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"Rangarajan, Mahesh"
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ANIMALS WITH RICH HISTORIES: THE CASE OF THE LIONS OF GIR FOREST, GUJARAT, INDIA
This article explores how far animals are or are not endowed with a sense of history. The century-long history of lion–human interaction in the lions' last habitat in Asia—in India's Gir Forest, Gujarat State—is the focal point of analysis. In turn, there have been longer-term shifts since ancient and medieval times. Aside from two specific phases of breakdown, Gir's lions rarely attack people. To comprehend why this is so, both the lions and humans need to be seen as products of history. Although it is going too far to endow the lions with historical consciousness, Gir's lions clearly do have memory of memories. Over a half-century since hunting ceased, living on a mix of domestic livestock and wild prey, they now co-inhabit not only the forest but a much larger territory in close proximity to resident people. Their case calls for rethinking both animal and human histories to allow for associate species that adapt to human presence, and are capable of memory.
Journal Article
Striving for a balance: Nature, power, science and India′s Indira Gandhi, 1917-1984
Indira Gandhi′s life (1917-1984) spanned much of the twentieth century. She was Prime Minister of the world′s largest democracy for two spells that totaled fifteen years. To this day, her environmental legacy remains one that divides critics from admirers. One sees it as a defense against ecological impoverishment, especially in her initiation of wildlife preservation and environmental conservation. The other views these as thin legitimization for an authoritarian style of functioning. The two are not antithetical, but neither does justice to the subject nor indeed to her times. Drawing on her decades of letter writing to and from her father Jawaharlal Nehru and her speeches, the article also looks in some detail at her executive actions as Prime Minister. Issues of nature can hardly be separated from the political problems that bedeviled India in the late 1960s. Serious food shortages led to increased reliance on US food aid, but the Indian bid for autonomy led to inevitable strains over the issue. The Green Revolution reduced reliance on the West. It was paralleled by a sustained engagement with conservation issues that continued beyond the 1971 war with Pakistan. Here, the Indira period is divided into two broad parts, with a leftward tilt, especially around 1969, and a shift to a more pro-business attitude after 1980. These changes were also evident vis a vis forests and wildlife. Ecological patriotism requires careful attention for saving nature, although statist intervention was a concomitant of India′s unique place in the Cold War later. As US contacts thawed; the opening was complemented by shifts in the political economy. Similarly, arbitrary slum demolition and forcible family planning were part of a larger shift to coercive polices during the 18-month long Emergency period. The article ends by asking how to study contemporary politics to better comprehend our ecological dilemmas. Even as ecological processes and economic exchanges unify the world, divisions between and within nation states are central to most issues. By looking at a key figure of the latter half of the twentieth century, the article hopes to shed fresh light on how to look at the relations of nature, science, and power.
Journal Article
Predicaments of Power and Nature in India
While India underwent a transition from colonial rule to a diverse multi-party democracy, having a vibrant tradition of debate, dissent and difference in the public arena to build on, China rests on a one-party state. 6 No doubt Indian democracy has its flaws, as contributions in this issue discuss in detail, 7 but compared to China, the Indian public space is more open. 8 In many cases and in diverse ways the richness and vibrancy of the debate in and (not just) about India parallels and anticipates key strands of thought and action in the industrialised world. 9 Yet, the Chinese or Indian cases cannot be viewed in isolation from the larger global picture.\\n Even to comprehend the larger global predicaments, the local and the national remain good starting points. For a recent reappraisal especially for the inter connections of social fabric, agrarian change and forest cover, see Chaudhuri 2008; Linkenbach 2007; Dangwal 2009.For a regional comparison, see Forsyth and Walker 2008; Goodall et al. 2007; Nuttall 1998.Nag (2008) is probably the first full length work to place dearth related to natural cycles (the flowering of bamboo) at the centre of a century long social history of a region.Studies bringing in legal aspects of environmental and natural resource conflicts have begun to appear also in other fields, in addition to the well researched forest tracts.
Journal Article
Striving for a Balance
Indira Gandhi’s life (1917–1984) spanned much of the twentieth century. She was Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy for two spells that totaled fifteen years. To this day, her environmental legacy remains one that divides critics from admirers. One sees it as a defense against ecological impoverishment, especially in her initiation of wildlife preservation and environmental conservation. The other views these as thin legitimization for an authoritarian style of functioning. The two are not antithetical, but neither does justice to the subject nor indeed to her times. Drawing on her decades of letter writing to and from her father Jawaharlal Nehru and her speeches, the article also looks in some detail at her executive actions as Prime Minister. Issues of nature can hardly be separated from the political problems that bedeviled India in the late 1960s. Serious food shortages led to increased reliance on US food aid, but the Indian bid for autonomy led to inevitable strains over the issue. The Green Revolution reduced reliance on the West. It was paralleled by a sustained engagement with conservation issues that continued beyond the 1971 war with Pakistan. Here, the Indira period is divided into two broad parts, with a leftward tilt, especially around 1969, and a shift to a more pro-business attitude after 1980. These changes were also evident vis a vis forests and wildlife. Ecological patriotism requires careful attention for saving nature, although statist intervention was a concomitant of India’s unique place in the Cold War later. As US contacts thawed; the opening was complemented by shifts in the political economy. Similarly, arbitrary slum demolition and forcible family planning were part of a larger shift to coercive polices during the 18-month long Emergency period. The article ends by asking how to study contemporary politics to better comprehend our ecological dilemmas. Even as ecological processes and economic exchanges unify the world, divisions between and within nation states are central to most issues. By looking at a key figure of the latter half of the twentieth century, the article hopes to shed fresh light on how to look at the relations of nature, science, and power.
Journal Article
A Man of Ideas and a Woman with a Sense of Power
Fifty years after the event, the split in the Congress party and the takeover of control of its apparatus and then of the country by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi continue to be of enduring interest to the historian and layperson alike. Faced with electoral setbacks, strong pressures from the American administration at a time of heightened dependence on food imports, and political challenges from within her party and the increasingly emboldened opposition, the still shaky Prime Minister decided to strike back. Most crucial was his role in the thaw with China, for which he did behind-the-scenes work of which there is a meticulous record: the visit by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the long hand shake with strongman Deng Xiao Ping in December 1988. [...]the discussions leading to the Shimla Accord were clearly designed to avoid a Versailles-type impact of Pakistan.
Journal Article