Abstract:
In this talk I suggest that initial thinking on Indian atmospheres in modern times was framed within a climate discourse and was concerned largely with issues of heat and humidity. Towards the middle of the 19thc, black smoke also became a matter of concern, being described as a nuisance and pollution. Smoke nuisance laws were passed to abate such smoke in Calcutta and Bombay, later extended to Karachi and Ahmedabad. Ambient air quality was the main concern. Indoor air pollution featured as a minor discourse, especially from the 1930s, but it was kept outside the ambit of law. This remained true for much of the twentieth century. However, with smoke and soot now being seen as linked to climate change, an entirely new framing of dealing with pollution related climate issues has emerged in contemporary times. In tracing this long history of climate and air pollution in India, I will suggest that urban air is usefully thought of as a 'condition' which is marked by varying degrees of risk through a gathering of different materials and their interactions over time.
Speaker Bio:
Awadhendra Sharan is currently the Director of CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies). Trained as a historian at Delhi University and University of Chicago, Prof. Sharan works at the intersection of urban and environmental studies. His research aims to develop an understanding of the urban as constituted through socio-ecological processes, concerning resource use, the making of waste and pollution, the quest for purity of air and spatial planning, etc., all of these being mediated by relations of power. In his book In the City, Out of Place: Nuisance, Pollution and Dwelling in Delhi, c. 1850-2000 (OUP, 2014), Sharan offers a history of Delhi as regards the supply of clean water, abating of ‘nuisances’ such as those caused by traditional trades, river pollution, notions of congestion and approaches to ‘the slum question’, and the nature and extent of industrial pollution, with reflections on how these issues continue to be debated and regulated in contemporary Delhi. In a more recent work Dust and Smoke: Air Pollution and Colonial Urbanism, India, c.1860-c.1940 (Orient BlackSwan, 2020) Sharan enquires into the history of air pollution in colonial cities, in particular the question of industrial and domestic smoke in Bombay and Calcutta. Sharan’s ongoing research interests are in the making of domestic environments in Indian cities and in the history of river Ganges during the colonial period.