1st Edition
Urban Development and Environmental History in Modern South Asia
This book provides a pioneering study of the historical interaction between the city and the natural environment from the colonial to the contemporary era in South Asia.
The book provides a multidisciplinary analysis examining the environmental history of the city and bringing together contributions from environmental experts and practitioners as well as academics. Focusing on case studies stretching from the Maldives and Sri Lanka to the Indian subcontinent, the chapters trace linkages between the contemporary and earlier patterns of urban expansion and their environmental effects and consider lessons that can be drawn with respect to preventing future environmental degradation and mitigating the effects of climate change.
An important contribution to the field, this book studies the contemporary environmental issues arising from rapid South Asian urbanization. It will be of interest to researchers in the field of South Asian studies, world history, and environmental history.
Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction, Ian Talbot and Amit Ranjan Part 1: Urban Pasts and Contemporary Legacies 1. Partition, the Environment and the Early Post-Independence Development of Lahore, Ian Talbot; 2. Written in Stone: Political Geologies of Small-town India, Thomas Crowley; 3. A Shift from the ‘Devotional’ to the 'Natural’ in 19th Century Lahore’s Art Education, Tahir Kamran; 4. Building with a Conscience? Heritage, Design and Urban Space in Bombay, Manjiri Kamat Part 2: The City and River Management 5. The Hooghly River and the Incomplete Mastery of the Natural World in British Colonial India, Robert Ivermee; 6. Political Economy of Large Dams in Colonial and Early Post-Colonial India, Amit Ranjan; 7. Rivers in Postcolonial North-eastern South Asia: Contradictions of the Commons, Iftekhar Iqbal Part 3: Urban Growth in a Fragile Environment 8. Evolving islandscapes in a changing climate: Male’ City, Maldives, Mizna Mohamed and Mohamed Inaz; 9. Analysing Human-Environment Coexistence: Urban Development and the Colombo Wetland Complex, Dennis Mombauer and Vositha Wijenayake; 10. Vanishing Rains: Deforestation, Declining Rainfall, and Desiccation in North East India with Special Reference to Cherrapunji, the ‘Rainiest Spot on the Globe’, Sajal Nag; 11. Reconstructing Thimphu: Balancing tradition and transition in Bhutan, Susan Walcott; Index
Biography
Ian Talbot is Emeritus Professor in History of Modern South Asia at the University of Southampton, UK. He has published ten monographs and three jointly written volumes. His most recent publications include The History of British Diplomacy in Pakistan (Routledge 2021), Punjab and the Raj (2020), A History of Modern South Asia (2016), and Colonial Lahore: a History of the City and Beyond (co-written with Tahir Kamran, 2016). He has jointly edited numerous volumes and produced an extensive number of periodical articles.
Amit Ranjan is Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. His latest book is Contested Waters: India’s Transboundary River Water Disputes in South Asia (Routledge 2020). He is the author of India-Bangladesh Border Disputes: History and Post-LBA Dynamics (2018) and has edited India in South Asia Challenges and Management (2019), Water Issues in Himalayan South Asia: Internal Challenges, Disputes and Transboundary Tensions (2020), and Partition of India: Postcolonial Legacies (Routledge, 2019). In addition to academic articles, he has also written short pieces for the Wire, the Friday Times, the Citizen, and Prabhat Khabar.
