Overview

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.

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9789354353284

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Reviews

Saravanan's Environmental History of Modern India represents important pioneering work, particularly from the perspective of a prehistory of the present. It is convincing both through its presentation of meticulously researched data and facts and through its analytical interventions, which productively link central fields of modern Indian history. The book thus has the special quality of bringing together recent research and the practical work of (development) economists. * Neue Politische Literatur *

Author Information

Velayutham Saravanan is Professor and former Director at the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, India.

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