Shubhanga Pandey on the saga of Himal Southasian

Gordon J. Whiting: How did you come to be associated with Himal Southasian?

Shubhanga Pandey: I used to be a reader of the magazine in my late teens. I came across it in my high school library.

GJW: Where would that be?

SP: This was at St. Xavier's College in Kathmandu. I also saw it in the newsstands, and at the homes of a few relatives that I thought were well-read. It gave the impression of being a serious, scholarly magazine, but which was also well-written, publicly accessible and often witty. And its range wasn't just limited to Nepal, so when I started reading it, I used to associate it with other international magazines like the New Yorker or Newsweek and so on. During my undergraduate years in the U.S., I started following it more closely and also started consuming similar magazines from around the world. I was studying at Williams College in Massachusetts, and reading things like The Atlantic,The Nation, and Harper's, but also back issues of magazines associated with 20th-century New York intellectual culture—so things like Partisan Review or Commentary. I was fascinated by the history of that culture of vibrant, sometimes pugnacious, intellectual activity around those periodicals, their writers and their editors. So I guess I saw Himal in a similar light, occupying a similar position in the South Asian scene. I was particularly drawn by the reviews they carried, which were always sharp and at times could involve harsh takedowns. More than anything, they seemed like a magazine averse to producing bland, vague pieces.The editorial voice was erudite and lively, and the cast of writers represented some of the most insightful, articulate voices from across South Asia. 

GJW:  And so even though you were familiar with it, you began to sort it into place by seeing more of the American and international magazines later–is that fair to say?

SP: Yes, I think so. And I was also reading more of what was in the larger South Asian, predominantly Indian, public sphere around this time—this would be when I was 19 or 20. I mean I had seen copies of well-known Indian newspapers and periodicals like The Hindu and Times of India, or Frontline and Outlook back in Kathmandu. But they didn't really come into my radar so much. So ironically I started reading much more of South Asian journalism, politics and public life, while I was in college here in the States, as I was doing, or supposed to be doing, astrophysics and mathematics, which is a different story altogether. So I was, you know, playing–I had these two lives. Suddenly, I was thinking of magazine writing and magazine editing as something that I might actually want to do. And I was at a liberal arts school. So they cultivated that kind of sensibility; it seemed like a thing that would be normal and very much doable.

GJW: You mean at Williams?

SP:  Yeah. At the end of year three I was already starting to think that I might eventually get a major in astrophysics, but I probably wouldn't want to do it as a career that is, spend several more years of graduate school in astrophysics, then jobs in that field of work and so on. So when I was back home during summer of my third year in college, I decided to do an internship with Himal. I applied, started the internship, and after two months, they offered me a job, an entry level, assistant editor job.

GJW:  In Kathmandu?

SP: In Kathmandu. And that was ideal for me, because, you know, I got to make a living by doing reading and writing, and that in my own hometown. So, I got this opportunity before even finishing college. It seemed perfect. I only had to convince my school that I wasn't just lounging around avoiding my education. Luckily the husband of my dean at Williams, the well-known American photographer Kevin Bubriski, had contributed photographs to Himal back in the late 80s. So they knew I wasn't completely wasting my time. I ended up spending three years on an extended leave, which the school allowed me to do. And so I did that for three years and a bit. And then came back. 

GJW:  Extended-extended leave.

SP:  Yes, very extended.

GJW:  Then you were with Himal those three years? 

SP:  Yes, throughout. 

GJW:  What were you doing?

SP:  I initially started as an intern. I was helping upload stories on the internet, doing a bit of research, a bit of fact checking. Himal really prides itself on its fact checking, and they have a separate position for a fact checker, which was rare then and is even rarer today. Everything Himal publishes goes through this process. Once I became one of the assistant editors, I got involved in the full life-cycle of an article: the usual process was the editorial email account would receive submissions, pitches and, sometimes, full draft. The team would discuss and decide which ones to take. Each one of us would get something to edit. If you were starting out, you might be assigned a relatively simpler or shorter piece, and then you sort of developed your skills—editorial instincts and muscles—by more or less learning on the job.

GJW:  Paint the picture of the team at this point.

