In this episode, historical and political anthropologist Dr. Atreyee Majumder talks about how colonialism shaped Indian environmentalism, and the ways in which capitalism impacts space and time.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:00:52:07- How did colonial rule shape India’s attitude towards the environment? Do we see a continuity in this attitude in India’s postcolonial environmental regime as well?

00:05:49:09- Why has it continued to remain a status regime in postcolonial times as well?

00:09:32:06- What would it mean to resist this framework, and resist this environmental vocabulary that is defined by the state in the activisms that emerge from ground up?

00:12:20:01- How did resource extraction become the basis of colonialism? In what ways does this idea of resource extraction transform in the postcolonial era of globalization? 

00:24:37:08- How has globalization impacted global labor dynamics, enabling countries from the global north to profit from exploitative labor in the global south? 

00:29:09:17- Could you give an example which we see in the context of India selling out labor in a similar way without any  sort of protection? Have we seen negative consequences of that in terms of its impact on people?

00:31:54:19- What is the relationship between the accumulation of capital and environmental degradation? 

00:36:46:09- How do we find ways of resisting it, when most of our world order is based on capitalism, especially when pertaining to the climate emergency?

00:39:34:05- How has industrial capitalism shaped the trajectories of time and space in India?