Rarely do Indian environmental discourses examine nature through the lens of caste. Whereas nature is considered as universal and inherent, caste is understood as a constructed historical and social entity. Mukul Sharma shows how caste and nature are intimately connected. He compares Dalit meanings of environment to ideas and practices of neo-Brahmanism and certain mainstreams of environmental thought. Showing how Dalit experiences of environment are ridden with metaphors of pollution, impurity, and dirt, the author is able to bring forth new dimensions on both environment and Dalits, without valourizing the latter's standpoint. Rather than looking for a coherent understanding of their ecology, the book explores the diverse and rich intellectual resources of Dalits, such as movements, songs, myths, memories, and metaphors around nature. These reveal their quest to define themselves in caste-ridden nature and building a form of environmentalism free from the burdens of caste. The Dalits also pose a critical challenge to Indian environmentalism, which has, until now, marginalized such linkages between caste and nature.

Caste and Nature: Dalits and Indian Environmental Politics

History

Sharma, Mukul

Asia

Oxford University Press

This book is about the tragic journeys and livelihood insecurities of coastal fisherfolk jailed by India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for having entered each other’s territorial waters. While reflecting on national anxieties and the deleterious politics of boundaries, it reveals how these fisherfolk create alternative maps and a new world of ‘debordering’. These fishworkers and coastal conflicts have been subjects of everyday news, but never a subject of serious study. A first of its kind, the present book breaks new ground by examining the journeys of these fisherfolk and coastal conflicts in South Asia from several overlapping but distinct perspectives: declining sea resources, security and border anxieties, suffering of the fisherfolk, their ambiguous identities and transnational movements. The book is also innovative in terms of methodology: it is fisherfolk-centric as it marginalizes the concerns of the state from the perspective of security; it questions the very basis of security and argues for a shift in its perspective.

Contested Coastlines: Fisherfolk, Nations and Borders in South Asia

Gupta, Charu

Reference

Routledge India

Dalit Ecologies: Caste and Environment Justice

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

Cambridge University Press

The book analyzes the rise in impact of the ′non-state′ actor as the interface of threat and opportunity between business and human rights is increasing. India, China, and Brazil are emerging as global players, forging new political and economic alliances with nations from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but their allegiance to human rights standards remains unclear and erratic. Amidst the constant evolution of the human rights agenda, the book focuses on human rights defenders in India and South Asia, and captures the current human rights situation of India, a mix of progress and regression, gains and losses. It captures this complexity with a positive, but cautious note.

Human Rights in a Globalised World: An Indian Diary

SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd

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Books by Sharma, Mukul