History in the Making – An Encroaching Sea: Nature, Sovereignty and Development at the Edge of British India 1860-1950 (Devika SHANKAR, University of Hong Kong)

This book probes why ecological instability has time and again emerged as a catalyst for risky development projects along India’s south-west coastline. It will do so by examining the genealogy of a political and ecological crisis confronting the colonial state around the port of Cochin in the first quarter of the 20th century, and the legacy of the measures taken in response. While the ecological crisis was triggered by fears surrounding an “encroaching” sea, the political crisis was precipitated by a neighbouring princely state’s unprecedented attempt to extend its sovereignty over the British port. By examining just why the colonial state chose to respond to this twin crisis with a risky development scheme, this book contributes to scholarship on environmental transformations and development in modern South Asia and on the uneven nature of colonial sovereignty.

Dr. Devika Shankar is a historian of South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. Her research interests primarily lie in environmental history, legal history and science and technology studies. She is the author of An Encroaching Sea: Nature, Sovereignty and Development at the edge of British India 1860-1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Her work has also been published in several journals including Past & Present, Comparative Studies in Society and History and Journal of South Asian Studies.

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