The Bihari Krishna Fellowship for Ethnographic Research was established in 2011 with a grant of Rs 5 million, provided by Bihari Krishna Shrestha to Social Science Baha, with the express purpose of setting up a fellowship devoted to ethnographic research. This fund is placed within the Baha Social Science Research Fund. The fellowship is awarded to one person per fellowship cycle.

The fellows are chosen after an extensive selection process which consists of the public announcement, multiple rounds of interviews, and proposal review by the selection committee. The selected fellows are based at Nepā School of Social Sciences and Humanities during the course of the fellowship. Each fellowship is carried out over the course of 18 months, which includes pre-field visit preparation, fieldwork, analysis and writing, presentation of findings, and manuscript drafting for publication. The fellowship has a mentorship component, whereby the selected fellows work under the supervision of a senior scholar from their respective field.

1. The 2013 Bihari Krishna Fellowship has been granted to Santabir Rai, who will work under Prof. Ram Bahadur Chhetri of the Central Department of Sociology/Anthropology on the topic ‘Have Lhomi (Singsawa) Changed Their Values and Norms Pertaining to Natural Resources Management (A Study of Unheard Mountain People in the East Nepal)’ starting mid-May. The proposed research, which will focus on indigenous resources management, will explore the new forms of governance introduced in the mountain area of Nepal, where there are already indigenous governance systems, and will look into how such new governances as external interventions lead to social and cultural changes. More specifically, the research will find out whether and how new forms of governance lead to changes in people's norms and values pertaining to natural resources (particularly, forest and pastureland in Bhotkhola region), and will also explain the social values and norms of Lhomi (Singsawa) vis-à-vis the forest and pastureland.

2. The 2011 Fellowship was awarded to Shreshna Basnet. She worked under Dr.  Rajendra Pradhan, Dean of the Nepā School of Social Sciences and Humanities, on the topic ‘Ramcharitmanas: An Ethnography of a Construction of a Good Society through Literary Works’. This research explored how repeated narration or enactment of literary works gets translated into one’s life where everything one does is ‘good’. More specifically, it explored the idea of good, and not what good is, by investigating how the idea of a good society is constructed in literary works, inculcated into the minds of individuals, and expressed in their thoughts and behaviors.

The Baha Social Science Research Fund has been established with Rs. 150,000 contribution from the Baha members. The Bihari Krishna Ethnographic Research Fund forms an integral part of the Baha Social Science Research Fund. The Baha makes efforts to increase the Fund through other contributions besides Rs 10,000 contribution made from the Baha every month towards the Fund, and a sum of Rs. 252,500 has been collected until the end fiscal year 2010/11 (July 16).

Under the Baha Social Science Research Fund, Pramila Bisunke, a student of Graduate Diploma programme at the Nepā School of Social Sciences and Humanities, has been provided with the Social Science Baha Scholarship for 2012. She will receive a monthly stipend of Rs. 8,500 and Rs. 7,500 for each of the two semesters to partially cover her living expenses and necessary fees. The Nepa School has waived off her entire tuition fees.

In 2011, Arjun Bahadur BK, a student of Graduate Diploma in Social Sciences programme at the Nepā School of Social Sciences and Humanities, was provided with the Social Science Baha Scholarship amounting to Rs. 92,500, which covered his tuition fees and reading material costs and partially his living expenses.

Under this programme funded by the Toni Hagen Foundation, the Baha provides the opportunity to promising young researchers to work with a senior scholar for a whole year. The fellowship is awarded to one person annually and lasts for one year, inclusive of three months of fieldwork, if required. The Toni Hagen Foundation provides the funding for the fellowship and the Baha makes the arrangements to team up the fellow with a senior scholar apart from providing a work station at the Baha.

1.     The 2010 Toni Hagen Fellowship has been awarded to Monika Timsina. She has been working with Hari Sharma to study the transformation of Nepali nationalism. Hari and Monika have been tracing how people have 'imagined' themselves over the course of civilisation and especially since the end of the colonial era, which was in part precipitated by a rising sense of 'communities', to the present Nepal where nationalism has undergone various transformation with different political regimes to ethnically conscious, conventional attitudes and people’s expectation of 'new Nepal'.

2.    In 2009, the Toni Hagen Fellowship was awarded to Khem Raj Shreesh to work with Sudhindra Sharma of the Social Science Baha to examine Nepal’s fragile post-conflict transition and the role of donors in that transition. Sudhindra worked with Khem in reviewing the global literature on conflict and its relationship with poverty and its role in explaining Nepal’s conflict and possible post-conflict scenarios in view of the stagnating economy despite rise in remittances which has improved the living standards of the people but which also shows the vulnerability of the people and society to political instability and further potential for violence.

3.    In 2008, the Toni Hagen Fellowship was awarded to Amar Bahadur BK to team up with Rajendra Pradhan of the Social Science Baha. Amar worked with Rajendra on the topic ‘The Making and Unmaking of Dalit Identity in Nepal’. He looked at how Dalit identity has been formed, transformed, and understood in Nepal. His argument was that despite the efforts of Dalit leaders to form a unified and positive Dalit identity, its understanding is multiple, situational, and dynamic, depending on caste, class, gender, age, region, situation, etc, and also that ordinary Dalits continue to suffer from the burden of this identity.

As part of its outreach activities, the Social Science Baha began a college fellowship programme with the support of the Ford Foundation. The objective of this fellowship was to offer college teachers from outside the capital region a six-month affiliation with the Baha in order to allow them time to conduct research on their topics of choice. In 2008, Thandi Ram Jamarkattel from the Faculty of Geography of Mahendra Multiple Campus, Nepalgunj, was selected for the fellowship. The programme was, however, discontinued because of the practical difficulty faced by prospective applicants in terms of securing leave of absence for the fellowship period from their colleges.

Between 2002 and 2005, the Baha partnered with the Social Science Research Council, New York, to run the South Asia Research Fellowship Program (SARFP). Annual fellowships were provided to university teachers whose proposals were accepted by the regional selection committee. The following were the research themes and the fellows selected from Nepal.

2005: ‘The Long 1950s’
i)    Yogesh Ram Mishra, Centre for Research in Social Defense Technology, Nepal Engineering College, Bhaktapur: ‘History as Mindscapes: Memory of the Peasants’ Movement of Nepal During the Long 1950s’
ii)    Shiva Rijal, Department of English, Padma Kanya Multiple Campus, Tribhuvan University: ‘Modern Theatre in Nepal: A New Historical Reading’

2004: ‘Boundaries of Bodies, States and Societies’
No one was selected from Nepal

2003: ‘Migration’
No one was selected from Nepal

2002: ‘Resources and Society’
Krishna Prasad Poudel, Tribhuvan University, Nepal: ‘Resources and Society: A Study in the Context of Nepalese Mountains’