Regmi, Mahesh Chandra

History is a many angled mirror in which nations easily see themselves as they wish they were. Especially are political histories prone to convey a grand panorama of wars, rulers and a panoply of other prominent personages, while scant attention if any, is given to the peasant who first fashioned a better hoe or selected a superior fruit or grain variety.

Identifying a broader history is particularly critical in countries like Nepal, which is only recently emerging from feudalism and legally abolished slavery in 1925. Where other nations have had centuries to sift and sort fragments of their past and settle upon an agreed interpretation, modern communications and development demands force a telescoping of decisions. Choices of what is unique, valuable and viable must be made rapidly and will become binding upon the future.

Less than two centuries ago the numerous fiefs of hill rajas along the southern escarpment of the Himalayas were unified by the military mastery of the house of Gurkha. In the 19th century these people, tracing their ethnic origins to Mongols and Tibetans, and to Rajputs and Brahmans from the Indian plains, speaking numerous dialects and holding diverse faiths, were welded into a kingdom. National isolation was sought in order to shield themselves from British-Indian domination from the south and Tibetan-Chinese from the north. Consequently Nepal today, with a population nearing 13 million, ranks among the least modernized nations, with a literacy rate of less than 20 percent.

MAHESH REGMI’S research and translation service, started in 1957, was a new kind of enterprise for Nepal. His weekly Nepal Press Digest has become an effective journal of contemporary reporting within the kingdom. It is a valued source for diplomats in Kathmandu and vital for the United Nations and other organizations seeking to assist in Nepal’s progress. The Regmi Research Series, printed for “private study and research” on a subscription basis, is opening chapters of Nepal’s past to her own and international scholars.

REGMI has also produced three major scholarly works. Land Tenure and Taxation in Nepal was published in four volumes at Berkeley, California, between 1963 and 1968. A Study in Nepali Economic History 1768-1846, detailing the agrarian basis of the society during national unification, appeared in 1971. In 1976 followed Landownership in Nepal, an analysis of the origin and evolution of the rural problems besetting 95 percent of his countrymen.

Born in 1929 into a Nepali family with a scholarly tradition, REGMI was tutored at home by his father until he enrolled at Trichandra College in Kathmandu where he took his bachelor’s degree in 1948. He entered His Majesty’s Government of Nepal in 1951 as Acting Director of Industries and, concurrently for brief periods, of Cottage Industries and the Central Purchase Department, before embarking upon his own venture. In 1961-62 he was Member Secretary of the Royal Taxation and Land Reform commissions. In and out of government service, his commitment has been to understanding, explaining and furthering the lot of the Nepali peasant whose hillside farm beneath the towering Himalayas remains the foundation of Nepalese society.

In electing MAHESH CHANDRA REGMI to receive the 1977 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognized his chronicling of Nepal’s past and present, enabling his people to discover their origins and delineating national options.

It is with a sense of great humility that I accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts tonight, for I had never imagined that my work would attract the attention of an institution as prestigious as the Magsaysay Foundation. I can not say I am delighted with this great honor, for my feelings at this moment are deeper and steadier than the exuberance and intensity that the term implies. May I say, therefore, that I feel deeply satisfied.

Let me add, however, that this sense of satisfaction is not due solely to the recognition that has been given to the work to which I have dedicated the past 20 years of my life. That work has brought sufficient recompense in itself. The thrill of exploring the unknown frontiers of knowledge, the occasional exhilaration of being able to fit little-known aspects of the social and economic life of my fellow countrymen into a larger coherent picture, these have been sufficient rewards to me over the years for the wearying and taxing effort that research and writing involve. Moreover, public recognition and acclaim have never had any appeal for me, nor have I ever put pen to paper in the hope of meriting such an award.

For me the Award that you have conferred is valuable mainly because, as the Foundation has graciously noted, my commitment has always been to understanding, explaining, and furthering the lot of the Nepali peasant. Tonight, when I realize that my own personal commitment and concern have been accepted for what they are by the Foundation, I feel deeply satisfied.

There is yet another and still greater source of satisfaction. I am sobered and uplifted by the association with the greatness of spirit, integrity, and devotion to freedom of your late noble and illustrious President, that the Award implies. I have been inspired by what I have read in one of his biographies: “Family love, a profound and simple religious sense, and the love of the country and its people are the component parts of Magsaysay that combine to make him a whole and dedicated human being.” For me, therefore, the real significance of this Ramon Magsaysay Award, this great honor, lies in the inspiration it has given me to try to perfect myself as a whole and dedicated human being by following in the footsteps of that great man.