page_title: Prem Bahadur Kansakar
section_title: Language activist
hierarchical_section_title: Prem Bahadur Kansakar / Language activist
caption_attribution_description: Asa Archives in Kathmandu
context_page_description: Prem Bahadur Kansakar was a Nepalese fighter for democracy and linguistic rights, author and scholar of Nepal Bhasa. His main contributions were promoting Nepal Bhasa mainly by collecting and preserving ancient manuscripts. He was the founder of Asa Archives, the only public archive in Nepal.
context_section_description: In 1950, Kansakar and a fellow writer Madan Lochan Singh established a literary society named Chwasa Pasa (meaning "Pen Friend") in Kolkata. Its objective was to bring together Nepal Bhasa writers living in exile in India and bring out publications in the language as it was forbidden to do so in Nepal.
  In 1951, after the Rana dynasty was overthrown and democracy established in Nepal, the ban on publishing in Nepal Bhasa ended and Kansakar returned to Kathmandu. Chwasa Pasa also moved to Kathmandu and devoted itself to publishing books and magazines in Nepal Bhasa.
  In 1956, Kansakar helped to set up Nasa Khala, a cultural organization. Its objective was to research, present and preserve Nepal's classical and folk dance and music. Nasa Khala provided training in dance and music and performed stage shows.
  He was also the founder of the Nepal Bhasa Dictionary Committee which started worked on a dictionary of the classical language in 1980. The dictionary was published in 2000, and the committee received the Nikkei Asia Prize in 2001.
  In 1987, Asa Archives was established. Named after Kansakar's father Asha Man Singh Kansakar, it preserves ancient manuscripts, palm leaf documents and books collected from private sources. Kansakar donated his personal collection to the archives to which donations from other people were later added. Most of the collections are in Nepal Bhasa and Sanskrit languages.
caption: Asa Archives, Kathmandu
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