SP:  So when I joined in late 2013 we still had Kanak Mani Dixit, the magazine’s founder, as the editor, but on both managerial and editorial fronts the de facto editor was Aunohita Mojumdar, a journalist with reporting stints in Punjab, Kashmir and Kabul, who I think had the title of associate editor. Kanak was, as he still is, also busy with several civil-society commitments, from heritage conservation to human rights. Then there were between four or five assistant editors, who essentially kept the editorial machinery up and running. With a fact checker and usually an intern, we had an editorial team of seven or eight people, all based in Kathmandu. When I joined, I was the youngest in the team and 24, the oldest assistant editor was probably 32—so a young team. And everyone I recall came with diverse training in the social sciences and humanities—you know, literary studies or international law or anthropology or something like that. Very few people, if any, came straight out of journalism school, which I believe has been true for the editorial team before or after my time.

GJW: So when you describe looking for pictures and stories for acceptance, that would be the group that would be–

SP:  That would be involved in doing this. And it was a pretty cosmopolitan group. During my time at Himal in Kathmandu and then in Colombo, we had editors from Australia, Germany, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the US. So the team has always been a mix of those from South Asia and outside, but people with expertise and deep commitment in the region.

GJW:  So it was always digital and print, or it was one and then the other, or both. How did that flow?

SP:  When the magazine started in 1987 it was obviously only in print, but it was among the first media outlets in South Asia to go digital, and I think they've been online since at least 1996. They had a very active blog presence, maybe from mid-2000s to around 2012. So the magazine and its writers and editors were very much a part of the emergence of the digital public sphere in South Asia.

GJW:  It must have been a leader, a groundbreaker.

SP:  Yeah, very much. If you look at the PDFs of issues from late 90s and early 2000s a lot of advertisements are for Nepal’s internet providers, for example. Or if you go further back to 1989, you’ll see an ad for the Macintosh computer. So they were always very closely engaged with the arrival of digital technology in the region. You know, they were taking credit card payments for subscriptions since the late 1990s so they were also linked to global payment systems, mainly because a solid chunk of the readership lived outside South Asia. That's always been the case.

GJW:  What would be the ratio then and now, or over the years? 

SP:  I think it's always been close to half and half.

GJW:  Inside and outside? 

SP:  Yeah, especially if you look at the paid subscriptions.

GJW: "Inside" would mean South Asia?

SP:  Yeah, South Asia. And South Asia would be from Afghanistan to Burma, and from Tibet to the Maldives.

GJW:  Where would the sweet spot be for most of the readers?

SP:  If you look at cities in the subcontinent, it would be, let's say, Delhi, Bangalore, Colombo, Chennai, Islamabad, Kolkata, Lahore, Kathmandu, Dhaka, and so on. Basically the metropolitan centers in the region. Then you would also see good numbers in other cosmopolitan Asian cities like Singapore and Hong Kong. The other large bloc of readers would be in the usual suspects in the West: cities with sizable South Asian diaspora and major universities, so say New York, London, LA, Sydney, Berlin, Paris, Chicago, Toronto, Amsterdam, etc.

GJW:  So you became chief editor eventually. Describe that role, how you got it, and what you did?

SP:  So, the magazine moved to Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 2018, and we started afresh there. We had Aunohita Mojumdar, who was chief editor, and then I was next to her in the deputy position. Having moved from Kathmandu due to pressures from the Nepal government—a city where Himal had been based for the past three decades, we were operating in Colombo in the digital form only. When Aunohita left two years later, COVID had just struck, I recall her having serious difficulty flying out, and she was probably in the last flight out of Colombo to Delhi before the long-term lockdowns began. So I basically took over right around, I'd say February of 2020. And I was in that position till August 2022. 

It was, in many ways, a dream job. Of course, it was a lot of new work for me, especially dealing with the managerial, financial and legal aspects of running an organization. Although because I had assisted my boss in some aspects of this in the preceding years, following the move to Sri Lanka, it wasn’t completely alien work to me, you know, things like hiring or fundraising. Still, being in charge of things does put everything in a different light.So I was overseeing the editorial operations, and doing a host of other things involved in managing a non-profit journalistic organization. It was a small team, so I was also always editing something or the other. But like in the past, the editorial machinery was basically kept alive by the rest of the editors, fact-checkers, researchers etc. 

