Editors' note
Academic activity in the social sciences in South Asia commands a very low premium. Barring economics, the value of the other disciplines is inadequately recognised since they are not deemed to have immediate and tangible utility. Consequently, some disciplines are accorded a higher priority than others because of their perceived benefits to the financiers of research. In India and Pakistan, for evident ideological reasons connected with the colonial past and the partitioned present, the study of history acquired a certain salience. In Nepal on the other, the study of history languished even as the anthropological study of the culture of its peoples flourished, with support of Western universities.
Against this very conspicuous neglect of history in Nepal, the life and work of MC Regmi provides an inspiration even for other disciplines and in other countries of South Asia. Regmi's research was undertaken in relative isolation since there were few peers if any, and in the face of extreme financial constraints. It is instructive to survey the achievements of Regmi's historical work as a way of thinking about the possible models for doing research in areas facing neglect. Regmi's career offers insights into a model for undertaking deep research in the social sciences, which ultimately benefits the people more than a host of donor-funded 'action research', or state-supported repetition of bias.
Mahesh Chandra Regmi, one of Nepal's foremost historians, died in the early hours of 10 July 2003. Born in Kathmandu in December 1929 to a family of musicians (who played the sitar), Regmi obtained school level education at home before completing four years of BA education at Kathmandu's Trichandra College, then affiliated with Patna University. After trying out his hand in book and cloth trade in Calcutta, Regmi returned to Nepal just before the end of the Rana regime in February 1951. He began his professional life with the Nepali government in the immediate aftermath of the demise of the Rana oligarchy. He worked for the Department of Industries for several years before being dismissed for unspecified reasons in late 1955. Looking for something to do, he met an American academic who was researching the agricultural system of Nepal and was looking for someone to translate some documents into English. In an interview done in August 1992 by the German anthropologist Martin Gaenszle, Regmi recalled, "These were mainly reports of the land reforms commission of 1952-53. I tried to translate them and I got interested in this thing, one thing led to another and in 1957 I started this thing." The 'thing' he was referring to was the Regmi Research Centre Pvt Ltd.