Inking an Identity: The Stories Behind Tharu Tattoo Motifs
Ways of Seeing: Revising Colonial Perceptions of the Himalaya by Amish Raj Mulmi
In his colonial conceit, British India’s governor-general Lord Curzon defined the Himalaya as ‘the most formidable natural frontier in the world’, allowing imperialism to imagine the world’s highest – and the youngest – mountain range as a barrier between South Asia and the rest of the continent. As colonial explorers 'discovered' the Himalaya for the rest of the world and practised an orientalism that persists to the modern day, nation-states in the Himalaya continue to borrow from such frameworks despite the challenges of climate change and governance today.
In this talk, writer Amish Raj Mulmi laid out a case against such colonial ways of seeing the Himalaya, and argued the Himalaya has always been a mobile and interconnected space where people, cultures, and gods have intermingled through history, borrowing from archaeology, religion and the histories of trade and migration.
The talk was organised by The South Asia Institute, Kathmandu Branch Office, at Alliance Française, Pulchowk, Lalitpur.
