Sociological Bulletin

Contemporary discussions on environment emphasise the use and abuse of the environment in multiple ways and means. The collective mobilisations around environmental alteration, degradation and destruction signal the crises in the material bases of life based at the intersections of caste, class and gender. This process, it is argued, has begun on an unprecedented scale since the neoliberal turn in India. There is an emerging and significant process of appropriation of land and natural resources to help the ‘growth’ story. Marginalised groups and local communities are being sidelined from access and control of resources, whether it is land, water, forest or urban commons. There are increasing instances of land appropriation for the so-called ‘environmental’ ends. However, it involves new forms of valuation, commodification and markets for different aspects of nature being built across a range of actors and alliances, such as venture capitalists, traders and consultants, ecotourism companies, green activists and consumers who seem to have common interests. Hence, the attempt would be to unravel the underlying power relations that are hidden in the present discourse of ecological sustainability.

This article draws out the contradictions in the relationship between capitalism as a mode of production and our contemporary efforts to deal with the breaching of planetary boundaries or the ecological crisis. First, it looks at the theoretical developments in understanding the source of our current ecological crisis. The historical establishment of a metabolic rift and the shifts engendered as solutions to this problem within capitalism are discussed. Then, it focuses on the problem of perception of the ecological crisis in the contemporary world. An unequal world cannot be a sustainable world as standpoint influences even the perception of an impending precipice, and consequently any form of collective action. Given this inability to understand the crisis, the solutions that emerge are reductive and tend to spatially, temporally or socially shift the problem rather than resolve it. Finally, it argues that environmentalism—or efforts to ‘save the planet’—needs to be understood based on the understanding of the problem rather than on social location of its members.

This proposed article seeks to analyse the Hariyali guidelines in order to show how a capitalistic, managerial and scientific rationale is used which presumes that nature in order to be valued must have a productive value. As a capitalist enterprise, nature is only useful if it serves the livelihood needs of the populace. All other values are elided in favour of one overarching idea of productivity for the market. This productivity is sought to be harnessed through the twin ideas of proper managerial and scientific principles. The ‘Watershed Users Association’ is premised on the principle of people being rational maximisers who will put aside their caste, gender, religious and class differences in order to transform the topographical watershed into a productive entrepreneurial community enterprise. On the ground, people of course manage to subvert and resist these processes even as they acquiesce in the larger development plan.

Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR) was established in 1986 and since then various environmental projects have been introduced in the region, across the three southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Local tribal communities have been protesting against these projects, both for its vision and politics that disregard their traditional association with forests. The article substantiates on both these protestations. There have been significant shifts in the governance of forest areas following the establishment of the NBR. Environmental projects have initiated host of actors and interest groups who, along with state departments, play a critical role in the management of forest resources. The focus would be on enunciating the ensuing politics and its implications on the lives of local tribal communities.

The policy of the Government of India to turn its northeastern region, especially Arunachal Pradesh, into ‘India’s Future Powerhouse’ by generating massive hydel power from almost all its perennial rivers has led to widespread protests in the region. These protests are based on the apprehension that this new ‘development’ initiative of the government would spell disaster to the river ecosystem and the livelihood and cultural heritage of the people of the region. The protests are also informed by the fact that the region is seismically very active, geologically fragile and ecologically sensitive. The conflict between the government’s new logic of development in a region considered as a distant security frontier and the local people’s apprehensions and questions about the character of this development has unfolded a complex discourse entangled in the interplay of issues concerning development, environment, people’s rights and rule of law.

The article explores the equation among nature, nation and gender in the nationalist context. Developing the argument that both nature and nation were feminised and deified as mother and mother goddess in the nationalist context, the article deploys feminist perspectives to critically examine this on a fourth-axis science. By looking at the relationship of the scientist, J. C. Bose, to these categories, the article hopes to unravel the complex relationship of the Indian scientist to nation, nature, gender and science. It is argued that due to being a ‘Sakta’, Bose had a symbiotic relationship to nature, and consequently to science, thereby presenting an ‘alternative’ to Western modes of relating to science and nature. The article submits that this alternative was cast in patriarchal constructions of both science and nature and views the associations of mother with nation and nature within larger feminist critiques of science. The article submits that while these sleeping metaphors set an alternative paradigm to the Western modes of relating to nature through science, they reproduced patriarchal constructions of the same. The article is an effort at grafting feminist perspectives on (a) science and (b) nationalism with postcolonial perspectives on science and modernity.

Public sector irrigation is rapidly changing in India, and the state of Maharashtra is no exception to this. Public sector irrigation projects that were designed independently of groundwater are increasingly being used to harness ground- water. This has been a gradual ongoing process which has shifted benefits from public to private. Increasing use of groundwater in canal commands has huge implications for equity, both in terms of direct access to water and decision-making in its use and allocation, and also indirectly, in terms of changing land and labour relations. Changing discourse in the water policy, prioritising the private over public interests is contributing substantially to these inequities. Without wanting to suggest that water inequities are an outcome of the present neoliberal framework alone, this article reflects the concern that the neo-liberal language has become dominant in steering water policies and programmes that hold implications for water access, allocations and decision-making. This article uses examples from canal irrigation projects in Maharashtra and the emerging policies around its governance to highlight the increasing privatisation of a public resource.

Vijaya Ramaswamy (ed.), Women and Work in Precolonial India: A Reader. New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2016, 446 pp., ₹1,095 (paperback). ISBN: 978-93-515-0741-3.

Mithu Alur, A Birth That Changed a Nation: A New Model of Care and Inclusion. New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2017, xxx + 243 pp., ₹725 (paperback). ISBN: 978-93-860-6221-5.

Mihir Shah and P. S. Vijayshankar (eds), Water: Growing Understanding, Emerging Perspectives. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2016, xiv + 559 pp., ₹760 (paperback). ISBN: 978-81-250-6292-9.

Wendy L. Rouse, Her Own Hero: The Origins of the Women’s Self-Defence Movement. New Delhi: SAGE Vistaar, 2018, 255 pp., ₹895 (hardback). ISBN: 978-93-528-0529-7.

Adam Ziegfeld, Why Regional Parties? Clientelism, Elites, and the Indian Party System. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2016, xix + 288 pp., ₹1,780 (hardback). ISBN: 978-1-107-11868-3.

Suresh Chandra Ghosh, Essays on Modern India. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2017, 128 pp., ₹350 (paperback). ISBN: 978-93-86392-09-1.

Sujit Kumar Chattopadhyay, Gender Socialization and the Making of Gender in the Indian Context. New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2018, 273 pp., ₹895 (hardback), ISBN: 978-93-866-0256-5.

Vidya Rajiv Yeravdekar and Gauri Tiwari, Internationalization of Higher Education in India. New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2017, xliii + 285 pp., ₹895 (hardbound). ISBN: 978-93-860-4216-3.

Richard Falk, Manoranajan Mohanty and Victor Faessel (eds.), Exploring Emergent Global Thresholds: Towards 2030. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2017, 371 pp., ₹1,050 (hardbound). ISBN: 978-93-86392-42-8.