Weather and other environmental economic problems and shocks

Research and teaching of agrarian history of modern India have gone long beyond
the well-known tracks of broad policy framework in colonial and post-colonial era. While
recent writings on agrarian history (by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Benoy Bhushan
Chowdhury, and Irfan Habib ), have generally focused on four main areas of research
interest on varieties of policies, processes, knowledge and culture pertaining to Indian
agrarian development, a more recent trend is the identification and delineation of certain
issues leading to the emergence of environmental history of modern India.
It is interesting to note that the terms ecology and economy are rooted in the
same Greek word `oikois’ or `household’. The word `society’ is derived from two Latin
words, `socius’ and societas’. Therefore, society is concerned with groups of individuals
in a particular environment. The human society consists of tribal, rural, urban, industrial
and other different types.
Socio-cultural environment includes a complex interplay of factors and conditions
– cultural value, customs, habits, beliefs, morals, religion, education, occupation,
standard of living, community life, social and political life of man. Human beings are
exposed to the social environment through various means, such as, song, story, literature,
arts, radio, television, and newspaper. Indeed human beings are largely a product of their
social and cultural environment, which they shape and is shaped by it. Thus, man’s
interaction with the environment, his growing abilities and his ever changing role in his
environment can be well understood by studying the history of human civilization and it
gives evidence to man’s interaction with the environment, on the basis of his socio-
cultural conditions. The components of socio-cultural environment are: family and
society, educational institutions, economic structure, social communication, authority and
power, ritual system and culture.
As the socio-cultural condition of a community is controlled by its economic
condition and the status indicates how it is consuming and destroying the natural
resources of the environment, it has been found that in India the impacts of
environmental degradation on society also vary with the socio-economic and cultural
status of the particular society or community.
Modern economics and the concept of development cover a brief portion in the
history of economic production by human beings. The survival economy has given
human societies the material basis of survival by deriving livelihoods directly from nature
through self-provisioning mechanisms. In most Third World countries large numbers of
people are deriving their sustenance in the survival economy in ways that remain
invisible to market-oriented development. Within the context of a limited resource base
the destruction of the survival economy takes place through the diversion of natural
resources from directly sustaining human existence to generating growth in the market
economy. Sustenance and basic needs satisfaction is the organizing principle for the
exploitation of resources for the market. Any case study can be done on the impact of
market economy in natural environmental conditions and how industrialization spoils the
natural components of the economy. The disaster management programmes may be
undertaken to deal with natural disasters, such as Tsunami. The construction of hydro-
electric power projects in different river valleys, in many regions in India, Nepal or such
other countries, have led to huge controversies and political turmoil.
The Kolkata industrial belt on the river banks of Hooghly has suffered much due to the
partition, soil erosion, the breakdown of jute industries and many such other factors.
There are many industrial workers who are unorganized and much enquiries can be made
as to whether they have a tax structure and about the underemployment and
unemployment and child labourers in this industrial belt.

(Abanti Adhikari)
115 Selimpur Road,
Flat D2,
Kolkata 31.
1.3.2013

Bio-note
Abanti Adhikari is Assistant Professor in history, Narasinha Dutta College Howrah and
External Project Fellow, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies. Her book
Bangladesh Since the language movement of 1952 deals with the history of East Pakistan
and fundamentalism in Bangladesh. She is registered for Ph.D. in the department of
Islamic History and Culture, Calcutta University and the subject of research is, `The
economic and intellectual origins of movements of protest and demand for autonomy in
East Pakistan, 1947-71’. She has written many articles in national and international
journals and was a part-time lecturer in history, Gokhale Memorial Girls College,
Kolkata.