, which can be used to enhance the effectiveness of air-strikes; spare parts for MiG military aircraft; training for a propulsion plant for Myanmar’s navy, which has been involved in shelling coastal villages; over USD 3.7 million worth of fuel; equipment for coastal surveillance; and portable bridges, among other equipment. India has also entered into talks to supply Myanmar with missiles and has provided training for Myanmar’s military. India is reportedly the third biggest supplier of arms and equipment to Myanmar, behind China and Russia, and has continued to cultivate close ties with the junta, even post-coup, due to a multitude of factors including geopolitical forces and growing securitisation within the Modi government.

The release of the report coincides with Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day on 27 March, usually marked by military parades in Naypyidaw. However, the show of military strength this year may have little impact given that the junta continues to sustain losses in northern Shan, Rakhine and Kachin states. Anti-junta groups have also killed ten junta officials and detained 7 others involved in forced conscription. As the conflict intensifies, civilians continue to pay the price. 

Elsewhere in Southasia  📡

Only in Southasia!

Responding to a question about the Bharatiya Janata Party’s poor performance in elections in the Indian state of Kerala, the veteran BJP leader O Rajagopal was startlingly honest. He pinpointed Kerala’s 90-percent literacy rate as a reason the BJP was unable to make headway in the state.

“They are thinking, they are argumentative… These are the habits of educated people. That is one issue,” he said. Perhaps this is why the BJP was left without candidates in four constituencies for the Indian parliament in Kerala just last week, with the country’s general election imminent.

There’s room to debate exactly what ails the BJP in Kerala, but we’re inclined to take Rajagopal at his word.

Jayati Ghosh

From the archive

Victory's silence (December 2008)

As this week marks 53 years since the 1971 Liberation War, Bina d’Costa’s article on the “war babies” born during or after the birth of Bangladesh is worth revisiting. D’Costa argues that there is a need to revive stories of these marginalised voices in order for Bangladesh to understand its history and reconcile itself with its past. The complex relationship between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh can also be better understood through tracing bitter memories of Partition, d’Costa writes. 

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