GJW:  What would be a timeline? How long was the gestation, typically?

SP:  Once it's been received?

GJW:  You make an assignment, they work on it, they go through various drafts, and now it's done, ready for publication

SP:  It would depend on the length, complexity and urgency of any given piece. So if it's a short opinion piece, especially if it's something that's very current–that would probably be a few days of turnaround time. Although those kinds of pieces were in the minority, since Himal’s focus was on in-depth analytical stories. Otherwise, I would say the majority of pieces would gestate between two to three weeks to a few months. Of course, this was all tied to the publishing calendar, which had to be kept turning. So a piece wouldn’t be out immediately after it was finalized, but be placed somewhere in the calendar.

GJW:  So, how did you deal with errant writers and reporters?

SP:  Well, now that I’m doing more of my writing and am on the other side of the editorial process, I'm realizing how often one ends up pushing deadlines all the time. But as editors, well, I guess we always have carrots and stick, both. To be honest, a lot of editing work is pleading work, partly because of the nature of the work, but also because of the changes in the economics of journalism. Most writers who are published in outlets like Himal, for example, are not relying on this for their livelihood. It's usually something they do on the extra. Sometimes they are reporters and journalists engaged with other media outlets, sometimes freelancers engaged with multiple organizations, sometimes scholars and researchers with other full-time commitments. Whatever the case, publishing in an outlet like Himal, known for credibility, prestige and a particular kind of reach, is always an incentive of its own. A lot of time, you're asking people to do incredibly difficult work: that is to write in an intelligent and lively way about very complex subjects, with a lot of rigorous research, without resorting to either newspaper cliches or academic jargons. If it is an academic, they're doing extra work to be more accessible, without being simplistic, to the larger public. If it's journalists, we're pushing them to do a bit more layered and time-intensive work. So we're asking them to do extra labor, for relatively limited fees, and we're putting them through several hoops of rewriting, fact checking, and copy editing. There’s always a chance for friction, and not everyone always enjoys close, critical engagement with their writing. But eventually, most writers are thankful, because all writing can always be edited, sharpened, polished, and because the process does catch weaknesses in arguments, or errors of facts, and writers always appreciate that. Part of Himal's remit has always been working with young writers, to mentor them into the craft of public-facing writing and journalism. 

So, we're often in the position of supplicant, but I think it's always an interesting relationship, and mutually enriching, developed over long, elaborate comments on the margins of the page, and over differences that would be resolved through writing and rewriting. I think a big part of the story of Himal is actually not always out there, because it's in the process of making that article where a lot of it happens. And I think this is true for all good editorial operations.

GJW:  That's an interesting remark. The piece happens in the making of it, between the editors–

SP:  And the writers. The first thing I was told when I was editing my first piece was to, make sure that I read whatever I could find on this subject, not just what was being cited by the writer, and to spend a few days reading around the topic, because one should be able to discuss at length and depth on the matter with the writer.

GJW: Tell about the map and why it was so subversive? What was the genesis of it? 

SP: Yes, yes. It's a great visual encapsulation of the ethos of Himal and really the perfect symbol of the brand that the magazine represents.So it came out, this would have been 2004, made by designer Subhas Rai and conceptualized by the editors of Himal. Of course, the map is memorable and playful, a great brand really, but it's also a serious, properly cartographic object that makes a particular statement. Our notion of South Asia, and the place of various nation states and other political, cultural zones within the subcontinent is conditioned by a particular mental map, one that has the standard North-South bearing and with Himalayas on the top, and the Indian Ocean islands at the bottom. It is a view dominated by the image of the subcontinental peninsula jutting out against the ocean, and for most people where the modern Indian republic provides easy orientation. But if you just invert the map and view it upside down—or “right-side-up” as Himal’s editors put it—you start actually seeing the whole region differently. I think you instantly appreciate alternative visions of the region when the familiar cartographic shapes of nation states no longer dominate the view. For example, historical zones with linguistic and cultural continuities—straddling boundaries of more recent territorial states—appear in the view and you actually begin to see new ways in which different points and geographies in the subcontinent are linked to each other. 

