October nonfiction: A new book by Ramchandra Guha and five other works on India’s cultural legacy

This is what publishers are saying about their new books this month.

Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism, Ramachandra Guha

By the canons of orthodox social science, countries like India are not supposed to have an environmental consciousness. They are, as it were, “too poor to be green”. In this book, Ramachandra Guha challenges this narrative by revealing a virtually unknown prehistory of the global movement set far outside Europe or America. Long before the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and well before climate change gained currency as a term, ten remarkable individuals wrote with deep insight about the dangers of environmental abuse from within an Indian context.

In strikingly contemporary language, Rabindranath Tagore, Radhakamal Mukerjee, JC Kumarappa, Patrick Geddes, Albert and Gabrielle Howard, Mira, Verrier Elwin, KM Munshi and M Krishnan wrote about the forest and the wild, soil and water, urbanisation and industrialisation. Positing the idea of what Guha calls “livelihood environmentalism” in contrast to the “full-stomach environmentalism” of the affluent world, these writers, activists and scientists played a pioneering role in shaping global conversations about humanity’s relationship with nature.

Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Anand Teltumbde

Anand Teltumbde delves into the life of Ambedkar, situating him within the dynamic context of his time....

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