Ambivalence denied: The making of Rastriya Itihas in Panchayat era textbooks

Many observers have noted that during the reign of the Panchayat system (1962-1990), the Nepali language, Hinduism and monarchy constituted the triumvirate of official Nepali national culture. This characterisation leaves out one important theme - that of Nepali national history written in a very particular template - from the corpus f Panchayat-sponsored Nepali nation culture. The ground work for the making of this national historical narrative would become central to the Panchayat ere state-produced Nepali nationalism in Nepal was laid out during the first half of the twentieth century in British India by a small group of variously expatriated Nepalis. While the Rana rulers of Nepal and their intellectual bards did not build a historical genealogy for the Nepali nation, in a different political context, the Nepali proto middle-class actors in British India did exactly that via the self-conscious fostering of the Nepali language and the writing of the bir (brave) history of the Nepali nation.