In his review of Resunga: The Mountain of the Horned Sage (#29), Sudhindra Sharma highlights various features of the book and writes, "Also unique is the fact that the geographical boundary of the area studied is not ecological such as a basin or a watershed but political, constituting as it does, the two districts of Gulmi and Arghakanchi." I fail to understand in what sense he has used the term "unique". If Sharma was referring to the history of western scholarship on Nepal, then perhaps the use of this term is partially justified although there have been previous studies that have focused on regions that once were political units. But if one considers Nepali writings, the use of the term is quite inaccurate. There are many works in Nepali that focus on political boundaries at the district or the zonal level. Apart from works written by Nepali historians, we might recall Krishna P Parajuli's classic Purva ek number (a study of Kavre-palanchowk and Sindhupalchowk published 35 years ago), Ratnakar Devkota's works on Jumla, Dharmaraj Thapa's book on Lamjung, Purna P Yatri's writings on Seti Anchal, the Royal Nepal Academy sponsored 5-volume study of the Karnali, etc. One can also think of quite a few anchalik Nepali fiction and non-fiction writings focused on political units, the latter having increased significantly in the last ten years. The list can be made long but that is not my intention here.

It is not much of a surprise that the French team of researchers who worked on the project from which this book was born does not seem to be aware of this genre of Nepali studies. However one does expect a reference and comparison to it from a Nepali social scientist of Sharma's standing, especially so when he goes on to talk about the politics of representation and reminds anthropologists that they need to reflect on "how and under
what circumstances they enter the social scene being studied." While berating the authors for failing to engage with issues highlighted by debates in social sciences regarding this politics, Sharma should have also asked how the entire French project could have been formulated without a reference to the Nepali body of knowledge. Without an analysis that brings to critical focus the context in which Western scholarship on Nepal continues to be formulated even in these post-Saidian times, reference to the French pantheon of gurus (Foucault, Bourdieu and company) can only be read as a desire to be counted by the signposts established by metropolitan centres of social science theorising. As Said pointed out, Orientalism was the empire citing itself. Shall our engagement with Western scholarship on Nepal be done in a way as if we learnt nothing from his famous book and subsequent encounters with anthropology?

Pratyoush Onta
Martin Chautari
Kathmandu