Geography Directions: The British Impact on Indian Geography

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

This past week, the Prime Minister completed an official visit to India, leading a large entourage of government, business, sport, academic, artistic, and cultural leaders. The visit to India was intended to strengthen long-standing bilateral ties between the two nations. By opening a new chapter in an intimate, if often tense relationship, Mr Cameron stressed the economic and cultural benefits that India and the United Kingdom share – a common language, government organization, social priorities, and investment in key industries. In an editorial for The Hindu, Mr Cameron summarized his position by stating that, “I know that Britain cannot rely on sentiment and shared history for a place in India’s future. Your country has the whole world beating a path to its door. But I believe Britain should be India’s partner of choice in the years ahead”.

Indeed, India of the twenty-first century is prime real-estate for global investment. With well over one billion constituents, a burgeoning economy, and a fledgling middle class, India is poised to become a global player. Why might Britain enjoy an advantage over other global powers in competing for Indian business? The answer may lie in geography.

From a human geographical perspective, the contemporary Indian Diaspora in Britain is tremendously important, providing lucrative commercial, social and creative models that have permanently altered the British cultural landscape. This immigration influx was reactionary in nature, a post-colonial response to eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century British rule of the Indian subcontinent. The geographical impact of the British Raj was immense. In a century, India was transformed from a vast agricultural region, separated by dozens of feuding kingdoms, into a prized economic asset – ‘the Jewel of the British Crown’. As early as the 1770s the East India Company commenced cartographic surveys of India, Pakistan, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Reorganized under the Ordnance Survey Office, the Survey of India created a distinctive urban infrastructure, facilitated the development of the world’s most extensive railway network, and led to more efficient agricultural production and output. The developments of the India Survey were closely followed by the British public; an 1898 issue of The Geographical Journal complained that the annual issue of the Survey of India Report (12[6]: 606-607) had been inexplicably delayed, angering investors and observers alike. In 2007 The Geographical Journal reviewed an excellent treatise on the subject. Entitled Colonial and Post-Colonial Geographies of India (Saraswati Raju, M Satish Kumar and Stuart Corbridge, eds.), this text successfully analysed changing Indian geography through Western and Indian eyes. Owing to the Royal Geographical Society’s long association with Indian exploration and cartography, the Society’s journals provide ample discourse of Indian-British narratives, including Miles Ogborn’s “Writing Travels,” and Alison Blunt’s “Imperial Geographies of Home”.

By Benjamin Sacks

To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

Chinese Environmental Problems and the Potential for Change

Over the past month there has been much in the news about catastrophic natural disasters and anthropogenic environmental woes plaguing the vast Chinese landscape.  This is certainly not “news” for its novel or exceptional nature.  Yet, the extent of these events does raise questions about the future of China’s environment and of the choices that its government will make to secure or squander that future.

Some of the biggest news stories focused on the July 16^th oil spill in Dalian.  Two oil pipelines ruptured and exploded leaking thousands of barrels of oil into the sea near this northernmost warm water seaport in the Yellow Sea.  In the days that followed, there were many reports questioning the Chinese government’s account of the size of the spill and documenting the improvised nature of the “grim task” that was its clean-up.  This event showed the lack of preparedness in mitigating or responding to such a disaster.

Long before the oil spill, the southwestern countryside had been experiencing a record drought dating back to October of 2009.  The drought was then ended by heavy rains that touched off landslides and swelled the waters of the Yangtze River and tested the limits of the Three Gorges Dam.  Days later, reports followed of the worst flood in a decade along the Yangtze that killed at least 273 people as of July 22^nd.  More rains and deadly landslides hit the north-central county of Zhouqu killing 127 people in early August.  And more rain is forecast for the area, thwarting clean-up, rescue and aid efforts.  Such crises require resources and planning to respond to such national emergencies in providing for citizens’ basic needs.

Amid such devastation, one of the most interesting discussions has focused on the power of these events and on assessing their role in affecting the Chinese governments’ current policy toward its environment, its people, and its economic livelihood.  A Reuters blog speculates if this is China’s “Minamata moment”, referencing Japan’s Minamata Bay long plagued by industrial pollution that poisoned large numbers of local fisherman and their children with high levels of mercury.  The “moment” led the Japanese government in the 1970s to prioritize pollution reforms.  A staff writer for the Natural Resources Defense Council attempts to provide some answer to the speculation by highlighting two lessons learned from these and other events.  First, “You can only solve the problems you know about,” referring to the slow reporting of industrial-related accidents.  Second, “Social stability comes from fixing the problem,” recognizing that social stability is ultimately one of Chinese national priorities and to best secure that priority, China needs to find big picture solutions for these types of problems.  A writer from the Atlantic introduces yet another possibility.  The article is skeptical of recent events’ role in bringing about a largely transformative moment, instead seeing it as a “recalibration” that will attempt to find a new balance between status quo economic interests and the need for more responsive environmental needs.

Discussion Questions:

1. Pick one or more of the recent Chinese environmental problems mentioned in any of the articles.  What do you think should be expected of the government in mitigating and/or responding to such an event or events?
2. Think about the vast scale of the Chinese national landscape.  What challenges do you think are inherent in dealing with the diverse and changing environments in this area?  Can you make any suggestions for such a scale dilemma?
3. What do you think that these events will mean for the future of the Chinese environment and its people?  How do you think the Chinese government will weigh the interests of its industries and economy against that of its peoples’ and lands’ well-being?

Geography Directions: Energy Security

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

Our dependence on energy is increasingly fragile. In the US, oil companies are drilling deeper and taking more risks in response to the demand for cheap oil. In April, a Transocean/BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and sank, resulting in a massive oil spill. Regardless of how the situation has been managed, it was the demand for oil that meant that the oil rig, with all its associated risks, was there in the first place. Energy supplied by fossil fuel is becoming more risky to obtain.

Meanwhile, on the Isle of Eigg, off the west coast of Scotland, residents have been urged to use household appliances less as a lack of rain has reduced the amount of electricity generated through hydro-power schemes. Energy supplies are becoming more difficult to sustain.

In Belarus recently, piped gas supplies from Russia were reduced in response to a disagreement over payment for gas and the use of transit pipelines. Energy security is therefore not just a case of the geographical distribution of supply and demand, but is also dependant on complex social processes and international relations.

Michael Bradshaw deals with these themes in an article in Geography Compass, published in 2009. Bradshaw illustrates the multidimensional nature of energy security. For example, climate change policy is driving a reduction in reliance on carbon-based fossil fuels. At the same time, China and India’s rapidly developing economies are increasing their demand for energy, reshaping the challenges of energy security as they add their voices to the debate.

Geographers are well placed to understand the interface of the physical and political drivers of changing energy supply and demand. A key challenge remains in translating this into an understanding of energy security and the policies needed to sustain affordable and sufficient energy supplies.

By I-Hsien Porter
To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

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