Environmental Issues in India

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ECOLOGY AND TRADITIONAL SYSTEMS OF WATER MANAGEMENT: REVISITING MEDIEVAL RAJASTHAN

Mayank Kumar

Despite its central role in sustaining agriculture, the political and social relations of water use and abuse in Indian society have only recently been scrutinized by historians. Recent writings on Indian environmental history have examined the role of state and society with special reference to environmental degradation. Most writings have analysed the situation in the terms of decay during colonial rule and in turn tended to romanticize the pre-modern period.¹ These works have extensively catalogued the nature of social participation, argued the relative unconcern of state towards the agricultural production process and suggested that states ...