Welcome to Season 2 of The Nepali Outpost! The first few episodes of Season 2 are part of a mini-series The Nation and the Civilization.
In Episode 1, we talk with Dr. Nirmala Mani Adhikary, author and communication theorist, about the fractional nature of identity politics, how the Hindu community should respond to cow killing, and why Nepal has to look at its knowledge system to resolve social conflict.
The discussion then moves on to how Nepal's indigenous civilizational conception of the state and the nation is different from the Western understanding of the nation and state. Dr. Adhikary talks about why "dharma" ( not religion) is central to statecraft, and the "incommensurability between how people are living and how people are perceiving".
I also ask him how he plans to win over "Kathmandu liberals" who do not subscribe to his approach to decolonization. And how the Nepali diaspora can help ongoing punarjagaran. He speaks about Mitra-bodh and Satru-Bodh, and what the "most foolish" thing a person in the Nepali diaspora can do.
We end with why he thinks Hindutva works for India but not for Nepal, where Sanatana Dharma should be the guiding principle. And why BJP and RSS need reorientation towards indigenous worldview.
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