Water and the Environmental History of Modern India
Water and the Environmental History of Modern India

Author: Velayutham Saravanan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-01-23

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1350130834

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This important new study investigates the competing demand for water in the Bhavani and Noyyal River basins of south India from the early 19th century to the early 21st century from a historical perspective. In doing so, the book addresses several important questions: * Did policy-makers visualise the future demand while diverting water from distant places or other basins? * Was efficient use ensured when the water was diverted or was it diverted in a manner that resulted in pollution and serious damage to the entire river basin? * Were natural flows taken care of in order to preserve the ecology and environment? * What were the factors that aggravated the competing demand for water and what were the consequences for the future? In the context of the current discourse on the competing demands for water, this book takes the debate forward, expanding the horizon of environmental history in the process. Until now, agriculture, industry and domestic water supply and their consequences for ecology, the environment and livelihoods have been given scant attention. Velayutham Saravanan's comprehensive account of both the colonial and post-colonial periods corrects this shortcoming in the field's literature and gives a holistic understanding of the problem and its full historical roots.

Environmental History of Modern India
Environmental History of Modern India

Author: Velayutham Saravanan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-01-30

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 935435050X

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India, over the decades, has experienced multiple changes, including population explosion, urbanisation, technological advancement, commercialisation of agriculture, change in land-use pattern, vast improvement of infrastructure facilities, etc., which have had an impact on the environment. Author Velayutham Saravanan attempts to understand the complexity of the environmental history of contemporary India from the early nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. Environmental History of Contemporary India begins with an analysis of land-use patterns and population and their impact on the environment. Further, it discusses the exploitation of natural resources for commercial motives by the colonial administration and argues that the colonial commercial policy of over one-and-a-half centuries had impacted the ecology and environment. The book also deliberates whether the postcolonial government policies have changed in favour of environmental protection or have continued with the colonial policy, and attempts to throw light on the issues of how the land for development policies have impacted the environment from the early nineteenth century until recent years. It then looks at the problem of electronic waste and its adverse impact on the environment, ecology and health in a historical manner while engaging with the complexity of the conflict between land and population in relation to the environment. The book is the most comprehensive presentation on land, population, technology and development that India has witnessed since the early nineteenth century.

Environmental History and Tribals in Modern India
Environmental History and Tribals in Modern India

Author: Velayutham Saravanan

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-03-07

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 9811080526

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This monograph presents a comprehensive account of environmental history of India and its tribals from the late eighteenth onwards, covering both the colonial and post-colonial periods. The book elaborately discusses the colonial plunder of forest resources up to the introduction of the Forest Act (1878) and focuses on how colonial policy impacted on the Indian environment, opening the floodgates of forest resources plunder, primarily for timber and to establish coffee and tea plantations. The book argues that even after the advent of conservation initiatives, commercial exploitation of forests continued unabated while stringent restrictions were imposed on the tribals, curtailing their access to the jungles. It details how post-colonial governments and populist votebank politics followed the same commercial forest policy till the 1980s without any major reform, exploiting forest resources and also encroaching upon forest lands, pushing the self-sustainable tribal economy to crumble. The book offers a comprehensive account of India’s environmental history during both colonial and post-colonial times, contributing to the current environmental policy debates in Asia.

An Environmental History of India
An Environmental History of India

Author: Michael H. Fisher

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1107111625

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This longue durée survey of the Indian subcontinent's environmental history reveals the complex interactions among its people and the natural world.

Political Economy of Development and Environment in Modern India
Political Economy of Development and Environment in Modern India

Author: Velayutham Saravanan

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-04-24

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 100087124X

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This book captures the complexities of both development and environment, from the political economy point of view, to offer a broad economic and environmental history of post-independence India. It analyses the various components of constitutional provisions, policies, programmes and ecology protection measures during the post-independence period, that is, 1947–2020. The author also investigates India’s land and forest policies of the 21st century: Fair Compensation of Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, which pose a great threat to ecology and the environment. The volume argues how, on one hand, the development agenda has undermined the environmental components for the first three decades of independence and, on the other hand, how the popular vote bank politics further has aggravated the issues related to environment in India. This book is an essential interdisciplinary resource for scholars and researchers of history, economic history, environmental studies, environmental history, Indian history and development studies.

