1Chapter 11: South AsiaEnvironment and Society in South AsiaMajor Physiographic RegionsThe Peninsular HighlandsThe Mountain RimThe PlainsThe Coastal FringeClimateEnvironmental HistoryGeography Matters: Disappearing megafaunaSouth Asia in the WorldMughal IndiaThe RajGeographies of Indulgence, Desire, and Addiction: TeaPartitionSouth Asia in Today’s WorldThe Peoples of South AsiaUrbanizationPopulation PoliciesDiasporasCultural TraditionsReligionGeography Matters: Hinduism’s Sacred SpacesLanguageCasteContemporary CultureSense of Place: BollywoodEthnicity and NationalismRegional Change and InterdependenceDemocracy and Political ChangeIndia’s Economic TransitionSense-of-Place: India’s software corridorPoverty and InequalityWomen and ChildrenDay in the Life: Bibi GulGeography Matters: Grameen BankEnvironmental IssuesCore Regions and Key CitiesThe Upper Ganga PlainsDelhiThe Indus PlainsThe Damodar Valley and HooghlysideKolkataEastern GujaratMumbai-PuneMumbaiSouth India2Distinctive Regions and LandscapesThe Mountain RimThe Bengal DeltaThe Deccan Lava PlateauSummary and ConclusionsKey TermsExercisesFurther ReadingMovies, Books, and Music3South Asia consists of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, theMaldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—a region that is naturallybounded by mountain ranges and seas (Figure 11.1). To the north is thealmost impenetrable mountain rim of the Karakoram range and theHimalayas, while to the northwest are the forbidding ranges of theSulaiman and the Hindu Kush. The Indian Peninsula and its largeoffshore island of Sri Lanka are girdled by the seas of the Indian Ocean—the Arabian Sea to the west, and the Bay of Bengal to the east. It is is avery heavily populated world region, with 1.35 billion people, more than abillion of whom live in India.Figure 11.1: map—political boundaries and major citiesSouth Asia is economically underdeveloped and politically volatile, thoughit is also a region of great potential. It is still a land of villages: only about10 percent of the population of Bhutan and Nepal live in urbansettlements, while in the greater part of the region the urban populationamounts only to between 25 and 35 percent of the total. Not surprisingly,rural ways of life and traditional cultures remain extremely importantthroughout South Asia. Even broader as a defining characteristic of theregion is poverty. The majority of South Asia’s rural population isdesperately poor, as are millions of the region’s city dwellers. Hunger andmalnutrition are widespread; barely half the adult population is literate;and only a minority of the population lives in sound housing with electricityand piped water. The abiding image, as described by Indian authorPankaj Mishra, is “the broken road, the wandering cows, the open gutter,the low ramshakle shops, the ground littered with garbage, the pressingcrowd, the dust.”1However, another defining characteristic of the region derives from thestark contrasts that exist within and between places and sub-regions.Amid hierarchical traditions and social conservatism are deeply-rootedideals of equity and social justice. Amid predominantly rural settings aremegacities like Delhi, Dhaka, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Karachi, andMumbai (formerly Bombay). And amid extreme economic backwardnessand widespread illiteracy there exists intellectual refinement and world-class technological innovation. To the stereotypical image of slow-moving lifetyles of dusty poverty we must add the legacies ofsophisticated civilizations and the imprint of a growing middle class—computer programmers, managers, engineers, shop owners, mediaconsultants, and so on—whose social practices and materialconsumption are convergent with those of the middle classes in Europeand North America. 1 Mishra, P. Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India. London: Penguin, 1995, p. 93.4ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY IN SOUTH ASIATwo aspects of South Asia’s physical geography have been fundamentalto its evolution as a world region. First, as the satellite photographreveals, South Asia is clearly set apart from the rest of Asia by aforbidding mountain rim (Figure 11.2). This arc of mountain ranges hasisolated and protected the peoples of South Asia, creating a large-scalenatural setting in which distinctive human geographies have evolved. Asecond striking feature of the satellite photograph is the extent of thesurrounding seas. Historically, the Arabian Sea provided a crucialrouteway to South Asia from the Middle East and the Mediterranean,while the Bay of Bengal gave access to (and from) Southeast Asia. Theseseas, together with the broader Indian Ocean, also produce the moisturefor the summer monsoons, seasonal torrents of rain upon which thelivelihood of the peoples of South Asia depends.Figure 11.2:—satellite photo of South AsiaIn geological terms, South Asia is a recent addition to the continentallandmass of Asia. The greater part of what is now South Asia brokeaway from the coast of Africa about 100 million years ago and driftedslowly on a separate geological plate for over 70 million years until itcollided with the southern edge of Asia. The slow but relentless impactcrumpled the sedimentary rocks on the south coast of Asia into a series oflofty mountain ranges and lifted the Tibetan Plateau more than 5kilometers (3.1 miles) into the air. The Himalayas, which stand at thecenter of South Asia’s mountain rim, are still rising (at a rate of about 25centimeters—9.8 inches—per century) as a result of this geological event.Major Physiographic RegionsNot surprisingly, the principal physiographic regions of South Asia alsoreflect this major geological event. Between the mountain rim and theplateau lands of peninsular India that stand on the ancient geologicalplate that drifted across from Africa are alluvial plains of youngsedimentary rocks and material that has been washed down from thesurrounding mountain rim and plateau. The coastal fringe of peninsularIndia, together with the coastal plains of Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and theAndaman and Nicobar islands constitute a fourth physiographic region(Figure 11.3).Figure 11.3:—map of major physiographic regionsThe Peninsular HighlandsThe Peninsular Highlands of India form a broad plateau flanked by twochains of hills and uplands. The Highlands rest on an ancient shield ofgranites and other metamorphosed sedimentary and igneous