by Sunil Amrith
56. J. Lelieveld, P. J. Crutzen, V. Ramanathan et al., “The Indian Ocean Experiment: Widespread Air Pollution from South and Southeast Asia,” Science 291 (2001): 1031–1036; P. J. Crutzen and E. F. Stoermer, “The Anthropocene,” Global Change Newsletter 41 (2000): 17–18.
57. V. Ramanathan, “Atmospheric Brown Clouds: Impact on South Asian Climate and Hydrological Cycle,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 102 (2005): 5326–5333; H. V. Henriksson et al., “Spatial Distributions and Seasonal Cycles of Aerosols in India and China seen in Global Climate-Aerosol Model,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 11 (2011): 7975–7990.
58. Bollasina, Ming, and Ramaswamy, “Anthropogenic Aerosols”; Theodore G. Shepherd, “Atmospheric Circulation as a Source of Uncertainty in Climate Change Projections,” Nature Geoscience 7 (2014): 703–708.
59. Singh, “South Asian Monsoon,” 21; Krishnan et al., “Deciphering the Desiccation Trend”; D. Niyogi, C. Kishtawal, S. Tripathi, and R. Govindaraju, “Observational Evidence that Agricultural Intensification and Land Use Change May Be Reducing the Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall,” Water Resources Research 46 (2010), https://doi.org/10.1029/2008WR007082.
60. D. Singh, M. Tsiang, B. Rajaratnam, and N. Diffenbaugh, “Observed Changes in Extreme Wet and Dry Spells During the South Asian Summer Monsoon,” Nature Climate Change 4 (2014): 456–461; Krishnan et al., “Deciphering the Desiccation Trend”; B. N. Goswami, S. A. Rao, D. Sengupta, and S. Chakravorty, “Monsoons to Mixing in the Bay of Bengal: Multiscale Air-Sea Interactions and Monsoon Predictability,” Oceanography 29 (2016): 28–37.
61. Adam Sobel, Storm Surge: Hurricane Sandy, Our Changing Climate, and Extreme Weather of the Past and Future (New York: Harper Wave, 2014), 203–232; Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 41–43.
62. Data from the EM-DAT International Disaster Database, last accessed April 22, 2018, www.emdat.be.
63. Ubydul Haque et al., “Reduced Deaths from Cyclones in Bangladesh: What More Needs to Be Done?,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 90 (2012): 150–156, doi: 10.2471/BLT.11.088302.
64. A. Mahadevan et al., “Freshwater in the Bay of Bengal: Its Fate and Role in Air-Sea Heat Exchange,” Oceanography 29 (2016): 72–81.
65. “Seafloor Holds 15 Million Years of Monsoon History,” accessed April 10, 2018, https://news.brown.edu/articles/2015/02/monsoons.
66. Concerned Citizens’ Commission, Mumbai Marooned: An Inquiry into the Mumbai Floods, 2005 (Mumbai: Conservation Action Trust, 2006).
67. Ghosh, Great Derangement, 50–51.
68. Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, “The Sea and Monsoon Within: A Mumbai Manifesto,” in Ecological Urbanism, ed. Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Design/Lars Müller, 2010), 194–207.
69. Susan Hanson et al., “A Global Ranking of Port Cities with High Exposure to Climate Extremes,” Climatic Change 104 (2011): 89–111; Orrin H. Pilkey, Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, and Keith C. Pilkey, Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 65–74.
70. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, “Indonesia: Jakarta Floods,” Information Bulletin 4.2007, September 26, 2007; Pilkey, Pilkey-Jarvis, and Pilkey, Retreat from a Rising Sea, 70–71.
71. On the contemporary geopolitics of the Bay, see Sunil S. Amrith Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), chapter 8.
72. A. Mahadevan et al., “Bay of Bengal: From Monsoons to Mixing,” Oceanography 29 (2016): 14–17, map on p. 16.
73. International Federation of Red Cross Societies, World Disasters Report 2012: Focus on Forced Migration and Displacement (Geneva: IFRC, 2013), 231.
74. Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal, chapter 8.
75. Joya Chatterji, “Dispositions and Destinations: Refugee Agency and ‘Mobility Capital’ in the Bengal Diaspora, 1947–2007,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 55 (2013): 273–304; IFRC, World Disasters Report 2012, 38.
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78. ASEAN, Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025 (Jakarta: Asean Secretariat, 2016); Constantino Xavier, Bridging the Bay of Bengal: Towards a Stronger BIMSTEC (New Delhi: Carnegie India, February 2018).
79. Aparna Roy, “Bay of Bengal Diplomacy,” The Hindu, October 10, 2017.
80. Season Watch, accessed May 1, 2018, www.seasonwatch.in/.
81. Prasenjit Duara, The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
82. Gandhi quoted in Singh, “Indian Monsoon in Literature,” 50.
EPILOGUE: HISTORY AND MEMORY AT THE WATER’S EDGE
1. Zadie Smith, “Elegy for a Country’s Seasons,” New York Review of Books, April 3, 2014.
2. Namrata Kala, “Learning, Adaptation, and Climate Uncertainty: Evidence from Indian Agriculture,” working paper, August 2017, accessed March 3, 2018, https://namratakala.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/kala_learning_aug2017_final.pdf, last.
3. Suprabha Seshan, “Once, the Monsoon,” June 22, 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, https://countercurrents.org/2017/06/22/once-the-monsoon/.
4. M. Rajshekhar, “Why Tamil Nadu’s Fisherfolk Can No Longer Find Fish,” Scroll, July 8, 2016, accessed April 15, 2018, https://scroll.in/article/808960/why-tamil-nadus-fisherfolk-can-no-longer-find-fish, the quotation in the text is from Rajshekhar’s report; E. Vivekanandan, “Impact of Climate Change in the Indian Marine Fisheries and Potential Adaptation Options,” in Coastal Fishery Resources of India: Conservation and Sustainable Utilisation (Cochin, India: Society of Fisheries Technologists, 2010), 169–184; Amitav Ghosh and Aaron Savio Lobo, “Bay of Bengal: Depleted Fish Stocks and Huge Dead Zone Signal Tipping Point,” The Guardian, January 31, 2017.
INDEX
aerial video, 239–240
aerosols (brown cloud), 2–3, 305–307
Agarwal, Anil, 282–283, 285, 289
agriculture
Canal Colonies, 122–124, 133
and climate change, 307
clouds, 95
control of water, 7
cyclone of 1942 and WWII, 168–169
and drought, 68–69, 287
drought insurance, 136
and economy, 8, 133–136
and electricity, 257–258, 277, 278
and famine, 73–74, 116
food aid from US, 244
food prices, 68–69
food production, 274, 279–280
foodgrain self-sufficiency, 243–244
frontier colonization, 122–125
government policy in 1950s and 60s, 243–247
and Green Revolution, 245–247, 260, 274, 280, 283–284
groundwater and wells, 256–258, 260, 276–280
and inequalities, 260
intensification in India, 192–193, 274, 307
and irrigation, 28, 122, 133–135, 192, 256, 258–259
land redistribution and zamindari abolition, 191
and meteorology, 36–38
and migration within Asia, 160–161
and money lending, 73–74, 116, 135
and monsoons, 114, 170, 266, 276, 308
Partition and canals, 184, 187
rain and rainfall, 95, 134–136, 260, 279
rice economies in WWII, 170
suicide problem, 287
water as resource, 8
Akbar, Emperor, 29, 42
Akbar Nama, 29
Algué, José, 104–107
Ambedkar, Bhimrao/B.R., 154–155, 282
Arthur Cotto
n museum, 17, 19
Asia
climate change, 4, 274, 303–304, 316
control of water, 5–8, 12
dam building post-WWII, 177–179
earthquake of 1950, 189
economic conditions post-WWII, 213–214