GJW:  Certainly Sri Lanka is perceived differently, because now it's at the top. Before it looked always like a postscript to India, an afterthought, 

SP: Yeah.

GJW:  And so there it is at the top, and then you see this unfolding triangle that's growing that's toward the base. Instead of diminishing to a tip, it's growing larger as it gets to the base of the map.

SP: Yes, I hadn't thought of it that way. I think that that is precisely what is happening. The scale has not changed, and neither are the coordinates stretched or anything—so you know all the states occupy the same area as they did before the inversion. And yet new areas gain visual prominence, like Sri Lanka, for example. The Himalayan range, often characterized as an isolating feature of geography, appears more like a bridge, connected to not just India, but to both western and eastern wings of the subcontinent.

GJW: People don't think of Burma as being part of that.

SP: Yeah, exactly. And so even in parts of India, places that are not political centers like New Delhi appear prominent because your eyes find new patches of the map to land on. So it leaves us surprised.

GJW: It was a bit of marketing genius, because it's so striking. 

SP:  Absolutely.

GJW: It's a trademark, really.

SP:  Yeah, even one of the logos of Himal is basically a silhouette of the map. So, I think it's always been well received. It's a nice object to have in your office or at your home, and it’s often been part of a paid subscription or membership of the magazine. At times, it has also stirred controversy, when some nationalist outfit was upset by the map’s cartographic irreverence, or when the map fell foul of overbroad national laws on representing territory, often due to anxieties about border disputes. The best known example I can think of is when the well-known Indian political scientist Nivedita Menon of the Jawaharlal Nehru University was hounded by both Hindu nationalists as well as the police for, among other things, displaying the map during a talk and commenting on the constructed nature of nations. This was a few years into the Modi government in India, when universities were increasingly coming under attack.

GJW: Do you have any anecdotes about something that was significant while you were there that characterizes the spirit of the journal?

SP:  One thing that comes to mind is the Nepal earthquakes in 2015. This was when Himal used to put out quarterly print issues. These would be close to 300 pages of writing in what I would guess it would be an A3 size, sorry, A5 sized, volume, similar to, let's say the magazine Granta. 

GJW: Quarto-sized?

SP:  Closer to an octavo, I think. So we were putting together some special issue on a particular theme. I think it was marriage and weddings in South Asia. It was going to be an interesting issue looking at economics, culture and politics of matrimony and relationships and so on. Anyway, the earthquake struck over a weekend in April, about 9,000 people were killed, and obviously the first thing that happened was that it put all our private lives in disarray. We were all based in Kathmandu, which was one of the places seriously impacted, and so it was a big, shocking event. But I think we made a point of basically meeting on Monday, and thought we couldn’t just ignore this disaster we were living through. So we decided instead to do a special issue on disasters—not just this earthquake, but to put together a series of articles on major disasters that had hit different parts of South Asia over the recent decades. 

GJW:  Just turned the issue into something else completely–

SP: I mean, our issues take months of commissioning; months of editing. These were printed issues, so there’s an entire set of activities around print production. But we managed to do it all on a pretty tight schedule with I think an impressive array of writings. So the articles analyzed disasters not just as natural occurrences, but events with political and social afterlives. So there were articles, say, on how the 1970 cyclone in Bengal was linked to the Bangladesh independence movement, or how the 2001 Gujarat earthquake facilitated the rise of Narendra Modi, and so on.

GJW:  Fascinating. 

SP: Or we had a long-form story giving us an insider view of how the Nepal government responded in the immediate aftermath of the 2015 earthquake. Or how disasters offer opportunities for governments to pursue foreign policy in the guise of foreign aid, or enable governments to transform their domestic constitutional setup. And so I thought that it was a triumph to manage to pull it off despite the circumstances. The cover image of that issue was interesting too. It wasn’t just a representational image that resembled a graph; our designer used the actual seismographic data of the April 25 earthquake to produce the graph that made it to the cover page. There are many such stories.