Urban Development and Environmental History in Modern South Asia

206 Pages·2022·9.593 MB·English

by  Ian Talbot, Amit Ranjan

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.
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.
Routledge Advances in South Asian Studies
Edited by Rani Mullen, College of William and Mary, USA
Founding editor: Subrata K. Mitra, Heidelberg University,
Germany
South Asia, with its burgeoning, ethnically diverse population, soaring economies,
and nuclear weapons, is an increasingly important region in the global context.
The series, which builds on this complex, dynamic, and volatile area, features
innovative and original research on the region as a whole or on the countries.
Its scope extends to scholarly works drawing on history, politics, development
studies, sociology, and economics of individual countries from the region as well
as those that take an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to the area as
a whole or to a comparison of two or more countries from this region. In terms
of theory and method, rather than basing itself on any one orthodoxy, the series
draws broadly on the insights germane to area studies, as well as the toolkit of the
social sciences in general, emphasizing comparison, the analysis of the structure
and processes, and the application of qualitative and quantitative methods. The
series welcomes submissions from established authors in the field as well as from
young authors who have recently completed their doctoral dissertations.
For more information about this series, please visit www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Advances-in-South-Asian-Studies/book-series/RASAS
9. The History of British Diplomacy in Pakistan
Ian Talbot
10. Civil-Military Relations and Global Security Governance
Strategy, Hybrid Orders and the Case of Pakistan
Cornelia Baciu
11. India’s Grand Strategy and Foreign Policy
Strategic Pluralism and Subcultures
Bernhard Beitelmair-Berini
12. Urban Development and Environmental History in Modern South Asia
Ian Talbot and Amit Ranjan
For a full list of titles, please see: www.routledge.com/asianstudies/series/RASAS
Urban Development and
Environmental History in
Modern South Asia
Edited by Ian Talbot and Amit Ranjan
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Ian Talbot and Amit Ranjan;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Ian Talbot and Amit Ranjan to be identified as the author[/s]
of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
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any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
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registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Talbot, Ian, editor. | Ranjan, Amit (Researcher on South Asia)
editor.
Title: Urban development and environmental history in modern South Asia /
edited by Ian Talbot, Amit Ranjan.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Series:
Routledge advances in South Asian studies; 43 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022022956 (print) | LCCN 2022022957 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032292953 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032292991 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003300946 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Urbanization—South Asia—History. | Cities and towns—
Growth. | Human ecology—South Asia—History. | Environmental policy—
South Asia—History.
Classification: LCC HT147.S6 U73 2023 (print) | LCC HT147.S6 (ebook) |
DDC 307.760954—dc23/eng/20220519
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022022956
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022022957
ISBN: 978-1-032-29295-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-29299-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-30094-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003300946
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To Lois and Shanaya

Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables x
List of Contributors xi
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction 1
IAN TALBOT AND AMIT RANJAN
PART 1
Urban Pasts, Contemporary Legacies 13
1 Partition, the Environment, and the Early Post-
Independence Development of Lahore 15
IAN TALBOT
2 Written in Stone: Political Geologies of Small-Town India 29
THOMAS CROWLEY
3 A Shift From the “Devotional” to the “Natural” in
Nineteenth-Century Lahore’s Art Education 46
TAHIR KAMRAN
4 Building With a Conscience? Heritage, Design and Urban
Space in Bombay 58
MANJIRI KAMAT
viii Contents
PART 2
The City and River Management 75
5 The Hooghly River and the Incomplete Mastery of the
Natural World in British Colonial India 77
ROBERT IVERMEE
6 Political Economy of Dams in Colonial and Early
Postcolonial India 91
AMIT RANJAN
7 Locating the Riparian Commons in Eastern South Asia: A
Translocal Perspective 107
IFTEKHAR IQBAL
PART 3
Urban Growth in a Fragile Environment 119
8 Evolving Islandscapes in a Changing Climate: Male’ City,
Maldives 121
MIZNA MOHAMED AND MOHAMED INAZ
9 Analysing Human–Environment Coexistence: Urban
Development and the Colombo Wetland Complex 138
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” 153
SAJAL NAG
11 Reconstructing Thimphu: Balancing Tradition and
Transition in Bhutan 167
SUSAN M. WALCOTT
Index 183
Figures
5.1 James Rennell’s Mapping of the Lower Reaches of
the Hooghly 80
5.2 Richard Lloyd’s Detailed Survey of the River Mouth 81
5.3 The Hindostan steamer of the Peninsular and Oriental
Steam Navigation Company, which plied the route between
Southampton and Calcutta, but had major difficulties
navigating the Hooghly 85
5.4 The destruction wreaked on ships stationed in the Hooghly by
the cyclone of October 1864 87
8.1 Map of Maldives 2007, with inserted location in Indian Ocean 122
8.2 Map of Male’ showing changes in area and shoreline 124
8.3a Photograph of Male’ in 1960 125
8.3b Aerial map of Male’ in 2021 125
8.4 The contemporary Greater Male’ region includes Male’,
Villingili, and Hulhumale islands 126
8.5 Population growth rate of Male’ compared with the
outer atolls 127
8.6 Elevation contour map of Male’ 129
8.7 Flooding caused by record high rainfall in Male’ 130
8.8 Coastal protection around Male’ 132
10.1 Year-wise rainfall data in Cherrapunji and Mawsynram 158