end of imperial rule, 175–177
groundwater resources, 256
history and history-writing, 5–8, 9–10
identity and freedom, 6
as integrated climatic system, 108–109, 173–174
megacities by the ocean, 270–271 (map)
migration and agriculture, 160–161
nationalism, 147–148, 151–153
rivers, 2, 3, 288, 289–292, 290 (fig.) (see also specific areas’ rivers)
role of monsoons, 155–157, 176
shared water resources, 189
water crisis of 1980s, 269, 272–274, 280–281
water schemes and regional cooperation, 214–215
weather control schemes by US, 250–251
Asiatic Society of Bengal, 60–61
atmospheric pressure, 140–141
Attlee, Clement, 180
Australia, drought science, 102
Awaara (movie), 209
Babur (Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babar), 27–28, 29
Bailyn, Bernard, 231
Baker, Christopher, 159–160
Balaji, Sakharam, 126–127
Ball, Valentine, 76
Banerji, S. K., 167
Bangladesh, 301, 309–310
Bari Doab canal, 184
Baur Nama, 27
Bay of Bengal
cyclones, 58, 60–61, 92, 308–309
and monsoon science, 310, 317
Bayly, Christopher, 33
Belgaum district (Bombay), 127
Bengal
borders and nature, 181–182
British control and trade, 33, 47–48
cyclones and storms, 58–59, 60–63, 91–92, 168–169, 308
famine and crisis in WWII, 168–170
and Partition, 148–149, 179–180, 181–182
Bennett, M. K., 170
Bennett, W. C., 119–120
Bhakra Dam and Bhakra Nangal project, 197 (fig.), 202 (fig.)
construction and workers, 199–201, 201 (fig.), 202 (fig.)
dedication, 196 (fig.)
description and background, 195, 196–198
displacement of people, 210–211
film, 198–201
Bhatt, Jyoti, 275–276
Bhattacharjee, Kapil Prasad, 205
Bihar
famines, 79–80, 248–250
rain control, 251
Bjerknes, Jacob, 142, 262–264
Bjerknes, Vilhelm, 142, 262
Blanford, Henry Francis
climate and rainfall reports, 96
monsoon and storm science, 60–63, 99–103, 109, 139
science and geology, 59–60, 118
Blanford, William Thomas, 59
Bloch, Marc, 8
Bombay (now Mumbai), 67–68, 126–127, 128, 129
borders
Asia as integrated climatic system, 108–109, 173–174
and climate change, 317–319, 329–330
competition for water resources, 162–163
control of water, 164–165
cooperation for water schemes and climate, 319–323
and dams, 179
and fisheries, 165
and Himalayan rivers, 2, 300
India–China border, 164–165, 177 (map), 225–226, 227–228
and Partition, 180–182
Boreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillation, 266
Bowles, Chester, 251
Brahmaputra, 34, 35 (map), 111, 226–227
Braudel, Fernand, 8
BRBD (Bambanwala-Ravi-Bedian-Dibalpur) project, 187
“bread riots” (1960s), 243
“The Bridge Builders” (Kipling), 57
bridges for railway, 56–57
Britain, 38, 175–176
British India
in 1900, 18 (map)
army, 123
border with China, 164–165
British self-interest in India, 77–78, 114–116
British expansion, 33–34
caste relations, 154–155
cities expansion, 127–128
civil society and humanitarian aid, 84–85, 86–87
climatology atlas, 108–109
clouds and rain, 95
control of water, 22, 34, 38–45, 46–47, 114, 164–165
customs duties, 48–49
data collection on India, 96–97, 117–118, 134–135
dessicationism, 74–75, 139
drain of wealth by British, 77–78
drought science, 69, 71, 72–73
economy, 11–12, 38–39, 133–134, 160–161
end of imperial rule, 175–176, 180–181
famine (see famines)
fishing industry, 131–133
Ganges, 33, 34–35
Ganges canal, 41–42, 43–45
geology, 59–60
geopolitics of water, 110–111
hydroelectricity, 128–129
impact on water in India and Asia, 11–13
Indian Rebellion of 1857, 45–46