Environmental History of Water
Environmental History of Water

Author: Petri S. Juuti

Publisher: IWA Publishing

Published: 2007-02-01

Total Pages: 642

ISBN-13: 1843391104

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The World Water Development Report 2003 pointed out the extensive problem that: 'Sadly, the tragedy of the water crisis is not simply a result of lack of water but is, essentially, one of poor water governance.' Cross-sectional and historical intra-national and international comparisons have been recognized as a valuable method of study in different sectors of human life, including technologies and governance. Environmental History of Water fills this gap, with its main focus being on water and sanitation services and their evolution. Altogether 34 authors have written 30 chapters for this multidisciplinary book which divides into four chronological parts, from ancient cultures to the challenges of the 21st century, each with its introduction and conclusions written by the editors. The authors represent such disciplines as history of technology, history of public health, public policy, development studies, sociology, engineering and management sciences. This book emphasizes that the history of water and sanitation services is strongly linked to current water management and policy issues, as well as future implications. Geographically the book consists of local cases from all inhabited continents. The key penetrating themes of the book include especially population growth, health, water consumption, technological choices and governance. There is great need for general, long-term analysis at the global level. Lessons learned from earlier societies help us to understand the present crisis and challenges. This new book, Environmental History of Water, provides this analysis by studying these lessons.

Water Design
Water Design

Author: Jutta Jain-Neubauer

Publisher: Marg Publications

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789383243143

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- This book will explore the aesthetic, historical, social, and economic settings of India's waterscapes A lesser known and researched form of Indian architecture is that of its water monuments - a term that covers sacred temple tanks, stepwells, artificially built ponds, lakes and reservoirs, residential pools and rock-cut cisterns, canals and sluices, and ritual platforms on rivers or lakes (ghats). These magnificent, ingeniously conceived structures are an integral part of mainstream Indian architecture and have complex architectural and spatial figuration and extensive sculptural or relief ornamentation. Their deep art-historical significance, the development and diversity of their architecture and hydrological engineering, their canonical authorization, their specific iconographic, aesthetic and ritual characteristics, as well as their location in the socio-religious, economic and agrarian order of the region, make them important cultural constituents of their times. Water Design will explore in an interdisciplinary way the architectural plan and structural framework and its variants determined by local traditions and spatial considerations; their artistic and ornamental characteristics; the topography of waterscapes and how these determine or are determined by the urban setting; as well as their location along the trade routes which might have facilitated the cross-influencing of architectural form across regions and cultures. Jutta Jain-Neubauer studied Indology and Indian Art History at the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg, Germany (MA 1976), and University of Bonn, Germany, where she obtained her PhD degree with a thesis on 'Stepwells of Gujarat in art-historical Perspective' in 1978. With a fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation she studied the ancient canonical texts on art and architecture of India (shilpa shastras). She worked for various institutions in India, such as the National Museum Institute for Art History, Museology and Conservation; the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), for whom she has done the first ever full-fledged documentation of Rani ni Vav, the famed Stepwell of the Queen in Patan, recently declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. She is currently Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow, affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.

Climate of Conquest
Climate of Conquest

Author: Pratyay Nath

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-06-28

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 0199098239

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What can war tell us about empire? In Climate of Conquest, Pratyay Nath seeks to answer this question by focusing on the Mughals. He goes beyond the traditional way of studying war in terms of battles and technologies. Instead, he unravels the deep connections that the processes of war-making shared with the society, culture, environment, and politics of early modern South Asia. Climate of Conquest closely studies the dynamics of the military campaigns that helped the Mughals conquer North India and project their power beyond it. The author argues that the diverse natural environment of South Asia deeply shaped Mughal military techniques and the course of imperial expansion. He also sheds light on the world of military logistics, labour, animals, and the organization of war; the process of the formation of imperial frontiers; and the empire’s legitimization of war and conquest. What emerges is a fresh interpretation of Mughal empire-building as a highly adaptive, flexible, and accommodative process.

Blood and Water
Blood and Water

Author: David Gilmartin

Publisher:

Published: 2020-04-14

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0520355539

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"The book is a history of the political and environmental transformation of the Indus basin as a result of the modern construction of the world's largest, integrated irrigation system. Begun under British colonial rule in the 19th century, this transformation continued after the region was divided between two new states, India and Pakistan, in 1947. Massive irrigation works have turned an arid region into one of dense agricultural population, but its political legacies continue to shape the politics and statecraft of the region"--Provided by publisher.

Unruly Waters
Unruly Waters

Author: Sunil Amrith

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2018-12-11

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0465097731

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From a MacArthur "Genius," a bold new perspective on the history of Asia, highlighting the long quest to tame its waters Asia's history has been shaped by her waters. In Unruly Waters, historian Sunil Amrith reimagines Asia's history through the stories of its rains, rivers, coasts, and seas -- and of the weather-watchers and engineers, mapmakers and farmers who have sought to control them. Looking out from India, he shows how dreams and fears of water shaped visions of political independence and economic development, provoked efforts to reshape nature through dams and pumps, and unleashed powerful tensions within and between nations. Today, Asian nations are racing to construct hundreds of dams in the Himalayas, with dire environmental impacts; hundreds of millions crowd into coastal cities threatened by cyclones and storm surges. In an age of climate change, Unruly Waters is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Asia's past and its future.