When the “Deluge” Happened: The Flood of 1929 in the Surma–Barak Valley of Colonial Assam

Misra, M. S.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-49163-9_19

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“…Earthquake response owed something, too, to the established pattern of flood response in rural and urban settings (D'Souza, 2006a; Weil, 2006; Misra, 2017; Bhattacharyya, 2018; Saikia, 2020). The administration in Lower Burma, for example, routinely used the institutional and financial architecture of famine relief works to employ villagers to rebuild embankments that rising rivers had washed away, providing employment to help compensate for crop losses (Commissioner Irrawaddy, 1897; Deputy Commissioner Moben, 1905; Deputy Commissioner Pyapon, 1939; Deputy Commissioner Maubin, 1940).…”

Section: Immediate State Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recovering the status quo: tipping points and earthquake aftermaths in colonial India

Haines

2023

Disasters

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Scholars of disaster politics debate how far natural hazards cause or catalyse political change. This paper builds on recent scholarship on tipping points and social contracts to argue that two case studies of historical earthquakes in 1930s British‐colonised India invite a focus on the dynamics of cooperation and conflict between state and non‐state actors. Officials of the colonial state and its nationalist rivals cooperated after one earthquake even though they otherwise bitterly opposed each other. Cooperation broke down after the second event, just one year later. Yet, in both cases, officials and nationalist leaders shared a broad vision for Indian society, which pushed both sides actively to seek to recover the social and economic status quo ante, preventing potential tipping points from crystallising. These case studies reveal how and why highly fraught social contracts can survive major disasters. The colonial state's transient and reactive approach to disaster governance continued to impact on post‐independence India.

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Section: Immediate State Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recovering the status quo: tipping points and earthquake aftermaths in colonial India

Haines

2023

Disasters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

When the “Deluge” Happened: The Flood of 1929 in the Surma–Barak Valley of Colonial Assam

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

Recovering the status quo: tipping points and earthquake aftermaths in colonial India

Recovering the status quo: tipping points and earthquake aftermaths in colonial India

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