Urban Development and Environmental History in Modern South Asia: (Routledge Advances in South Asian Studies)

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.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Preface Acknowledgements Introduction IAN TALBOT AND AMIT RANJAN PART 1 Urban Pasts, 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 Nineteenth-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 Dams in Colonial and Early Postcolonial India AMIT RANJAN 7 Locating the Riparian Commons in Eastern South Asia: A Translocal Perspective 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 M. WALCOTT Index

About the Author :
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.