Indianization of officials, 143–144
industrial development, 128–129, 130
irrigation schemes, 19–20, 38, 40, 116, 122–124, 126
land acquisition and displacement of people, 126–127, 210
meteorology of cyclones and monsoon, 36–38, 60–64, 92–93, 98–104, 109, 137, 139–143
migration for agriculture in 1930s, 160–161
and monsoon, 21–22, 36–37, 40, 58–59
municipal water supply, 128
nationalism, 114–115, 148–153
as oceanic realm, 131–132, 159
political reforms, 143, 151
princely states breakup, 206–207
racial relations, 98
railway, 51–58
sources of water, 113–114
state-directed settlement, 122–125
steamboats, 49–51
Swadeshi movement, 148–149
taxation, 48, 116
technological development, 56–57
underground water, 119–121
vessels for trade, 47–48, 49–50
water transportation, 38–39
WWII period, 166–167
Yamuna Canal restoration, 42–43
brown cloud, 2–3, 305–307
Burma, dam workers in India, 203–205
Burma Meteorological Department, 167
Burma (under British rule), 164–165, 168, 175–176
Caird, James, 82
Calcutta (now Kolkata), 49–51, 58–59
Calvino, Italo, 113, 145
Canal Act (1568, India), 42
Canal Colonies, 122–124, 125–126, 133, 184, 186
canals
in India, 41–45, 197–198
and Partition, 184–185, 186, 187–188
See also specific canals
capitalism
and famines, 73–74, 87–88
and fisheries, 328–329
in India, 11–12, 51, 128
carbon and CO2 in ocean, 241–242
caste, 154–155, 287–288
Cautley, Proby, 41–43
Central Water and Power Commission of India, 195, 196
Centre for Science and Environment, 282, 289
Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), fisheries and borders, 165
Chakravarti, J. S., 135–136
Chakravorty, Sanjoy, 212, 213
Chatterton, Alfred, 120, 121
Chennai. See Madras
Chiang Kai-shek, 163, 166
China
agricultural growth and irrigation in 1970s–80s, 259
border with India, 164–165, 177 (map), 225–226, 227–228
civil war and creation of PRC, 176–177
control of water
, 164
cyclone and storm forecasts, 104–105
dam building, 178, 219, 300–302
dam financing, 301–302
droughts and famines, 66, 81, 88
economic growth of 1980s, 272
environmental movement, 288, 290–291
flood control, 153, 217–218
food production, 274, 279
food security, 280
groundwater and wells, 279
life expectancy, 190
migration for agriculture in 1930s, 160–161
“moral” meteorology, 72
nationalism, 151, 152–153
population growth, 272
relationship with India, 215–218, 220–223, 225
resource planning for water, 163
river pollution, 291–292
state-directed settlement, 124–125
Tibet interests, 226–227, 300
war with Japan, 165–166
water crisis, 278–279, 291–292
water diversion project, 298–299
water schemes and management, 216, 218–222, 292, 298–299
workers mobilization, 219–220
China Environment Yearbook, 291
China’s Water Crisis (Ma Jun), 291
cities, 127–128, 270–271 (map)
See also coastal regions and cities
citizen scientists, 321
civil society
environmental cooperation, 320–322
famines of 1890s, 84–85, 86–87
climate (weather)
agency of climate, 70–71
Asia as climatic system, 108–109, 173–174
and clouds, 143
complexity, 265–266
and culture, 155–158
cycles changed by human actions, 8, 74–76
dessicationism, 74–75, 139
and Indian Ocean Expedition, 230–231, 234
international cooperation, 320–322
migration and refugees, 317–319
and monsoons, 15–16
as moral concern, 71–73
and politics, 252–253
and population of India, 190–191
risks, 313–315
and understanding of Asia, 155–157
See also meteorology
climate change
and activism, 285–286
and agriculture, 307