I had a lengthy meeting with this gentleman yesterday. He seems dynamic, charming and, most of all, very knowledgeable about Nepali politics/history -- I have no doubt that he knows much more about Nepal than many of us do! Speaks Nepal like a Nepali, and speaks Hindi and Bengali too. For those who can make it to the following program, I am sure the trip and a modest admission fee of $7 ($5 for students) will be well worth it.

Here's a brief introduction of the gentleman:

Rhoderick Chalmers joined Crisis Group in February 2004 as a Senior Analyst in
the Kathmandu field office. He has spent several years living and working in the
region and holds a PhD in South Asian languages and cultures from the School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His first degree was in
Oriental Studies from the University of Cambridge and his early research was on
language and society in Bangladesh. More recently he has spent time as a
Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies in Kathmandu and has
published several articles on modern Nepali history in English and Nepali
journals and magazines.


Friday, June 3rd.
Rubin Museum, 150 West 17th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues)

NEPAL'S IDENTITY CRISIS: The Cultural and Historical
Forces Behind the Maoist Insurgency; Free with Museum
Admission; Time: 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

A discussion on the conflicting visions of cultural,
ethnic, religious, and linguistic identities that make
up Nepal

by Rhoderick Chalmers.
Free with Museum admission ($7/ $5 for students,
artists, seniors and neighbors in zips 10001, 10011) -
first come, first served

Nepal has long been known as a Himalayan "hermit
kingdom"--closed to the world until the 1950s,
preserving strands of Hindu and Buddhist culture
unsullied by colonialism, and sustaining picturesque
ethnic communities. The Maoist insurgency that has
swept through Nepal in the last ten years has called
into question how these "simple," traditional
villagers in these remote hills have been caught up in
a violent movement that apparently draws its
inspiration from a bygone age? At its heart, the
current conflict can be seen as an eruption of painful
questions of identity and modernity that successive
rulers had sought to suppress. This talk looks back to
the formative stages of Nepal's cultural and political
history and suggests that, beyond its headline
ideology, the Maoist insurgency can be understood in
the context of the long-standing conflict over
cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic identity.
Resolving these issues of identity will be just as
important as shaping political institutions if Nepal
is ever to become a true nation-state in which all
citizens share a similar idea of what it is to be
Nepali.

Dr Rhoderick Chalmers, is the International Crisis
Group's Deputy South Asia Project Director, and is
shortly to have his 'We Nepalis'. Language,
literature, and the formation of a Nepali public
sphere in India, 1914- published by Oxford University
Press. He currently holds a visiting fellowship at
Kathmandu's Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies and is
an editor of Contributions to Nepalese Studies.

This program is presented in association with the
International Crisis Group.